it is a hard language

• Lennox and I were playing with the abacus and I pushed the beads to the right and said "all the beads are on the right side!" Lennox pushed all of the beads to the left side and said "now all the beads are on the wrong side!"


• I made chicken chili this week. I told Lennox, "eat your chili." His response was "no, it's not chilly, it is hot!!"

Merry Christmas

a paint choo choo train

there is no safe place!!

Mad face
happy face

sad face

cheese face

Thanksgiving 2010

We had a great Thanksgiving with lots and lots of company.

Everett and Uncle looking for airplanes

Lennox and big cousin Gini

Lanie & Everett

Dancing Girls

wow... Stella's flower is bigger than her head!

Auntie Leah and sick little Amelia

My beautiful baby cousin Samantha

Stella's first meeting with Uncle Greggy!~

My Kids

At 6 weeks:

• Stella has a love hate relationship with her pacifier. Sometimes she loves it and sometimes she hates it. Sometimes she is confused about whether she loves it or hates it.... she cries for it while steadily slapping it out of her mouth!


• She sleeps pretty well at night but she still wakes up every 3-4 hours to eat. A few times she has gone 5-6. If I didn't hold her all night, she would probably sleep longer. I have to work on that.


• She wakes up as soon as her back hits a surface. Yep, she likes to be held and she really likes to be held by her mommy. I love holding her but I would like to be able to put her down periodically. My house and laundry room would like that too.


• She is starting to smile on purpose and she squawks and squeaks all of the time. She has a loud cry and lets everyone know when she is unhappy... and it is loud. Really loud! Thank goodness she doesn't cry very often!


• Stella doesn't seem to mind being in the car seat. That is a real blessing! She prefers to keep moving though. The pick up line is not a place she enjoys spending her time.


• She has crazy hair and big blue eyes. She has that pesky newborn rash on her face right now. She is officially out of newborn clothes and she is almost out of her size 1 diapers. She is wearing some 3-6 months clothes but most of them are 3 month.


• She spits up ALOT. I don't know if she has reflux but she doesn't seem to be hurting so I wouldn't want to put her on medicine if we don't have to. I just hate that she always smells like spit up!


• She is strong and can hold her head up well and she can hold all of her weight on her legs.
• I think Stella is going to be more laid back than Lennox. She is such a little sweet heart.

At almost 29 months:

• Lennox is really into "moodies." He has only recently been watching movies so we basically watch Nemo and Toy Story over and over. He loves, loves Buzz and Woody and he is always talking about Andy.


• He recently told me he can't like Jingle Bells because "his sing broke'd." Now, I am not sure what exactly a sing is or how it got broken but that's why he can't like Jingle Bells. ha.


• Last night I was getting ready for a Christmas party and I had on my trusty dress. Lennox came in the bathroom and said "Ooohhh Mommy, you wook wike a grurl!" I said, "Mommy is a girl." He said, "You all dressed up in like you grurl costume!!" Hmmm... I guess the days of mommy getting dressed are so few and far between that he thinks it's Halloween!! ha.
• Lennox has started telling stories and wanting us to tell him stories. It is so funny to hear what he comes up with! His little imagination is so wild but his mouth can hardly keep up with his brain. Alot of times the words just won't come out quite like he wants them to. Some of the stars of his stories are The Big Bad Wolf, Andy, Wennox, his new nemesis the coyote, and his old nemesis the big scary alligator. He tells alot of stories about his friends at school and what they do to get in trouble.... most of the time these incidents are just figments of his imagination.
• In the past month or two, he has learned to cut with scissors. He loves to cut paper (thanks to my mom). He is still a crafty boy and likes to paint, draw, and color.
• New obsession: using the finger nail clippers... on us! OUCH! He tries to cut our toe nails with the clippers and when we say ouch! he says, "no... it's not hurting. it's just happy!" :)
• On the discipline front, I have found something that is more effective than a million of my "don't do that," "pick that up," "put that down," "come back here" useless commands. Yes people, now I have a wing man and his name is Spanking Spoon. He doesn't even have to be used to be effective! Awesome! I introduced this little guy after a disasterous outing to McDonald's Play Place that ended with all three of use in tears and me swearing I would never leave the house again. The only problem is Lennox doesn't seem to understand the difference in hitting and spanking. I only pop him on the hiney a couple of times but recently he was carrying around the spanking spoon saying "I gonna hit you with dis panking poon. I gonna hit you down!" Oh, he also likes to sit in time out now so that's not effective at all!!! Little turkey butt!
• He can detect chocolate from a mile away. If you try to sneak a cookie or a piece of chocolate and he is in the room, he will sniff it out. He says "I smell somepin... somepin smells like chocwate! I wike chocwate." Unfortunately, I like chocolate too.
• Lennox does love his baby sister. He likes to call her "the baby" or "Stewwa Rose." I definitely wouldn't leave him with her unsupervised but he is pretty sweet to her... he just has some rough loving that's not exactly newborn friendly.

One Little Indian...

crying on the stage!

My two little turkeys

I really did not expect Lennox to react the way he did to his Thanksgiving program at school. He is normally a very outgoing little fellow. When he got on the stage, his lip poked out then he started crying and saying "MMAAAAMMMMAA!" ha. His teacher had to hold him for the rest of the program. :( I guess he has more of me in him than I thought.

Happenings

We made a fort in the living room. Has anyone else noticed that every picture I take has either a vacuum cleaner, a laundry basket, or a trash bag in the background! This time the vacuum had a purpose!

We read books

We played with "Hunty Dunty"

We played dress up with Amy

We took a little nap

talented friends

Didn't I mention that I had talented friends? Well, I have two that are very talented photographers. They are both wonderful so why not have both of them take pictures of Stella?! I thought it was a good plan.

Check Kristy out at http://kristysilbernagel.com/blog/2010/11/stella-slidell-la-newborn-photographer/ and my beautiful baby!

Check out DeAnna at www.deannahuntphotography.com

They both did an awesome job! Now the hard part... choosing photos to order!!

Handy work

Stella Rose

I am so lucky to have talented friends. My good friend DeAnna (DeAnna Hunt Photography) came to the hospital to meet Stella. Luckily she was still there when Lennox arrived to meet his sister. DeAnna captured one of the most priceless moments of my life. Lennox was so excited to see Stella (for about 30 seconds...).

Meme, Pop, and Stella

She has some crazy hair!

Lennox, meet Stella...