Ella's First Christmas!

Christmas is about my most favorite time of the year. People seem to be nicer (sometimes), the weather is cooler and your house is full of friends and family. This year is a little more special than those in the past because we have Ella to celebrate it with. I could not imagine not having her here and sometimes wonder what we used to do with all of our time before. We had a great Christmas day. We got up and gave her breakfast before we started the fun stuff. Since we knew we were probably going to wear her out we decided to give Ella all of her gifts first. We had to open her stocking from Santa first...

She loves Elmo!

Yes, those are pink, plastic cooking spoons...which she uses to bang on a tin pie pan with! She loves to bang on things and make music!

You know you got some good stuff when the pile of gifts is 10 times bigger than you are! This was just from mommy and daddy!

Loves to rip the paper off of the package. Took her no time at all to figure that fun sound out!

Just had to press the light up nose on her cookie jar shape sorter! We took it out of the box right away since she would not leave it alone.

Checking out every inch of the stuff inside the box.

Trying out her new shopping cart walker! Still working on it...

Just had to get a picture of her in front of the tree in her Christmas jammies and booties! This was after all of the gift opening and ready for a nap!

After a great, long nap and a change of clothes we were back at walking with her cart. We can't keep her away from it! She loves to walk!

After everything calmed down from the morning, the great grandparents, grandparents, and great uncle all came over for some food and fun. We basically all watched Ella play with all of her new toys. She went to bed a little early since it was an exciting day for everyone. I will never forget her little squeals and giggles when she opened her presents and played with her toys. We are so blessed to have our little angel in our lives. She is certainly the "best gift ever"!

A Day with an Old Friend!

On Christmas Eve, Ella and I had a big day planned! While Brian was working, we went and visited one of my oldest friends, Karen. Karen was one of my first friends when I moved here in the 7th/8th grade. Wow, that is a long time! We just recently found each other again after a few years of losing touch! This was the first time that Karen got to meet Ella and she really loved every minute we spent there. She even fell asleep while we were there and on the way home because of all the fun and excitement she had! :) We can't wait for Karen and Ben to move back here from Houston!

After a great lunch at Tin Star, we headed back to Karen's parents house and visited for a few hours. Since there was Ella's favorite music playing (she loves Christmas music), she decided to show Karen a few of her dance moves!

Trying on Mr. Gordon's hat! Too cute!

Having a great time playing and playing with Karen!

Ella, mommy (mom-mom to Ella), Karen and her little girl on the way! She will be having a little girl in March too! We can't wait to meet her!

Ella's first Christmas gift! She loved the paper and chewing on the bag! Thank you Miss Karen for the cute fuzzy outfit, ballerina outfit and tutu! She will have to model it for you sometime! :)

Nine months...

I can't believe it has been so long since I blogged! We did have some technical difficulties...both of our computers went down within a day of each other. The mother board went out in the laptop and the router for the internet was infected for the desktop. My poor dad was over for hours one day to help us fix it. Thanks!! I missed reading about everyone and keeping in touch! Anyway, back to what I am really writing about...Ella! I can't believe that she is 9 and a half months old already! This past month has been a crazy one but so much fun! I want to thank my parents, grandparents and Brian's parents for helping with Ella while I couldn't lift her! That was the hardest part of it all. Now that we are back in our normal routine, Ella has discovered so many more things! She is so curious about EVERYTHING! She turns things over and over until she has examined every inch of what she is playing with. Watch out when she is done though, she will chunk it anywhere! She has a good right arm! I have also discovered things in our cart or in her stroller that I didn't put in there! She loves to grab things she likes. She has started early... loves to go shopping!! Ella also is saying some words! Her favorites are "mom-mom", "baby" (with a southern twang), "hey" and "bob" (not sure what she means by that one). Some of the conversations she has with herself and us are so funny. We have no idea what she is saying but she certainly does. She also knows the word "no"! We will tell her "no" and she will look at us, do whatever she did again, we tell her again, then she will stop and shake her head "no". It makes me laugh every time but I try to hide it so she doesn't think it is okay to do again. She loves to smile...to everyone! I just love it every time I see her. Another fun thing she has started is walking with us. She will hold on to us and walk anywhere. She giggles and squeals the whole time. When we get where she wants to go she smiles up at us and then gets too excited and falls. I think she is bypassing the whole crawling thing. She will be on her hands and knees but then when she wants to go she will flop over and roll. Oh well, I guess she will do what she wants. We can't wait to see what Christmas will bring!

Ella on her 9 month b-day with her great grandparents! She was so excited to them again! Chewing on a tub instead of playing with toys...

Drooling everywhere (more teeth are coming)! Loves to play, play, play...

Not liking the picture taking thing...

Okay now that she has something to play with!

Finally got one of her smiling at me after 20 pictures!

1st Thanksgiving!

Hello everyone! Sorry it's taken a while for us to post a new blog. Well, as most of you know by now, we had a very interesting first Thanksgiving with Ella. Devon was scheduled to have some surgery on 12/12, but the Monday before Thanksgiving things changed slightly. Long story short, she had to get it done a little earlier than we were anticipating. But, everything happens for a reason. First and foremost, she's fine now... which is the main thing. She's getting better everyday. Second, we still wanted to make sure Ella's first Thanksgiving was a good one. (A special thanks to all of Devon's family for helping us out during this time. We definitely needed it. And also for everyone who showed so much concern for Devon. It means the world to us.) Well, my Mom and Alan came down to help us out with the little one. We have been going up to Mena, AR (where they live) for the past few years, so it was nice to have them come down. My Mom and I got to cook and get the typical Thanksgiving feast prepared while trying desperately to keep Devon out of the kitchen and off her feet. We had a great meal and got to spend a nice, long weekend with family. I know Devon was a little more sore and tired than she would have liked, but it all worked out in the end. Ella even got to have her own turkey day meal. Turkey and veggies baby food with green bean casserole as well. Even though it didn't taste anything like the real thing! We had a nice Thanksgiving. Most importantly to us, we got to spend it with family, friends, and Ella. Couldn't ask for anything more.

A sleepy Ella with Mommy... must be all the turkey!

Figuring out this standing up thing with Grandma Dawn... Ella even had turkey (baby food) herself!

Not the best family picture in the world, but Ella's pout is too cute!