Stella at Two Months

10 lb 14 oz  (50%)

23.5 inches (75-90%)

I was wondering why her 0-3 mo clothes were looking short, now I know why. I guess we have a tall girl on our hands.  It will be interesting to see if she stays that way.  BTW, her head is in the 25%.  

Finally captured her smile.  She's been smiling for about 3 weeks but it has been tough to document. 

Liam loves to kiss Stella and he puckers right up.
I want to print this out and blow it up. It is one of my favorites.

A half smile.

Confession

HI, my name is Whitney and I'm a runnerd. (I can't take credit for the term runnerd.  A friend's brother coined the term and it fits me.)   I can't watch running events without getting a nervous stomach even when I am not competing. I love to quantify my runs as well. The Olympic Marathon trails were held in Houston in January.  When I heard I really wanted to go, I love watching track/running events and since I won't be going to London to watch the Olympics at least I could watch the trials.  So a good friend and running partner (when we can manage to get on the same baby schedule) decided to go watch.  It was so much fun!!  I loved it.  We got to see the men and women pass each about 8 times.  I was especially excited to see the men run because one of the top contenders, Ryan Hall, is said to have amazing form and I wanted to see him in action.  He did, he is a beautiful runner.  It's like he floats over the pavement, although he was moving much to fast to be floating. Maybe I should compare him to a gazelle, springy, but in a forward momentum way.  Watching them all keep a 5 min/mi pace was astounding.  They really looked like they were just effortlessly running past.  The women were awesome too.  Two of the top contenders, Kara Goucher and Deena Kastor, have had babies in the last year so as one who has come back to run 4 marathons before her baby was 10 months, I was eager to cheer them on.  Although it was a bit depressing when I was happy to just complete the marathons and they were running them in 2.5 hrs but still.  There was a good crowd of fellow runnerds, enough that it was really fun but not too many that we couldn't see. I got several comments about hauling my not even 6 week old but that also goes to prove I'm a runnerd and proud to be!!  Wish I could watch more road races in person.

Stella's Blessing and New Year's

My grandmother made my wedding dress and gave me the left over lace.  I have kept it all these years really not knowing what to do with it but not wanting to throw it away because it was really expensive.  So when we found out we were having a girl and Ben's mom offered to make her blessing dress I had the idea that the lace could be used for the blessing dress.  Shannon put a lot of time and effort into the dress-newborn sizes are small and hard to deal with, then she had the lace just barely enough.  There was only two to three inches left.  But the dress turned out beautiful.  Ben's parents were able to come down and be here for the blessing which was January 1st.  A great way to start the new year.  We didn't do much while they were here...played with toys and such but it meant a lot to us that they would come and I was so glad Shannon got to see Stella blessed in the dress she made.  It was a beautiful blessing by Ben-wish you could record those things.
I tried to get artsy-fartsy with our new camera that we got for Christmas and do my own photo shoot of Stella in her dress.  Lauren came over to help.  We got a few really good ones.  I need to get her into a professional soon though.

Christmas 2011

I was a bit worried about how I was going to pull off Christmas this year with such a new baby.  It went better than I expected and due in part to the fact that my boys are still pretty easy to please.  The two days before Christmas I had been up almost all night with Stella.  She caught the boys cold and couldn't sleep unless she was being held upright so she could breathe.  I literally had 5 hrs of sleep in 48.  I was not sure how I was even going to be awake enough to get a Christmas Eve dinner and try to read the scriptures.  Then a friend called and invited us over for Christmas Eve dinner.  It was such a blessing-I wanted to have a nice evening-something to make it special and different and I had no idea how that was going to come about when I could hardly see straight.  (Ben would have told me not to worry about it because the boys wouldn't have cared but being mom, I cared, I wanted them to have a nice something that was not the norm.  Ordering pizza wasn't what I had in mind but was about all I was going to pull off on my own.)  Noah was thrilled since they have a girl in his grade that he has had a crush on since they were in the same kindergarten class.  He even put on a collared shirt and combed his hair without being asked.  This may not seem like much be if I ask him to put on a shirt that is not a t-shirt he whines that it is fancy and throws a fit.  Noah claims that he and Maddy are going to get married.  She can get him to do almost anything-they even danced in the kitchen after dinner.  Noah was very good at leading and spinning her around.  I have been tempted on more than once occasion to call her and offer to pay her if she'll ask Noah to do______.  If she asked he'd do it without a complaint.  In fact, he has a little love note she wrote him taped up on his wall as I type this. Anyhow, we had a wonderful evening visiting, the kids played with friends and we read the Christmas story and sang a few carols.  It was just perfect and I don't think she'll ever know that she was an answer to my unspoken prayers.

Christmas morning was so much fun.  Between what we got the boys and what Santa brought I was pretty excited to see their faces.  We ended up having a weapons of war Christmas-bows and arrows, swords, nerf darts were the favorites and huge hits. It was a less-is-more kind of year but they loved what they got and that's what matters.

Sacrament meeting was the first week I was alone with all five kids.  Ben needed to be on the stand since the Bishop was gone.  It was a bit chaotic.  Within five minutes the Mission President's wife leaned forward and said, 'If you need any help, please feel free to send one or two of them back here."  The Mission President lives in our ward but as you can guess they don't come very often and they even had family of their own visiting.  But about five min. after she offered I handed Stella back.  She had woken up and just wanted to be held.  When I handed her back I don't think Sister Bourne realized how little she was but she rocked her the entire meeting while I wrestled the other four, who were in fine form.  President Bourne said to me at the end of the meeting "I haven't had so much fun as I have had watching your four boys in a long time.  What wonderful kids they are!"  I just about wanted to cry because they were all over the place, really worse than normal.  Winston was loud and refused to stop talking the entire meeting.  Noah and Owen were all over the place and trying to eat Liam's food.  Liam was whining, and wanting to get on my lap then off then wanting to play with whatever anyone else had and started to holler if he didn't get it.  Noah and Owen were not wanting to share and just give him the stuff so he'd be quiet and I was trying hard to give them and myself a chance to feel the spirit on Christmas Day. President Bourne was so kind when he could have been critical.  I was critical of them and myself and was so grateful that instead of getting frustrated by the noise and distraction in the row in front of him he looked past that and saw the energetic wonderful boys they are.  It was a good lesson to me that when I'm in his position I should do the same and offer to help out a mother who probably wants to just go home and quit wrestling kids by herself.  Between our friends inviting us over on Christmas eve and the Bournes thoughtfulness Christmas turned out to be wonderful.

Christmas night Lauren, Jon and Eli came over and we had a meat and cheese fondue.  They boys wanted mac-n-cheese from a box and I said fine.  We were all be happy with our meals.  The fondue turned out really good and it was just the touch of fancy I wanted.  I didn't take many pictures so here are a few-enough to get the idea.

Most of the kids on Christmas Eve.  

Waiting to come down Christmas morning.

The bow and arrow sets they all got.

Swords that didn't leave their hands for 24hrs, except to go to church.