Fun at the Park

It was a beautiful day here today (in the upper 70s and no humidity), so Mama took her two little munchkins to the park. We had a fun time swinging, running, sliding, climbing, and playing.

One section of the playground had a big plastic dinosaur and an alligator. When Mama put Des on the dinosaur to take a picture, he started crying like so...

He kept saying "No Mama, dinosaur bite you". Poor little guy, he thought the dinosaur was real and was afraid that it was going to bite him. Mama immediately took Des off the dinosaur and comforted him. He thought the same thing of the alligator, but eventually worked up enough courage to walk over to the alligator...

...looked at him for awhile to make sure that it wasn't real...

...and then ventured forth to pet it and even sit on it. Too funny!

Sleep Tight

A few nights ago, Dada snapped a pic of our little guy, sleeping in his crib, hugging his little stuffed doggy. So sweet!!!
He looks so big in his crib these days. Why do they have to grow up?!?!?

Out at the Outback

We all went out to eat at the Outback today. While we were waiting for our food, Stella was having a fun time coloring and drawing/writing with crayons.

She's going through a phase right now where she says her name is "Stelle" instead of Stella and that is what she wrote first.

Then on the bottom, you can see she wrote "Mama". She did this all by herself without asking us for the spelling.

Library Fun

After lunch, we headed over to our beautiful public library. Stella loved playing on the computer there while Gup liked climbing on the kid-size chairs and tables, doing the wooden puzzles they have laying around on the kid tables, and creating general mayhem. Des also liked messing around on the computers, something he doesn't get to do at home =:)

We absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this library. This is one of the many beautiful views of the Ozark mountains from the library.

Can't beat that!!!

Return to the Farmers' Market

We took Amamma and Appachen to the Farmer's Market today since they hadn't been before and we hadn't been there in a while either. It was a beautiful day here in NWA and so the Farmer's Market was a perfect outing.

Amamma got some veggies to make some yummy Indian dishes for dinner tonight. After all of the walking around, we stopped to take a snack break..some peanuts in the shell.

As always, the Farmers' Market was a fun time!

Amamma & Appachen Are Visiting

Amamma and Appachen arrived yesterday and will be visiting with us for a week. Yeah!!! The kids are having so much fun playing with them, even though you can't tell by the looks on their faces in these pix.

Stella's 4 Year Checkup

Stella had her 4 year doctor's appointment today and all is well. She also cooperated well enough to have her vision and hearing checked. The nurse said that Stella's eyes were fine (20/30 visio,n whatever that means) and that her hearing was fine as well.The only thing she didn't tolerate was getting her blood pressure measured.
She didn't get any vaccines today but will have to prior to starting school next year.

Stella's stats are as follows:
weight = 36 lbs (60th%) (compared to 25th% last year at her 3 year checkup, which was prior to her tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy)
height = 40.63 inches (75th%)

Say Cheese!

During the evening when Mama was asking Stella to smile big for the camera, Des decided to follow directions and gave us his cheesiest "cheese" smile ever! His smile was so hilarious that we were rolling on the floor laughing, which just made Des laugh even harder! Too cute and funny!!!

Happy 4th Birthday Stella!

Wow, our little baby girl turned 4 years old today!!! We CANNOT believe she is 4 years old already. How time flies.

Stella's big birthday present this year was a bedroom makeover complete with a new twin bed, new bedding, an upholstered headboard (made by Mama & Dada), a little sling chair and table for Stella to read and lounge on. While Stella was playing games on the computer, Dada set up her new room. He then waited inside her room with the camera to take pictures of her reaction to the big surprise.

As you can see by the pix above and below, Stella LOVED her surprise and her girlie room!!!!

Stella then tested out her new bed...

At the time we surprised Stella, we hadn't put up her upholstered headboard or curtains up yet, (b/c the headboard wasn't finished). So this is what Stella's room likes like now.

We still have to get a few more items to complete her room, like a dresser and nightstand and put up some pictures, so it's still a work in progress. But in the meantime, Stella absolutely loves her new room and that's all that matters.

After Stella's big surprise was revealed, we all went to Olive Garden for dinner and then came back home to cut the cake.

Mama made Stella a butterfly cake which she just loved.

The Gup had to check out the cake as well...

We sang "Happy Birthday" to Stella.

Stella then blew out the candles and we all enjoyed some cake.

Since her big gift this year was not something that was wrapped up, we decided to get Stella one other gift that could be wrapped up so that she would have something to open.

It was a digital camera. In the pix below, Mama was able to capture Stella's sheer delight in getting a digital camera.


Stella testing out her new camera.

We had a great time celebrating our baby girl's 4th birthday. Stella...Mama, Dada, and Desmond love you so much!!! We hope you enjoyed your special day!