Stella's Down on the Farm Birthday Party

The day after Stella's birthday, lots of her friends and family members came over for a birthday extravaganza. Since we decided on a barnyard theme, Daddy got the nice folks from Pony Tales to come out and give pony rides to all the kiddos. The birthday girl was their first customer, and here she is in the saddle...Emma and Sadie rolled out in the cart while everybody else waited in line...
Ride 'em, Cowgirl!
Sarah Faye loves animals, but since she gets to ride real horses sometimes, the ponies did not present much of a challenge for her equestrian skills. She does, however, win the prize for farthest travel to the birthday party, and most traumatic day, thanks to her very eventful ride to the party...
Stella and the Sharbono girls. The only time that they all three looked at the camera simultaneously was as they were riding away from the goofy acting parents with the cameras...
Stella and Molly also have smile coordination problems. Hopefully we can work it all out by the time they are posing for group pictures at prom...
Aaron: master horseman and picture-perfect poser...
Emma joins Stella and Molly as they continue to try to get it together...
Welcome to the Sharbono section of the blog. Since Jen is a little busy these days, I decided I would just post a million pictures of her cute little dumplings and save her the trouble of blogging...
Holding hands....so sweet!
Such big girls!
One Sharbono girl is obviously enjoying her ride more than the other, but you'll have to ask their parents to tell them apart, because I sure can't...
Stella, Lora, and Molly having a great time...
Cohen and his mommy. Emily dressed her little man for the occasion, in his farm boy overalls...
Lora and her daddy really enjoyed the pond...
The bouncer, or as I like to call it, Stella's Backyard Cagefighting Arena...
One little Sharbono was all partied out and needed some time to rest with Officer Daddy...
When you're two years old you need two cakes, right? Actually, the one on the right is yummy cake. The one on the left is dairy-free, a.k.a. yucky cake. Note the "soy cream" in the background. The party guests wisely left the soy cream and dairy free cake to Stella...
Daddy lighting Stella's candles...
And Stella blowing them out after making her wish. The next day when we asked Stella what her favorite part of the party was, she said it was when everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to her...
Cheese! I love Molly's expression in this picture...
Stella ate her weight in strawberries during the party...
The Old Man, Uncle Benny, and Aunt Eloise had front row seats for all the action...
Since we all know by now that Tristyn did not enjoy her time on the real ponies, I just wanted to prove that we did have one horse she enjoyed riding...
Talia, Cohen, and the Laiche girls found all the hidden farm animals in our "Needle in the Haystack" game. I think I should have posted instructions for the game while more of the partygoers were still around, but oh, well. At least these four enjoyed it...
Julia, Lauren, and Stella having a very serious conversation about pierced ears...
Stella found time to check on Baby Bird as the crowd thinned out...
A father-son chat by the bouncer. I think Jace was breaking the news that it was time to go home. Cohen was not happy about this...
When she got back in the bouncer after her guests left, Stella asked, "Where's all my friends?" She obviously got over the disappointment that they had all gone home rather quickly...
And this is what happens to a dairy-free cake after all the partygoers leave: you let the birthday girl lick off all the icing...
Since Stella wants to play with each individual toy that she opens, presents can take a while at our house. I am not sure what round of opening this was, but everyone was so generous to Stella that Damon and I are thinking of moving out of our bedroom and sleeping under the dining room table so that she can have enough room for all her new toys...
Sunday morning she got in some quality cuddling time with her big chick from the Sharbonos...
And she thought she looked like Mary Poppins when she got dolled up for church in her new dress from Aunt Ruby...
We had a great time helping Stella celebrate another year! Thanks to all of our friends and family who made the day so special for all of us! We love you!

Stella's BirthDAY

On March 26, Stella turned two. We started the day by waking up our birthday princess and taking her to her favorite morning spot, "Daddy's bed." She really enjoyed opening her card with her fresh-from-the-bed hairdo. You can tell that Daddy was still a little sleepy...We followed that up with a tradition around our house, "Birthday Breakfast." During "Birthday Breakfast," Stella had her very first Flintstone vitamin. She has now joined the "1o Million Strong and Growing." This next picture is proof of her Crane heritage-our family really loves their bacon...
Later that day we all went to Baton Rouge to get a 3D peek at Stella's baby sister. Stella wanted her to come out, so we had to explain to her that the baby's not ready yet. Guess she looked ready to Stella. Outside the ultrasound place, Stella opened a birthday present from Aunt Sheila...
Then we were off to Monkey Biz for some monkeying around...
Mawmaw Shirley rode home with us and Stella took that opportunity to open more birthday presents...
Jamie heard that Stella got a pony for her birthday, so she had to come over and try it out...
In spite of the sober expression, Stella really loved her horsey from Mrs. King. I think she was too busy playing and did not welcome my interruption...
She and Mawmaw had a great time coloring in her new Dora book...
At the end of the day, we were all exhausted, but the fun was only getting started. Stellapalooza 2010 was scheduled for the next day, so we all hit the hay to rest up for more birthday fun!

Daddy's Little Helper

Stella really likes to help. Recently, Daddy was modifying a trailer into his dream contraption: an adventure racing trailer. Along the way, Stella helped him take a few measurements...I hope Daddy double checked Stella's figures, because everything that she measures turns out to be "20."

The Invitation Photos

Just wanted to share the photos that we used for Stella's birthday party invitations. Here is the cover shot, photo credit to Daddy...And this photo by Mommy was on the inside of the card...
We can't wait for next year when we'll have two little girls to ride the streetcar!

Sesame Street LIVE!

Stella received an early birthday present on Friday, when she got tickets to Sesame Street LIVE! from the Old Man, MawMaw Shirley, Aunt Sheila, Aunt Lacie, and Uncle Ryan. True to form, we made it to our seats just in time to see the curtain open. Stella was really excited about seeing Elmo. She does not look very excited in this picture, but I just liked how blue her eyes were, so here it is...Putting her hands together for the performers...
We especially liked the song that Ernie sang about being captain of a ship called the Rubber Duckie, since we are very fond of ducks at our house, rubber and otherwise...
During intermission PawPaw got her an Elmo balloon, which she insisted was a kite...
She had front row seats for all the action, and Elmo even touched her hand! Of course, Mommy did not have the camera ready when that happened...
Stella and MawMaw were catching stars. Daddy was obviously thoroughly enjoying himself...
Very intent on the show...
We all had a great time with Elmo and the gang thanks to our sweet and thoughtful family. Be on the lookout for video of Stella enjoying the show...coming soon to the blog!