Marzipan for Breakfast

A friend of ours gave us a grab bag of Marzipan the other day. The bag with a mixture of different types of marzipan, some not wrapped, sat on the coffee table. Maja left Stella in the living room for a minute to do something in the kitchen. Hmm…she thought it's awfully quiet in the living room. When she returned, Maja found Stella, elbow deep in the Marzipan bag, chocolate all over her hands and face. She pulled out a small bar and offered it to Maja to share in the joy.

Monkeys eat bananas

Have you ever wondered what a monkey sounds like? Just ask Stella, she does a great chimpanzee impression. That is, if you can catch her standing still long enough. Our new game is to walk/lunge between mommy and daddy. Or simply making dust as she speeds off in the other direction. She will stop and say bye though.

Who would have thought that learning to eat was such a difficult task. She’s getting the hang of it though.

Skedaddle

Four signs...

…that Stella hung out with Daddy yesterday morning
1. Brown Corduroy Overalls
2. Orange Shirt
3. Orange hoodie Sweatshirt
4. Baseball cap curls flying out from the sides
Ready to cruse the neighborhood, Cracker in one hand, dog on the side, daddy pushing the stroller

Daddy also got out his matchbox cars. Stella likes the big four-wheelers and the fire truck. There’s hope yet.

Nein, nein, nein

Nein nein nein
We've added a new word to our vocabulary. Maybe it's because we don't say it often but when we do we mean business or that Stella has now associated that certain things such as the electrical outlet or AV video outlet are called "nein" (no). For example, we let Stella push all the buttons on the media devices. The only thing she is not allowed to touch is the video cable coming out of the front of the TV. Now-a-days as she approaches the forbidden cable she'll point to the cable and then say "nein, nein, nein" shaking her head, staring directly at Maja and then pull her hand away.

Eyes hair and nose
Stella is now able to recognize different "things". If you can ask her where her nose is and she'll point to it. Then you can ask her where mommy's or daddy's nose is and she'll either point or grab it. She especially likes it when she squeezes daddy's nose and it "honks".
She also knows where her hair is, mouth and knee. Yeah, don't ask, she has a fascination with knees. Stella will also play games with you. There is a song where you cover your eyes, she will try right along with you. Also a song where you slap your hands and she does that too.
With most of the words too she has an understanding of the German and English words.

Hugs and Kisses
Stella has become much more affectionate of late. She loves to cuddle. Not only when you wake her up and when she's tired but also while playing. While playing or rolling around, she'll lay down on her belly cuddling with her blanket, bunny or you and look. She'll also crawl up into your lap and give you a big hug…and kiss

Planes, trains and…cats
I mentioned before that Stella gets excited when she hears the planes approaching for a landing. Now if we're inside and she here's it, she still gets excited; pointing upwards, uttering "ohh" and then try and look outside to see it. The other day, we were sitting on the couch and she leaned over my knee almost falling off to crane her neck out the window to see it. Stella also recognizes the chimes that mark the coming of a train and she gets excited. Lastly Stella likes cats. When ever we see one she giggles and points.

Stella being cute

Some random pix of Stella over the past week, click here.

Nora the Explorer

Working to achieve great heights…herself!

I think she’s looking for elves

Return of the Unicorn

We had a traumatic event this weekend, although I'm not sure if it was more traumatic for mom or for child. Over the weekend we were visiting Oma and Opa. Stella was playing in the sandbox having a good ol' time with Uncle Christoph and Daddy. Stella somehow lost her balance, toppling over the edge of the sandbox and doing a face-plant on the patio. The tremor of her head hitting the pavement reverbrating under our feet with a dull thud.

It was one of those moments where everything happened in super slow motion and yet was so quick that neither of us could react in time to stop the event from happening.

We picked up Stella and without a moment's notice "Supermom" swooped in and whisked Stella away, leaving daddy standing there dazed as to what just happened. In discussing the situation afterwards, Maja explained that with full adrenaline flowing, her only thought was that if she got Stella out of the "scene" it would help calm her down. So she ran by, grabbed Stella and went into the house.

Needless to say, Stella calmed down after a few minutes and showed no signs of internal injury. She does however have a huge bump on her forehead but it doesn't seem to bother her. As I assured Maja, this isn't the first nor the last bump, bruise or scrape that Stella has or will get.

And the adventures continue….

Proud....sunhat

As I’ve mentioned before, Stella loves playing in front of the mirror. Here is a short video we took the other day of her playing with her hat.

The Mafioso Clown

Picture this, Sicily 18….naw better yet, fast forward a couple hundred years. Daddy comes home to a happy Stella running around and through a makeshift tent of table cloth over dining room chairs. Chocolate icecream has strategically dried on her nose and cheeks so that when she looks up at you with sun hat half draped over her starry eyes and Four toothed grin, she really looks like a clown.  

 

Fast forward a few minutes, we're in the kitchen, dinner. Stella sitting on her favourite spot on the counter, eyes some cherry tomatoes and grabs one. Nothing out of the ordinary, she loves tomatoes.

 

As we're preparing dinner I here a flop on the floor. I look over to see Stella's pants full of tomato seeds and right below her a carcass of what used to be a tomatoe sprawled out on the floor.

 

She giggles, grabs another tomato with both hands, looks me in the eye with a devilish grin of joy that only a true mercenary could appreciate and then proceeds to squeeze as hard as she can, shooting tomato guts all over the kitchen.

 

Stunned at the sight I can only laugh, which only encourages her as she grabs another tomato and goes through the same process.

 

All in all about 8 tomatoes lost their lives in this escapade!

Happy Fourth from Expatriates in Germany

Yesterday we celebrated the fourth with the Johnson's, special guests 95 year old Grandma and uncle Danny from Minnesota plus Suzanne's host parents from her exchange student time Wolfgang and Monica.

The wind kicked up a bit to relieve us from the heat.

here's a link to more pictures.

Spencer was kind of grumpy with teeth troubles but everyone had fun.

Hot day in the Garden

It's hot!

We filled the other half of the sandbox with water to cool off. Check out the pix

Attack off the Wererabbit

Although Stella has her own regular toothbrush, Maja also uses a rubber brush that fits onto your finger like a thimble. In Trying to stick your finger into a squirmy childs mouth is quite a challenge. Maja was finally able to get close to Stella’s teeth when she chomped down hard. Even with the thick rubber protection, Stella’s huge incisors hurt. In surprise Maja gave a short gasp and tried to pull out her finger which in turn, the rubber gave a nice rubberband “snap!” Stella Found this hilarious and as soon as the finger came close again chomped and chomped. Playing the game, Maja exagerated her reactions (careful not to put her finger actually in the mouth) to which Stella kept chomping and laughing.

Stella will be walking on her own soon. She really doesn’t need your support but she thinks she does. Sometimes when she doesn’t think about it she’ll take a few steps on her own. If you try and get her to come to you, she’ll lunge at you. But she’s standing more and more on her own.

Stella has some new friends on the Block. Two girls roughly Stella’s age live down the street; Hannah and Tolstoja. They love playing with each other and when every one walks by the other’s house, they have to run out and say hi.

Flying bambina

Stella has no fear as we’ve stated before. When she is on the bed she loves to throw herself backward into the pillows and giggle away. This video is of a rather tame Stella as she can throw herself back with a crazy amount of force.

Howling at the….moon

Last night we showed Stella that the wolf in one of her books howls. She looked at us eagerly as we made the howling sound. After a few minutes she made a similar howl. We didn’t get it on video but will do so soon because it is the cutest thing ever.

Holly is not BOB

A couple of weeks ago, while visiting the twins, we set Stella on Bob the big black lab. Now Stella wants to try this with holly. Stella continuously walks up and tries to straddle Holly. Holly of course runs away as fast as possible.

Vampire Baby Returns

Last night Stella for the first time ever gave mommy a kiss. She’s come up and given hugs before but this time she grabbed mommy’s head and planted a big one right on the lips.