Tara Swain Unicorn Session

I've been dying to put these pictures on here since I got them back in April, but wanted to wait until after Stella's unicorn party. One of my best friends turned me onto this photographer, Tara Swain, over a year ago when Tara did a mommy-and-me session for my friend and her daughter. The pictures were absolutely amazing and I hoped that I would be able to use Tara some day. I started following her on Facebook and last fall I saw her advertise mini-sessions that would have a unicorn in them. The session would be 20 minutes long and I'd get 10-20 edited pictures! I knew that particular session would be just precious for Stella so I put some money aside (knowing that I wouldn't be working come March when the pictures were scheduled) and anxiously awaited the day of the picture session!

Tara works out of Paris, TX, so my mom, Stella and I got up early that Wednesday morning and drove to Paris. We were the second session of the day and I had so much fun watching my little girl kiss and love all over that "unicorn"! She kept calling it Sassy since that's what her pony is named, and it cracked me up!

I definitely hope to use Tara Swain again in the future because she did an awesome job and is just SO creative and talented at what she does!

Anniversary and Birthday!

On Friday, we celebrated our 5th anniversary and Stella's 2nd birthday! It definitely does not seem like Blake and I have been married for 5 years {which I think is a good thing}! He's such a hard worker for our family and at the risk of being way too cliche, I'm seriously so blessed to have him!

My sweet little girl is finally 2! I feel like I've been dreading her actually turning two because she's officially not a baby anymore. We woke up Friday morning and I made her favorite breakfast - "eggies!" We played a little that morning and I also started cleaning for her party the next day. My mom came over for a little while to help me clean AND help me with Stella while I cleaned {it's a wonder my house stays clean like it does, because it is NOT easy with Miss Priss running around}! For lunch, my parents met me at Chuck E Cheese and we stayed there about an hour and let Stella run around and play. That place is sensory overload for a two year old - she was mesmerized by everything and even did the Cupid Shuffle with Chuck E!

Since we were getting the house ready for Stella's party on Saturday, we had a low-key Friday night and just grabbed Mexican food {with sopapillas, of course} and then made our 3rd Home Depot run for the week! Blake did an AMAZING job fixing up the landscaping and that was the best anniversary present I could have imagined {which is so lame - either I'm really getting old or our landscaping REALLY needed some TLC}! Then, we prepped our pony, Sassy, for her transformation to a unicorn!

I honestly couldn't imagine a better way to spend this day than being with those two!

{she's usually happy in the mornings, but I think the camera in her face first thing was not too enjoyable!}

{opening some presents from Mommy and Daddy}

{posing in her dress-up shoes}

{Watching Chuck E Cheese from afar}

{She wanted in this car until it started moving all over the place!}

{Choo Choo!}

{no caption necessary!}

{She finally got brave enough to go up there}

{Cupid Shuffle}

{Sassy after we put the extensions in her hair}

{back porch}

Swim Lessons Part II

I could not be more happy with the last half of Stella's swim lessons. She was a little fish from her 5th-8th lesson. I'm genuinely surprised at how well she's going under water. We're going to be sure and make it to a pool at least once a week so that we can keep her skills going. These lessons were well worth the money and I plan to do this again next summer with the same instructor!

There's only so many pictures you can take of your child going underwater, but I will show these, nonetheless!! The video's just melt my heart!

And unfortunately, I took these video's before I realized that for YouTube they needed to be horizontal. I'm WAY behind the times and JUST got a YouTube account yesterday!

Swim Lessons - Part I

I think I probably should have titled my blog, "Have a Little Stella," since clearly that's all I write about :) !

Stella started swim lessons last week. We're doing private lessons at a lady's house. I got her teacher's information from a friend whose daughter took from her last year. Monday's class went great and I was really pleased with how Stella was taking to the water. She cried a little when Ms. Alisha first put her under the water, but she got over that quickly and seemed willing to try all that her teacher was asking of her.

Tuesday it stormed pretty bad here, so our lesson was cancelled and we picked up again on Wednesday. As soon as Stella hit the water she started crying and clinging to Ms. Alisha's neck. I was so bummed, but not totally surprised. She complied with what her teacher asked of her, but she did it through her tears. Every time she went under water she was getting water in her mouth because she was crying {and it is really hard to sit by and watch your baby cry like that}!

Thursday was the same story and this time I was super bummed. I had had a lengthy discussion {as lengthy as a discussion can be with an almost 2 year old} about how we need to listen to Ms. Alisha and follow her directions without crying. The main things that Stella is learning is to "do her underwater mouth" and hold her breath while under water for very short periods and kick, kick, kicking; jump, turn, and grab which is just when Stella is sitting on the side of the pool she will jump down, turn around to the edge of the pool and grab the edge; then, she's learning to monkey walk with her hands around the side of the pool to the stairs; and lastly, to start learning to float on her back.

Friday it was thundering and lightning so again our lesson was cancelled, but we had one of our make-up lessons on Saturday and I was SO happy with how well Stella did. She seemed like she had really gotten the hang of holding her breath and we also tried putting goggles on her, which she seemed to just love. We're now half way through the lessons and should finish up by this coming Friday if all this stormy weather will leave us alone! I'm just hoping and praying for more productive classes like the one we had on Saturday!