More Stella

I can't believe how fast time goes with an infant. Stella is already three months old. What happened? I just brought her home from the hospital last week?!? Wasn't it??

 Above, Stella is pictured in the her baby blessing dress, a gift to her from our Bishop's wife. Our Bishop confessed he opened his eyes several times during the blessing, said she was so quiet and still that he had to check that she was still breathing. What an angel :)

A woman in our ward knitted this adorable owl hat for Stella. This is about as cute as a baby can be. 

Hoot hoot.

This photo reminds me of Nathan as a baby. He smiled with his eyes, and here Stella does too.  Love those cheeks, baby girl!

Meet Stella!

Our baby girl, Stella Grace, was born on January 25th, 2013 after 286 weeks of pregnancy. Here I was at that point -

Yes, that is a sleeper. It is my favorite Christmas gift from Ben, and Nathan's favorite I think too because without a doubt his absolute favorite thing to wear is his "suit" and now when I wear mine, we match.

You can see the boys themselves were enjoying the pregnancy to the fullest. Love that face, Buster! And love those thumbs, Nate. His right one is all ready for when he sucks his left one completely off.

Anyway, back to Stella. The doctor's warned me to be prepared to rush to the hospital because this was my fourth baby and they expect each delivery to be faster than the previous, and Nathan took all of 10 minutes.....but no. Stella was quite content to stay. And stay and stay and stay. I often wonder how long she really would have stayed  had we not coaxed her out. 45 weeks? 50? That she was a girl was a surprise to me, but Ben had a certain feeling all along that this time it would be a girl. She was 9 pounds, 21 inches, perfect and beautiful and to our delight, she came with inch-long dark brown hair. Here are a few from the day she was born when Mom brought the boys up to the hospital to see us -

Check out the boys' eyes.

Here are Peter and  Nathan trying to make her smile on day one. 

Of all the knitted hats we've received from the hospitals when we've had a baby, this one on Stella takes the cake. It looked like a huge pink mushroom on her head and we adored her in it.

This is my favorite photo of all.

Great-Grandma with her newest great-granddaughter. So sweet!  Definitely a photo to treasure.

This is Stella's most relaxing position. 

Love, love, love, love, love!

Some catching up to do...

 Here are a few highlights from the months that we missed updating our blog:

Remembering Dad at UK Car Days

Peter loved playing with Leah. Not so sure the feeling was mutual...

In the photos above and below, we were at the open house for the Finger Lakes Live Steamers. Twice a year, the club allows the public in to see the model trains up close and to ride on the miniature locomotives. It was really fun for the whole family. The trains were awesome, too! The steamies actually had tiny coal furnaces powering them. The (unavoidably over-sized) driver opened the miniature door to the firebox and deposited a scoop of coal inside with a kitchen serving spoon.  

Towards the end of summer, Nathan fell and cut his forehead just above his eyebrow and had to have three stitches. After they came out, we took the photo below to send to his pediatrician, and thanked him for taking such good care of Nathan.

Christmas with Grandma Cathy 

This was Christmas morning. Here the boys are proudly showing off their certificates from Santa, officially placing them on the "Nice List". The certificates were accompanied by wonderful, personalized letters to each boy in response to their letter to Santa asking him to bring whatever special thing they wanted for Christmas. Buster had asked for "a plastic cardinal bird". You can imagine how he felt after we read his letter and then he opened the gift in the photo below. His face pretty much says it all.

And  it was so nice to finally, FINALLY, have a true, white Christmas.