Sunday, December 27, 2009

We wish you a Merry Christmas

This month was crazy and exciting all at the same time. We had things planned every weekend and kept very busy. We went to the Holiday lights at the Columbus Zoo, a Charles Dickens Christmas at the Ohio Village, and Billy and Lisa spent time in Colorado. Christmas Eve and Day came much quicker than planned, but turned out to be the most wonderful day. Ella had an adorable sleeper to wear, until she wet herself and her sleeper. Santa came and brought Ella lots of presents. We thought for sure it would take Ella a long time to open her gifts, but once she got started she was an unwrapping fool. Ella especially loves the rocker toy that her Grandpa Chuck got her. Ella has started sitting up on the couch on her own and does not care to sit with us. She loves her stuffed toys and is often giving them hugs and kisses. Santa brought her a lap top for Christmas and she loves to sit with it and pretend to work on it. Ella is also starting to take steps (without help) and walks great with help!












After the family left we sat on the couch as a family and watched the Polar Express. It was nice just spending quiet time as a family. We had an amazing first Christmas and are now preparing to get everything planned for Ella's first birthday. It is hard to believe that in five weeks our little girl will be one year old! We see her growing and doing more and more each day and wonder were the time has gone!

Thursday, December 17, 2009

An amazing week!

This past week was a mixture of amazing views, exciting new experiences and the feeling of missing someone more than you could ever think possible.

Dec 11, 2009 marked the four year anniversary of the unexptected passing of Lisa's mom. Lisa always goes away and does something fun to remember her mom. This year she suggested a trip to Colorado. Billy was of course stoked as he never thought we would go there when there was snow on the ground. We orginally planned on taking Ella, but instead invited friends to go along. Our 4 day trip turned into 6 and we were set to go. Never having left Ella before left us with fear and for Lisa naseau. Although we knew she would be in great hands (with her grandparents) the thought of leaving her left us both uneasy. It didn't help that we planned to leave on Thursday and on Monda we had Ella in the emergency room as she had croup and was still recovering from a nasty ear infection. Thankfully she did great, however we missed her more than we had missed anything before and both have agreed that 6 days away from her is too long!

While in Colorado Billy skied, Lisa went dog sledding, we saw Michelle Branch and Ryan Star (who Lisa LOVES) in concernt, went snow tubing, snow mobiling and on a "sunset" sleigh ride (we failed to see the sun set due to massive amounts of snow falling!) It was beautiful and so fun, however we were very excited to get home and see Ella, and equally excited that she was happy to see us.

Ella continues to grow and learn new things. She has offically taken up to 3 steps with out falling. We can hardly believe in just a month and a half our tiny baby will be a year old. When people say it goes fast you can not truely understand how true it is, until you experience it.

We are looking forward to the week ahead and spending our first Christmas together as a family. We can't wait to see Ella open her gifts from Santa and try her mommy's homemade Christmas cookies.

Bedroom in the condo


Living area with fireplace

Dog Sledding


Ryan Star from Rock Star Supernova

Billy and Lisa

Village at Winter Park

Views heading home

Views while on the snow mobile


Saturday, December 5, 2009

Ready for our closeup!



Today we went to Portriat Innovations to have our Christmas photos and Ella's 10 month photos taken. It was crazy busy and we had to wait a little bit, but even being sickly Ella was all smiles and ready to pose. It was so hard to choose which shots we want, but we eventually did! Then we found out we get a CD with all the pics anyway, so we ended up owning all the pics that were taken. Having the picture taken by the tree reminded that Christmas is upon us and that we are so blessed this year!









I see COOKIES!

Opps you caught me...