2 1/2

*Written on December 8th:

My mama always celebrated half birthdays with me & Michael since we were born on each other's half birthdays, so I will too. 

My little wildflower is 2 1/2 today. The past 2 months or so have been difficult & trying for a good bit of the time. Stella's been feeling all the feelings lately & hasn't been 100% well so I know that's contributed to things. Yesterday was an exception & I'm so thankful given the circumstances. We attended a funeral without Donald & I'm happy to report that she was fantastic all day. Aside from her blowing air on her arm to make a farting noise in church & making 3 grown men laugh, she was perfect. She requested blueberry pancakes for lunch so as a reward, I took her to Cracker Barrel. This picture was taken outside of CB. As you can see, Teddy goes just about everywhere with us. And Mable the Moo Cow is a new friend. We got her from the Christmas Tree lot-she's handmade. Out of a table full of homemade & hand carved reindeer & cows, she, of course, chose the cow.

She's obsessed with Frozen thanks to my parents. She tells me just about everyday that she is Queen Elsa, I'm Princess Anna, Daddy is Kristoff, Bandit is Sven & Teddy is Olaf. Each day we either do Anna hair or Elsa hair. I can't French braid but I make Elsa hair work good enough but if anyone wants to school me, I'm game. 

Stella got a "new" bed Sunday seeing the joy & excitement in her face when she walked in was so rewarding as a parent. I finally removed the diaper changing pad & the wipes warmer from her dresser. I haven't used it in so so long but Donald would occasionally sit her on it. I've redone her bathroom & made it a little more "her" also.

She's so smart & it blows me away. Yesterday, at lunch she told "Mommy, sometimes when there's a lot of people & they're loud & they want to touch me, it scares me." Just hearing those words from her mouth makes me think we are on our way to moving on from "just being difficult" (apparently she heard me a few times, although I mostly say this just teasing).  In comes my Tula carrier that has saved me from sore arms, provides us both with comfort or warmth, gives her little legs a rest & just takes away some of the stress of parenting. I'm so happy I've been wearing her since she was a few weeks old & she still loves to be worn & can articulate to me her exact feelings. One of her favorite movies right now is the original Charlotte's Web & I think of the beginning when the goose urges Wilbur to talk. He sings "Isn't great that I articulate, isn't it grand that you can understand." We are so blessed to have such a smart girl who can tell us exactly what she wants & needs. She  radiates such personality everywhere she goes & has a budding imagination that's so fun to watch. 

Stella has started brushing & playing with my hair lately & I'm thrilled we've got to this point. She pretends to braid it & even reaches to her lips get a pretend ponytail holder (since I have to use my teeth to get them open). 

She's still stingy with her kisses. She tells me "those are Daddy's kisses." But I do get back hugs whenever I squat down.  I also still get snuggles in the bed in the morning along with couch/chair snuggles throughout the day & cuddles at night when I put her to bed. Yep, we are still rocking to bed. Some nights I would love for her to just go to bed by herself. On the rare occasion it does but even then I miss the cuddles, feeling her breath on me, seeing her long beautiful eyelashes fan out across her chubby cheeks. She'll go to bed "like a big girl" for her Daddy but not for me. But that's ok. Especially when we've had difficult days, I just want to hold her & sit in peace with her. 

She's very 2 1/2 right now. Temperamental & difficult are two terms that describe her very well at this stage. 

She also does what can best be described as the ostrich's head in the sand move. If someone she doesn't know or even someone she does know talks to her she'll try to hide behind one of us. Or if she gets in trouble she'll run & hide. Or she'll just cover her eyes, because toddler logic, right. I can't see you, you can't see me. But she has the best imagination & I love seeing it grow. She loves to chase B around and head butt him? It's more gentle than an actual head butt but that's the best way to describe it. She just pushes her head into his side & tries to push him over I guess. I don't know. She thinks it's hilarious. 

Really learning what it means when they say "The days are long but the years are short." 

Fall Projects

I had 2 full days to myself back in October while Stella was down in Sylvester with the grandparents. It was before Donald and I left for our anniversary trip so I had left her down there and driven back up Monday and we didn't leave until Thursday. Boy was I busy. Tuesday I didn't leave the house and did a ton of stuff outside. 

I re-potted some succulent plants in these vintage colanders.

I hot glued wired ribbon around these mini hay bales to display on the front porch table.

I neatly gathered up the dried Indian corn from our wedding and tied the husks to give it a nicer appearance in the baskets. 

I'm so pleased with how these turned out. I painted these last year for a Fall Carnival I helped with and love displaying these for the Fall.

I spray painted dried gourds in five different colors and tied twine around them and strung them to the lattice between our house and the carport. I love how they turned out, however, they are not holding up well at all actually in the rain. They've been on the front porch in a basket off and on for years. Some are from our wedding and some are from years past. A few molded and/or rotted while drying and those got tossed but these were completely dried and had been for years. Now that they are painted and actually getting wet, they are covered in black mold. And the paint is chipping. Oh well. Guess they will be trashed soon. They did look cute though. I guess if I do this again to some that happen to dry themselves, I remember to keep them out of the elements.

I bought this hay bale from Home Depot for Stella's birthday party. I was supposed to be used as a "horse" to mount a saddle, but my mom decided not to bring it. Instead, I covered it in a blanket and used it as the seating area for the photo booth. It's been sitting covered underneath the shelter in the backyard and was in perfect condition. So I brought it out and put our new pumpkins and old painted apple gourds around it.

 I got this pallet for free off of the SVM yardsale facebook group for Stella's birthday party. I turned it around and used the back of it for holding photobooth props. I've seen the American flags painted on these things for years and I've been wanting to do one myself and I finally got around to it. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do about the stars, but then I remembered I bought a white battery powered light up star light from Big Lots. 

It's the perfect fit!

Lights of Life 5K 2015

This was my second year doing The Lights of Life 5K. I did it last year with Kristi and it was freezing. This year, the weather was better. It was still overcast, but warmer and not wet and muddy. I signed up last minute-the week of and ran with Kate and a few of her friends.  This year, they offered two nights to run/walk. Saturday (which we did last year) and Sunday. We did Sunday and it was a lot less crowded.

Last year Kristi and I ran probably half of the 5K. This  year, I'd say I ran about 2/3 of it. I definitely need a new sports bra and probably better running shoes, but it wasn't that bad. I like the idea of running, but just can't get into it.  I ran the entire track at the start and at the finish. By the time I finished the top of my right foot above my big toe was hurting. And my hip flexors were pretty tight.  

Got these the other day and so happy to see it doesn't look like I'm having a seizure as I cross the finish line. I actually look good and my face isn't beet red and I'm just proud of running the entire track and looking decent. Yay me!

Luckily, I had accidentally scheduled an 1 1/2 hour massage for the next night which obviously was something for me to think about as I was pushing myself to run. My massage was great, but I was pretty sore for it so it was hard to enjoy it completely. By Tuesday I was hurting pretty bad.  

This just made me laugh and I had to get a picture in here since Stella has become quite the Frozen fan lately.

I'd love to do this each year. It's nice to get out with friends and be active, especially during the Holidays.  

Donald and I were invited by Chelle and Jenni to do The Ugly Sweater 5K next weekend at Piedmont Park.  That's the same day as D's company Christmas party in Buckhead.  Don and Wanda are coming up the night before to watch Stella for it, so we'll just leave earlier in the day and head down to Midtown.  Ideally, I'd like to do a few 5K's a year and actually train for them, but we'll see how that goes. 

Hiking Kennesaw Mountain

I've been wanting to hike up Kennesaw Mountain for quite some time now. It's been many years since I've been up. And I've really been wanting to take Stella and see how far she could make it.

We picked a wonderful day to do it and brought along our backpacks, picnic lunch and "binoculars".

It's a mile up and she walked roughly 0.6 miles up.

Of course she wanted to ride on my back for the last 0.4 miles-just the most difficult part.  I started huffing and puffing and she asked me what I was doing.  Then if I stopped to catch my breath she asked again. I would tell her, "I'm just catching my breath. This is hard and Mommy has an extra 32 pounds on her back."  When we finally made it up top and she played for a while she stopped, dropped to her knees and started huffing and puffing. Then she says, "I'm just catching my breath." For the record, I did not drop to my knees. At any point.

Stella pooped at the top of the mountain. That was fun. Don't worry, I left very little evidence. Again, so interesting being out with this kid. You never know what will happen. She gave some KSU students something to talk about for a while. Hehe.

She found a little boy to play with. They found a puddle in a rock and made it all muddy. Then they threw the mud and sticks and acorns and jumped over the puddle and ran around yelling. Stella left the mountain even heavier as she was a bit damp and covered in mud and dirt. 

She snacked then walked about 0.2 miles back down. Then hopped on my back and right at the end fell asleep. She snoozed all the way home.  I'm so glad we did this. She loved it and so did I. I was so impressed with how far she actually hiked. We will definitely do this again.

Zoo Day

On Tuesday, November 17, I took Stella to the zoo. It had been a while since we visited and it was a nice day out. The arm on my sunglasses broke right after we entered the Zoo gates, but I never needed them due to an overcast and very mild day.

We arrived to see a ton of kindergarten-ish aged kids hand in hand entering the park. I cringed a bit worried it would be so crowded. Boy was I wrong.  They apparently all went one way and we went the other.  Stella told me she wanted to ride the carousel first so we walked that way. We ended up being the only people to ride the carousel and the choo-choo.

Stella insisted on bringing Baby along.

And she loved climbing this.

Kisses for the baby giraffe.

Not sure what this look is....

It took me 20 minutes to convince her it was not a good idea to leave Baby here. She kept saying, "She'll be ok. She's taking a nap."

Right after this was taken, Stella headed for the Pampas grass. She was holding it and pulled her hand away quickly and it cut her. Gosh, I hate that stuff. I had the same thing happen to me many times as a kid. Hate it!  We ended up having to visit the first aid station to get a Band-Aid because she wouldn't stop crying over it. It was truly magic. Instantly cured the ailment. I carry them but had left them in the car on accident so the First Aid Station came in quite handy.

I had no idea there was a leopard at the zoo. As many times as we've been. We usually go a different route and bypass this exhibit (all along I didn't realize we were missing any big exhibits). But he/she pounced right up to say Hello.

Of course we had to stop by and say "Ni Hao" to Mei Lun and Mei Huan. She loves these two pandas so much. They are only about a month younger than her. We watch them on the panda came some days.  They were playing outside when we visited and Stella wanted to play on the grass across from them too.

Apparently Baby got heavy being carried in her arms so I had to put her in the Mei Tai so Stella would be more comfy. 

Checking on her. Yep, she's good, she's napping.

"Choo-choo"

Stella put in to get out and play more right after I put her in the car seat. So I drove about a mile down the road, pulled over at Grant Park and we got out and walked around.

 We found a playground with lots of moms and their daughters. Soon, more moms and daughters came, to the point of 12-15 girls and only 1 boy. Right at the end a dad showed up with his 2 older sons, but for 45 minutes or so it was nearly an all female cast. Stella met another girl named Stella and she and another girl were playing "Anna and Elsa". Stella wanted to play and chased them around trying to fit in with them. Love that she wasn't afraid to do that.

This spot was just next to the playground. I loved this view. I'd love to explore this park more hand in hand with Donald and/or Stella.