A visit from Grandma

My mom came to visit us this last week. We had a great time and were so grateful she was brave and made the drive by herself. (with the help of a little gps) We miss her already. We did a lot of fun stuff and also relaxed and played quite a bit too.

We visited the Biltmore Estate in N.C. ...

Wow, what an amzing place! A 'must see' for sure. The renovations were amazing, we saw a ton of original John Singer Sargeant portraits. 16th century, Flemish wall tapestries, and walked through rooms that so many influential figures from long ago had walked through as well. What a feeling.
It was a beautiful day...

Dream big my sweet...

We went to the park to play and swing...

And played with new toys in new outfits from Grandma...

And went swimming...

It was a great week...

Thanks again, Mom, for coming. XOXO

Stella pretends to blow her nose.

I've found that Stella really likes to play with the baby wipes. And just two days ago she's started 'blowing her nose' with them. She's making the sound with her mouth. Randy and I haven't been blowing our noses lately, I wonder if she's just remembered mommy doing that from weeks ago!!?? Anyway, I just had to share. For those of you who receive this as an e-mail directly you will need to click on the link of http://1krusefamily.blogspot.com to view the video. I've been told that the link also appears at the bottom of the text in the e-mail as well, for future reference.

this and that

We went to a birthday party this weekend at a great park. I love the Daddy's swinging their daughters photo. Stella sure has some great friends and they have such a great time together. It's very fun to watch!

This is Stella's friend Elizabeth. We had her over one day and Stella was very determined to give her hugs, even though Elizabeth did NOT want them.

Stella really enjoys pushing her baby around in the stroller.

Stella's first time at the beach

This weekend we went to visit our very good friends in Savannah, GA. You are witnessing some of Stella's very first steps into the ocean here in the video. It was a great day at Tybee Island. We were very excited to get her to the beach for the first time.

Stella really enjoyed it. She loved the water and wasn't afraid; she walked up and down the beach and in and out of the water.

She still knows no strangers. She was walking up to random people, saying 'hi' if they were there and trying to go through their things...in particular their sandals and bags. In some of the pictures you can see her carrying a pink water bottle. She must have carried that thing around with her 75% of the time. I don't know what her fascination was with it, but it's was aluminum, so it wasn't very light! It was a beautiful day and we had such a good time.

and the winner is...

This is Stella with her friend, Elizabeth. We all went out to dinner for my birthday. The girls had a really great time sitting side by side in their high chairs. They were really acting silly. Then as we were leaving the restaraunt the girls decide to have some foot races! Elizabeth won this one. I absolutely love the look on both of their faces. Pure joy in the truest sense!