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

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...

Thanksgiving=giving thanks!

This past week was busy and full of first for our little family. Thursday Lisa cooked Thanksgiving dinner and Ella must have enjoyed it as she ate an entire plate full (this was her first full meal of "grown up" food.) On Friday Lisa got up early and went shopping for clothes for Ella. (The entire store was marked down 60% and Lisa had a 20% off coupon!) Then we decorated the tree and went out for some more shopping. Saturday we got up and went to Columbus where Ella rode a horse for the first time. (She loved it. Once Lisa got her on the horse with her she laughed and giggled and smiled the entire ride!) Then we were off to see the Holiday Lights at the Columbus Zoo. Overall it was a fun and exciting Holiday weekend.

Videos

So I recently realized that I have several videos of Ella doing some of her new tricks (dancing to music and walking her toy across the room!) I haven't posted a video lately and thought it was about time. Ella is growing more and more each day. She is currently 17lbs 1 oz (still itty bitty for her age) and is 29 inches long. She loves to clap her hands, dance, laugh and play. She is such an easy mannered baby and we are so thankful for this.

Fun Day

Today was busy, but great. We started Christmas shopping. Lisa got her gift early thanks to a huge sale ( a new digital camera!) We only have three more people to shop for and the rest of Ella's items and then we are all finished with our Christmas shopping. Here are some pics of Ella that Lisa took while playing with the new camera!

Ella's First Halloween!

Yesterday we had a great day. We started our day carving pumpkins. We gave Ella some pumpkin goo, she did not enjoy it at ALL and threw it on the floor. We also discovered that Ella has found where we "hide" her toys. It is no longer a secret.  We decided to do Ella's first Halloween with a party at our house. Her Grandpa, Great Aunt Pat, Grandma, Papa, Grandma Kathie came to see her. Our friends Jerry and Elizabeth (with their daughter Emily) and Cindy and Denelle (with his daughter Amaya) also came. We had a camp fire, roasted hotdogs and had smores, and just had a good time watching the kids interact. Ella was so exicted to see her family that she refused to take a nap, which meant that she only lasted about 20 minutes her in adorable lady bug costume. We are so blessed to have so many amazing people in our lives.

Ella's Great Aunt Pat and Elizabeth

Ella's First Time with the inards of a pumpkin!

I knew I had more toys somewhere.

Ella and her Grandpa

Jerry helping Billy with the fire.

Our little very sleepy lady bug.

Denelle, Jerry and Emily (aka Dorothy)

Scary (ok maybe not!)

Denelle, Amaya, and Cindy

Amaya

Ella's Papa, Grandma Kathie, Granpa, and Billy in the back