"I'm a tall girl!"

This morning Stella announced that she wanted to paint. So we bought finger paints at the grocery store. I grimaced at the mess they made (and her hands are now dyed blue, but she had a blast!)

This morning Stella announced to me, "I'm a tall girl!" Which was pretty funny. I'm sure she has heard this from other people, probably at school or something. I told her that yes, she was a tall girl and that I used to be a tall girl too and one day she'd be a tall woman just like me. Unless we start giving her coffee when she turns 3 or something. Ha!

Sparked by the fact that she's seemed so tall lately, I decided to measure her today after several months of forgetting. She's 39 inches! She weighs 37 pounds. No wonder she's thinned out so much, I think she's weighed 37 pounds for the last 7 months, but she's grown 3 inches. I think she outgrows something (maybe the car seat?) when she reaches 40 inches. What a big milestone!

Friday night we checked out the frankly kinda lame light show at Southpark Meadows. Luckily Stella is two. She was entranced!

Yesterday we went to a Holiday Cookie Party at one of Stella's classmates' houses. It happened to be in the Independence neighborhood where we were building a house before we found this one. And it happened to be in the exact same floorplan we were building! It was very cool to see what it would have been like to be there, and I am more sure than ever we made the right choice! Right off the bat, parking was a nightmare. We parked several houses away, which wasn't a big deal, but got one of the last spaces on the street. Tim kept seeing what he thought were spaces and I'd be like, "No, that's a driveway." The driveways are that narrow! I think we would have lost all our friends because no one would put up with trying to find parking to see us!

It was cool that almost everyone there was from the neighborhood. Apparently there are tons of kids and everyone hangs out together. I guess it's probably because their friends can't come over and visit anymore because they can't find a place to park;) We also saw the woman with 4 kids who would have lived across the street had we wound up living there. She seemed a little annoyed with us and said that she had wondered what happened to us. Apparently a single woman bought our house and she was wondering where the family with a kid went! It would have been nice for Stella since their daughter is only a couple of months older. But oh well, Stella has made plenty of friends through other channels! The house itself was so bland. I don't think it helped that the people hadn't decorated at all. But it definitely reconfirmed that we made the right decision!

And last, but not least, Stella must have learned "The Wheels on the Bus" at school because she was spontaneously singing it the other day. My parents somewhere have an old film of me singing this same song, although I'm older. I'd love to try and dig it up when I'm there for Christmas and compare!