Stella Rolled Over!

I never knew that watching your child roll over could be so exciting. Stella is 3 months, 6 days old today. We were over at Anna's having lunch with her, Daniel, and Katy, and I had put Stella down on a blanket. She was really enjoying herself and first she rolled onto her side. I was like, "look guys, she rolled on her side, isn't that cool?" Then, before I even knew what was happening, she rolled all the way over onto her tummy! It was awesome! And I had two witnesses. Of course, I didn't have my camera, but Anna dutifully took a picture with theirs, so hopefully I can get that. Afterwards, Stella was inconsolably fussy, so we had to come home and put her down for naptime, but it was still so cool. I need to put her down on blankets to just hang out more often I guess. I think I don't let her just "be" enough, I'm always trying to play with her. I'm so excited. But now I have to clean because I have company coming tomorrow. Tutaloo! (or however that's spelled).

Our Failure at Family Portraiture

We went to Sears this afternoon to try and get pictures of Stella as well as all 3 of us. I feel way behind on this, I really intended to do it earlier. It's hard to believe she turned 3 months old yesterday! She's going to be in college before we know it. Not really, but it does seem to have gone by fast. So we got to Sears, and they made us wait for a few minutes. While we waited, Stella was being adorable and laughing and smiling at us, not to mention drooling a whole bunch. They finally took us back, and we could tell she was getting a little tired. She'd not gotten as long of a nap as we would have liked, but we thought it'd all be okay. Okay, Tim thought it'd all be okay, and I was really worried about it. He took the sermon at church to heart today, and I tried to also after he reminded me of it. Basically, it was to trust in God that everything would be okay. They told the parable of Christ and the disciples on a ship when a big storm came up, the disciples freaked and went to Jesus who was asleep. He said "Peace, Be Still!" to the ocean and the storm stopped. I thought that having your baby be fussy during pictures was hardly a crisis of those proportions, but anyway, I tried not to worry. Well we got a couple of cute pictures of the 3 of us, with the poor photographer trying every trick in the book to get Stella to smile. She did, 3 times. Then they tried to get one of Stella by herself, with another photographer. Stella refused to smile, we could tell she was getting overloaded. We tried desperately to get her to keep going, but finally had to give up. We had to make another appointment for next Saturday morning. Usually she's really happy in the mornings, so hopefully it will work. The girl was really sweet about it, but I'm disappointed, I was really looking forward to having pictures of Stella. Oh, well, we'll just have to try again. Why do I stress out so much about something so silly? I spent way too much energy trying to find the perfect dress, but it just didn't happen either. We finally just dressed her in one of her onesies that looks like a dress, and it was probably for the best because she's very comfortable in those.

I am now one of THOSE people

I love concerts. I have been going to them since I was 12 and they've always been the one thing I will plunk lots of cash down on. In fact, I have paid ridiculous amounts for tickets, $75/ticket to see the Pixies (worth every penny, I became a fan shortly before they broke up so I never was able to see them live), and nearly $300 US to see Morrissey at Royal Albert Hall in London, which was an absolutely amazing experience. Basically I discovered Morrissey was going to be performing in London while we were there. How could you miss that? So I paid 185 pounds or a little less than $300 on ebay for 2 tickets to see him. And as I attended all these concerts, I stayed till the bitter end, through one encore or 3, even once at the Violent Femmes concert at Numbers in Houston, hiding from my friends who wanted to leave to make curfew. Screw curfew, this is music man! But now I know I am an adult. I missed Beck's encore last night.

Beck played at the Backyard, which is no longer an idyllic, beautiful place in the middle of the hillcountry, but a hellish, crowded piece of fake country surrounded on all sides by a shopping center. A gigantic shopping center that no one apparently goes to because there were tons of free parking spots. But will the owners of this montrosity allow you to park there? Noooo, you have to wind around and around the parking lot, down a narrow gravel road, into a dirt parking lot that is very similiar to the old lot they had at the Backyard, but a lot further away. All told, from the main entrance to the parking lot to the front gate of the Backyard, it took us about an hour. AN HOUR! I was thoroughly annoyed, let me tell you. Then I couldn't even get a beer because the lines were outrageously long. But I digress.

I was talking about encores. So I figured that it would take us at least an hour to get back out of the lot after the show, and we had told our incredibly kind, wonderful, generous, great friends Travis and Ashley who were watching Stella ALONG WITH their own 8 month old son that we would be back about 11pm. I was not about to abuse their generosity by showing up at midnight or later to retrieve Stella, not to mention the fact that by then I would be milk-full and in pain, so I decided we would leave before the encore. Dude, I am doing that from now on! We were back to our car and out of there in no time at all, maybe 10 minutes, then back to reclaim the monkey by 5 till 11. Brilliant! I may never stay for an encore again. No lines, no having to pee/being super-thirsty waiting to leave, no cursing yourself or other drivers for choosing to go to the concert. It was fantastic! Now I know what I've been missing all these years. See? I'm getting old.

Grocery Store: Home of Peace and Light

I just got back from the grocery store about half an hour or so ago. Grocery stores in the middle of the day are so nice! It's deserted. You don't even have to pull a number at the deli counter. And there are moms and babies everywhere. I struck up a conversation with 3 different moms while waiting for my lunch meat. So bizarre. How did I ever work?
I'm so excited, Tim, Stella and I are going to have our first family portrait Sunday! Hopefully it'll turn out okay. I can't believe Stella's going to be 3 months Saturday and we haven't gotten a professional portrait of her yet. My very good friend Diane is a wonderful photographer and I plan to have her take some pictures of Stella, but, unfortunately, she lives in Houston. We're going to Sears, surely they can do a decent job. The pictures they took of Ashley and Henry were adorable.
On another note, I finally caught up on my straggling thank you notes for Stella's presents yesterday (except for the ones Tim needs to write to his relatives. I'm going to have to sit on him to make sure he does it:) It's really funny, but we've gotten 3 new presents since I finished! I'm not complaining, it's just funny that I feel like I'll never be caught up.
I've got to go feed Stella now, it sounds like she's waking up again. Also, I need to do the anti-rain dance. We have tickets to Beck tonight and it's supposed to storm like gangbusters!

Embarassing

Ever do something without thinking and then it's plastered on the internet and you're embarassed and you want to die, but there isn't a damn thing you can do about it? Yeah, me too. And no, I'm not going to tell you what it is because I don't want anyone else knowing about it. Hopefully it can just quietly disappear. And no it's not like I'm naked or screwing a donkey or anything like that, so don't worry.

I just want a haircut!!!!

See how shaggy my hair is? Actually, you don't notice my hair because Stella is just too cute, isn't she?
I have been procrastinating getting my haircut for forever now, because I'm growing it out and because my hairstylist costs too much and has not been doing that great of a job lately. But it's finally gotten to the point where I can't take it anymore, it's been nearly 3 months, the longest I've gone without a haircut in years. So I finally called to make an appt. and my stylist is on vacation until Wednesday. I cannot wait until Wednesday, when I decide I want my hair cut, I want it cut right then! So I'm trying to find somewhere else and it is sooo hard! I got recommendations from friends, but, of course, they're all even more expensive that Betty and I can't even remember where they said. Tim loved Bird's and I called and they do women's hair, but you have to just walk in. I'm thinking about just trying it, although getting your haircut at a place that caters to men is a little scary. Gosh, why is this so difficult?!

Stella does situps!

So Stella started a new thing this morning. We put her in her swing while we were enjoying some blueberry pancakes with her Auntie Christine and Uncle Brian who came for a brief visit, and she started lifting her head to see her feet, it looked like she was doing crunches! She's been doing it all day, anytime we put her in a reclining position. Tim said she was doing it just now in her sleep. Speaking of sleep, she's been sleeping almost all day today. I guess that baby situps really exhaust you. Our daughter is going to have a 6-pack. Rock!
Speaking of her Aunt and Uncle's visit, they watched Stella last night and we got to go see 24th Day at Arts on Real. We were unfortunately one of only 6 in the audience:( Trust us, Blake, we know how it feels! Anyway, it was SOOOO nice to get out just the two of us! We used to go see theatre at least once, and often 2 times a week and it was fantastic to get to do it for only the 2nd time since Stella was born.

Baby Yoga is cool!

Okay, it actually isn't baby yoga, it's post-natal yoga, but you can bring your baby. And there were TONS of Mamas and babies there, which means it was noisy, and adorable and crowded. It was great! I finally got out of the house in time to go. The class starts at 10:30am on Tuesdays and while I get up before 10:30, it's difficult to get somewhere by then. But Stella and I made it today. There was another Stella there, the first we've met. I forgot to ask how old she was, she was tiny. Of course, most of the babies seemed tiny compared to Stella. I think they're all newborns until I realize that Stella is in the 75th percentile in size. That means 3 out of 4 babies are going to be smaller than her. So really, it makes sense that they were mostly smaller. It was a very noisy room, but still really nice. We were told to tend to our babies, feed our babies, change our babies whenever we needed to. It was hardly a workout, but it was cool to get to bond with Stella on the moves we got to do with our babies. Stella was a trooper, although she unfortunately got a little overwhelmed in the middle when we did a bunch of stuff with our babies. By the "Yoga Hokey-Pokey" I think she'd had enough. And a bunch of the Mamas were going to The Alamo to see a movie this afternoon (Tuesdays are baby day, bring your baby to the movie!). I couldn't make it, but they do it every week, so i hope to go in the future.
Ashley taught me the kangaroo hold when she brought me my new gorgeous sling Friday and I have Stella in it right now. (check out www.littlepepperpouches.com for great deals on the coolest slings you'll ever see. I don't think she has the site finished, but you can email her for more info.) This sling fits better than the first one she made me (which is also gorgeous), and it was much easier to get Stella in it. She was really enjoying it at first, but does seem a little frustrated at not being able to stretch out her long limbs. I guess it's like being stuck in coach for a baby. But I can type and have her close to me, which is totally cool!
I couldn't find a picture of her in my sling, but the one at the top is of Stella in Tim's cool sling that Ashley also made for him.

The Coolest Houses in town

Tim discovered this awesome modern neighbohood called Agave which is way East on MLK, but only 10 minutes from downtown:
http://www.greenmangorealestate.com/index.cfm?p=agave
We decided to drive there today. OMG, drool, drool, drool! The houses are so cool and they have amazing views. Tim and I had all but decided we were moving there until we got home and looked at the prices again. And then did the math. As Kelli pointed out in her comment on my earlier post, the calculators do not factor in escrow: taxes, mortgage insurance, and home insurance, which adds up to over $400 a month of our payment. Depressing. Tim was willing to sell his kidney to try and save the money for a huge downpayment, but it turns out organ selling is illegal:) But I can't blame him, the houses rock. They're going to have more models though, so we're still holding out hope that maybe, just maybe. But they are absolutely gorgeous, definitely if I had $210k+ lying around, I would spend it on one of these and feel like I was getting my money's worth.
BTW, reality tv apparently loves Austin. In the last week we have seen: Property Values on HGTV that had homes in Austin, Rachel Ray's Travels that was in Austin, and Trading Spaces Austin. I just hope it does not encourage more people to move here. Please, stop, it's already getting too crowded and too expensive. I don't want Austin to turn into LA! It's the damn Californians that are moving here anyway, selling their bungalows for $850k and then buying houses here at ridiculous prices and touting it as cheap.