I know...

Ok, don't hurt me. I know it's been WAY too long. And I don't even have pictures to post this time either! I can't seem to find time to update this thing, spend time with my daughter and husband AND have a job. Its just too much. So forgive me for waiting what seems like a million years since I've posted anything.
What's happened since the last post...lets see. Well... our little girl is fast approaching her first birthday. Can you believe it?!?!? I can't! She's eating some 3rd foods now, but not all and has learned a great new trick. She has learned how to spit things out of her mouth. Yep, not liking this new trick, but she's also learning that momma just puts it back in her mouth and tells her "no ma'am." :) She likes eating the meat sticks and diced up carrots. Once this box of formula is out she's switching to milk, so we'll see what happens with that. They do that now at one year anyway. She is a complete chatterbox (dunno where she gets that from since neither her daddy or I talk much) and tells us all kinds of things. She hasn't really said a "word" yet but makes noises that sound really close to actual words. "Da da" and "Ma ma" are about the only things that she really says and means and even those are sporadic at best. She waves now when you leave and of course it's a whole arm and body wave. She's got 4 teeth; two on top and two on bottom. She still likes to put her two middle fingers in her mouth and suck. It looks like she's either saying "I love you" in sign language or she's telling us already that she wants to be a Longhorn. I know for you Aggie fans out there you won't like that, but her Daddy and I don't mind.
The biggest thing going on right now is her walking. She's doing it more and more each day and for longer periods of time too. Yesterday she was walking so much I thought she was just going to take off and that would be that. It literally is any day now that she just makes up her mind that she's going to do it and does. She gets just a little unsure of herself and plops down mid walk. She's gotten up to about 12 steps or so, so far.
Sunday we took her to our friends Rob and Gwen Sawyers with Be True Photography and got her pictures taken in the pumpkin patch in her ladybug costume. We don't have the CD with those pictures on it yet to post, but as soon as we get it you can rest assured that you will see some of them. We are also going back to them right before her birthday to get her one year pictures taken and then right after that I'm sure we will be back for Santa pictures like last year. Chris seems to think that Santa may be a no go for her this year since she's decided to be picky about who she goes to at times. We'll see. Every family has the crying Santa picture I'm sure at one point or another.
Thats about it for now until Halloween comes and the pictures get here. I'll post those things as soon as I can. Be patient. I haven't completely forgotten about this blog, it's just not a high priority most days. :) We love you all. Take care.
Love and hugs-
The Kubala's

It's Been Waaay Too Long, yet again! Sorry!

Well... it's been waaay too long! I know I've been HORRIBLE about updating this thing. I just can't manage to balance my time and get on the computer for a length of time that will allow me time to do this. :) The pictures attached were taken yesterday. That's her Aunt Misty holding her up for the photo opp.
So, I think I told you last time that I would add baptism pictures and that never happened. Well, to be honest they are still on Chris' computer and not this one. So maybe I can talk him into doing that tonight. *crosses fingers* Since then we have started eating baby food. So far we've been through all of the stage 1 fruits and we LOVE Peaches! The fruits included in stage one fruits are bananas, apples, prunes, and peaches. Now we've moved on to vegetables and have tried sweet potatoes and peas so far. The others left to try are green beans, carrots, and squash.
We are trying our very best to crawl. She gets up on all fours and rocks and will even take like half a step. Then she decides that she needs to have her middle two fingers in her mouth. That's right ladies and gentlemen, we make the Hook 'Em sign with our fingers when we suck on them. Yes, we are finger suckers, not thumb suckers. So, when she decides to do this our venture to crawl stops and then we scoot on our head to get around. The sitter asked if we could try and find a walker for her to move around in. We found one and Niki (the sitter) said that she LOVES it and will follow her around in it. Of course she started out going backwards, but now goes forward. She loves to stand and likes to grab at everything and put everything in her mouth. She's currently trying to cut one of her top teeth. Its so funny to watch; Chris will stand her in his lap and she'll grab his glasses and take them off, grab his ears and then start sucking on his nose. It's hysterical to watch! And chatter... oh wow this girl can talk! I can't imagine who she gets that from! She giggles and will occasionally do a full belly laugh. But she doesn't do it with the same thing twice of course!
Well... other than trying to avoid the Swine Flu not much else is going on. I'm counting down the days till the last day of school, which is the 29th of May. I don't have a bad class, I just need to end this year and regroup.
Well, we're going to Houston this weekend for my birthday. I hit the 29th year on Saturday. I'm just thankful for one more year and a VERY blessed life.
We love you all very much!
Love and hugs-
Stef, Chris, and Melanie

It's been too long... I know

The title says it all. This may prove to be a little harder to keep up with, with my working and all than I originally thought. Yes, I'm back to work. Ugh! It's really not that bad. The kids have been pretty good so far. I went to work for 3 weeks and now I'm on Spring Break. Not too bad huh? :)
As I would guess is normal Melanie had a MUCH easier time adjusting to the new schedule than I did. The first couple of days were really rough for me, but they got better. I don't suppose it will ever get easy, but it does get better. So much has happened since the last post! I'm going to try and remember it all.
For starters Melanie was baptized on March 7th here at our church in New Braunfels. We invited family only just because we knew it was a drive for most and knew it would be a total zoo if we included everyone. Chris has those pictures on his computer at work, so I'll do my best to get those posted this week while I have a chance. I have one of my cousin Cody holding her posted this time.
She's getting so big! I can't remember if I told everyone that she went on her first camping trip towards the end of February. We met my parents at Stephen F. Austin State Park in Sealy just outside of Katy. Of course she couldn't do much. But we took her on a walk in her stroller and she slept while Mommy and Daddy got some exercise.
She learned how to roll over this past weekend and does that on a regular basis now when she's on the floor. She pretty much grins at most anything these days and is just too cute for words. She's cutting a tooth on the bottom as well. Chris cut his first tooth at 3 months, and the doctor says it's hereditary. So we'll see how long it takes for it to come in.
The BIG news is that she giggled/laughed for the first time last night. Her Uncle Philip covered his eyes and then uncovered them while holding her and said "Boo!" and she just giggled. At first Chris and I were like "what was that?" and then we listened again and it was all I could do to keep from laughing myself. I LOVE watching her learn and grow!
Some other things she is doing now are... she wants to try and turn over in her swing (picture shown), and she also is wanting to scoot down into her covers and hide when she's asleep (picture shown).
We go to the doctor for her 4 month well baby check-up so I will have more information then. I know that we will be told to start cereal out of a spoon, and fruits and veggies. I'm so excited to try those with her!
Some big news for some friends of ours... Kim and Matt Huckaby had their baby, Taylor Ann last Wednesday. There were some major complications with Kim's pregnancy and we are just thrilled to death that everything went as it should have. What a blessing! Kim and I can't wait for Melanie and Taylor to play together. It's really kind of fun, because there are 3 of us that have had babies within 3-4 months of each other. So they will all go to school together. Melanie and Taylor will be at the same sitter come August. Congratulations Huckabys! We couldn't be happier for you!
Also on that same note, one of my best friends Amber Lausch is expecting again as well! So that means that Melanie and baby Lausch will be in the same grade as well! We don't know what Amber is having just yet, but we're pretty sure it's a girl again! So I, get to be an Aunt again! We couldn't be more excited for the two of you for the second time!
It's so cool that so many of our friends now have babies. We were sort of at the rear end of things with my friends back home and now all of our friends here in NB are catching up. I'm an "Aunt" to 3 kiddos of friends from home and it's just so much fun. My hope is that all of our kids, whether from here or there, that they are able to be friends with each other and have as much fun as we have and are having. Cheers to friendships past, present and future!
That's about it for today. I'll be back later this week with more information and pictures hopefully.

So... last night at midnight when Melanie was supposed to be asleep she decided that she was wide awake. We put her on her playmat, which SHE LOVES! It's here that Chris and I get to witness her learning how to do all sorts of things. We think it's the coolest thing to watch her learn how to move and do things. Up til now she has managed to inch and squirm but in any particular way. She gets her knees up under her, and could raise her head up but she never pushed up before... until last night that is. I managed to catch her in the act. I'm not saying my daughter is a genius or doing things before she's "supposed" to or anything, but I just think it's amazing how much control she has of her head at 3 months of age. She LOVES to sit up and wants to be facing everything (I wonder who she gets that from?). I don't think she cares that she's the center of attention but she definitely wants to know whats going on. Sorry kid, the nosiness comes with the genes. :) Today, she has been VERY vocal! She is talking to everything; again, sorry kid, that comes with the genes too! I'm sure I looked like the biggest idiot today in Target as we were buying the grandparents some goodies for their houses. We were playing and talking to each other. I don't really care what I looked like cause we were having fun! The countdown to my return to school is slowly but surely drawing to an end. While I'm glad to have something to do other than be at home, I'm sad to have to turn Melanie over to someone else during the day. Chris and I trust this lady emensely and know she'll do a great job. She only wants 4 kids total, and only wants teachers kids. This means that we won't have to reserve a spot during the summers or on my breaks AND she's 75-100 dollars cheaper than anywhere or one else in town! I'm lucky to have the job I have, I am thankful for that; but it is a bittersweet return to school for me. I know in my heart that I am making the right decision to continue teaching even though it may be hard at first.

About 2 nights ago it was Chris' turn to feed Melanie and when they were done they both crashed out. I thought it was a cute picture and also thought I needed to post these pictures for you. About 5 minutes after that she woke up and she looked up at Chris and grinned real big like, "you think I'm asleep... but I'm nooooooot!" I wasn't able to get that picture.

Her room...

Like I said, I'm backtracking here. Here are some pics of her room for those of you that haven't seen it yet. Now, yes, the room is picked up more than this. These were taken right after we had had all of the 5 showers! LOL

I'm going backwards here, but wanted you to see these

Ok, so Christmas has past, but for those of you that didn't or haven't seen, here are some pics from Christmas. My Dad is the goofiest thing with her and insisted on being called "PawPaw Clause" so that's what we called him. There were also a couple of pics of the 5 generations in both directions in my family, but somehow they didn't get put on the computer. I will have to post another one later with those. I have a great-grandmother on my dad's side (96 this year) and a great-grandmother on my mom's side (99 this year) so Melanie has 2, count them 2 great-great grandmothers along with the original sets of grandparents to go with them! What a blessing!

We have a grinning girl!

So, if you know me I smile a lot... mostly. Well, apparently Melanie is going to be a smiler herself. She smiles at almost everything, but especially her Daddy. We LOVE our daddy! Here's a picture of the two of them watching TV together, OH YES... we discovered the TV and we think it's quite fascinating. And the other picture I got... thank you very much! Everyone has been trying to get the grin caught on camera and can't because the minute a light comes on for the flash she gets distracted and looks concerned like "what the heck is that thing?!?!" So... here ya go!

She LOVES her Jumperoo and Bumbo

So, Melanie is holding her head up rather well these days and I decided that it was time to get out the Bumbo. She thoroughly enjoyed sitting up in that thing and just lounges back like she's watching the game or something. Then, I decided that if she could do that well that I needed to put together her Jumperoo. She likes it, but her short little legs don't quite touch the floor and we have to put a pillow underneath her. She's not sure what to think about it, but we can tell that she likes it a lot.

We joined the blogging world!

So I decided that if we are going to have a family and it is going to continue to grow while we still have family and friends out of town that we needed to have one of these. I'm going to do my best to update it, and get my husband in on the updates as well ;). Be patient, we're learning. For example, I tried to upload a pic and turns out, we make pictures a little big for this site! Since Melanie is 3 months old already I have some catching up to do. It's a work in progress.