Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween from our little ladybug!! On Friday Ella and I went to her therapy place, because they were having a Halloween party! It was a lot of fun! Today we braved the weather with Marcie and JJ and went trick or treating. We got wet but had a good time!

Fall!

Hi everyone! Fall has been gorgeous! We have gone to two pumpkin farms. Ella has been fighting a cold but is starting to feel better. We are excited for halloween this weekend. We are going to go trick or treating this Sunday with Ella and her friends JJ, Madison and Sophia.

Ella is making great progress still at therapy! Susie her PT is great with Ella and is impressed with Ella every week. We think she'll be walking by 17 months just like her daddy did. She is following in his footsteps.

We hope everything is going well. My favorite time of year is coming CHRISTMAS!!! This year will be so much fun with Ella.

New Pictures!

Ready to get on the plane
First Plane Ride

Rodeo Drive

First time in the Ocean

First time in the sand

Happy 25th Anniversary

On the way home

14 Months

Catching Up!

Hi everyone! I know it has been a while since I last posted. Summer has gone by so fast, and now here we are at labor day weekend. I'm going to try and catch you up to speed on how Ella is doing. She is 14 months already!

She is crawling all over the place now. The first time she crawled was when we were in California. We are so proud of her, she has come a long way since therapy started. We are still taking Ella to therapy to get her started on pulling herself up and walking.

She is the happiest baby ever. She is becoming more independent every day and enjoys entertaining herself because now she can get to what she wants. She is talking all of the time. Some of her current words are dada, mama, mom, up, ba (which we think is ball). She does so big when we ask her "How big is Ella." She clicks tongue and is starting to wave.

You can tell her mind is always thinking, she is very intrigued with objects and people. I can't wait for her to actually tell me what she is thinking.

We went to Santa Barbara, California in the beginning of August with Tony's family for Bill and Gina's 25th Anniversary. Ella's first plane ride was perfect. She really loved it and slept some of the way there and back. She was excellent the whole trip even when we kept her up late some nights. The trip was great. Tony's parents rented a house for all of us. It was amazing! There was a pool and a hot tub and enough space for all 10 of us. Santa Barbara was beautiful! We can't wait to go back some day.

12 Month Pictures

Happy 4th of July

We had a really fun 4th of July! We start off by going to the Franklin parade! Ella road in Rockford's stroller for the children's parade. After the children's parade it was the regular parade. Eventhough it was REALLY hot she had a great time. After the parade we walked around the festival and daddy took her down the giant slide. Then we went to my parent's house for a cookout and swimming. Ella took a 3 hour nap that day, she was exhausted from the heat. That night we stopped over at our friend's house for a visit and then headed to the Franklin fireworks. Ella loved the fireworks, she wasn't even scared of the loud noises.

Ella has been having some big turning points in her life! She is off of her bottle as of a couple of weeks ago. She now drinks out of sippy cup. She is also feeding herself her meals, she does such a great job! She is becoming such a big girl.

We hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

Happy Birthday!!!

Today Ella turned 1! It is so hard to believe. Tony and I stayed home from work today. We had 1 year old pictures taken. Ella did such a good job. Ella changes everyday. She is actually going to therapy for her mobility. She had her first session on Monday. She has already changed since Monday. We don't think we will have to go for very long. Her first birthday party went great, she got lots of nice gifts and went crazy for her cake.

Some of Ella's favorite things:
Loves pretty much any kind of food we feed her especially bananas
Loves her walker
Loves to be outside, it seems to always make her smile
Loves her jumperoo
Loves Kirby, she is alway smiling and laughing at him

We are amazed by her each and every day.

Here are some pictures from her party!

May, May, May

Despite the NASTY weather, May is going by so fast, which means we are getting closer to Ella's 1st birthday!

Let's back up a bit first. At the end of April I got to travel to Florida with Tony's mom and sister Gabi. We drove the 17 hour drive (rough) to Panama City Beach. We had a blast! Tony and Ella stayed home, everything went smoothly!

Ella turned 11 months on Saturday. WOW 11 months, I seriously can't believe it! I'm really looking forward to celebrating her birthday, it is going to be very special and emotional for me! I've cherished every moment with her from the moment she entered this world! I don't remember life without her.

What have we been up to? Well we are learning how to use a sippy cup and feeding herself. We have also been working really hard and crawling and helping her to learn how to push herself up to a sitting position. She is one very strong girl, very solid when she sits up and strong on her legs. We are so proud of her, she is learning something everyday. We've also start to wean her off of formula and onto whole milk! Very exciting because formula is very expensive.

We were also at the doctor last Friday for an ear recheck and it turns out that Ella still had her double ear infection. If these don't clear up by her 12 month appointment we will have to look into possibly getting tubes. I'm crossing my fingers that the infections are cleared up by that point.

I had a wonderful 1st mother's day! We spent the morning hanging out and then went to my parents house for lunch and then to Tony's mom's for dinner!

We hope everyone is doing well. Hopefully it will start to get warm out.

Here are some recent pictures.

Ella loves playing in this box

Ella and her mommy on mother's day!

4 Generations!

JJ and Ella

Ella holding her first easter egg

Madison, Kristy, Ella and I at Madison's 1st Birthday Party!

10! MONTHS! OLD!

That's right we are officially out of the single digits! 10 months, WOW! Ella turned 10 months last Thursday! She is doing amazing! She is learning how to use a sippy cup and how to pick up food with her hands and put it in her mouth. Pretty soon we will be starting Ella on whole milk which is very exciting! No more formula soon. We are still working on our crawling skills and standing skills. I'm pretty sure Ella is going to walk before she crawls.

Ella is currently taking medication for her double ear infection. Poor thing, she is such a trooper. She has had 3 ear infections in the last 4 months, which is really good for her age. Hopefully this is her last one of the season, if this darn weather would get better.

I'm actually going to be traveling to Florida on Saturday with Tony's mom and sister Gabi. This will be the first time I leave Ella for a long period of time. She is in good hands though with her daddy. I'm super excited to go to the warm weather.

We hope everyone has a fantastic Easter!

Is it really April already?

I was thinking today that tomorrow is already April 7th. Seriously the beginning of the year is flying by. I was looking at the blog tonight and Ella's age ticker is getting soooo close to that 1 year mark and that totally FREAKS me out! It actually makes me want to cry! This time last year I was getting ready for my baby shower and preparing for the birth of our child...NUTS! Now here we are preparing for her to turn 1 years old. I know I say this all the time but she is the most amazing baby I could ask for. She is the joy in my life and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about how blessed I am to have her. She makes me laugh and smile every single day. But when I think about the fact that she will be 1 years old I get really sad because that means the years are really going to go fast. In a week Ella is going to be turning 10 months old! It's all exciting and sad at the same time.

9 Month Professional Pictures!

Doesn't she look like such a big girl?!?!