Baby e is a big girl now---videos

Baby e is doing all sorts of things:



We are reading



AND we are walking---I have only been able to catch a few steps on video.

Thanksgiving....

Soo behind on posting, so here we go!

WE had a wonderful thanksgiving and have sooooo very much to be thankful for. T had several days in a row off and was off for the weekend (that does not happen). It was great to enjoy some family time. Thanksgiving day was great. Started the day with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade of course and continued prepping our dinner. Thanksgiving dinner ended up being just the 4 of us, but I can't think of 3 people that i would have rather spent the day with. The mountains got a lot of snow so it was good that we waited to take the kids up to Soda Springs on Sunday. It was a beautiful day. Thankfully, the resort was not crowded at all. T began teaching E how to snow board while baby e and i just enjoyed the snow. We all had wonderful time. E was not quite ready to leave the snow when we had to say goodbye to Soda Springs so we stopped on the way home at a place where people were sledding and T and E had another snowball fight. Great time and great memories!

Visit from Grammy and Ella's First Bday Party Recap

Hard to believe 2 weeks have past since baby e's birthday and Grammy was here to visit, but it is true.

Here is a short (ish) account of Grammy's visit and Ella's 1st Birthday. We were completely blessed to have my wonderful Mother in Law here to celebrate with us. T's mom, AKA Grammy, came all the way from Rhode Island to spend some time with us and help us celebrate Ella's birthday. WE enjoyed having her here so very much; the time went by entirely too fast! While Grammy was here we showed her around town, visited some very cool neighboring communities, tried some fun restaurants, went to one of Ethan's football games, shopped, celebrated, went to church, visited, played and visited some more, went to Muir Woods and San Francisco and played some more. Not necessarily in that order. Needless to say, when it came time for Grammy to leave, this is how we all felt.
We missed her before the plane left the airport :(

Here are some shots from her visit:

Needless to say we had a wonderful time with Grammy! I have the best MIL ever! Cannot wait to see her again. Until we do, we have lots of fun memories to reflect on.

During Grammy's visit, we got to celebrate Miss Ella June's first birthday! We were totally overwhelmed with joy as we shared the day with so many of our new friends and the generosity that was poured out for Ella's bday was soooooo wonderful! Rather than put each photo on here individually, I put them into a shared photo album...just click and view. Thank you to Angelica for bringing your camera and taking so many fun shots for us to look back on and enjoy the party over and over again.

Click here to view this photo book larger

We had standing room only in our cozy home and celebrated Ella with pink princess decor, flowers, balloons, pink cupcakes, pink tiara party hats and princess party music. I actually baked and decorated 5 dozen cupcakes and enjoyed that soooo very much! Ella was dressed in a sweet princess onesie, jeans, cute pink shoes and a (mommy made) tutu to top off her princess outfit. We had a blast enjoying our friends and family (both here and afar). We got to share the day with people from out of town via Skype which was soooo much fun. Made us feel closer to them. T sang songs for Ella (we had a favorite song list) and Ella had fun opening all of her new things. Blessed beyond words is all I can say. Ella's bday was sweet fun and our little girl enjoyed every minute of it (except the big bite of ice cream she took that was too cold).

Ok, so not exactly a short recap....but hey there was a lot to cover ;) I will close with 2 videos from the party.

ONE YEAR

A year ago today Ella June Harrison was born. Our lives are forever changed.

Ella June you are a bundle of blessings.

You are learning to walk....not quite taking steps on your own, but soon you will be running. You are beautiful, your laugh and smile are quite contagious. You like to eat good for you foods. Your favorite breakfast is avocado and bananas. You love grapes. You always want to feed yourself these days. You mastered the cup months ago and can tell us when you want a drink. You love music and play our piano and sing every day. Your big brother is your favorite person to play with. You have many words and they include: Daddy, momma, hi, bye, book, cat, dog, ball, that, oh, Ethan, Ella and a few others. You can answer yes and no questions with shaking your head. You are a strong little girl and love to climb. You are speed crawler. A couple of your favorite songs are Twinkle Twinkle and Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes. You know where your head is and where your toes are. You love shoes! You give the best hugs. You make car noises as you push a toy car around the floor. You love the cell phones and pretend to talk on them. You have 6 teeth and 2 more coming in. You enjoy books and reading time. You like to build with your blocks. These are just some of the many, many, many things you are doing now.

You have grown so much Miss Ella June and bless our lives every day! We thank God for every moment with you! You are such a smart, lovely and beautiful little girl and have a big and bright personality.

Happy 1st birthday to our little Ella Bug! We love you so very much!!!

Where did the year go?

Unbelievable! As the end of October quickly approaches, I am in disbelief that Ella, my baby e, my sweet little bug,our little girl is about to turn ONE!

Last year at this time:

I was sooooo ready for her to be out of my tummy and into my arms. And a little more than a week later: It seems so quickly we have gone from:

TO--------->
What a sweet little bug you are, Ella Bella! We love you so very much.

Ella's first Apple

Here is Ella loving her apple from our outing at Apple Hill.

Big Girl :)

She is almost a year old. Only a couple more weeks before she is officially a toddler.
I captured this sweet video this evening.