belated January 2013 post

Joe had an extra long day at church today. This is how Jack and Stella reconnect.

&^%$# autocorrect

I never managed to post to the blog from my smartphone because autocorrect made the experience so frustrating that I wanted to gouge my eyeballs out. For example, this draft post from February 2013:


Jack woke up feeling icky this morning so we're having a lazy day it's been wonderful I can say that note is feeling a little better who knew that a 60 can be such a blessing lots of snuggles and Suites in our house today

belated March update

This is an old post from back in March that I'd saved in Drafts, but never managed to post. Probably because I never managed to write any captions for the photos.

Stella is 3!!

So... we kind of forgot that we had this little blog. Not really.  It was just that our old computer was such a pain to write on; it took f...o...r...e...v...e...r to turn on and to get on the internet. I tried to do a little blogging from my smartphone, but that was just a headache. Anyhow, new computer = new resolve to blog again. I spent some time yesterday afternoon reading through our old posts and reminiscing and I'm sad to think of all the memories from this past year that will be lost because of our blogging blackout. We'll see how much catch-up we can do.

Stella turned 3 last Thursday. Here's how she celebrated:

She woke up at the crack of dawn to open presents and see the decorations that her brothers had set up for her the night before. They hung red and pink streamers from the ceiling and the door between her bedroom and the living room, hung the birthday banner over the mirror, and made an pathway to her presents out of streamers that they filled with balloons she had to kick out of the way to get to her gifts.

She had to change immediately into our traditional birthday crown and birthday shirt and a new cute skirt and tights from Aunt Mandy. She changed into about 9 different outfits, which normally drives mama crazy, but we humored the birthday girl.

She opted out of our traditional chocolate cake with caramel icing and instead asked for a purple cake with sprinkles. This is what we ended up with. It wasn't very pretty, but it was sure tasty. She asked for hot dogs and french fries for lunch and pizza for dinner.

She spent the entire day playing with her new toys: a Polly Pocket (from Nana and Grandpa) and some Disney Princess Fashion Dolls. And she's wearing her swimsuit in this photo, because she chose to go swimming for her birthday activity, she just got dressed early. Also, note that Jack is wearing a purple shirt--  he chose to wear Stella's favorite color to help celebrate.

And this photo wasn't taken on Stella's birthday, it's from family night a few days before, but it's one of my favorites and perfectly illustrates what she's all about these days. She spends about 85% of her waking hours either singing or conducting an imaginary choir. Gosh, we are smitten with her.

Here are some other things we'd like to remember about our birthday girl this year:

1. Her favorite color is purple
2. She is FIERCE. Nobody pushes Stella around.  If you try, she'll growl at you and you might get a stiff-arm to the chest.3. She spends most of her day sing-narrating what she's doing. It's almost like a constant preschool opera.4. She LOVES to conduct imaginary choirs. She'll set herself up with a hymnbook, a makeshift music stand, and her imaginary choir many times a day.5. She adores babies.6. She is as independent as they come. She insists on dressing herself, doing her own hair and even making her own peanut butter sandwiches.7. She is already a dedicated bookworm, and can't fall asleep unless she has a stack of at least 10 books tucked in bed with her.

Book worm...er...racoon

This girl loves books. And her racoon costume. A couple of months ago (before her 2nd birthday), she looked up from her book and said in her most petulant voice, "Dad, I can't read!"

Hold your horses, little lady. You've got plenty of time.

new family photos

We are trying to be better about getting regular family photos taken. There was a pretty long drought there between 2006 and 2010, which shall be known from here on out as the Great Memory Drought (sorry mom).

Hanna Caldwell took these and she did a wonderful job, don't you agree?

More photos here.

magic tricks

Jack recently discovered the 25 cent soda pop vending machine at our neighborhood grocery store. Whenever he finds a coin, he begs to "go to the store and turn [his] monies into soda pop." I can't tell which is more exciting to him: the soda pop or the magic trick of turning a quarter into something tasty.