The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Since Christmas is my very favorite holiday of the year, I had looked forward to sharing it with our baby ever since finding out we were pregnant last January.  It was so special to experience Ella's first Christmas this year and I have a feeling the holidays will just get more and more fun each year with her!  We had a busy week leading up to Christmas and the days that followed with holiday parties and get togethers every night.  Ella got a little overwhelmed with going to so many new places and seeing new faces every night, but it was fun to spend time with family and friends.  I apologize in advance for all the pictures but I wanted to document all the fun moments of celebrating Christmas with Ella this year! 

I love Christmas decorations and how the presents look under the tree.  I'm guessing next year we won't be able to put presents out without Ella investigating what they are!

 Our little peanut in front of the tree

 Ella started her own collection of Christmas ornaments this year with very special ornaments given to her from some of our family and friends.  I love that she will have her own ornaments to decorate the tree just like Cody and I still decorate the tree with the ornaments from our childhoods.  My mom has made ornaments for my brothers and I every year (up until now), so it was special that she made this darling ornament for Ella this year...

Ella on Christmas Eve

 Opening stockings Christmas morning

 Our Christmas morning breakfast

 Ella checking out her Christmas story book

 After having Christmas with our little family at our house, we headed up to my parent's house for the rest of the day.  Ella loved the new exersaucer that her Grandma and Grandpa Howell got her!

 Cody figuring out how to put together Ella's toys :)

 Ella was very spoiled with so many nice gifts from our family.  She is one very loved little girl!

 Hanging out with Uncle Tom

 Spending time with Uncle David

 Ella with her Grandma Howell and Uncle Tom

Finally a TRUE family picture...with Lily included

 Ella and mama

The day after Christmas we headed over to Ephrata and spent the night with Cody's family.  Ella did great on the drive over and spending her first night away from home.  Ed and Linda made a delicious Christmas meal and we enjoyed relaxing and spending time with them.  

Ella playing on her new Pillow Pet from her Grandma and Grandpa Lamens

 Hanging out with Grandpa Lamens

As we remember the reason for the Christmas season, we are thankful for the birth of our Savior.  It's hard to believe that last year at Christmas we didn't know we would be expecting our own little one in the coming year.  We have been beyond blessed this year and are so thankful for our healthy, growing girl.   This Christmas was a very memorable one for us and we look forward to experiencing many new "firsts" with Ella in 2011. 

Three Months

Little Miss Ella is officially three months old!  She continues to be the joy of our lives and just gets more and more fun everyday.  It is so much fun now that she's interacting more with us.  She's smiling when we make eye contact with her, looking at pictures in books when we read to her, constantly putting her fingers (and trying to fit her whole fists) in her mouth, grabbing onto her toys, sitting up (while we support her back), and tolerating tummy time more and more.  Her latest little sound she makes is her laugh.  Her dad can get her to laugh more than anyone and it is such a sweet sound!  We happened to catch one of her little laughs on video...

And she's growing like crazy!  We don't have a doctor's appointment this month to get her official height/weight stats but she's clearly growing out of a lot of her clothes.  As I was putting away most of Ella's 0-3 month clothes, I pulled out the little dress we had bought when we found out what the gender of our baby was.  You may remember from the post from last spring how surprised and thrilled we were to see this cute little dress when we found out we were having a girl.  Since we bought the dress in the spring and Ella was born in the fall, she never really had a chance to wear the darling dress.  I had to put her in it before she grew too big just to see it come to life after it had hung in her closet for so many months waiting for her arrival.

 Our little model...it cracks me up how serious she looks!

And just a few more cute pictures of our three month old...

Over the river and through the woods...

...to grandmother's house we go!  Well, it was more like up and over the pass we go, but either way we made the trip to Ephrata to visit Cody's family.  We had originally planned to go in November, but since I had my little surgery the trip was postponed until the first weekend in December.  Ella loved seeing her grandparents and her Uncle Beau!

We're switching bloggers to Cody.  Ella is a little hungry so Bethany is going to tend to Ella and I'll take care of this blog post.  

My parents hadn't seen Ella since she was born in September, other than a couple video chat sessions, so we were really excited to take her to her grandparents house for the first time.  The minute we pulled in the driveway my mom was on the front porch waiting to see her darling granddaughter.  Before we got there my mom kept saying all she wanted to do hug, kiss, and squeeze Ella so needless to say she was a little excited!  As for my dad, let's just say that I am not the only one Ella will have wrapped around her finger.  My dad had the heat cranked up so the the house would be nice and toasty for Ella to be at the optimal point of comfort.

As for the rest of the day.  We had lunch and watched the Civil War game between Oregon and Oregon State where we saw Uncle David on TV a couple of times.  Uncle Beau came over later in the day to play with Ella and join us for dinner.  My dad made some amazing homemade spaghetti sauce with Italian sausage and it was nice to be able to sit around the table and have a meal with my family since we don't get to do it that often.  After dinner it was time to watch the Apple Cup which was surprisingly a really good game.  We had some of my mom's super delicious cherry pie for dessert and it was time to head home back over the mountains.  All in all it was a perfect day!   

It was a lot of fun for me to see my parent as grandparents!  I loved seeing them light up when they saw Ella and all her smiles, cries, coos and, of course, poops.  I am really looking forward to seeing them again over Christmas and with as fast as Ella is changing and learning new things she'll have a whole new bag of tricks to show off for Grandma and Grandpa Lamens.

 Here are some pictures to highlight our trip..

Ella slept the whole time during the car ride over :).

Ella and Grandpa

 Ella and Uncle Beau

Ella smiling at Grandma

Santa Baby

Another one of my favorite family traditions that I looked forward to when growing up was visiting Santa.  Every year my family would go downtown for dinner, do some shopping, and get our picture taken with Santa.  I have great memories of going to Frederick and Nelson's to see Santa, eating at the Old Spaghetti Factory, and checking out the toys in the department stores.  Yes, we were that family that still visited Santa even when my brothers and I were in high school just to keep the tradition going :).  Even though Ella has no idea who Santa is, it was important to me to get her picture taken this year so that we could start our own tradition and remember her first Christmas.  She did great sitting on Santa's lap...he told us to enjoy it this year as next year she may not be so happy sitting on a stranger's lap!

Ella's first Santa photo...

Christmas Tree

One of my favorite things about this time of year is family traditions.  For as long as I can remember, my family has always had the tradition of cutting down our Christmas tree from a tree farm the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I love the memories I have of spending time with my family during our Christmas tree outings!  I plan to continue the tradition with my family, so it was very special to start it with Ella this year.  The day after Thanksgiving we headed out to Trinity Tree farm with my parents, my brother Tom, and his girlfriend Liz. 

  

Me and my sweet girl...she was nice and cozy in the Ergo baby so she slept most of the time!

My dad and Cody getting ready to saw down their tree...

In front of our chosen tree...

The traditional "sawing down the tree" picture...

Trinity Tree farm...

Cody carrying our tree to the car...

Daddy and his girl...

Ella all tuckered out from the big outing...

 

I love how our house looks decorated for Christmas!  Ella got in the Christmas spirit as we were decorating the tree in her reindeer jammies...

 Ella's first ornament...

 And her cute stocking...

We're going to enjoy the fact that Ella just enjoys looking at the lights on the tree and can't get into anything this year.  I'm sure next year she'll be running around and we'll be baby proofing like crazy! :)