I know it's been a long time since I've posted. A lot has happened in the last few months. First off Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! Christmas was busy as usual for us. This Christmas was a bit different though. My grandpa pasted away on December 4th (my dad's dad). He was diagnosed with Leukemia in September and it just took a toll on him. He lived to be 90 years old that's amazing! So, we spent the first part of December getting his funeral prepared and celebrating his life. It was a beautiful service! I will miss him, he was a wonderful man. Right before he passed away we had the stomach flu fly through our house, my parent's house and Tony's family's house. I celebrated my 29th birthday sick, but was able to celebrate that weekend. Once we got through the sickness and the funeral, Christmas was right around the corner.
Christmas was kind of a blur this year, it flew by. We celebrated Christmas with my mom's family the Sunday before Christmas. It was nice, because we don't see them that often. Ella got some nice gifts. The day before Christmas Eve we went to the Wisconsin Club with Tony's family to have dinner. It was a nice dinner, if you ever get a chance to go to the Wisconsin Club, go there during Christmas, it is beautiful! Christmas Eve was Church at Elmbrook with my family and Tony's family and then off to Tony's Uncle's house for dinner and presents. Ella is at the age where she doesn't want to sit still at ALL! It's hard to enjoy everyone's company because you have to keep a constant eye on her. She didn't want to sit through the Church service so Tony sat with her in the family area. The church service at Elmbrook is awesome! There is so much music and spirit during that service, I love it! On Christmas day we spent the morning at home opening presents with Ella, she got a play kitchen from Santa and some other smaller things from us. She actually enjoyed opening the presents this year, so that was exciting. Then we went to my parents house to open more presents and have breakfast. After that we had my dad's side came over. It was nice. The kids opened their presents and then the adults did the white elephant gift exchange. It's always interesting to see what people get. Grandpa was definitely missed that day. After the festivities at my parent's house we went over to Tony's family's house to open presents and have a sleepover. The next day we went over to Tony's sister's house to celebrate Christmas with his dad and siblings. Like I said it was a busy Christmas, but it was fun!
This whole week Tony and I have been off of work which was nice we got to spend some quality time with Ella. Unfortunately I got sick late Friday night with a stomach bug or something, so we stayed in for NYE, second year in a row. Tony was sick last year.
Updates on Ella - She had her 18 month appointment on December 16th. She weighed in at 25lbs and 31 inches long. The appointment went really well. She still isn't walking yet, but is making great progress with therapy. She can take about 2 steps between Tony and I. We are so proud of her. The doctor has no concern that she isn't walking yet, because she is making great progress. Ella is moving and moving and moving ALL the time. She is so fun! She loves playing peek a boo, she likes when we tickle her and when we are goofy with her. She is really into watching what we do on the computer. Someone at worked showed me some fun games on Fisherprice.com so we play those a lot. We read and brush her teeth every night. She actually loves to brush her teeth. She knows when we are going to do it, because she goes "ahhh" I love it! We also got her haircut for the first time, which didn't go so well, but it was my fault because I made the appointment at dinner time. At her 18 month appointment the doctor said to start looking for signs of potty training. Look to see if she pulls on her diaper or doesn't want to have her diaper on. These can be signs that she is interested. We haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure once she is walking it will start to happen. I actually bought a potty chair this week and we sat her on it right before her bath, she sat there for like a minute. The doctor said we'll really want to start trying around 2, but to not push her and let her figure it out for herself.
Well I think that is it for updates. One of my New Year's resolutions is to post on here more often. I really want this to be something for Ella to read when she is older.
Happy New Year Everyone! Here is to a great 2012!
Long Awaited Picture-
