Road Trip

As I mentioned in my last post, Stella went on her first road trip.  Since the wee one is growing up quickly and has lots of family yet to meet and my brother was going to be blessing his baby on Easter, we decided it was time to head out to the Jell-O belt for a visit.  We headed up to Idaho first and spent a few days in Rexburg with the Frisbys.  It was a good visit.  Stella got to meet family and be showered with love.  She also tried out a jumper for the first time.  She loved it, as you can see from the pic.  I know the picture is blurry, but I chose it anyway because I love how excited she looks.  She jumped and jumped and jumped.  Apparently she wore herself out because when I looked over at her after she had been quiet for a few minutes, her little head was slumped over and she wasn't jumping anymore.  I thought she must be getting drowsy, but when I walked over to get her, she was full on asleep.  I got her out of the jumper and walked her upstairs and laid her down and she never woke up.  It was awesome.

Just when you thought things couldn't get more exciting than that, we headed down to Utah.  We spent one night in Logan with Jared's brother.  It was fun to see their house and visit with them.  And their dog, Griz, enjoyed pilfering Stella's rice cereal - cardboard box and all.  Haha.  Joke's on you, Griz.  Good luck getting that out of your beard!

From Logan, it was on to SLC.  We met my parents (who were also there for the baby blessing) and my sister at the Conference Center.  Jared had arranged for a friend of his who works there to give us the backstage tour of the media stuff there.  It was pretty awesome.  After our Conference Center tour, we checked out the new City Creek Center.  It's a very nice mall.  And, after we were done there, we stopped on Temple Square on our way back to the car.  I decided we needed a money shot of the family in front of the temple.

While taking pictures, I convinced Mr. Frisby to pose for some cheesy shots with the wee one.  He was reluctant when I told him what I wanted him to do, but I told him it would be so cheesy that it would be awesome.  I was right.

The rest of the week was great.  We caught up with some friends that we haven't seen for awhile, we spent time with family, we bought a nightstand for Mr. Frisby's side of the bed and a rug for our entryway, and we even enjoyed a pretty good snowstorm.  It was both Stella's and Scout's first time seeing snow.  Stella didn't seem to notice as much, but Scout was completely caught off guard.  She woke up in the morning and stepped outside to do her business and stopped when she looked around and saw the snow.  She didn't know what to do.  Her grass was totally covered, so she didn't know where to go.  Mr. Frisby went out with her to try to convince her that it was okay, but she wouldn't go on the snow.  Finally, he picked her up and set her down right on it.  She immediately ran back onto the patio.  So, he did it again.  He had to do it several times before she figured out that it was okay to walk on and do her business on.  Then she had a great time running around, digging in the snow, and getting little snowballs caught in her fur.

And, of course, Easter and the baby blessing were great.  But, I have far too many pictures of it to add to this post, so that will have to be a separate post.  It was a good trip, though.  Stella was a great little traveler and we had a good time with family and friends.

Seven Months

I'm behind on my blogging.  This has been a busy month for us.  I was tempted to combine everything that happened into one post, but there are way too many pictures so I'll do separate posts.  So, this is Stella's seven months post.  I'm a couple days late.  She only got one comment on her last post, though, so I figured it wouldn't be missed for a few days anyway.  I was tempted to skip it altogether, but it's been a big month for her, so it's time to document.

In true Stella fashion, she hit another milestone right after I did her last post.  This time, she got her first tooth.  It went well.  In fact, I didn't even know she was teething until one day I noticed a little more drool and she was biting on her paci a lot instead of sucking on it.  I felt her gums the next day and sure enough, her first little tooth was just poking through.  That was about a month ago.  Sometimes now I think she might be working on her second tooth, but then sometimes I don't.  We'll see.

As I said, we've had a busy month.  Little Stella took her first long road trip.  We went out to Idaho and Utah to visit family and to be there for the baby blessing of my brother's baby.  I was pretty nervous about the trip.  I didn't know how she would do in the car for that long and I didn't know how she would do sleeping and such in a new place.  As always, she was a champ!  She did very well in the car and she slept great in her Pack n Play.  We had a good time visiting, but I have decided to save the trip for another post because there was a lot going on, including Easter.  In fact, I may have to make a separate Easter post.  I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

We also had visitors this month.  Mr. Frisby's brother and his family came to visit and we had quite the schedule of activities for the week that they were here.  We didn't take many pictures, but we did get a few of Stella's first visit to Alcatraz.  She enjoyed the tour from her Baby Bjorn and also enjoyed a great view of the city from the island.

Stella has also been trying new foods.  She does pretty well for the most part and doesn't seem too picky.  But she has her favorites - bananas, apples, sweet potatoes.  And, she has a few foods that she doesn't seem to care for.  Here's her reaction to refried beans:

Pre-taste

The new taste and texture registers

And, that's enough of that

She sits great now and rolls all over the place, but she has yet to really start scooting or crawling.  She loves being outside and we're enjoying the lovely weather we've recently been having.  She doesn't trust the grass, though, and only wants to touch it on her terms.

Her hair continues to amaze and has gotten long enough to have a pony now.  Her hair looks a lot lighter when it's in a pony.

Evidence of her distrust of grass.  But, as a bonus, you can really see how chubby her legs are in these pics.  A couple of ladies at church were noticing her chunkiness one day and commended me on my apparent success with feeding her.  They then made the comment that this is the only time in life when being chubby is cute.  I definitely concur that her chubbiness is super cute.  As is her distrust of the grass.

She loves her daddy and I'm pretty sure he loves her.  They have fun together and she didn't even stay mad at him after he put her on the grass.

But, she remains a mama's girl.  There are still times - when she gets really tired - when even Daddy won't do.  She's happy to meet people and say hello... as long as mom is holding her.  Sometimes it gets frustrating when she won't let anyone else hold her.

But, sometimes it melts my heart.

The time flies by and our little Stella keeps growing.  She's spitting up much less now which is so fantastic.  She's learned to drink through a straw.  We tried to introduce a sippy cup to no avail.  She taught herself to drink from a straw when she started sucking her vitamins out of the dropper.  She's been perfecting the art over the last few weeks, so we ditched the sippy and now she drinks out of a straw cup.  She developed a snort laugh while on vacation and it cracks us up.  She's a happy little companion on all of my errands.  And she thinks Scout is the funniest thing.  We continue to be of the opinion that she's the cutest little thing we've ever seen (and the nice lady in San Francisco that we'd never met asking to take her picture only fueled the fire).

Happy Seven Months, Stella!