Ho, Ho, Ho!

Christmas and News Years came and went so quickly, its just hard to believe its 2009 already. We had such a wonderful Christmas! Ella's new favorite phrase is "Ho, Ho, Ho!" She doesn't quite understand Christmas yet, but she definitely understands that getting presents is a lot of fun. Here are some pictures from Christmas day, and I'll post a video shortly.

Checking her PDA while riding her horsey

Sporting her new Samford cheerleader outfit

Aunt Cookie and Ella

Dreaming of his Red Rider BB gun

I have been blessed with some time off between Christmas and New Years. Ella's school has been closed for most of the time as well, so I have definitely enjoyed getting to spend some quality time with Ella.

She just amazes me more and more every day, with more words and phrases, things she is copying or coming up with on her own, dancing, singing; her drawings and coloring is quite impressive I think for a 20 month old, and she is actually starting to color in the lines in her coloring books; she'll point out and say almost everything in her picture books; she is so expressive and is able to tell me pretty much anything she needs and wants, which has the temper tantrums down to very few! Now don't you dare try and take something out of her hands b/c she'll try to bite you! But if you ask her nicely, say please, and bargain with her, she'll hand it over no problem. She is trying to push her boundaries more, but she's also learning her boundaries pretty quickly. She likes to show off that can jump up in the air, and has the best sense of humor!

It's kind of strange because she can entertain herself for almost an hour playing make believe ,coloring, rocking on her horse, puzzles, looking at books, etc. I am actually almost able to get some housework done and bills paid for once since she was born! But its almost kind of sad too that she's growing up so much!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Christmas pictures at Morris Avenue

A few weeks ago Ella and I tagged along with my friend and photographer Stephanie Fisher (www.sfisherphotography.com) to Morris Avenue to get our little ones to pose for some Christmas pictures. Stephanie is also our fabulous photographer (and is hopefully going to be my photography teacher soon in all of our free time!). These pictures below were taken with my camera (and i actually took the ones that I am not in!). But our adorable Christmas card photo was taken by Stephanie...and is hopefully showing up in your mailbox soon (got them out a little late!).

All was fun and games....

Until I asked Ella to hug Hannah and she accidentally let go of her red balloon....
It was so sad!

A little late, but thanks Stephanie!!

Catching up...

Ok, a slacker once again. Busy, busy, as always! Let's see if I can update from the past month and a half...

- Ella is copying everything we say now and is quite a chatter box; she is putting words together herself; said her first sentence a few weeks ago...I Ate Cheese Toast! She likes to run around the house yelling, "Happy Day, Happy Day!"

- John taught her how to feed the dogs. He'll put the dog food in the bowls, and she'll go and set down each bowl just in the right spot. She'll even go and take some kernels of food to Brinkley to get her interested. Ella wakes up every morning wanting to give both Brinkley and Anne Marie hugs and they are definitely troopers.

- She now knows several colors, shapes, lots of letters; its amazing how much her little brain is soaking up and how much she remembers

- Ella is trying to sing (twinkle, twinkle little star...adorable!); she loves to dance and loves to draw (still prefers pens and colored pencils).

- John has been having court stuff in Montgomery, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa; had his first trial (but then in the courtroom it ended up getting postponed to January); he is loving his job, but has quickly learned that law school does not teach you how to be a lawyer!

- I am now the Financial Planning Association's director of public outreach (pro-bono). It's a fairly new position, and they are really wanting to focus on public outreach this next year with everything going on with the economy. In addition to being in charge of financial planning classes at a women and children's homeless shelter, I'll be coming up with ideas to reach out to the general public who can't afford financial planning advice. Yea, not sure how I am going to have time to do this, but I am looking forward to it!

- We are hoping to get our house on the market in the spring sometime and had a real estate agent come and tell us everything we should do to get it ready. Long list..... but we are hoping to take advantage of the low interest rates and lower housing prices to get into a house that we can actually fit into (maybe a basement for john's art supplies, music equipment, and ella's toys, toys, toys galore). Again , not sure how we'll have time to get everything done to our house and then pack up and move, but we are pretty motivated with the low prices and interest rates. Most of the houses around us are taking anywhere from 3 days to 3 months to sell, so hopefully we'll be able to sell it quickly, but we'll see.

- We just got rid of cable again, so maybe now I'll have more time to update our blog more often!

We are definitely looking forward to Christmas. A little elf told me that Ella might be getting a red vintage kitchen, and a handmade rocking horse. We'll just have to see what Santa decides to bring! Hope you are all doing well, and I'll try to start updating more often!

Thanksgiving

Collage of pictures from Thanksgiving at Elizabeth's lovely house in Montgomery

(try clicking on the collage for a larger view)

The letter A

I promise I won't post every letter she learns to write...but here's her writing the letter A for the first time. She must be taking some writing class at school that I don't know about, b/c I have no idea how she is learning to do this!

Wee Weet!

For Halloween Ella was the most adorable pumpkin I've ever seen! (thanks for letting Ella borrow the costume Stephanie and Hannah!). She just loved prancing around in the costume. We had a very busy day, which started at the Halloween parade at her school. Then we went to lunch at my work, she conked out, she had her 18 month check up (which wouldn't be complete without a couple of shots), then finally ended up trick-or-treating in Whit & Joann's neighborhood. All it took was her saying "Wee Weet" at a couple of houses, followed by a "Tank Tu", and we have way more candy than we should eat!

At the party in her class after the parade

Whit and Joann's house

(Thanks to Jonathan at John's work for the idea for our halloween costumes...Pumpkin Farmers...you know...farmers that grow pumpkins! )

No more Wee Weet....

Pumpkin Patch

A couple of weeks ago Grace Golightly had her 2nd birthday party at the Pumpkin Patch at Baker's Farm. John was out of town, so it was quite an adventure getting around the patch with Ella, all of our stuff, and 2 pumpkins (thanks for helping Drew!). Ella had a great time, and I was completely exhausted! Next year, I will not do this without John!

Mandy & Grace on the hay ride that did not seem like it was completely safe. Luckily no one fell off.

Stephanie & Hannah

Ella LOVED the horse. Although I was a little scared of the horse b/c I heard some other little girl running off crying that the horse hated her...apparently she got too close and the horse knocked her down with his head! But the horse seemed to like Ella ok.

Can you find Ella amongst all of the pumpkins?

A day at the Park

A couple of weeks ago Ella and I got to spend the afternoon with Jenny Strickland and her youngest boy, Dylan. Ella and Dylan had a great time flirting on the playground in Helena (this is the best playground if you've never been!!). Ella definitely is an expert on the slide. She knows the drill...and likes to slide again, and again, and again, and again.....

Little update

So, I guess my lack of adding things lately might indicate just how busy we have been! You know, with stock market crashes, john learning how to be a lawyer, and Ella learning new things every day. John's job is going so well. He loves all of the people there and is really enjoying the work too! So much it almost seems like he's enjoying going in on some Saturday mornings! Which just means that Ella and I get to stay in our PJ's longer and watch cartoons when he's not around!



We celebrated our 5 year anniversary on October 11, and it is so hard to believe we have been married that long. We like to stick with the traditional and modern gifts. I secretly got John this guitar he's been wanting and playing for months at a music store by the Diplomat Deli. It was hiding in Ella's closet covered up by her sheets! I had to spoil the surprise early once he found he passed the bar! But, I told him it was for passing the bar and for our anniversary since it is made of wood (traditional 5 year gift is wood). John's been trying to get me to have my grandmother's Star Ruby reset. Before Nanny passed away she told me to get it reset. So, I am having a pendant made out of it at the jewelry store that fixed my engagement ring (when the prongs started falling off b/c the ring was so old, right after we got back from our honey moon). So, there will be some silver on the pendant (the modern gift is Silverware...so close enough!).

Learning to play the Harmonica

Busy Times

I guess things just never slow down! John passed the bar......and as a present he worked last night until 10:30 PM!!!! The market stinks and my work is quite stressful these days. Ella isn't slowing down one bit and doesn't really give us much time to rest! Finally tonight John and I were able to sit down, relax a little, and watch the debate...fun stuff! We must be getting old....here are a few recent pictures of our little one that is definitely going to keep us young!

Bath Time!

Yummy Grits....definitely a southern girl!

Cheese!

The Letter B!

She has been enjoying drawing with a pen lately (just like John!), but had no idea she could do this!

Our little beach princess

Here are some pictures we took of ella on our trip to Panama City a few weeks ago. She was not a big fan of the way the sand felt since she doesn't like things to feel dirty or gritty. Once we found a mat for her to sit on she was up for a few pictures.

Ella enjoyed flying the kite all by herself!

She especially enjoyed watching daddy run after it once she decided she was finished and just let go. Mommy enjoyed watching it too...quite hilarious!

Bad Blogger

Obviously I have not been very good at updating the blog lately! We got a new camera a couple of months ago and I am still trying to figure it out...we now have over 1,200 pictures on the camera, so I am WAY behind on posting things! Let's see....John started work and is already in full force! He loves the people there, and is going to be working very closely with one of the partners as sort of a mentoring type position. But he's already working a LOT (even on Labor Day!).



Ella has been learning and doing all sorts of fun things.

- She is running now

- She is trying to repeat almost everything we are saying. John keeps giving me the evil eye reminding me to watch my mouth! I don't really say bad words a lot or anything, but I did say, "That Sucks!" the other day and she started saying..."Yuck, Yuck"

- She knows her color yellow very well. This morning I turned on the TV to check on Gustav and the New Orleans mayor was wearing a yellow shirt and Ella immediately said, "Yellow!"

- She has moved up to the Toddler I class, which was very traumatic for me just thinking she is now a toddler. I guess I could have figured that one out once she started walking. They only take 1 nap a day in that class! The director said Ella has adjusted very quickly, and will sit on her mat during reading and learning time, will do the exercises with the class (and she comes home and practices them!), and pulls out her chair and sits down for lunch all by herself!

- Not too long ago I asked John to make Ella some M-I-L-K (spelling it out so she wouldn't start whining for it). She immediately knew what I said and started doing the sign for milk and saying, "Milk, Milk!"

- Ella enjoys trying to read books to us. She'll point at pictures and recognize animals and say, Dog...Ruf, Ruf, Cat...Meow, etc. The other night she pulled down The Giving Tree and pointed on the front cover and said, "Apple!". We had no idea she knew what an apple was!



It's just hard to believe Ella will be 17 months old on the 13th of September. It seems like she should still be a little tiny baby! She is such a joy to us, and is just growing up Way too fast!!

Chris & Janet's Wedding

yes, that is cake up Janet's nose

John's grandparents

John's mother and granddad

Mollie and Anthony

Ha ha! Janet, I don't know where the glitter in the air vents came from. What a brilliant idea!

Wedding Rehearsal & Ice Cream Social