Silly Faces

Happy Weekend.

Well, it's the last day of the weekend

but, still, enjoy your day off.

And to help you enjoy- here are some silly faces

that the girl makes

I really think it's amazing how big her personality is

and how happy she is, overall. 

What fun this girl is!

Kickin' It

Well it took forever for Stella to finally walk,

but now that she's got that down

she's ready for more action.

Jim taught her how to kick the ball

and it's cute, but a bit hazardous.

She loves to kick it around the house,

but has no real sense that she might be kicking it

under the feet of other walkers.

I have more than once done an acrobatic

fall/save as this purple ball has crossed my path.

Well, anyway- it's cute

and I should probably pay better attention anyway.

Stella The Walker

Stella has been able to walk for a while now.

I should say- she has had the capability to walk for a while

but she was reluctant to just take off and go.

That is until this past weekend.

It seems as if a light turned on and she finally said, 

"Oh, I can do this."

Now she's all over.

And just yesterday she realized that she could carry things while she walked.

It's a whole new world now!

She likes to carry this big ball.

Well, I tried to get a picture, but she threw it.

She looks like such a big girl.

Oh, and she also wants to climb things now.

Peek!

Lemme see, if I tip this over then I can climb on it.

Or in it.

Whew! I'm exhausted.

Let It Snow

Well, I know that not everyone is thrilled with the snow we got today,

but at our house, we enjoy the snow.

Cole managed to get outside and play in the snow.

I guess even 15 year-olds play in the snow.

He's working on planning a sledding trip tomorrow.

We'll see if the snow holds up.

Stella and I got our Christmas tree up.

She really enjoyed playing with the string of lights.

We do have an old-ish artificial tree.

But I would really love to get a new tree.

Ours loses so many needles, and we find ourselves discovering

a rogue needle well into Spring.

I will definitely be going out the day after Christmas

to buy a new tree

so this one can go into the trash.

But for this year, the old tree will serve its purpose.

Here it is

in our empty front room.

But proudly displayed in our front windows.

I wonder how long it will take Miles to destroy it.

This Is My 200th Post!!!!

Woah! 200 posts!

I really wasn't sure what to expect when I started this blog a little over a year ago.

But here we are 200 posts later

still going strong.

I was going through some old pictures the other day and

found these wonderfully silly photos 

from a zoo visit that we made before the girl was around.

I thought they would be fun to share:

We can't just take normal photos when there are

fun hippos around.

Yum!

This picture makes me laugh out loud.

I don't know what was happening, but it must have been frightening.

Look Mom, I have a bird.

I'm sharing this photo for 2 reasons, 

first of all, there is evidence here that Stella was 

at the zoo with us, albeit in my tummy.

And look at how much taller I was than Cole here.

Now he's taller than me!

And it wouldn't be a 200th post

without some other fun pictures that I've taken more recently.
Here are some other favorites from our 

Thanksgiving at my Mom's house.

Awwww!

Calyn really enjoyed tickling Stella.

I think they both enjoyed it.

Story time with Uncle Mike.

2 little Husker Cuties

Oh yeah, this picture.

Well, we get a lot of comments about Stella's hair.

It's curly, but it's actually quite long.

The only time we really see the length is when we're washing it

and the curls straighten out.

Oh, and here's just another cute picture

of our sweet little baby.

Although she's more of a toddler these days than I would like to admit.

Bean Bag Fun

At my Mom's this past weekend

Stella discovered the joy of the bean bag.

Behold:

Look at that smile.

She really liked when Cole would put the other bag on top of her.

Come on Kyley- it's fun!

Kyley's not so sure

and look at how Stella is looking at her.

She's like: "hey, what's your problem?"

"A little help Mom?"

Kyley finally got into it.

And this is not Stella's best look with her tummy hanging out!

Bean bags are great fun, but they're also nice for relaxing.

"Thanks for covering me up Uncle Greg."

Derby Cousin Meet-Up

Stella and I got to have dinner with

some of my cousins, aunts & uncles on the Derby side last night.

My cousin Josh and his wife Casey were in town over Thanksgiving

and so Casey arranged a dinner so we could all get together.

Despite this look, Stella really did have a good time

and by the end she was high-5ing and waving bye to people.

Here we are:

Nola, Lindsey, Josh, Angie, April & Nicole

And here we are with our families.

It was really nice to see everyone. 

We need to do it more often.

Stella & April

Food Challenge 2011

Warning: This blog post is gross.

It may give you a queasy stomach.

I have blogged before about a fun little holiday tradition

that goes on between my brothers and Cole.

It's the food challenge tradition

and it's particularly gross this time.

You see, my brothers think it is funny to

offer Cole various amounts of money

to eat odd and sometimes gross things.

Some past food challenges have been:

licking a plate of syrup

eating several boxes of Peeps

seeing how many saltines one could eat

eating various spoonfuls of condiments 

(that one ended up with a very upset stomach)

And this year's food challenge:

5 Cat Treats for $40.

One thing I can say for Cole is that his price has increased over the years.

So here we go: 

Food Challenge 2011

Take note at 2 things in this picture

1) The pure delight on Greg's face

2) Cole is picking cat treats out of his braces.

Here we have a good representation of the 2 sides of this challenge.

Pure delight

&

pure disgust

Again, Mallory is delighted, Mike is disgusted.

And Cole is doing his best not to lose it.

Focus Cole!

And thankfully at this point, someone saw fit to hand Cole a trash can.

Just in case.

It was at this point in the challenge

that Greg began to read the ingredients

which led to an even deeper gross-out factor.

But in the end,

to the victor go the spoils.

He did it- he managed to eat 5 cat treats and keep them down.

No more complaining about my cooking!

Husker Fans

Well, I don't know why,

but I'm having a little trouble with getting my pictures

to do what I want them to do today.

Of course with the holiday weekend I took a ton of pictures

with lots of different blog entries in mind.

This is not the one I thought I would post today

but it will have to do.

Jim's high school BFF, Murph, visited us over the holiday

and the fellas got to hit up a Husker game.

Cole got to go to the game as well

so Friday morning was busy with game-day prep.

Here are the fellas before they left the house.

Yes, they were all excited to be forced to pose for a picture.

Jim, in particular, looked happy.

Well, this was supposed to be a tough guy intimidating look.

Not sure these 3 have that look down just yet.

So we settled for throwing the bones.

Yeah, if I were Iowa, I wouldn't have been too worried.

Good thing the Huskers brought the intensity.