Christmas Tree Tradition

We continued our family tradition that we've done since I was little of cutting down a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving.  After meeting up with my family for breakfast at our favorite spot, the Maltby Cafe, we headed to Farmer Brown's Christmas Tree Farm and scouted out the perfect trees to bring home.

 

Once we got the tree home, Ella was fascinated, and I'm sure confused, about why we were bringing a tree into the house!

 Helping get out the Christmas decorations

 Her new favorite game is taking ornaments off the tree, examining them one by one, and putting them in a basket next to the tree...over and over again.  Of course her favorite ornaments are a framed picture of Lily and a little dog on a bell :).  Our decorations are definitely more limited this year, and our tree is a little sparse on the bottom half with ornaments that are unbreakable and safe for Ella to play with!

First Tooth

While most babies reach the milestone of getting their first tooth between 4-6 months, we have been waiting and waiting for Ella to finally cut her first tooth.  Every time she got a slight fever or was overly cranky, we would blame it on the possibility that she was "probably teething".  Lo and behold those teeth never appeared and we began to question whether or not she even had teeth.  Of course I looked up "babies with no teeth at 12 months" on the internet (bad idea, like usual) and read somewhere that 3% of children are actually born without teeth!  I envisioned having to fit Ella for baby dentures in the next year or two, "Toddlers and Tiaras" style.  We asked Ella's doctor about it at her one year appointment, and she assured us that we had nothing to worry about and that I should stay off the internet ;).  Finally, at 13 1/2 months, I was fishing toilet paper out of Ella's mouth that she had found and was eating and I felt something sharp on my finger.  We looked and saw her first little pearly white coming in!  It was hard to get a picture of it until recently, but wanted to document a picture of her first tooth having made it's appearance.  We've since noticed one more tooth coming in right next to it.  Thankfully, she hasn't seemed to be affected by the teeth at all and we'll hope that continues.  Congrats Ella on growing a tooth!

Thanksgiving 2011

We are so excited that the holidays are here!  While it was fun having a newborn during the holiday season last year, it is so much more fun having a one year old to experience the holidays with this year!  Ella is at such a fun age and I have no doubt she has loved getting to spend quality time with family, which is really what the holidays are all about.  We kicked off the holiday season by spending Thanksgiving at my parents house.  They hosted a beautiful meal, where we ate too much, and enjoyed a loud and crazy day with seventeen of us!

We loved getting to hang out with David and Emily, who came up from Eugene for the long weekend

 Ella with my aunt and mom

 

 Getting some snuggles in with grandma

 Finishing up our Thanksgiving meal with 12 adults and 5 kids

 My cousin Linda and her family came up from Scottsdale, AZ for the weekend - it was so great to see them!  Love these cute girls - Alaina and Jessica (6) with Ella.

 Ella with her "ba-pa" (Grandpa)

 Crazy Uncle Tom :)

We have so much to be thankful for and are so blessed by our wonderful family and friends. Happy Thanksgiving!

Football Season

I love this time of year - the leaves changing color, the cool air, scarves and boots, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin spice lattes, crockpot meals, and of course, football on the weekends.  While I've never been the biggest football fan, I do find myself looking forward to watching a game with Cody, putting Ella in her sports gear, and having a cozy day inside with my family.  Our Saturday and Sunday afternoons these days are generally devoted to college and NFL games.  Thanks to her dad and uncles, Ella has been outfitted with some pretty cute sports wear.  She may just be the cutest little cheerleader out there!

 A few weeks ago, Ella and Nate had a date to watch a Seahawks game together - their matching t-shirts were unplanned :).

 Touchdown!

Happy Birthday Grandma and Grandpa!

My parents happen to have the same birthday (same day, two years apart).  My dad turned the big 6-0 this year so we celebrated both of them with a beautiful dinner at Palisades before they headed off on a Caribbean cruise - so jealous of them!

I love that Ella adores her grandma.  This picture melts my heart!

Ella thought it was hilarious when her grandma was trying to blow out her birthday candle.  The lighting wasn't great, so the pictures are a bit blurry but I love this sequence of pictures of Ella trying to figure out what her grandma was doing!

Birthday kisses for grandpa!

Happy Birthday Mom and Dad! Love you guys!