A Doc Christmas

Christmas morning, Santa had a Doc McStuffins house setup for Stella to enjoy when she got up.  It's a lengthy 10 minute video, but the very beginning captures when she first sees the house.  I love her reaction!

Her present opening skills have drastically improved this year.

Christmas Card 2013

For this year's Christmas card, we decided we wanted to capture our family in our new home and in our new city (well, new city given that we haven't lived here full time for 10+ years).  So, mom came over with her trusty DSLR and we ended up with the following in front of our fireplace upstairs:

And we just so happened to snap a good picture of Stella in front of the fireplace downstairs with the stockings for the back of our card:

Checkin' Up

Stella dressed up as Doc McStuffins today for school for Halloween.  Here she is afterwards making sure that both Ember and I have stellar tickers:

Pumpkins

Shortly after Stella was born, I carved a star pumpkin in her honor (I carved another star the following year too).  This year, Megan carved a Doc McStuffins face, Stella "poked" Minnie Mouse arms, legs, and head into a mini pumpkin, and I carved the Super Man logo (aka Super Stella).  Here she is super pumped on the outcomes:

Two Year Birthday Partay

Stella LOVES Doc McStuffins.  So, naturally, Megan planned a Doc McStuffins themed party for her second birthday.  Complete with themed center pieces:

Cupcakes:

And a band-aided smash cake:

We had a good showing of friends and family and all had a good time.  I was especially warmed by how happy and how much fun Grandpa Peters had watching and playing with Stella:

As I did last year, I put together a photo montage of my favorite pictures from Stella's second year and had it playing on repeat in the background:

Two Year Pictures

This year, we took Stella to several locations for her two year pictures (all of the pics are here).  Here are some of my favorites.  We started at Botanica Park:

We tried some spots in Riverside Park with not much luck.  We ended in Naftzger Park with balloons!

Big Shoes to Fill

Stella's a big fan of putting our shoes on.  I finally caught her in the act on video.  The best part is that it ends in a big hug:

Exploring the Ozarks

As I've mentioned in the past, Megan's grandmother, Judy, lives at the Lake of the Ozarks.  We had an opportunity to get away this weekend for a visit.  This time, we went exploring at Ha Ha Tonka State Park.  We had a good time exploring the castle ruins and checking out the caves in the park.

Another new (to us) and cool attraction we checked out was Casa del Loco Winery.  We had some good pizza and great wine with an awesome view of the valley!

Snow Shoveling

Just got back from a trip to KC to a driveway full of snow.  Dad came over to help and Stella got all suited up and joined in.  I'll take all of the cheap labor I can get.

The Big Move

After many months of trying to sell our house, we received an offer over the holidays.  It was a very tough decision to leave Overland Park, where I lived for almost 10 years and we raised Stella for the first 1+ years of her life.  However, we want Stella to grow up around more of her family and have thus decided to move to our hometown of Wichita, KS.  Today, we are 100% out of our house and looking forward to this new chapter in our lives. We will dearly miss our great friends in the Overland Park area, but we are just down the road a few hours!