it's official...

well it has been since the 12th, but Andy is now really half way through Law School.  I am pretty proud of him, he has made it this far without quitting, going crazy, or making me feel single, so I am pretty lucky.  It's all downhill from here.  WOO HOO!  

Beware of Elevators

Today Stella, Andy, and I were going from my Dr.s appointment to the Labor and Delivery section of the hospital to take a tour and pre-register.  (My Dr.s office is connected to the hospital)  We had to go down one level in the elevator.  Stella loves elevators, especially the ones at my Dr.s.  The walls are all mirrored, and she gets a kick out of herself.  Today Stella wanted to push some of the buttons.  She kept trying to push the fire alarm button, so I was standing right next to her moving her hand away from it - but she did make it ring once.  Once we reached our destination the doors began to open, and that's when it happened.  Stella smacked her hands up flat onto the door, and as it opened into the wall, Stella's hand went with it, until it was stuck between the door and the wall, and the door wasn't stopping.  Her hand just kept going further and further into the tight little crack.  Andy and I both yelled things out like Stella!, No!, and whatever else you say in a panick.  But Stella's hand was stuck, and being pulled further in, the door not even slowing down.  So I grabbed Stella's little wrist and yanked hard to pull her hand out.  Then the screaming started, and I thought - oh man, what if I ripped her fingers off, or broke her little bones.  Andy checked for any obvious damage, and told me she seemed to be ok.  Her hand turned kind of white - like when your circulation is being cut off.  It began to swell, and of course Stella cried, and held her hand away from our curious and nervous hands.  We decided to make a little detour before heading to Labor and Delivery, and headed to the E.R. instead.  After three X-rays of one precious little right hand, and a couple of Dr.s getting Stella to move her hand different ways for them, it became clear that she was most likely fine - and just has a few puffy red spots on her fingers, but thats it.  Phew!  What a relief.  Poor little Stell has had so much trauma to this little hand lately.  First with the burn, and now this.  I am so grateful that she is fine, and didn't even need any tylenol or anything to get back to normal - holding all of her little stuffed animals and pointing out every eye, nose, or ball she sees, and she is now sleeping soundly beside the teddy bear they gave her for being such a good patient.   

Real 31 week pics

So here I am at 31 weeks.  Really folks - this is getting a little scary.  How big can one belly get?  At least I know I probably wont give birth to a malnourished baby.  

That's right folks!  Andy is 32!  Can you believe it?  He says he had a pretty good birthday this year.  It all started Saturday night - when I took Andy out on a date.  This was no ordinary date though - it was our second official date since Stella was born.  The Saturday before we had left Stella with a babysitter for the first time to go on a date.  Can you believe it took us that long to really leave her with a babysitter?  We actually did a lot better than expected.  We did not talk about Stella the whole time, and we felt bad for the people we saw with babies or toddlers in tow.  Stella also did very well.  She played and played and enjoyed herself the entire time.  Not even one tear was shed.  So we gave it a second try for Andy's birthday.  Once again, no problem.  This time, Stella was even put to bed without us.  This was a first - and she did just fine.  This was definately a relief considering we will have to have a little stay in the hospital here in a couple of months - and I will be much less worried now that I know she is o.k.  Anyway, so back to the birthday... we went out for some asian cuisine, which has kind of become a little tradition for Andy's birthday.  My gift for Andy was a watch.  Then, Sunday, after church, Andy had some time to play ball with his number one girl.  I'm not sure which one of them enjoys there time together more.     

For dinner, we had the Rozmus family over, and Rod and Zoe cooked up some fantastic food.  We had ham, and sour cream potatoes, and green bean casserole, and seven layer salad, and cake.  Andy also scored some sweet gifts.  He got a lot of cooking supplies, and a book, some clothes, and some cash.  Stella got a gift too.  Karen wanted to make sure she didn't feel left out.

I made Andy a cake that I hoped would make him not miss home so much.  I decorated it to look like the rocky mountains.  It's not the best cake ever, but what can I say...I am no professional.

Burned

A couple of weeks ago Stella, Andy, and I were in the lobby of an Apartment complex.  There was a fireplace, the kind with glass fronts, and I thought nothing of it.  Im my Grandma's house, where we used to live, there was a similar fireplace, and we used to sit against it to get warm.  It never got really really hot - not hot enough to burn you.  The fireplace in the lobby however, got really hot - but I didn't expect it.  Stella was running from me over towards Andy, and her hand swiped against the glass covering, and then she darted away from it and started to cry - sounding very hurt.  I went running towards the bathroom, but they were down a hallway - so Andy yelled at me to come over to the kitchenette  sink... where he was headed.  We had her hand under cold water for about 15 minutes, and then wrapped it up with some burn ointment and antibacterial creme.  She stopped crying after a while, but wouldn't move her hand.  She held it completely still - it was so sad but so sweet.  We continued to put "whole skin" on it every day, and kept it wrapped up for about a week, and it is doing so well.  You can barely tell anything ever happened to it now.  Poor little girl.  It is so sad when your baby is hurting, and there is nothing you can do to make anything better.  

Here she is the night it happened.  She really was such a little trooper. 

The day after - all blistered up.  

Three or four days after - (can't remember) starting to peel off and heal.  

Belly

Here I am (or was, I should say) at 28 weeks.  I am now at 31.  Looks like I am a little behind - but who can blame me.  Posting a picture of my ever enlarging belly for the world to see isn't exactly a priority these days.  I am getting ever huge-er it seems.  At my last Dr.s apt., I measured two weeks ahead - or big.  Great.  Thats always exciting.  I am especially worried because I always measured small with Stella.  Unfortunately thats not the case this time.  I am also much more uncomfortable this time around.  I can't bend as easily, and I have more frequent braxton hicks contractions.  I am just hoping now that I will stay healthily pregnant so that I will be able to make my sister's wedding on Dec. 27th in California.  So far the Dr's say I am fine to go as long as I tote my medical records with me.  I sure hope it stays that way - because it would break my heart to miss it.  Oh - and please excuse the laundry etc. in the background of the picture;).  And pictures of Andy's birthday and Stella's poor little injury to come... stay tuned.  

A little late...

Beware: Long post.  

Stella loved celebrating Halloween this year. She was in love with her costume, which of course made me very happy. I was pretty sure she wouldn't end up wearing the headband, but instead, I had a hard time ever getting it off of her. She was a little confused at the whole candy thing at first - but she got the hang of it real quickly. All during our trunk or treat, she held onto her pumpkin basket, and wouldn't let anyone take the orange sucker from her hand. She started eating it wrapper and all at one point, so I had to be a meanie and take it away, but she did get her fill of sugar. We had a hard time keeping her away from it for about a week afterwards. She would stand in front of her pumpkin and just yell, "MOM", over and over again, and then cry when I wouldn't give in and let her eat her little heart out.

This is Stella with one of the girls I used to have as a beehive.  

Stella and her punk rock friend Claire.

On Halloween, we only took Stella to three houses, but she loved it, and knew exactly what to do.  She would stand on the doorstep, and just hold her little pink pumpkin, waiting patiently for her treat.  After the first door, she tried to run in the house, but after that no other escapes were attempted.

Sorry about how blurry this picture is.  I think it shows her excitement so well - so I had to post it.

At this house, she grabbed a piece of candy, and then reached in for more.  Little thief!  

The BUZZ around here...

Just a little sneak peak of the Halloween festivities.  I'll post more later - when I'm not as busy as a bee!

Professional pictures

Whenever I say I want to get professional pictures of Stella taken, people always say... "You don't need to because you have so many cute pictures you take yourself", etc. etc.  I finally decided, however, that if I didn't have some taken, I would end up regretting it.  So, on Monday, we headed off to the mall for a little "photo shoot".  It was my hope that Stella would sleep on the way to our appointment, instead, she mostly whined and cried.  Then, when we got there, my fears came true.  Stella turned into a shy, mommy hold me - who is that freak making funny faces at me - version of herself.  She did not smile once.  I was getting very disappointed.  After about 50 minutes of this poor man trying hard to make Stella smile, we left for lunch so they could get our proofs ready.  On our way to the food court, Stella ran, and laughed, and giggled at all of the people staring at the barefoot baby in a tutu.  I kept thinking... of course she is happy now.  She was being so charming at this point, that one lady even stopped us and asked if she could take a picture with Stella.  Kinda weirded me out a little, but hey, I'd probably want a picture with her too, so we tried, but Stella ran away from her.  ( Hey hey, thats my girl... don't ever let a stranger grab you!)  While at lunch I told my mom that at least I wouldn't have a hard time making a decision, because their probably wouldn't be enough good ones to choose from.  She told me I'd probably see them and want them, and think they were great.  Well, she was right.  I love them.  They are so sweet to me, even though she was not interested in standing in the center of the backdrop, or wearing her pearls, or her tutu, or smiling, or facing the camera.  I still love the little Stella that was captured by the camera, so precious to a mother.   

Some things about Stella at 15 months.  

She has entered the "no" stage.  About 90 percent of what she says is no.

She can read the words eyes and clap, and loves watching her "your baby can read videos" still.  

She gives kisses and hugs quite a bit now - and we love it.  

She loves to pick heavy things up and try to move them.  She also loves to climb over things, or simply onto them, depending on how high they are.  

She says bye bye to everyone and everything when we leave.  

She still holds her hands behind her head in moments of fear, excitement, relaxation.  She also has started to pull on her hair that is on the sides of her head when she does this.  

She walks on her tip toes most of the time.

She asks for clips in her hair - but then ends up taking them out within a few hours.

She loves brushing her teeth.  

Still obsessed with stairs.

Loves ice these days.

Survives off of fruit and milk alone. 

Loves to wear and try on shoes.  She asks for shoes most days, and steps into anyones shoes that have been left out. 

Height :  32 inches.   91%

Weight : 21 Lbs.        24%

Head :     46 cm.        55%

It's a...

Woo Hoo!!!  Today we finally had our ultrasound, and... we will be the proud parents of a beautiful baby boy in January!  Either way, we knew we would be excited.  If it was a girl - we would have been so excited for Stella, to have a sister so close in age to share clothes with and crushes with.  However, being that it is a boy, now we know we have one of each, and we can shop in the boy clothes section...which I have decided is really just as cute as the girl section, and have been browsing in lately very tempted to buy some of the adorable things.  We can't wait to see what it is like with a little boy around.  Andy says it is very hard to picture a boy because he can only picture another little Stella, and I can't wait to have a little man who will hopefully love me and think he will one day grow up to marry me  (I don't know... do boys go through that stage like girls do with their dads?).  I am so excited to finally know, because I really had no clue this time.  With Stella, I knew she was a girl... this time, I was back and forth almost every day.  His ultrasound pics (thank goodness my dr.s office has the 4d stuff) look like Andy already.  Seriously, it is amazing how recessive my genes must be, but he looks so cute.  Last ultrasound, 4 weeks ago, he weighed 10 ounces.  Today he weighed 1 pound 7 ounces.  Can't believe how fast he is growing.  He was Breech... which I know can change and most likely will being that I am only almost 6 months along, but I am still gonna put some of the tricks to work for me to make sure he does rotate.  Can't wait to meet HIM!

Down and Dirty

Today Andy participated in the USMC mud run. He was nervous being that he isn't the biggest on distance running, but he ended up kicking some major booty. His team was made up of two guys from our ward, Andy, and one of the guys sisters. They ended up coming in so early, that I wasn't even prepared to take their picture, because I thought it would be at least another ten minutes or so, so unfortunately all of the pictures with the sweet obstacles are of the girls team from our ward. The course was 4.5 miles long and included 40 different obstacles including a ten foot wall (which everyone said was the most challenging), water/mud obstacles up to 6 feet deep, over and under logs, 45 degree incline mud hills, etc. Andy had a blast and said he would do it again next weekend if he could. We look forward to participating next year, so after the baby comes, I will have some toughening up to do.

The girls from our ward about to start.       

Ready, set...

GO!

Here is where I realized they were already passing me, as I was staring at the obstacle behind them.  Brother Nininger yelled out to his son who was sitting with me, and so I quickly grabbed the camera and ran down to get some shots of them and the last obstacle including the finish line.

They completed the race in 50-55 minutes.  Woo Hoo!

Here are the girls, and some of the "better for pictures" obstacles.