Happy Cinco De Mayo

Although Stella refers to this as her "Jessie" hat (Toy Story). 

:)

Shopaholic in Training

Stella loves to shop already!!

Check out the accessories she picked out this trip

Stella has never rode in a shopping cart

As an infant she hated her car seat, I couldn't put that in the cart

She had to be carried.

Then as soon as she learned to walk  (8 months)

She HAD to walk

Freak-OUT if I didn't let her

so out of necessity she walked....and still does

She has be able to run free!

So that's why we end up with a child dressed like this.

I'm sure the store employees love us.

Stella's Favorite Store

Can you guess what store is Stella's favorite?

Cabelas

Andrew takes Stella to Cabelas for father daughter dates.

She talks about it non-stop for days after each trip.

Like Mother Like Daughter

Andrew finds it hilarious when Stella and I do similar things.

He takes pictures to document our twin-ness.

Easter 2013

Stella loved Easter this year!!

We've been practicing finding eggs for about a month

every time we went to my grandparents this past month

Stella would make me hide all her decorative eggs

and then she'd hunt for them

So by the time the real thing rolled around....we were ready.

We had a big Easter Egg Hunt at Mindy's house

Stella found one of the $5 eggs all on her own

I literally didn't see it.

It was way low....so being short paid off for her!

This is my favorite shot of Stella in her Easter dress

She was giving a dirty look to Brooke

(don't mind all the treasures in the background...

my mom went a little crazy with the Easter baskets this year...

Jordan actually ended up asking

"What holiday is it again? Christmas?")

The Easter Bunny came to our house and hid more eggs

Gotta love the bedhead hair

She got many other surprises in her basket

a  princess crown

books

 pjs

a doll

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Sunday Dress

Stella looked so cute all dressed up for church last week

I tried to get a picture

but getting this girl to hold still and smile for the camera

is next to impossible

especially when she is playing with a

"princess wand"

she's not lacking personality

that's for sure

another video

This is Stella at 21 months old!

Lyrics (if you're not familiar)

5 little monkeys swinging in the trees

teasing mr. alligator

can't catch me

you can't catch me

along comes mr. alligator

quiet as can be

snap that monkey right out of that tree!!

snow days

 

snow snow go away

come again another day

(like next year)

we're done with winter indoor days

we're ready for spring

the groundhog didn't see his shadow

so I guess spring will come early

hopefully tomorrow

 

my birthday weekend

My 27th birthday was last Friday

and thanks to all my family

I had one of the best birthdays!

 

It actually all started on Thursday

when my mom and Lindsay took me to lunch at Kneaders.

Then on Friday,

Lindsay and I went to the mall with the kids,

she bought my lunch,

and we shopped and let the kiddos play on the indoor playground

 

Saturday,

I had to run to a bridal shower for Andrew's cousin.

Then we went up to the zoo

with Bryce, Becca, and Zoey

 

Stella and Zoey weren't in the mood for posing for pics

but we still made an attempt.

 

I took pictures of the wolves

because they are NEVER up next to the fence like this



 

The birthday didn't end there.

After the zoo,

we drove down and met my entire family at

The Cheesecake Factory

Yum!

I may have eaten both mine and Andrew's leftover cheesecake.

He was mad, so I had to play the

"it's my birthday" card.

 

Thanks to everyone who helped make my birthday fun!

 

 

twenty months old

Stella is 20 months old now!

I can't believe she will be 2 so soon

Stella is 20 months going on 4 years old

she doesn't seems like a baby AT ALL anymore.

She's all over the place

She talks all day long!

I have to tell her to be quiet sometimes

Because she is a chatter box.
But she seriously can communicate just about every need, want, or pain.
It's nice.

Some of my favorite things she says are...
"I love you too, or I missed you too"
when we ask her if she wants to go
to nursery or bed she usually responds with
 "no, I stay with mommy and daddy"
"go cougars"
she can't get over Christmas
so when she spots a Santa she says
"Santa Claus is coming to town"
when she puts on something pretty or when I'm finished doing her hair
she likes to say
"I'm a princess!"

Stella loves to go to basketball games.
Probably because she can be as loud as she wants
and climb on the benches.
Last night, I took her AF's game to watch Brooke dance
and she was so preoccupied with the caveman mascot
she kept her eye on him all night
and she's talked non-stop about him.
My poor dad was holding her
while she went on and on and on about the caveman

Stella knows a lot of people's names
and says all of them correctly
but for some reason
she refuses to call Bryce and Becca's baby, Zoey, by her full name
she always has called her ZeeZee
but recently she changed to ZoeZoe
I'm not sure why she insists on calling her by a nickname.
 

Stella does not think she needs to sleep.

She fights me for her nap each day

and it's pretty ridiculous

how difficult it is to get her to settle down and go to sleep at night.

She is definitely one of those kids that functions

on much less-than-average sleep.

 

Stella has recently started enjoying Disney movies.

Finally, something besides Mickey, Doc McStuffins, and Elmo

I'm trying to introduce her to lots of shows

but by far her favorite right now is the Toy Story movies

She loves Buzz and Woody.

She also likes the animal shows

like Lion King and Finding Nemo

The Princess movies as her least fav right now

I'm sure we'll get enough of them down the road though.

 

Now, Stella has started thinking a lot of things are "scary":

Ursula the Sea Witch

the washing machine

loud trucks outside

Most of the time it's pretty funny when she runs up

and says
"what is that, it's scary mom"

but it's not funny in the middle of the night

when she has nightmares

because she's been having some of those lately

 

Stella loves to talk about her favorite people (and animals).
Multiple times each day she asks
"where's ______ at"
then she usually answers her own question
"he's at work/home/school"
"she's with ________"
and then she says other things about them like
"_______'s funny"
"________'s nice"
"horses eat apples"

We love brushing our teeth around here

Stella goes and gets her toothbrush many times each day

and wants to brush her teeth.

 

Stella's imagination is starting to grow

and she likes to pretend that

the baby dolls are sleeping

Besides her dolls,

she is also really into her blocks,

her Fur Real kitty,

and she LOVES her books and stickers.

 

This week she has started pulling a chair next to the counter

she climbs up

and helps me make dinner.

The other day I caught her over there by herself

playing with a bowl

and when I asked her what she was doing

she said

"I'm making chicken"

 

 

She's funny.

 

 

Mischief

Stella is always getting into mischief.

This day it was my face cream.

Luckily, I caught her before it was too big of a mess.

 

 

We were calling her Stella Trouble Dibb

for a while because she was always doing something naughty

But then Brooke pointed out that made her initials STD
Now we don't call her that as much anymore

Even though she often deserves to be called it.

 

 

A few weeks ago she called 911 from my parents' house

and the cops showed up at the house.

 

She definitely makes everyday entertaining!

 

 

 

 

Stella and Zoey

We watch Zoey somedays while Becca goes to work.

Stella LOVES having her here.

Trying to Woo Jabari

We went to the BYU basketball game on Saturday

with Bryce, Becca, & Zoey

We were trying to help convince Jabari Parker to come to BYU

(he's the #1 rated high school player in the nation

he's from Chicago and he's mormon--our shirts say

"from Chicago to Provo")

It could have gone either way

but Stella LOVED every minute of the game

It was a good game

and we won!!

Cornbellys and Halloween Night

For family night last week, we took Stella and Zander to Cornbellys

Most of pictures turned out too blurry because the kids couldn't hold still

There was too much fun to be had

We made the dads take the kids on the bucket train.

It was a fun night.

Stella dressed up as a fairy for Halloween

but she kept saying she was a princess with princess wings

whatever she was...she was cute.

So cute in fact

that I had to run to Cabelas on Halloween

to pick up something last minute for Andrew's hunting trip

and Cabelas was having a Halloween Costume Photo Contest

I almost didn't do it

but last minute I had them take a pic of Stella.

And two days later we got a phone call....

Stella won 1st place!

haha

The prize is definitely one she's dying for.

A $50 gift card to Cabelas.

(Merry Christmas Daddy, I guess)

Stella and Jersey went trick or treating at Grandmas

Finn was Mickey Mouse

and also had skeleton jammies that he was wearing at this point of the night

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!!