Monday, November 21, 2011

EllaKate Turns One!

Where does the time go!?!?
It seems like I was just holding this adorable new 5lb baby girl in my arms and just falling more and more in love with her by the moment!
Now its a year later and I have this spunky little fire ball on my hands with so much personality it's ridiculous, and yet I still fall more and more in love with her by the moment!
Here are her stats at her 1 yr apt. She weights. 18.25lbs (9th percentile) She is 28.54in long (32nd percentile) her head is18.1 in (77th percentile) Ya, she's ours alright!

Ella loves to be right in the middle of the chaos and a big part of it! She has been crawling since she was about 8 months and is so fast she doesn't really have a huge desire to walk! She LOVES to play/torment Jaden and couldn't love Duke more if she tried! She is very friendly and outgoing but snuggly too!

She loves to talk/scream and can say "mam" (mom) "dada" (dad) d"uge" (a mix between duke and dog) "peese" (plase) "Taetu" (thank you) "mo" (more) & "my" (mine)

She loves to giggle and play she LOVES to tease and even though she is young she LOVES to test the limits! :) I love it though! I love that she is strong willed and will fight for what she wants, even when the answer is no, and she can throw a tantrum like I have never seen!

This yea my sister got married on Ella's birthday (congratulations Sarah and Doug) So we celebrated her birthday a day early! Since we spent the weekend in Salt Lake for the wedding, we decided to just do a small low key family day with her!

When she woke up she got her birthday presents which included lots of clothes a walker/stroller and her first baby doll, and a stuffed kitty from her big brother!

She loved everything especially snuggling her baby and kitty! I'm hoping the stroller will motivate her to walk!
After breakfast we took the grandmas and headed to the aquarium and the to McDonalds (Ella loves the parfaits) It was so much fun to spend the afternoon with the grandmas and the kids especially enjoyed it!
After the lunch we headed back to Shawn's parents for nap time! Afterwards we had birthday cake! I made Ella a caterpillar cake because she is our little bug!


Ella was so funny and WOULD NOT TOUCH THE CAKE!!!! She would not eat it even if I fed it to her! She wanted NOTHING to do with it, until.....
I gave her a spoon to eat it with....I don't understand it and I thought it was SO funny!!! Once we gave her the spoon though, she dug right in and loved it!!!
That night I went to dinner and for mani-pedis with my sisters as a kind of Bachelorette Party and Shawn's parents took Ella on her birthday date and then they all headed up to her cousin Dylan's birthday party! When I got home they had all crashed and it seemed like she had a great day!!!

Ella's actual birthday was a crazy day and I should have gotten more pictures but I honestly think we were all just exhausted!!! It was a great day thought and my sister looked absolutely beautiful and my kids...adorable of course!!!

Here is Ella playing with daddy at the luncheon
and with mommy.... (Jaden was so busy playing with cousins he wouldn't hold still for pictures
Ella woke up at 7 that morning and FINALLY crashed (for like 20 min) at 2 pm. For a child that usually takes a nap every 2-3 hrs....it was a long day!
Ella we love you more than you could possible know!! You are a joy in our lives and in our home! We thank Heaven everyday for the privilege of being your parents and can't imagine life without you! I hope you will always be your silly spunky strong willed self!!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

I have been blessed!!!

You know that country song... "I have been blessed...with so much more than I deserve, to be here with the ones who love you to love them so much it hurts" Well that describes perfectly my feelings as of late! I feel so lucky to have who and what I have I consider my self very very blessed! I just stink at blogging about it and lately at taking pictures too! I worked SO hard on the kids Halloween costumes this year and I got a few pictures but not as many as I would have liked especially of Ella! She was grumpy and honestly I didn't want to force it! But....what do you do! We have had a very fun filled and BUSY October and November even has more going on! Hopefully I will be better at updating that :)


Anyways, to start off our Halloween festivities we headed to the pumpkin patch and corn maze. You would think that living up in Eden we would have more pumpkin patches to choose from but unfortunately not so much. We did find this little gem though and had a great time! Jaden enjoyed being the leader... until his legs got tired...Then on to our annual pumpkin carving night! Jaden wanted to be much more involved this year...Ella not so much! Anyways we had a great time carving pumpkins and having donuts and hot cocoa! Even gluten free donuts :)

I did a terrible job at taking pictures of the kids in their costumes....it had been kind of a long day by the time it was time to go trick or treating...maybe one of these days I will make them re dress up and try again...when the snow melts of course! :)

This year Jaden was "A kung fu panda wolf" Which being interpreted is the big bad wolf who does kung fu and blows little red riding hood's house down. (we might have had a little confusion but it was fun! Ella was Little Red Riding Hood! I make both of the kids costumes with the exception of Jaden's hat which we found via the internet but I was quite pleased with how they turned out! I'm learning....
At one house there was a lit up ghost, Jaden turned to me and sai "look mo a ghost....just like the holy ghost!" I laughed and then replied that it was, but the holy ghost wasn't scary like that ghost, to which Jaden replied, "well he's a little bit scary!" Probably my favorite conversation of the night!

Jaden told me he wanted to go trick or treating to every house in the whole world....but when I told him he could go home and pass out candy to kids he was even more excited!!! Too bad we didn't get too many kids, but he still enjoyed himself!!!


I hope you all had a fabulous Halloween and are feeling as blessed as I am!