The cutest girl ever!!!!!!

I may be a little biased, but really she is just so cute!!!! Today is the first time I ever tried the two big pigtails, loved them but of course with hair that fine they stayed in for about 5 minutes. Then the overalls, I LOVE overalls but haven't been able to put her in them because every time she would sit the bib of them would come up over her mouth, which is not so cute and rather annoying!! So now that she has grown some (though you will notice how long they are on her!) I thought I would give it a try. Anyhow, I love how her eyes match the denim. That's it for today, just had to share these pics!!

Naughty!!!!

Funny story. Last night I was trying to print something off of the computer and the printer was not cooperating, so I yelled for Chris to come and help me. He was in here (the bedroom) for a whole 2 minutes then returned to the living room where our sweet innocent daughter was playing. Chris yelled for me, in that tone reserved for when one of our children are doing something they are not supposed to be. So, rolling my eyes I walk into the living room. Ella immediately grunts/yells at me and turns her back to me. When I finally get a good look at her this is what I see.


































Ella pulled herself up on Hunter's desk and found the other half of his candy cane (which may I add that Santa gave him when he visited his class at school, which I had to hear about all day.) somehow unwrapped it and began sucking on it. Now, I must admit that I was quite amazed and my first thought was, wow she is SO smart, she actually got that unwrapped and did not shove the whole thing in her mouth, I have to get the camera!!! Of course then I realized what a mess she had made and worse yet that I had better get her cleaned up fast as to dispose of the evidence before Hunter found out!! What a sticky mess she was, and let me tell you she was VERY angry to have that candy cane taken away after she had worked so hard!!

This is SO funny!!

You have to watch this it is SO funny!!! Here is what my husband does when he is at work. http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1579847482

Christmas picture outakes : )

I was trying to take this picture at our church on Sunday morning. Hunter would not stop kissing Ella. Normally sweet, right then all I wanted him to do was smile at the camera!








Love Ella's face!













My husband's pick for our Christmas cards.











Lovely.












And finally our winner. Never mind that neither kid is looking at the camera. But this was the only one with 2 smiles and 4 eyes open. So, there you have it!!!

Okay, so let me start by saying that I am incredibly stressed!!! We have a very good chance of moving to Spokane, WA in about 25 days. Of course this is all depending on the Air Force (surely they will finally take pity on us and actually do what we are requesting) Chris has asked for an early out (9 weeks) at the request of the Spokane Police Dept so he can get into the Feb academy. I am excited about moving but 1. I am not emotionally prepared to leave all of the wonderful people that I know here and 2. I hate packing 3. I don't want to drive with our 2 kids 1700 miles 4. We don't know where we are going to live 5. I don't want to unpack and OH YEAH we don't even know for sure that Chris has the job so I'm a little freaked out about it all. I am trying to start packing the house and get rid of a bunch of stuff. But little Miss Thing has decided that she no longer wants to take naps. That's right my 15 month old has not napped for 4 days straight. Normally not a horrible thing, given that she is incredibly happy these days, but when you are trying to get things done and she is getting into EVERYTHING it kind of makes things hard. Ella has been SO happy lately. I don't know if it a coincidence or it is because of the ear tubes but she has been extremely vocal, very loud, and has been laughing a lot. I dare to say that her breathing is a lot quieter too, could it be from her tubes???? My grandparents are coming on Friday so we are excited about that! They will be a huge help because they can occupy the kiddos while I get some stuff done!! YAY!!! I think my mom has watched my video montage 50 times, every time I talk to her she says she has watched it again, which makes me laugh. My mom was talking to my new sister-in-law the other day and asked her if she had watched the video, which she had. She told my mom that she had been thinking a lot lately about her and Dustin (my little brother) having a baby and the possibility that they could have a baby with Down syndrome or some other disability and how that now because of Ella she knows they could handle it. That makes me feel so good. I mean really isn't that what we all want. One of my goals in life is to tell as many people as possible about Ella and that because of her they see that a child with special needs is just as wonderful as a typical child. Not to say that it's all a walk in the park, but it's wonderful. I know that I have said this before but I wish that when Ella was born I had known all that I know now. That is my only regret. I feel like I missed bonding moments with Ella in those first few weeks to months. So, I just want people to know that things will be okay and your life can change in the blink of an eye but it is all for the better. I don't know if any of that makes any sense at all, it's almost 1am and I can barely keep my eyes open but I felt a need to post.

My Video

I FINALLY did a video montage. I have been loading it and editing it for months and finally got it done. It's kind of long, cause I have a billion pictures but I hope you watch it!!!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The Perfect Patient

Ella had her tubes put in this morning. We were on the road at 5:30 AM to head up to Lawton, OK for her surgery and lucky me it was raining ice. Now for those of you that know me, I am a VERY nervous driver oh yeah and NOT a morning person. So after 3 hours of sleep, the weather and it being pitch black out, by the time I arrived at the surgery center my nerves were already shot.

Ella did wonderful!! They gave her a sedative when we first got there, I changed her into her little hospital gown and they gave her a Dr. Bear. She was hilarious once the medication kicked in. She just kept laughing and rocking back and forth to get me to rock in the rocking chair. The procedure took a whole 15 minutes, the doctor said he cleaned out more fluid than he thought would be in there, so hopefully that is the answer to our hearing test problems!! She woke up nicely from her anesthesia and we were on the road back home by 8:15. She was a little whiny all day and kept laying down on the floor (which NEVER happens!) But otherwise she was great, she loves her Dr. Bear so I thought I would take some pics of her with it. Don't pay any attention to her crazy hat hair : )

We Are Back!!!

Hello To All!!! We are back home. Whew, 25 days gone it feels like an eternity but it also went by all to fast. Let me tell you though, we got an incredible amount of stuff done! I will write more about our adventures later (it's after 1AM and I'm tired!) I just wanted to do a quick brag post about Ella. In the 25 days that we were gone she learned quite a bit!! She now....... - can cruise (walk holding on the the couch etc) - throw a ball - blow kisses - pretends to talk on the toy phone - crawls up on all fours instead of belly crawling - dances ( the cutest thing I have ever seen, she kind of does the twist) - claps with her feet ( every time she would throw the ball we would say "yay" and she would clap her feet together, it even makes the clapping sound!!) - yesterday on the airplane she finally decided to start clapping her hands, we have been working on that one for months!!! - and finally she is walking pretty good when you hold on to her hands!! I am so proud of her!!! It's funny how much more you appreciate every little thing with her!

Tomorrow we are heading up to Lawton, Oklahoma for her pre-op appointments and then Wednesday she is getting tubes in her ears. I am not the least bit worried about the actual tubes part, it's the anesthesia that kind of freaks me out. Anyhow, I probably will not be on for a couple of days, we are going to be super busy!!!