"Big" kids room

Over the last few days, Stella started visiting the next daycare room. The baby bears room is for the kids once they start crawling. 

In the last 2 weeks, daycare has been closed for snow 7 days so she didn't get much visiting time. But her previous room, baby Angels, had some new little little babies starting so, today was her first official day in the big kids room.

The change must have exhausted her because she was fast asleep when we picked her up. Her new teachers said this was her third nap today.

And another snow day!

It's been a icy, snowy, cold week in Knoxville and daycare was closed again Thursday. Stella and Dad had a pretty lazy day which included a couple naps throughout the day.

Splashing and playing with her rubber ducky in bathtub. 

The lazy day continued with another chance to catch up on some zzzzzzz! 

Another snow day

Knoxville is in the midst of round 2 for a winter storm. Monday and Tuesday Stella's daycare was closed. This morning, Wednesday, the weather was cold and, by the time we made it to daycare, snow was falling pretty heavily.

When we arrived at daycare, we found they had decided to close early. Mom and Stella stopped by the grocery store and headed back home.

After 3 snow days in a row, we decided to be productive. Stella has been eating more solids so we started making some baby food to freeze. After today, she'll have a few weeks worth of puréed carrots, squash, bananas, and apples.

In the first picture, Max was running around in the snow which was very entertaining to Stella. It was impossible to get her to look at the camera with all the snow and dogs to look at.

Snow day!

Knoxville was hit with a snow and ice storm on Monday. The temperatures were very cold and, over the course of the day, we got a mix of sleet, freezing rain, and snow.

As a result, Stella's daycare was closed Monday and Tuesday. So, mom and Stella had some snow days.

Unfortunately, dad had to work covering the weather. Stella, Max, Gus and Colby stayed in, cooked some crockpot casserole, watched movies, and tried to stay warm.

A few weeks ago, we got a light dusting of snow but this is the first real snow we've gotten. Stella was interested in it but was a little reluctant to touch it.

I would prefer to stand, thank you!

Within the last week, Stella has perfected her ability to pull up and stand. Here is a sequence of her rising to her feet without assistance.

Feet in position. Focus.....

Pull up. Almost there.......

And up on two feet. Look at me!

Crawling is so last week! In the last 2 weeks we saw her progression from - attempting to pull up but, couldn't quite get it without assistance to easily pulling herself to her feet. It was just a few weeks ago - January 25th, 2015 that we entered a blog post about her sitting up in the crib. Growing fast! 

Eating some O's

The other big first Stella made this weekend was feeding herself.

She figured out that, in addition to picking up the O's and dropping them on the floor for Max, she can put them inher mouth.

She is only successful at getting about 1 in 5 O's into her mouth right now which Max is pretty happy about.

Crawling is sooo last week

This weekend Stella had a few new firsts. She started on Saturday by wearing her tennis shoes, from grandma, for the first time. 

She seems to have decided that she doesn't need to bother learning to crawl on all fours. Walking is more her speed.

Lately, Stella isn't happy unless she's on two feet either pulling up on whatever's nearby or slowly walking with help from mom or dad.

Practice with finger foods

Stella has been getting more and more solid food in her diet. She is starting to learn how to pick up little pieces like Cheerios or, in this case, Trader Joe's O's.

She's getting the hang of picking up small items but hasn't figured out that she can feed herself too.

Max, in the other hand, has found the best place for a quick snack is under Stella's high chair. He camps out there during most meals and snack times.