Merry & Bright

Christmas... my absolute favorite holiday.  This time around, Adam and I vowed to try our best to really enjoy and relish the holiday season.  So often it just passes us by.  We made sure to put decorations up right away and just enjoy what this time of year meant to us.  I think Ella loved how festive it was and I loved starting new traditions with her.  Crazy to think that this time next year, we'll have another little person in our family to celebrate with (an extra stocking to hang!).  It's also crazy to see how much Ella has grown in a year.  Time is flying and sometimes I just can't wrap my brain around it all.

Picking out our Christmas tree.

Helping decorate the big tree.

Helping decorate the mini tree.

The Elf on the Shelf made an appearance in our home this year.  Ella LOVED looking for him every morning, waving and saying hello, and then saying good night as she went up to take a bath.

At Adam's company Christmas lunch.

Decorating her first gingerbread house.

 Christmas this year consisted of a brunch with our families on Christmas Eve, followed by some present opening.  Then on Christmas day, the grandparents joined us for breakfast and the remaining gift giving.

Christmas Eve 

Ella got antsy to start opening gifts.  Here's a very realistic picture of asking an 18-month-old to pose for picture after picture.

Opening her first gift from her Auntie Kathie: a retro milk-truck to pull around.  Super cute.

Christmas morning we opened even more gifts.  Ella got a diaper bag to help with changing her Bitty Baby doll.  Her new favorite thing to do is change her dolls' diapers after declaring someone "cho-cho" (stinky).

She even adds the "butt paste"

With her new Olivia doll (also a new love of her life after watching some episodes of the show at the cabin).

In December, my favorite girlfriends threw me a lovely little shower for our baby boy.  It was perfectly intimate, which was I requested.  I just appreciated the time to spend catching up with friends and getting a kid-free afternoon.

The vintage airplane theme was super cute.  And the food was all cooked by my good girlfriend, Denise, with help from my other awesome girlfriends, Kathy and Shirley.  

We snapped the picture last minute before everyone started leaving.  

My lovely hostesses.

November Happenings

The most notable event in November was celebrating Thanksgiving up at our cabin.  This year we got to host some extended family from Washington.  My favorite part of the week was watching Ella play with her cousins, Sydney and Samantha.  We all had a great time relaxing on the deck, taking walks and small hikes, and just spending uninterrupted family time together.  On this trip, Ella discovered chips and snacks and there has been no turning back since.  

It was our first time back at the cabin since Ella was 8 months, so it took some adjusting for her.  But she ended up loving it up there.

Walking down to the lake.  Ella insisted on walking the whole way (and protested when we picked her up to cross the main road.)

At the lake.

Hanging out on the deck.  The weather was sunny and perfect.

We hiked up to a waterfall near our cabin.  It was beautiful.

Pretty moss-covered rocks.

My 28 week bump. (Still manageable at this point.)

More deck time.

All the walking and fresh air made this little one exhausted by nap time.

Our Thanksgiving meal.  So much to be grateful for this year!

More walking with Grandma.  Ella LOVED her walks with Grandma (and still does).

After our return from the cabin, Adam and I got to celebrate our fifth anniversary.  While (unnecessarily) eating our three-course meal way too fast, we reflected on how blessed we were to have experienced so much love in such little time.  When we said "I do" five years ago, we never imagined how our family would grow in a few short years.  

Fall 2012

Since I was so terrible with keeping up with posts, here's a look back at our Fall festivities.  We kicked it off with a trip to the pumpkin patch (an annual tradition).  Ella loved seeing all the animals and roaming the pumpkin field.  I think her favorite was the hayride where she got to wave to all the scarecrows.  

Photo op before heading in.  (My bump was 23 weeks at the time.)

Lunch time.  Remy got to come along and loved the attention.

Patiently waiting for the pig races.

Waiting for the hayride.

She loved sitting in Daddy's lap and waving to the scarecrows (a habit she developed from walking around our neighborhood and waving to the many scarecrows adorning our neighbors' yards.)

Ella got to meet the beautiful horses that pulled us along.

Checking out the chickens.  Ella makes excellent chicken noises.

Pumpkin time!

Exhausted from the day, Ella takes a rest while waiting for the car to pull up. 

In October we also celebrated Ella's first anniversary of her baptism.  We got her a special little dessert and lit her baptism candle to commemorate the special occasion.

She is definitely inherited her father's trait of not loving desserts.  She ate the fruit and some whipped cream and left the rest of the mini cheesecake.  

Halloween was particularly warm this past year, so we had to abandon our original costume idea (Amelia Earhart) for something more practical.  Since Ella loves pointing her toes and dancing around the house, we thought it appropriate for her to dress up as a ballerina.  

Our prima ballerina.

We went trick-or-treating at an event in downtown Monrovia near where we live.  She thought it strange that all the dogs were dressed up.

Going store to store for candy.

We met up with her friend from Gymboree class.  Madelyn made the cutest bumble bee and her new baby brother, Gabe, was a ferocious tiger.

Remy made sure to check out her goods when we got home.

What is this stuff... candy??

The days following Halloween, Ella would ask to look through her candy stash.  While she didn't get to have any, she did get to eat some pretzels she got from a health-conscious neighbor! 

New Year, New Posts (Hopefully!)

So the reason for the lack of posts has because I've been having trouble uploading pictures to Blogger.  For some reason, they kept telling me I exceeded my limit.  I didn't even know I had a limit.  Anyway, I think it's been fixed, but we'll see.  For the time being, before my barrage of catch-up posts, I thought I'd try it out and post some pictures from our latest photo shoot (taken in November).  I wanted to get some pictures of Ella approaching 18 months of age, some bump pics (I have been SO incredibly bad at keeping up with this pregnancy...sigh), and some Christmas card pics.  So here are some of our favorites.  Thanks to my old high school friend, Teresa at Pirouette Photography, for taking these lovely photos!