toot, toot.........toot

I will begin by saying that I have had a rough week. Threw a little fit this evening, cried a little bit, got it back together and was ready to do a big rant of a blog to just get it all off my chest. Then 20/20 came on with some sick little kids and straightened me right up. I got a little lesson in be happy, be thankful and quit whining. So, lucky you... no rant tonight.

Some of you may remember how pleasant I was during the home building process. (Not very) I got fed up with the builder and it got ugly. Anyway, I did get a wonderful house and home for my family. Yes it was very hard, yes it was all worth it and yes I would do it again. One of the many struggles I had while building the house was conveying my vision and having it carried out, specifically in the kitchen and master bath. It took lots and lots of arguing and redoing, but we did get everything right and I do love it.

A few months ago our builder called to see if we would mind him having a photographer over to take some pictures of our house to enter into the dallas home builder association design contest. Sure Why not. Which rooms? The kitchen (major battle #1) and the master bathroom (major battle #2). Of course those are the rooms. I find it very odd that the builder argued most every decision I made in those rooms, but now he thinks they are good enough to enter into a design contest. I also find it odd that he didn't design one square inch of either room, but... whatever. Long story, but guess what. Out of all of the new homes entered in Dallas, MY kitchen won FIRST PLACE!!! Amazing, surprising, very validating. After all of that drama the builder wins an award. I have to say it... thats my award. So toot toot. Thats me. I tooted my own horn.

The last toot is Rex! Holy Moly! I don't know what has gotten into him. He has been a handful and a half lately. I keep telling myself that its just hard while we are adjusting to our new back to school schedules, he is over tired, its a phase and/or any combination of those things. My precious little angel couldn't just be being bad.

Well he is now throwing full out fits if he is mildly unhappy. I understand a good fit now and then. But this (and others lately)... seem a little gratuitous. Today Yates wanted to go to chic-fil-a and Rex apparently did not. Yates played on the playground, Rex was fine. We sat down to eat and Rex flipped out. He screamed and thrashed and snorted throughout the entire meal. I couldn't even hold onto him b/c he was flailing around like a nut! I tried everything I could think of and was so embarrassed. I had to rush Yates through is nuggets and high tail it to the car. Put the toot in his car seat and I swear he faked sleep. He layed his head down and closed his eyes. I buckled Yates in and looked back at the little baby I was feeling sorry for b/c he must have been so sleepy to have been acting so terrible and he was smiling at me. What? Toot! If he's so smart he should just tell me that he doesn't want to go to chic-fil-a next time... save us and chic-fil-a a lot of nonsense.

He has also decided that when he is sleepy, he wants to nurse but he doesn't want the milk. So he will nurse, jerk away, spit, scream, repeat. I'm thinking, easy solution. Here's your pacifier. Nope, he screams louder b/c he really doesn't want the pacifier, he throws the pacifier, then tries to nurse, jerk away, spit, scream, repeat some more. Needless to say he's been having to soothe himself to sleep a little bit lately. Toot! As any good mommy should say, "Its just a phase."

Doesn't he just have that look in his eye?

Today after school Stella was standing in the kitchen drawing at one of the bar stools... wearing a regular dress AND her Belle dress AND her huge tutu of course:

Me: "Stella, what are you drawing?"

Stella: "Its just an abstract with black."

Me: "Oh."

oh where, oh where has my little blog gone?

We have been so busy trying to squeeze out every last drop of summer that I haven't blogged in ages. Now, I have some serious catching up to do.

It will be easiest to recap in reverse order of events. The current situation is a mild back to school chaos. Our schedules are totally haywire and I am paralyzed by confusion trying to figure out a way to make it all work. Nap time and the strict carpool line are in a huge battle with each other right now. If Stella could just have a driver, our problems would be solved... or maybe she could just ride her Barbie bike back and forth. That would work too. The boys have to nap or we will all suffer. Finding a time for them to get long enough naps or ideally an uninterrupted nap is the problem. Where there's a will there's a way... right?

So big sister Stella is in real school! She started pre-k at Good Shepherd on August 25th. She is in the afternoon 1/2 day class every day and so far it is going really well. We have her school schedule down, its just the poor little brothers that aren't sorted out. So not fair. She has a cute little uniform and backpack and off she goes. Every day I ask her to tell me one thing she learned during school that day and I haven't gotten a good answer yet. Still waiting. Today she took her paints and paint brushes to show and tell. How cute!

Yates

The boys are doing great. Yates is loving some time without Stella's constant high energy and volume levels. For the first time in his life he is getting a chance to talk without being talked over or corrected. I am really happy for this time for and with him. Last night we were trying to get Stella to choose her favorite thing to take to show and tell and Yates interjected, "Hey, my favorite thing is 'hot cholly meeulk'." (What he calls chocolate milk and yes, he is addicted.)

Rex

Rex is crawling and can say "da-da." He is still so smiley and cute. He has completely learned a baby of the family technique - he is big time into fake crying. It is so silly. When Stella or Yates touch him in the face or head or even get too close to him he screams and cries. Pa-lease! The cute things he is doing is playing little games like trying to "get me" and he laughs hysterically if I hold him in the air tilt him forward. So funny.

Atlanta

Last weekend, we attended my cousin Tiffany's wedding in Atlanta with my parents. The Wednesday before we left, also the first day of school, Rex woke up with a 103+ fever. He was irritable and lethargic with the fever so I ran him to the doctor knowing we were flying to Atlanta Saturday morning. The doctor said he had a virus and we were fine to go. But poor Rex kept the fever and felt terrible the entire rest of the week and weekend. We just took turns holding him constantly so he could sleep everywhere we went. We were all so sore from so much big limp baby holding.

Rex was in a near coma for days, but I put him in the big boy carseat on the way to the doctor and he came to life...

The wedding was very nice and we are so happy for Tiffany and Rex (her new husband/ major name coincidence). We crammed so many things into the weekend, Latino street fair with tons of food and bouncy things for the kids (FUUUN!), Braves game (the boys officially started their baseball field tour and got their first baseball),

nice restaurant (Yates and Rex slept through an entire dinner) and after so much fun we almost missed the wedding... the whole reason we were there! We got into a huge argument over the directions and got all turned around and barely made it in time! Terrible! Tiffany looked beautiful, the bridesmaids dresses were fabulous and Tiffany's decor was really pretty. She had a fun photo booth that caught some really hilarious pictures.

California

We were in California with the whole Grabham family up until the first day of school. We stayed in a great house in an amazing location in Dana point. The house was the very last house on a huge cliff overlooking the ocean and bordered a nature preserve. The house amusingly had "wall to wall" carpet and the kids loooooved it! They ran and jumped and flipped and rolled and cartwheeled and did handstands and crawled and squirmed. Who knew?

How many Grabham men can you get on one beach?

We got to spend time with precious baby cousin Charlee and celebrate Anne's birthday with her. Michael and I got to do some art shopping and a little regular shopping and that was fun. We had a seriously exhausting hike to the beach from the house, but we went every day anyway. Loved it!

Stella is a beach girl through and through. We are always amazed at how sandy she gets. She leaves no portion of her body sand free. After the beach one day she was writing a list of words. She had a coloring book with some blank lines and she decided she needed to write a word on each line that went with a color. The first color was grey and the word she wrote was "PALKIN." It took me a minute to get it, but then I did... Oooohhh... pelican... of course... A few days later she was hiding golf balls around the house and drew a map in the carpet to help people find the hidden balls. What? Who draws maps when they're 4? She is too much.

She really fell asleep like this. Michael had to move an umbrella over her...

Yates had fun chasing the "toikeys" (seagulls), digging holes and moving sand.

Rex ate sand and ate more sand and ate more sand and ate more sand. It was so gross. He couldn't get enough and he had the diapers to prove it.

I am so glad they all like the beach. If we could only get them to carry their own gear... ugh!

Bye Bye Summer : (

Duh...

SJ reading to Rex

This was a bit of our dinner conversation Thursday night:

Yates: "Mommy, where did I get my blue truck?"

Me: "Gigi and Gabby at Christmas."

Yates: "Oh... Where did I get my 'Light-ing Mic King tar'?"

Me: "Ummm, I don't remember."

Michael: "Target, Buddy. It came from Target."

Yates: "Oh... Mommy! This came from Tardet!"

Me: "Oh, ok, great."

Yates: "Mommy, Where did I get my 'darbage' man truck?"

Me: "Pink and Bop at Christmas."

Yates: "Oh......... Mommy, where did we get our people?"

Me: "Our people? What?"

Yates: "Yeah, like me, Dallah, Bex, Daddy, Sasha."

Stella: "God made the people and we 'buyed' the dogs!"

Some guys Michael works with parked a four wheeler on a trailer at our house for a few hours one day. Yates was in heaven. He climbed on it in the 100 degree blazing hot weather for an hour asking me what every button, fender, screw, knob, hinge, bolt, light, hose... did. At one point I pointed to the trailer and asked Yates if it indeed was a trailer since we had identified every other thing out there and he tilted his head to the side, squinted and said, "Yeah, it should be."

Rex = overachiever. He's trying so hard to crawl but first he had to master pushups.

Normal? Normal...

Today was a full day. We ran lots and lots of errands. Usually we can only make two or three stops before something goes haywire. We managed to get away without Yates' flip flops, but lucky for us we store no less than 10 alternative pairs of shoes in our car. We were able to adjust and wear our fireman boots all day instead. This was great because they matched his pajama shirt he chose to wear today so well.

I don't even think I can remember what all we did today because we did so much. I do know that we made some returns, some purchases, handled some franchise tax issues, went potty lots of times, had lunch at Cafe "Buffetts" (Express) which ended abruptly by Yates throwing up in his bowl of macaroni, sat on the phone with Canon... twice, sat on the phone with the Texas Controller's office... twice, went to the bank, shipped a package, ordered some gifts, went to try on new swimsuits for mommy, cleaned up Sasha pee, stripped and washed some cushions she tee teed on, made dinner, picked up the house, bathed 3 babies, brushed some teeth, cut Stella's hair, rescued Rex from sucking on a battery, put all three babies to bed, and of course I got pooped on. Now I am waiting on Michael to get home. I guess it was just a normal day ; )

If I ever do have a real normal day again, there is no telling what I will do. I'm vacillating between writing a book and becoming a full-time-crazy-cigarette-smoking-up-all-night-artist. Fortunately for my family's sake, I don't have time to succumb to either of those urges.

my little baby

Rex is 6 months old today!!! And I must say, he is one good lookin' kid.

For some reason he decided to be fussy today and he is never, ever, ever fussy. I thought it was odd that he picked his very first 1/2 birthday to fuss.

Other than today, Rex is still so happy, so easy, so calm and compliant. He loves watching Stella and Yates and he has the most amazing laugh and precious smile. He smiles all the time and rarely ever cries. The only times he cries are for the obvious reasons... hungry, dirty, sleepy... pretty straight forward. Lately, he has been loving playing on the floor. He rolls and rolls around and scoots backward. He isn't crawling, but he can really move.

Gearing up for his 1/2 birthday Rex tried some banana baby food, teething biscuits and stars. He liked all of it. He didn't wince, or shiver or make a face like Stella and Yates did. He just ate. I pretty much wet my pants the first time S and Y tried food b/c their reactions were so hilarious and dramatic.

He is officially not allowed to sit in his bumbo any more. He has jumped out of it several times and this morning he jumped out of it as soon as his bootie touched the bottom of the seat. He jumps out and lands in a belly flop/ sky diving sort of position. So safe. Rex is my constant companion. He goes everywhere I go. I'm surprised we haven't glued together somehow. He literally cries if he can't reach me. So, I just wag him around all day, every day. He doesn't sit on my hip very well for very long. He always corkscrews in my arms until I let him sit facing out on my hip. He loves it, but my arm is so tired by the end of the day.

Six months is our official co-sleeping cut off, so its time for Rex to make the big move to his crib. By 6 months I think we are all ready, but its so sad to have to end it. I will not be sad to say goodbye to the crick I've had in my neck since he was born, but I will miss his sweet little face sleeping next to me.

I still have a blog to write about our fabulous vacation, but this one had to come first...

All together now...

Countdown (countup) to vacation... Is it just us or does everyone get sick or something when its time to go on a trip.

#1 Sasha Louise

Poor Sasha has been "sick" since the beginning of May. Stella, Yates, Rex, Sasha and I have probably spent 12 hours together lately at one vet or another. With my mild case of germophobia and 30 little fingers to watch this is great. Anyway, Sasha's ordeal started one night while Michael was out of town. She was sleeping on her bed and started to whine, then she barked, jumped up ran and stood in an awkward place in our bedroom. It worried me, so I got up and checked her out. She was limping but seemed to be fine, so we went back to bed. After that night her limping kept getting worse and worse. At her worst she could barely raise herself up off the floor and would lay around on the floor all day crying loudly. It was so sad. She would wail if we went upstairs because she couldn't. She would cry so loudly that most days I would have to carry her up and down the stairs. This is bad because I fall down the stairs about once a week alone. Carrying a huge brown dog doesn't make it any easier for me. We just kept taking her to vets and trying different drug combinations. Finally, four days before we left for our vacation, a specialist diagnosed her "lameness" as an immune mediated arthritis most likely caused by a tick bite. What I understood is that she contracted rocky mountain spotted fever from this tick bite and her immune system went into overdrive trying to heal and began to attack her joints causing pain and "lameness."

Poor baby has had 2 rounds of antibiotics and is on prednisone and pain medication. She seems like she feels much better and is able to get around now. But now we are dealing with side effects from the medications. The prednisone is making her unable to "control her bladder" to put it nicely. She just lays down, totally pees everywhere, doesn't even know it and lays in it. Its awful, sad and a huge mess. I've been following her around with a towel and sneaking it under her everywhere she lays down.

#2 Yates Meredith

One afternoon (3 days before vacation) Stella, Yates, Rex and I were getting ready go to swim with the Belf girls. Stella was sitting on the bathroom counter, Rex was in his bumbo, I was sitting on the floor pumping (gross, I know, but I'm just saying my hands were full) and Yates was playing around on the floor. Yates decided that he wanted to get up on the counter where Stella was sitting and was trying to climb the drawer fronts and knobs to get up there. Stella did not want him up with her and pushed him. In a split second, his toes slipped off the knob he was perched on and his top teeth hit the countertop breaking 3 of them!!!!! He was screaming, crying and bleeding. It was terrible. He calmed down quickly considering and I immediately called my mom. One of his front teeth was bleeding around the gum and was very loose. The bloody one and two others were broken. Of course I had visions of all these teeth falling out in my hands.

Stella got a serious reprimand and Yates said he still wanted to go swim. It wouldn't have done any good to sit around and think about those teeth, so off to the pool we went.

The next day, I took him into the dentist and had his teeth checked. His xrays looked good other than the fact that the teeth had been pushed up a bit, no serious damage. We will go back in a week or two to recheck everything.

For now, Yates has 3 messed up teeth and our marble counter top has 3 teeth marks in it. He is one tough little guy.

#3 Stella Jane

We're off. All packed up in the car, headed to Florida for a week of beach and sun. Everything is going great, we hadn't forgotten anything and we are so looking forward to some time to relax. It was Saturday evening, about 3 hours into our 12 hour drive to Florida and we were in East Texas nearing the Louisiana border. I looked back at Stella and she had full out snot running out of her right eye, worse than I have ever seen! Great. We're stuck in this car, on a Saturday, in the middle of no where with a serious eye infection. I get on the phone and start calling doctors to call in something for us along our route. Simple enough, right? Wrong. No one will prescribe a medication for an eye infection without seeing it first to determine if its viral or bacterial. Also, we had about 45 miles until we were in Louisiana where no Texas doctors could help us. Ok, no big deal. We have a family friend ENT doctor in Louisiana. We'll try to call him. Called and got some suggestions from him to help us limp along until we could find someone to see Stella. Michael and I almost wore our iphones out looking for 24 hour clinics on I-20. Here's a hint... THERE ARENT ANY! There are, but "open 24/7" means 9-5 Monday - Friday to them. Stella was getting worse and worse. Her eye was swollen shut and she had an inch wide glob of goo running from her eye all the way down her cheek. This was not going to wait until Monday. We stopped at an emergency room in Monroe, but they had a 4 hour wait. Not going to work. They suggested a pediatric after hours clinic that we could try to make it to. It was 9:45, the place closed at 10:00 so we raced to find it. We made it with 4 minutes to spare. I ran up to the door... they close at 8 on Saturdays... Back in the car. Back on the highway. Back on the iphones. Finally we found a clinic we thought would work in Jackson, MS. We had planned to drive through the night, but stopped, got a hotel room and packed all 5 of us in there. Poor Michael slept with Stella with a pillow in between them and I slept with the boys, hoping to keep them from getting sick too. Yates and Rex, slept against me so close that when I got up in the morning leaving them asleep, the spot left between them was about 6" wide. Anyway, Sunday morning, Father's Day, we unglue Stella's eye, grab some breakfast and head over to this clinic. We spend about four hours total, waiting and getting prescriptions filled. Stella got a shot and three medications that she had to take throughout the entire vacation. Poor thing.

A few of our normal moments:

Yates tells us that when Rex gets bigger he is going to teach him "bulldozer stupff, dump truck stupff, man stupff." Lesson one: chain saw stupff.

Several days a week S and Y play in our shoes. Usually they are "cleaning them" for us. This day they were so proud they told me to go get the camera.

Yates has a lot of work to do. Cape, swim suit, flip flops and his "weeder," Cape, underwear, and remote control bullozer. Work, work, work.

Pool, Party, Pottery, Pancakes... Part 2

The rest of the story was that we went to one of those pottery places where you can paint the piece you choose. Stella loved it! I loved it! Yates participated for a while then decided to roam around and barely touch everything in there. At one point he pulled his shorts off and put them back on. Who knows... S and Y made father's day gifts for Michael, a mug and a lidded box. They're going to be sooo cute!

As we were leaving it started to pour and we were soaked. Once we had all made it into the car we were all laughing so hard b/c we were so, so wet. It turned into some silly song about our hair being wet, our toes being wet and even our baby was all wet. Sweet Rex looked pretty confused about how and why he had gotten so wet but didn't complain.

We ended up at Breadwinners for lunch and the kids both chose to have pancakes for lunch. Its summertime. Why not?

All of these pictures are from my iphone. Sorry about that. But this last one is a rare shot of Stella and Yates sitting together peacefully. Yates walked up to Stella and asked if he could sit with her... how cute. She said sure and made him a spot.

I'd also like to point out Yates' shirts in these pictures. One is a too small turquoise tshirt with Bam Bam's body and neck. Its pretty atrocious, but he loves it and insists on wearing it. If the Bam Bam shirt is dirty, then he insists on wearing his too small gray bulldozer shirt. One might say, buy the boy some clothes that fit. I do! I've even sacrificed my own fashion rules and have purchased shirts with cranes and jeeps and stuff on them. He will not wear them. Basically, Yates is only happy with his outfit 2 days a week. Bam Bam day and bulldozer day. The rest of the week he regretfully settles on some of his more attractive shirts. We have the same issue with the shoes. Right now he is only wearing old, too tight green crocs or his rainbow flip flops. I took his little bootie to Nordstrom and showed him the wall of crocs. I told him he could choose any color he wanted. "Nope, I like green." "Well, lets get you a new green pair that fit better." "Nope, I like these." This went on and on and on. He didn't budge. We tried looking at new shirts too. "Nope, I not like those shirts." So, if you see Yates looking silly, thats why. He's a man.

Pool, Party, Pottery, Pancakes...

walking to the pool

The summer bonanza continues...

We've been spending some time at the pool and the kids are loving it. This picture is IT for me. All of my babies (and me) having fun in the pool... my favorite. Stella has even been jumping in with her head going under. Yates is fearless. He loves to jump in and go under over and over and over. Luckily he waits for a catcher b/c he drops to the bottom like a rock is happy to stay there. Rex is happy as a lark as long as I'll hold him. Gets sleepy, takes a nap in his stroller, then is ready for more. Such an easy baby!

My little Stella baby turned 4!!!!!

that face. she was so happy.

I absolutely can not believe she is four years old. I can't stand it. She is such an amazing little girl. I am so lucky to be her mommy. I have said a thousand times that she surprises me every day and she does. I wish I had time to sit and stare and play and talk to her alone, one on one, all day every day. It breaks my heart every time she is telling one of her super long drawn out stories and I don't get the whole thing or when she needs me to look or help and I just can't. Its hard to know that you can't do it all when you want to so much. I love her so much and hope that I do well enough as her mommy to help her reach her full potential.

So, to celebrate the big day Gigi, Gabby, Pink and Bop came and we had a big huge fabulous Butterfly Sprinkler party (totally her idea) with lots and lots of friends. It turned out really well and the kids had lots of fun, despite the fact that it was about 200 degrees outside. The grandparents all helped so much and I couldn't have done that day without them.

The real birthday morning. I gave her a "singing candle" in the center of a donut and she thought it was amazing.

On the real birthday day we took a long trip up the tollway, rode the carousel and went to the Disney store. The carousel was a hit and S and Y chose one Disney toy. I told them they could eacg choose 1 thing in the store. Out of all of the things there S chose another Ariel Barbie and sweet little Yates chose a blue Buzz Lightyear flip phone off of the junk rack... they are so random.

-- real quick story about the tollway--

S and Y are obsessed with the tollway. They have these conversations in the back of the car about whether or not we're on the tollway. Yates will say, "Dallah (stella) we on tooooollbaaay" and she'll say, "Oookay, let me pull my puppy up." Sounds weird but its their ritual. Stella has this stuffed yorkie with no name and a purple collar and leash, who is laced through the granny bar. When we're on the tollway, she HAS TO pull the puppy's leash and have him dangle in the window. Why? I have no idea, but its hilarious to me over and over.

Another day we decided to go... I'll have to finish this later.

Green eyes? I can't decide...

Pink gave Yates a viewmaster. He LOVES it!

Summertime...

I don't know who is more excited about summertime, me or the babies. I haven't planned a single activity for anyone this summer and I want be able to go and do anything we want at any time. I have been accused of having on overly fantasized idea of life and it shows in my thoughts for the summer.

Tuesday was wild! We started out by going to the Dallas Aquarium. The kids really liked it this time. On all of our previous visits we just buzzed through, but they were really interested and on the hunt for Nemo, Dory and Gill. Thank goodness those guys were at the end. We finished up by having lunch at the restaurant there. The kids got complimented again during lunch. I won't go into detail, but it is always so nice. We came home for naps and Yates refused. He keeps climbing out of his bed. I put him back over and over but some days I can only do it so many times. We'll figure it out.

The Belf girls came over to swim after the nap battle and they all had so much fun! Right after we finished swimming our builder and a photographer came over to take pictures of our kitchen and master bathroom. He is entering them into some best builder contest and I find it hilarious! These are the 2 rooms he fought me the hardest on. If I said black, he said white. If I said up, he said down. Now look. Michael always tries to diffuse me by saying that I should take these incidents as compliments, but still.

Today, to carry on our summer fun, we went to Coffee Park aaaand the chick-fil-a play ground. S and Y loooove Coffee Park. It is really nice and we were the only people there. Maybe because it was 99 degrees outside. Oh, also today, on the way to Coffee Park, Stella was screaming from the back of the car, "Look, there is that tree that I had a leaf from and Bop was telling me about it when Rex got bathed." What? I had no idea what she was saying, but vaguely remember her having a dried up leaf at church after Rex's baptism. I asked her if that was what she was referring to. She said yes and that Bop told her that the leaf came from a tree that has big white flowers on it, a magnolia. Once she got all of that explained, I looked out of the car window and sure enough. A huge magnolia. Maybe this isn't weird, but I was shocked that she could identify a tree from a dried up leaf and a verbal description. That girl surprises me every day.

I have to mention that I am really happy for Lee DeWyze. Something about him just seems so nice and genuine. I hope he does really well.

Denise's Journey

If you want to know how the recital went... I don't even know what to say. I am honestly blown away by the entire thing. I think I already mentioned that this is the 60th anniversary of City Ballet and this years recital told the story of the founder's life. I cried and I cried and I cried some more. It was so unbelievably beautiful and well done. It rivaled professional ballets I have seen. I'm not kidding. Even the tiniest dancers were perfect. I was expecting a student recital and that is not what this was. It was a full blown production. Loved it, loved it, loved it!!! Don't worry, I bought the video and if you come over you will be required to sit through the entire thing.

ballerina getting her 1st bouquet from Daddy

... and purple tulips from Bop

I had to write to thank Mrs. Brown and I'm copying it here to try to help explain how amazing it really was.

Dear Mrs. Brown,

I wanted to write to thank you for sharing your story with us and for allowing my daughter Stella (a baby chick) to take part of City Ballet and the recital this year. My entire family was so moved by the recital. The content, choreography, costume design and ballet dancers were more beautiful, touching, provoking, professional, captivating, emotional and thorough than I ever imagined. I don’t know if I can put into words how impressed we were with the entire production, how honored and thankful we were to be a part of it and how proud we are to have done so.

I have personally had a life long draw to the Jewish people and their suffering throughout World War II. When other children were reading Nancy Drew and Amelia Bedelia, I was reading biographies of Jewish children who had survived that terrible time in history. Strangely, my grandfather was raised in Emhouse and that is the part of the production that Stella represented. It is so amazing how life works, but it did make Denise’s Journey even more special and a bit personal for us.

We look forward to many more years with you all and with City Ballet. Thank Mrs. Evelyn for always being so kind to Stella for us. Thank you again for the stunning portrayal of your story and for allowing us to also “touch heaven.”

Meredith Grabham