Stella's First Year

On Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 4:18 p.m., God blessed us with the most perfect, beautiful, precious baby girl in the whole wide world.  When the doctor placed Stella on my chest and I looked at Kyle there was a sense of completion, a sense of happiness and love that I've never felt before.

We both cried tears of joy as we looked at this beautiful gift we had been given.  I knew that she was so special but I had no idea that she would enrich our lives so much in her one year of life.  What an amazing year it has been!

She has learned so many things from rolling over...

to sitting up...

to crawling...

to walking (holding on to furniture, of course!)...

and everything in between.  She has now taken 2 steps or so at a time on her own so we know that the walking/running/toddling stage is just around the corner.

She has 9 - count them, NINE - teeth and is "growing" more on a daily basis.  I'm sure that's what's been making her feel a lil poopy the past few days - however, her feeling poopy is nothing compared to the horror stories I've heard friends tell me about their babies that are teething.  We are DEF blessed in that department!!  She pretty much sleeps through the night but this teething thing has been affecting her sleep schedule a little bit.  She always wakes up in the best mood, though - she's such a happy baby!!

Stella is eating real food and for the most part she likes what she's tried.  She doesn't like grits and I've told her we have to work on that...a true southern girl LOVES grits so I'm sure she will get used to it soon.  She's not very fond of spaghetti and with the "Italian" in her blood, she better get used to it, too.  Maybe it's just b/c she hasn't tried Grandpa D's spaghetti yet! ;)

Stella is now weighing in at a whopping 17 lbs. 12 oz. and is 27 1/2 inches long.  She's still a tiny lil peanut but she's proportionate - 5th percentile for her height, 10th percentile for weight, and 5th percentile for her noggin.  Even though she's tiny, she's 100% healthy and that's all we can ask and pray for.

Like I said before, this past year has been amazing and more than we could have ever imagined.  We love our little princess and we can't wait to celebrate many, many more wonderful milestones to come!