Best of Stells Bells

I felt guilty that I put my favorite recent photo of Meg up but hadn't done the same for Stella. So here it is:



Is she so grown up or what? I have to give a shout out to Stella's godmother, our dear friend Kristen, for taking this and many other great fall shots of the girls a few weeks ago.

I think my friend Erin's latest blog post (see Princess Pigbear link on the right side) has made me emotional today. She is having her 2nd baby tonight, and the post was a letter to her daughter that made me weep! Literally weep. You should go read it, it is really a beautiful piece of writing.

Not much else - time is flying around here. I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving. Just to get through a day, have the kids in bed - I breathe a sigh of relief. But then I feel a twinge of sadness, because the day flew by, like most days, and these little girls aren't going to be little forever...so I'm trying to not take it for granted.

So what am I thankful for?

Stella and her Daddy



Meg and her Daddy



Just Daddy

Out of touch

I think about blogging all the time - does that count?

It's the sick bay around here. Stella's fighting another, or more likely, the same ear infection from a month ago, and now I've got it too - so we're both on antibiotics. Eric is swamped with work, along with caring for us, and Meg, well, thank God she's a peaceful and pretty easy baby. We're on the mend, so hopefully more frequent blog posts will resume. But no promises.

Last week Meg and I did take an overnight trip to Charlotte to visit my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew who were in town for a night. We had a blast. I hadn't seen Jay since April, and he's such a little man now. I love him so much! Check him out:



And here are the cousins, taking a bath together:



My big brother with Jay and Meggles:



We're gearing up for Eric's 37th (DAMN! He really robbed the cradle when he got me!) on the 24th. I can't believe that when I met him, he was 27. November is a big month for his family. His mom, dad, and brother were also born in November, and his parents anniversary is on Thanksgiving this year. Then his sister had to go screw things up by arriving in June. I know she reads this blog, so it's not like I'm talking about her behind her back or anything.

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

meg's best

I can't stop looking at this picture. This is our smiley baby girl at her best!

Over the hump

Hope I'm not speaking too soon, but I think we are finally over the hellatious newborn hump with Meg. It seems like overnight she has turned into a bubbly, kicking, smiling, squealing little baby. She's sleeping much better, 4 or 5 hour stretches at night, and we are all feeling SO much better. More back to normal every day.

As many of you well know, when you're in the thick of that new baby chaos, you feel like it's never going to end. You're never going to sleep again. You'll never have another moment to yourself. You'll never have energy to exercise, or cook a decent meal again, much less pay bills or do any semblance of work.

And then, it all begins to come together, and you can't believe your tiny baby is already figuring out this world.

Business is good too. We're getting more custom video jobs all the time with Stellar Media, and Wedding Bell Videos is set to film 70 plus weddings in 2007. We've moved out of our Waynesville office and now only have office space in Candler, at the local community college small business center. We've got about 18 more months there, and then we're hoping to relocate our headquarters to Asheville, finances permitting.

It's really hard to put into words, but we're just so happy right now. I don't think I'm putting words in Eric's mouth when I say that this feels like the best our lives could get. I try so hard to remember that when things are nuts around here. We did a video life story of an elderly couple in our neighborhood, and the 80 something year old husband said that the happiest time in their lives was when their kids were little. I think he was probably right.

So if you wondered if Meg and Stella look much alike, check these out. My friend Kristen emailed this to me, with the subject line "all your kids look exactly the same!" See for yourself. Meg is the first photo.