This and That

This is one of the funniest photos of Stella so far. We laughed really hard at this face!

                                   When Stella was 3 1/2 weeks old, the weather was beautiful so we took our first trip to the outlet mall. She was a good shopper!

 Stella loves her little Einstein's play mat.  One of our favorite things to do it lay on the floor with her and watch her stare at the lights and kick around.

Around 4 weeks, Stella began sleeping *most* of the night.  She sleeps 4-5 hours stretches before waking to eat.  She still sleeps in our room in a cradle.  The cradle belonged to my great grandmother. My grandmother Stella was born in 1915 and slept in this cradle.

 Headed to BSF!

 4 Weeks old! I am sad to say I never thought to weigh her.  

 Still loving bathtime!

Lunchdate

At our church, there were several couples who were pregnant with baby girls at the same time we were! Between October and January, there were 6 couples (that I know of) who had baby girls.  Even though we didn't know eachother well, a few of us who were on maternity leave at the same time, have tried to get together periodically.  This is our first meet up.  Not everyone could make it, but I hope this is the first of many!  It was SO nice to have someone to talk to and laugh with that has the exact same weird issues, concerns, and stories.  We enjoyed it.  I am pretty sure the babies had just as much fun.

 From left to right... Nora Beth (born December 8th) and Kinleigh Lynn (born January 7th)

 Ashley, Caty, and me!



Jarrett is home in time for Mutton Bustin!

Jarrett arrived home on Friday morning in time to see Garrett's rodeo debut at the Fort Worth Stock Show.  Each year they have a lotto system for the Mutton Bustin.  There is a process where you can write in to get your son or daughter entered to take part in riding a sheep across a rodeo arena.  I imagined sweet little lambchop type animals that Garrett would play with in front of the crowd. Wrong!  These were huge sheep!! So, since we couldn't miss this, we loaded up Stella in the sling and made it out to the rodeo.  Garrett was so brave! He didn't last long on the sheep but he gave it his best! It was a lot of fun.  Stella was so excited that she slept most of the time.

Bye, Daddy!

The morning after the wedding, Jarrett had to leave for the yearly Polaris sales conference.  This year's winter conference was in Salt Lake City, Utah.  He was gone from Monday to Friday (January 14th-18th).  I, of course, stressed about this for months.  I had no idea how I was going to manage a three week old by myself.  My mom came up for that week and we actually had a really good time.

Jarrett was so tired from "working hard" in Utah.

At night, he made time to FaceTime with Stella.  She didn't have a ton to say. :)

 Stella was happy Nana was here.  While she was here, my mom pulled everything out of all of my kitchen cabinets and drawers and reorganized it all.  Is it still called reorganizing if there was no organizing to begin with?  She also cooked and cleaned and, like always, told me to "relax and stop worrying so much". Garrett came and stayed with us one night.  I also began BSF that Wednesday.  Debi has been involved in it for a while now.  BSF is Bible Study Fellowship.   It is a community wide Bible study that is a year long.  They are letting me be involved while I am on maternity leave.  I hope to transfer to the night class when I go back to work.  It is a really neat organization and their Bible studies and format are not like anything I have heard of.  We are really enjoying it!

 This is a random side note.  Everytime it is time for Stella to eat, she gets relaxed and crosses her legs like this.  I think it is hilarious. 

 

Wedding Date!

On January 13th, Jarrett was a groomsman in the wedding of our dear friends, Krista and Chris Koen.  We met them at TCAL.  Chris is the worship leader there.   I was nervous about it, but Stella did great (with the help of our 100 closest church friends!)  The wedding was beautiful.  It was in Corinth at a wedding venue near a wooded area.  It was so pretty.  We had a blast.

On the way to the wedding, we stopped at Buy Buy Baby and bough a Balboa baby sling.  Stella loved it.  She spent nearly the entire night in it.  

When we got to the reception, I LOVED that Krista and Chris thought to have a name card for Stella.  I thought it was hilarious. 

Such a beautiful wedding! We love you, Chris and Krista!

Stella had a "wardrobe malfunction" part way through the night.  We couldn't find a changing table in the venue (don't people take babies to weddings? j/k) so we had to change her on fabric benches.  Well, one of the benches took a hit in the midst of a diaper change along with her cute outfit.  Oops!

First Target Trip!

When Stella was 11 days old, I couldn't stand it any longer.  We had to go to Target.  Looking back, I have no idea what we needed... I assumed it was feeding or diapering related.  Isn't everything?

Stella discovered her thumb and sucked on it for a while.   She has done this a few other times, but it has not become a habit.  It is pretty cute though. 

2 weeks old and lots of firsts!

 Crazy Hair!

 Two Week Check Up!  At her two week check up, Stella weighed 8 lbs 8 oz.  She was finally back up to her birth weight and I could finally stop stressing (as much) about feeding her. 

 We took  attempted to take Stella on her first walk around the neighborhood.  She didn't like her bassenet attachment on her stroller much.  I ended up just going down the block and coming home.  Jarrett took Bristol out for a walk.

 When I was going through photos to post, I planned on skipping the ones with me in them.  I have no make up on and look pretty rough.  BUT, I read an article about taking photos if yourself looking rough so you can reminise on how young you look later.  So, here it is!  This is my absolute favorite way to spend an afternoon (or an entire day!).  Stella loves to take naps propped up my chest when we lay on the couch.  I either read or watch TV and relax and snooze.  Many more to come...

 She was really starting to notice the world and be more alert during her waketime when she was in her 2nd and 3rd weeks.

We love you, Stella Beth!

Doctor Visit

It was time for Stella's first doctor visit.  With the New Year's eve holiday, we didn't get in until she was 7 days old.  She was not a fan of the carsear those first few days.   The night before was a rough one.  Stella had a bit of a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance that caused her to be really fussy and uncomfortable.  We got the feeding thing figured and straightened out after that.  Live and learn! Needless to say, we were exhausted stressed and I was especially emotional the morning of her first appointment. 

 Dr. Gray at Cooks Childrens in Mansfield is great.  She spent time with us and gave us a much needed peptalk and assured us Stella was looking perfect...not that we didn't already know that. :)  When we got home, Jarrett's mom took Stella for a while and let us get some much needed rest.

Stella weighed 7 lbs 10 oz at her one week check up.  Not quite back to her birth weight, but she was getting there.

Granny came to see us!

On New Year's Day, Stella got to meet her Granny.  We were so excited that Janice made the trip from Big Spring to stay with us for a few days.

When Stella was one week old, we got her newborn photos taken by Paige Walker Photography. 

Here are some of our favorites!  Despite having a few "accidents" and me forgetting my clothes for my photos with Stella, we were happy with how they are turned out.   Annette came with us and was able to help us keep it together!

Welcome 2013!!!

We welcomed 2013 a little differently than we have in the past.  I love New Year's eve.  I love celebrating the past year and everything that happened and looking forward to exciting things that WILL happen in the coming year.  So, normally, we love to do something fabulous like cook an awesome dinner with friends, go out in downtown, go to a concert, etc.  On NYE 2012, we stayed in downtown Fort Worth and went to Pete's Piano bar with a big group of friends from Big Spring.  Well, this year, having a 4 day old sure changed our plans. The first few days home, we would run and jump into bed the minute we thought Stella was sleeping so we could salvage as many minutes of sleep as we could.  This year, our plan was to watch the east coast's NYE celebration and then head to bed.  Well, I didn't know that DFW doesn't show the east coast celebration! We ended up staying up until midnight.  Then, as we were ready to go to bed, Stella was ready to eat and was up qutie a while.  We didn't sleep much that night!  We have so, so much to be thankful for in 2012 and SO, so much to look forward in 2013.  God is so good!

Here are highlights of 2012:

January 2012
We got to catch up with several of Jarrett's childhood friends on New Year's Eve. 

February 2012
Gus turned ONE!

 March 2012
Julee and Blane got married!  I got to fly to Beaumont over my spring break for an entire week of fun before Julee's wedding.  We had a blast.  They got married in the hill country at an awesome house on a dandilion farm.

April 2012
 We found out that Stella was on her way on April 21, 2012.  And, Jarrett celebrated his last birthday as someone in their twentys.  He turned 29 on April 4th.

May 2012
On May 20th, we decided to make this pregnancy "official" and announce it on facebook.  Stella had 119 likes, 60 comments, and 1 share.  :)

June 2012
We went to Guatemala with Next Worldwide on a mission trip.  It was seriously life changing. We went to Guatemala City to help plant a church in a rough zone of the city.  We met some great people while we were there.  When we came back from Guatemala, Jarrett began his new position with Polaris.  I am thankful everyday for Jarrett to have a job that he loves and where he is successful. 
I remind myself of this when I gripe and complain about his motorcycle and our lack of space in the garage. 

July 2012
Courtney and Cody got married! They had a beautiful wedding in Houston on July 14th.  I was 16 weeks along and sporting a new baby bump in my bridesmaid dress.  I also turned 26 on July 19th.  Also, we found out that we would be having a GIRL! 

August 2012
I began my new position (still in Irving) as a second grade teacher.  Since I began teaching, I have always been an itinerant teacher.  I have always loved itinerant teaching and working with students one-on-one.  Being in the classroom has been a great experience.  I am in a general education classs that is co-taught with deaf education students in there 100% of the time.  It was not something I chose to do, but I don't think I would go back to itinerant! I love it.
Also, we went on our BABYMOON! We went to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  We were so busy with our new jobs and preparation for Stella!  We went to Florida for a long weekend and did absolutely nothing but lay on the beach, read, and eat fresh seafood.  I will post pictures of that eventually!

September 2012
Baby mode... we began (finally) putting Stella's room together.

October 2012
My sisters and Julee, Emily, and Courtney threw us a fabulous couples' shower.  Emily, Courtney, Julee, Cindy and Brooke all came and we had a whole weekend to have girl time and catch up... minus the hours they spent preparing for everything!   We are so thankful for our friends.

November 2012
We layed low in November and decided not to travel much.  We had a low key Thanksgiving with Jarrett, myself, and my parents.  We put the final touches on the nursery and ate Thanksgiving dinner at Cracker Barrell.  My mom and I shopped all night long.  We began at the outlet mall in Grand Prairie at 10 pm.  We walked and walked and shopped and shopped until 2 am. 

December 2012
Stella finally made her arrival, fashionably late on the 27th.

Thank you, Lord, for a healthy and happy 2012.  We are so thankful for our families and all they do for us.  I can't wait to see what He has in store for us in 2013.