Bella Stella...Our Beautiful Star

Warning: This blog will probably be pretty mushy with me gushing over Stella!! Please forgive me, but I can't help myself!!!

It's so hard to believe that little Stella May Joyce was one week old yesterday! Time is really zipping by.

Here are some of her one week old pictures.

We are so in love with her. Reeve and Kyle are very gentle and good with her. She really loves them and when she hears their voices she can't wait to see them.

Same with Tommy...she just lights up when he comes home from work. He melts when he sees her and can't get anything else done but hold her in the evening.

Reeve really loves to hold her.

It's a little harder for Kyle, but he holds her on his lap with me supporting her head...so I can't take a pic too easily.

She's very good with letting Tommy, Reeve, and Kyle hold her. I remember with Reeve and Kyle they pretty much put up a fuss when anyone else but me held them.

Every evening Stella gets a warm bath and then an olive oil body massage. She's in heaven when she's getting her massage.

It's rainbow weather here.

Whenever I try to take Stella outside she stiffens up and closes her eyes and won't open them until we get back inside...so she missed out on seeing her first rainbow.



The cutest thing that she does, in my opinion, is she likes to watch us sleep. In the middle of the night I notice her kind of moving her arms and I'll open my eyes and she's as calm as can be staring right at me. I've caught her doing the same thing with Tommy...she's just as calm as can be watching him sleep.
Okay enough gushing for now...more to come! You have been warned :-).

Stella May Joyce born April 30, 2009 at 1:40pm

We're in a blissed and blessed state just googling over Stella. She sleeps most of the time, and when she's awake we're in awe and forget to take pictures. She's a real lady...very sweet and dainty.
The pics speak for themselves:








Many Thanks to all who have wished us all well.

Feeding Frenzy & Patiently Waiting

Last week the kids and I went over to our friend's place down the road to help her feed her animals. We started out with the goats...I didn't get any pics...I've posted a lot of goat pics in the past.

Next we fed her calf Ricky his bottle. He is the sweetest bull calf and loves drinking his goat milk from the bottle.

Shortly after this pic was taken Ricky was transformed from bull to steer...I of course had no idea what that meant. My friend kindly laughed at me and told me how you turn a bull into a steer. She says you have to do it otherwise the meat is real gamey and does not taste good at all. I learn something new everyday!

Then we fed the piglets...they are getting sweeter by the day. Ironically enough they really love hot dog buns!!! Poor little piggies just have no idea what the future hold for them and some hot dog buns.

My friend says they are super friendly now and follow her on walks through the woods. She says they follow closer and easier to manage on walks than her dogs (who are really well behaved). Maybe if this baby doesn't come soon we'll go for a nice long walk in the woods with my friend and her pigs :-).

Last we fed and watered all the rabbits...way too many rabbits to count.

This is just one of like 10 cages. Most cages have one rabbit in them, but there are a couple of bunny cages like this one. Reeve's really good with the rabbits. They are so calm when he picks them up. Kyle and rabbits don't mix, even the calm ones go wild when Kyle tries to hold them. Me? I'm just not a rabbit person...I didn't even try to hold one.

No sign of baby, but I feel good and the midwife said on Monday that the baby had dropped.

Reeve's 9th and Laura's 38th Week

Reeve LOVES LEGOS... Before his birthday he built this huge lego tower. His cousin wanted to see pictures of it, so Reeve directed how many and what kind of pictures I should take to post on the blog.
Picture #1: View from top looking down

Picture #2: View from bottom looking up

Picture #3: View from top looking down center

Picture #4: View from top looking at man on observation deck

Picture #5: Proud Reeve with his tower


Reeve had a great 9th Birthday. The weather was beautiful and the kids had tons of fun playing outside with his juggling birthday presents (juggling pictures to come later...)I'm such a bum! The only picture I took was of him blowing out his birthday candles:

The sad sad story about the carrot cake...I was supposed to bake this cake in 3 spring form cake pans. I don't have 3 spring form cake pans, so I decided I'll bake it in a lasagna 9x13" pan. I baked it for 25min, just like the recipe stated. When I took the cake out of the oven it looked okay to me...I should have inserted a fork to check the center, but I didn't. Next I let the cake cook then I made the cream cheese frosting. The recipe called for 4 sticks of butter!!! I decided to not use any butter. It also called for some sugar which I substituted with honey when it dawned on me that I didn't put ANY sugar in the cake! I proceeded to frost the cake with the cream cheese,honey,lemon juice concocttion...it didn't exactly go on smooth. It was very lumpy and not at all pretty. I found 9 candles and I put them on the cake then we sang Happy Birthday to Reeve. He was soooo excited because carrot cake is his absolute favorite cake (he's had it in restaurants and never one made by me...that he can remember). Well the moment came to cut and serve the cake. When I made the first cut it was total goo...the inside had not baked at all! I told the kids I'd have to re-bake it...I baked it for another 25 minutes...still gooey inside. Reeve was in tears...not because he didn't get any cake, but because he said he felt like he pressured me into baking something I just wasn't capable of baking. He later told me that he was embarrassed for me.
All ends well...Tom came home and saved the day. Tom kindly explained to me that cooking in a lasagna glass pan is TOTALLY different than cooking in 3 separate cake form pans and that I needed to cook it for at LEAST twice as long. He baked the cake again and then we let it cool and put it in the fridge for the night...by this time it was almost 11pm. The next morning we tried it and it actually tasted okay for being baked 3 times with goopy cream cheese frosting and no sugar.
Reeve was impressed with Tom's baking skills and was very proud of his Papa for saving his birthday cake. Next year I'll know better.

I think I'll stick to cross-stitch vs. cake baking. I've done as much as I can do with my latest cross-stitch, now we wait for the baby to come so I know what name and date to stitch.


My feet are usually swollen by the end of the day, but in the morning I'm feeling pretty good for week 38...only 12 more days to go.
Reeve took this profile pic of me this morning.

We see the midwife again today and then next week she'll come here for a home visit. I've gathered all my diapers and baby clothes. We have the rear-facing infant car seat in the car and checked to make sure all three kids will fit. The kids have practiced putting diapers on their teddy bear and buckling the bear in the car seat...I think we're ready.

Our Milwaukee County Zoo Trip

Last Tuesday Tom had a Solar Class at WE Energies in Milwaukee. It was a gorgeous day in the 70'sF so I decided that would be an excellent time to take the boys to the Milwaukee County Zoo and have some good bonding time with them before the baby arrives.
Can you believe we have 4 more weeks to go???? Jeesh I got a a lot to get ready!
Zoos can be a really difficult place for an eco-friendly family, that's for sure. It's a difficult moral dilemma...are the animals well taken care of? Are they better off in the zoo than in the wild? Well the wild is the best place for them, but a lot of them are not safe from poachers and human activities. The zoo does spend a lot of money on conservation and education, so that does help ease my guilty conscience. The Milwaukee County Zoo is one of the few zoos in the United States to have Bonobos...a relative of the Chimpanzee. There were 3 Bonobos that we saw, but they were so very active and having a grand time just goofing off it was really hard to get a good picture of them. Here is the only picture I got:

There were 2 gorillas that we saw. This one was very sleepy, probably bored out of his gord. We did make eye contact with him, and the kids and I signed "I love you" and when we did he would close his eyes and kind of smile back, like he knew what we were saying...probably just our imagination, but it felt good.

The cheetahs were outside, but the Lions were in their winter enclosure. I really liked the indoor enclosure for the Big Cats. They were behind a thick wall of glass, but they were so close!

Most of them were sleeping. There is a sleeping Tiger behind Reeve and Kyle in this next picture:

Here is a sleeping Leopard:

Most of the time I was way behind Reeve and Kyle. They just were so excited, and the weather was so beautiful, that they just couldn't walk slow for their pregnant Mom.

I was relieved to sit on this cramped little safari train for 20 minutes. (Reeve took the picture...don't I look exhausted?)

Reeve LOVED the train, but we really didn't get to see the animals very much. The train at Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL was better...actually so was the train at the Indianapolis Zoo. I didn't care I just was glad to sit down!

Kyle was pretty pleased with the train too:

Look how small this train is...we felt bad for the train conductor, he looked really cramped. Reeve and Kyle had to help me in and out!

Reeve felt bad for the polar bear...thought it was way too hot for him, and wondered why he wasn't swimming.

The Grizzly decided it was a perfect day for a swim:

It's always neat to see free roaming animals at the zoo. However, this goose was not kind! I didn't get the picture, but he started to attack a little 2yr old girl...she was traumatized!

The peacocks and peahens were friendlier and more interested in each other.

I forgot to mention we went to the zoo on St. Patrick's Day...that's why the boys are decked out in their Green Bay Packer t-shirts & sweatshirts...actually most of the folks wearing green at the zoo were wearing Packer paraphernalia.
The Giraffes were looking tall and beautiful:

Here are the pregnant pics...Reeve took this one:

Kyle took this pregnant picture of me by the giraffes:

A woman saw Kyle taking the picture and offered to take a picture of the three of us:

Anyone who has ever spent any time around Kyle knows that he is obsessed with Zebras. The two things he really wanted to see at the zoo were the vampire bats (too dark and scary to take a picture of them...man were they FREAKY!) and the Zebras.

The elephants were LOVING being outside...we had to stand back because they were really flinging the mud around!


We got a kick out of seeing some solar panels at the zoo, since that's what really brought us there in the first place. This was a tracking panel.

Tom had a great time in his class, and says he learned a lot.