My 25th Birthday Weekend Celebration

 

My "throne"

Today is my 25th birthday, I can hardly believe it! Since my birthday falls on a Monday this year, I decided to celebrate it this weekend with family and friends. Friday I went to dinner with my good friends Laura, Paige, Brittany, Marie, Samantha and my sister Ashley to California Pizza Kitchen. I haven't been there in a really long time and since they just built one in Murray, I wanted to go! I got the BBQ pizza and it sure was delicious. A few of us got pizza's and switched around so we could all taste each other's. After we ate, Brittany told our waiter it was my birthday and he brought a yummy ice cream sundae and the girls all sang Happy Birthday to me. It was sweet!

After dinner everyone had to go, but Brittany and I went next door to Carter's to get some baby clothes! Well, I got baby clothes for Stella and Brittany got some clothes for her neice and nephew whose birthday's are coming up. I found the cutest clothes for Stella, she has enough 6-9mo clothes so all the ones I bought were 12mo or 18mo. I also got her 4th of July outfit...it is so adorable!!!
Saturday Troy and I both had eye doctor appts-we have both needed new contacts for a short time now and have really needed new glasses for a long time! The appt took about 2 hours because we go to the vision center in Troy's store and of course we visit with all his coworkers there and they all want to see Stella. Troy and I both got some really nice frames...I'm excited to get them back. Afterward, we went over to Cafe Rio for lunch, I had a free meal. After we ordered and sat down, it was time to make Stella's bottle-but I had forgotten to put the nipple on her bottle! She hadn't eaten in 4 hours so I new she was starving-so I headed over to Smith's across the street and bought a nipple. I think Heavenly Father knew that my baby was starving and I was in a hurry because when I drove back to find a parking spot at Cafe Rio there was one that just opened at the very front! After lunch we headed over to Carter's in South Jordan because I only needed to spend $20 more bucks to get a $10 outfit for free. So I bought some more clothes for Stella! This girl is going to be stylish! After shopping we headed over to my parents house for my birthday dinner-we arrived earlier than we were supposed to be there and I guess I ruined the surprise they had for me. Whoops! My mom and sister had decorated the house for me and I arrived too soon. It was mostly all decorated and it was gorgeous.

This is the first time in years that someone has done decorations for my birthday-I loved it! We had Chinese Sundae for dinner, played "Spoons", opened presents: I got a gift card to get a pedicure from my sister, a "cafe" candle for my kitchen, note cards and jolly ranchers from my mom and a framed picture of each of my dogs from my dad. Then we had cake: devils food with cream cheese frosting-YUM! Stella helped me blow out the candles ;) It was a great birthday celebration, probably one of my favorites in years. It was very laid back and so fun to be with my family.

Today's agenda: not quite sure yet. I think I might get some lunch at Zupa's and do a little shopping at the South Towne Mall. Samantha got me a gift card to Aeropostale and I want to get some new tops-maybe a new pair of jeans. I'm hesitant because I swore I wouldn't buy new pants until I lost my baby weight. So we'll see.

Stella: 7mo Old

(more pictures at the end)

My Stella Baylee turned 7mo old on March 24th. I can hardly believe that 7mo ago my beautiful daughter came into this world. She has been such a blessing and is growing up so fast. In the last month Stella has been doing a few more new things: she started eating solid foods after her 6mo appt. Her first food she tried was squash and peaches…she absolutely loved them! My daughter is definitely not a picky eater; she sure loves her veggies…thank goodness. Stella has also had green beans, sweet peas, sweet potatoes, carrots, applesauce, pears and bananas. I’ve also had her try a little of the dinners we’ve had: baked potato and spaghetti sauce. She didn’t mind them either. Stella will even try to feed herself. I give her a little help when she does that so she doesn’t gag herself with the spoon. I also introduced “puffs” to her. They are little puff treats in different flavors that dissolve quickly and teaches babies how to chew. First I had her try the banana flavor, she gave a sour face the first couple times but she has really taken to them. Just the other day I had her try peach-mango and she loved them. It’s so crazy to see my baby start to chew and get ready for those types of food. Stella has also had apple juice and has learned how to suck out of a sippy cup. We are still trying to teach her how to hold on to her bottle and sippy cup. She’d rather just play or stare at her hands. Stella’s favorite thing to do while having a bottle is to mesmerize at her hand. Mom calls it the “Miss America wave”. She’ll just stare at it and slowly move her hand back and forth through her whole feeding. It’s hilarious to watch! Stella is wearing size 6mo clothes from Carters and is almost grown out of her 3-6mo clothes and is wearing 6-9mo clothes-some of the 6-9mo clothes are a tad big. Stella has also grown out of her 1-2 Huggies diapers! She is now wearing size 3…man o’ man. The sizes 3, however, are a little big. I guess my baby girl is just in between sizes in everything! Stella has now learned how to roll from her tummy to her back…I was so excited when she first did it. She is still learning how to roll from her back to her tummy, she is very close though. When she’s on her back she loves to pull her legs up and she just rolls to her side and will then get distracted by the TV or her toys. We’ve been practicing though! We still do a lot of tummy time everyday to give her practice in getting ready to crawl. Stella knows how to straighten her arms all the way out and lift her upper body up and she’ll look around. She is still teething but no teeth yet. My baby girl is a big drooler, some days are worse with the drooling than others. Stella is doing so much better with spitting up…she hardly does it anymore. We had switched from the Wal-Mart brand of Enfamil Lipil to the Gerber Good Start and she didn’t spit up at all. However, we just can’t afford to spend a lot in formula so after Stella turned 6 ½ months, we thought we’d go back to Wal-Mart brand of Enfamil Lipil and see how she did with it…and she’s done great! As long as we don’t press on her tummy or bounce her around a whole lot after she eats, she won’t spit up! Stella is now eating 6 oz of formula every 4 hours and is eating stage one veggies and fruits. She eats half a jar of fruit mixed with 1 TBSP of rice cereal in the morning and half a jar of veggies with a little bit of rice cereal mixed in to thicken it in the evening. I think she’s about ready to eat a whole jar of stage one though. We’ll probably try that soon. My baby girl is such a good eater, its made life a bit easier in that aspect. Stella is a BIG talker, she loves to mimic everyone and babble. She loves to hang upside down in mine and Troy’s lap and if she has enough saliva in the back of her throat she’ll gurgle it. It’s so funny to hear! Stella is such a mommy and daddy’s girl. She loves playing with daddy when he watches her. She especially loves to play with his nose. She’s way into touching everyone’s face. She also likes to play “high five”, she’ll smack anything with a hard surface to hear the sound her hand makes when it hits it. She still loves to play with her toys and eat them, her favorite thing to do is play in her jumperoo. She also likes to watch Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse. We’ve introduced blocks to her and she loves to play with those and tries to put them in her bucket. Sometimes she just likes to play with the bucket and tries to pick it up and eat it; it’s pretty funny to watch. I’m excited for spring to come and when it finally gets warm outside so she can play in the grass. She is also going to be introduced to the swimming pool in a few weeks when we stay up in Park City. Stella absolutely loves her baths. She is still in her tub in the sink and she loves to play with the water. She even lets me spray it in her face a little and she’ll drink it. In the upcoming weeks I’m going to try giving her a bath in the “real” bathtub. I’m sure she’ll love to kick her legs around and splash the water. She doesn’t get to really do that with the tub in the sink. Stella has stopped sleeping through the night unfortunately. She got a nasty cold a month ago and was sick for over two weeks with a bad runny/stuffy nose and mucus cough. So she was waking up 3-4 times a night. We are weaning her back to sleeping through the night. So far she’s slept through the night twice and the other times she’s waking up 1-2, sometimes 3 times. So we’re getting there. Some upcoming things I’m looking forward to are: her learning how to crawl, introducing more solid foods, pulling herself up into a standing position without mommy or daddy’s help and learning how to feed herself. I love this little girl so much and Troy and I are so blessed to call her our daughter. She is our everything and we couldn’t imagine life without her in it.

Stella's first time eating in her new high chair!!

Play date with Shylee :)

 Stella had a play date with her BFF Shylee on Wednesday. She had a lot of fun playing with toys and interacting with Shylee. They get along pretty well and I think Shylee is starting to warm up to Stella. With their first play date Shylee did not want anything to do with Stella. They are gonna be life long friends for sure!!

These girls sure do love to suck their thumbs/fingers!

Stella trying to hold Shylee's hand...how precious

Stella: 6mo Old

My Stella Baylee turned 6mo old on February 24th. She had her 6mo check up this past Saturday and everything went great. She's had a cold for a little over a week now, but doc says that she looks fine and expects it to go away by next week. So hopefully it will, she's had a fever, bad cough, runny/stuffy nose and a lot of mucus. She sounds a lot better now though, her cough isn't as bad and her runny nose is starting to go away. Stella got her normal immunizations as well as a flu shot. They do it in two doses, so we will go in a month to get her 2nd booster. Doc says she should start crawling in the next month or so-I'm excited and nervous for that. We now get to introduce other solid foods. I went to Wal-Mart on our way home and picked her up some bananas, peaches, pears, peas, green beans, squash, carrots and applesause. Our pediatrician said that we can actually feed her anything we want, with the exception of honey. We just need to make sure and grind or mash it up real well so she doesn't choke on it. Here are her stats:

Length: 27 inches- 90th Percentile

Weight: 15 lbs 15 oz- 51st Percentile

Head Circumference: 17.7 inches- 99th Pecentile

After we got home I decided to start with vegetables and gave her squash and she ate it right up! She loved it, she didn't make a sour face at all. I've also introduced her to juice. After she got a cold she didn't want to eat a whole lot but I wanted to make sure she stayed hydrated. I dilute it with water so she doesn't get too much sugar. Stella has started teething and is drooling a lot. She absolutely hates to get boogers sucked out of her nose. She has now started to scream and squeal and loves to mimic. She loves to grab at things and play in her jumperoo. I think she knows what her bottle is because she gets excited when she sees it and has even grabbed at it. Stella can sit up all on her own now. She almost likes to sit more than lay on her back. She is so close to rolling over-more so from her back to her stomach. She iss starting to grow out of her 3-6 month clothes and can fit in most of her 6-9 month clothes. I have a big girl! I bought her a little boombox for her room and a cd with nursery rhymes-she loves to listen to it. She loves reading time with mom, she will sit in her room on the rocker and she’ll sit in my lap and just look at the book in front of her and even try to turn the pages. Stella loves to talk and babble. Stella adores Bentley and will just stare at him and smile whenever he walks by her and loves to play with his tail. She has the cutest laugh. Her tickle spots are the left side of her neck, her thighs and armpits. She is still obsessed with her binky. Loves to play with her toys, she is now into playing with blocks and we are trying to teach her to drop them in the bucket. Stella absolutely loves her grandpa and gets the biggest smile when she sees him. She loves to play with her feet. She’ll pull her legs up to her face and pull her socks off. Stella enjoys bath time and loves it when I put the sprayer on and she'll try and catch the water with her hand. When I put the water up to her mouth, she'll try and drink it. As of now, Stella has stopped sleeping through the night. Since she got her cold she's woken up at least 3-4 times. Not sure how long this will last, but I hope she'll sleep through the night again soon. My little girl is so much fun to play with and is so interactive. I always look forward to coming home to her when I'm at work. She is my angel baby!