Say Cheese!

Okay, so I have lots of pictures finally posted. I apologize for the delay. You'd think since I work less I would have more time to do this, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Anyway, here are photos from December. I don't really have too many others after that. I never seem to have the camera around lately for those perfect moments.

Ella in her grass skirt-a Xmas gift from the Gomes'

Celebrating the New Year!

We let Maddie and Taylor have Sparkling Grape Juice in REAL champagne glasses to ring in the New Year! Don't those bathrobes crack you up!?

Going shopping with her new cart-a Xmas gift from Patrick and Kelly. She put the baby in there all by herself.

Maddie and Ella coloring.

Ella taking a rest in the cool play tunnel that Papa got her for Xmas.

Figuring out how to use the spoon!

Connor and Ella playing at the diner that Boo Boo got Ella for Xmas. It's a kitchen on one side and the diner on the other. It even has a little jukebox that plays music and a bell to ring for service. Ella loves this! She plays with it all the time!

I felt like Ms. Hannigan this day! My floors were shining like the top of the Chrysler building! They all wanted to play with the mops and brooms. Who am I to argue....heheh

Maddie handing out presents on Xmas morning.

Blake and Ella in the tent that came with the play tunnel.

Roasting marshmallows using the handy electric marshmallow roaster turny thingy that Santa brought for Peter and Blake.

Eating marshmallows!

Showing off the jewels that Tina got her for XMas. The earrings (which she loves) and the pretty heart necklace that matched her outfit perfectly!

Blake's itchy fingers just dying to open that present on Christmas Eve

So that's that. It was a ton of fun to have the Gomes' stay with us. I loved spending so much time with them. Maddie and Taylor are wonderful nieces. I love them so much!!!

Ella is a little chatterbox these days. She just goes on and on. She's fairly easy to understand, but there are still a few things that I don't quite understand.

As of last week she started sleeping in a twin bed that we bought her. It's been so nice to get her out of our bed! She seems to be doing fine with it so far. At most I have to go in twice a night and just sit with her for a few minutes until she falls back asleep. No complaints from me!

She's rolling up on two pretty quickly. I can hardly believe it!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. (Seeing as how this didn't take me that long to update, I should hopefully be better about updating it more frequently! heeh...yeah right).

Latest(news) and Greatest(cat)

Okay, finally. Here are some more pics. Unfortunately they are not the most recent. My camera is still not working so I haven't been taking any pictures. Need to get it fixed before Jenn and Francis get here though, so hopefully there will more pics soon. She is getting sooo big!

Playin' in the leaves

Kathy sent Blake some popcorn balls for Halloween that you could decorate with all these different edible candies. So Blake and I built them....

and then we ate them...



She loves our IPods

Okay so there's your baby fix.

The big news that I wanted to update everyone on is that I am leaving my current job to take a job as a Paraeducator at Aurora Frontier K-8!! I will be the library assistant. (Actually, assistant to my friend Elizabeth!) My last day at the credit union is December 10th. I can hardly believe it as I have been there for 7 1/2 years. But this opportunity presented itself and I really didn't want to pass it up. It's actually a part-time position. I will be working five hours a day. This will free up time for me to spend with Ella and to also go back to school to get my teaching certificate. And once I have been at the school for a year, they will pay for me to complete my certificate!!

Ella has such a personality now it's so much fun to "hang out" with her. She talks up a storm and moves her arms and hands like she's really concerned and having a serious conversation. When she laughs, sometimes she bends over and slaps her knee like it's just sooo hilarious! Anytime she sees a napkin or tissue she will ball it up and pretend to blow her nose. And she's devious! You'll tell her no, and either she'll cry (which is the usual response), or she'll wait, and then do whatever it was she was doing before with a little evil grin and then look up at you and just wait to see what you're going to do!!

Anyway, she's a ball of fun and I am looking forward to spending more time with her as she gets closer to turning 2!

I have already applied to Metro State and will be attending the Teacher Licensure meeting in a few weeks. I'll be registering for a class for Spring and then I'm on my way!!!!

I'm really excited about this new chapter in my life (even though Peter is a bit nervous).

The other good thing to come out of this is that I will be off the whole time the Gomes' are visiting!! I can't wait to see them all!

On a sad note, our cat Hobbes got really sick over the weekend and my mom and I had to put him down. I got a call from my mom on Saturday afternoon, the vet had just told her that he was pretty bad and that there wasn't really anything they could do. The vet is only 5 minutes away so I left right away. As I walked in to the office it hit me.....Wait....I don't want to do this. I've never had to do this before.

The vet and the techs were very nice and allowed us some time with him. He looked so frail and thin and my mom noticed that he wasn't even purring. And he always had the loudest purrer! It was like an engine!! I really think he was ready to go. But it didn't make it any easier. Once the vet administered the drug, I think I was mostly surprised at how fast he went. In the movies it's always such a slow process. As mom said though, now he can go chase all of the balled up paper and rubber bands that he wants to! What a fun cat he was!! He will be missed.

Okay...

I promise to have a camera fixed by the time all the festivities roll around.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season.

See all of you soon, I'm sure.

It's November!?

Yikes! How time flies. I'll try to do a quick run down of the last few months. And before I forget, can you believe Ella turned 18 months yesterday!? Yay!! She's so much fun. But more about her later.

My camera is being dumb and it won't turn on. I don't know if I need a whole new battery but I feel like I just bought one, so I'm not sure. Anway, there are no Halloween pics yet because I had to use a disposable camera and I've yet to get those developed. Hopefully this weekend.

Anyway, so the last time I think I mentioned our wasp infestation. Well here are some pics.

Peter armed and ready. You can see where we (actually just Peter) cut a whole in the ceiling to get to the nest so that we could finally get rid of them.
Here is what he pulled out from inside the ceiling. You can kind of see the comb like stuff that's the next. The bright yellow spots are the wasps (dead).

The window sill in our bedroom. AHHHHH!!!

Close up of the hole he cut. To the left you can see a tiny little hole. That's the hole that they originally made themselves and got into the house. We had taped over that and sprayed hoping they would just leave, but as you could tell, they had a pretty nice nest going so we had to do a bit more work. So we've patched the hole and caulked all of the little openings on the outside of the house. Hopefully that should do the trick and we won't have any little visitors next summer.
About a month ago, Tina was housesitting for a friend who owns a boxer. Her name is Karma. She's about 8. Tina brought her over one night so Koa and she could play. They got along really well. It was fun to see Koa with a friend.

We had just thrown some chicken bones away and they were over there scouting out the goods. Karma's in the red collar.

How silly! Karma's on the right. Ella was pretty funny. She would have to do a double take to figure out who was who.

This was taken quite a while ago, but I've been wanting to get it on here so everyone could see how cute they are! Connor just cracks me up.

Ella has started to use the walker now more than she ever did when she actually needed it! Look at those long legs! Ha. She looks so silly in it, but she just tools around upstairs like it makes perfect sense for her to be using it!

Blake played another season of baseball this summer. They were the Purple Dragons this year (even though Blake voted for the Rockies). He was awesome! He was the talk of the team for awhile after he hit a monster triple in to center field!! It was way cool. He's also going to sign up for basketball this fall. This will be his first season playing. Hopefully he likes it as much as he likes baseball.

The last pics are just random ones of Ella. She loves to sit at the computer and play. For some reason this day she wanted to wear this hat, which is actually an infant hat so we really had to squeeze it on her head. But she would freak out if it came off, so we just kept putting it back on her!

Out in the backyard leaves.

Squishy, puffy cheeks

Doin' a puzzle

More crazy hat time.

She has gotten so big over the last few months and has started doing and saying tons of big kid things! It's crazy. She says mommy, daddy, Blake, Koa, Gramma, Papa, doggy, milk, blankie, shoes, socks, more, cat, balloon. And of course if she can't say it she just screams! She follows instructions really well and is very concerned about things being in the right place or with the right person. So if she sees one of our cell phones she has to bring it to us and we can't just set it back down or she'll had it back to us until we put it in our pocket. She will also take Peter's wallet and try to put it in her pocket! She can figure out how things work pretty quickly as well. I brought a laptop home from work and it took her about two seconds to figure out where the power button was.

Her 18 month appointment is next week. I'm guessing she'll be a tad skinny for her age, but we'll see. I'm not too worried about it, she's an eating machine!

I'll try to post this weekend if I get Halloween pictures.

Pics from the last few months...

I was putting together a bookcase for Ella and before I put the final touches on (adding in the shelf) Ella decided to make it a book nook...literally.

The Pooh couch is not just Ella's favorite.

Found this cute little chair at Big Lots and Gramma had to buy it for her. She loves to sit in it.

Was trying to get some cute pics to submit for this baby contest. She used to wrinkle her nose and make this funny face, she hasn't really done it lately though. Guess that's just a 13 month old thing, she's too old for that silliness now.

Love this pic...

The whole gang after the New Kids concert. Posin' in front of the limo.

Here's all the babies at the zoo, in front of the sea lions. Connor, Ella, Lorelei.

Oh oh oh, you're my cover girl, oh oh oh,

oh oh oh

My squishy.

My sister's awesome tattoo!

Me and Ella right before getting in the limo and hittin the road

Jenn and I showin' the love.

Ness and I showin the love...

Ella loves to play at the computer.

Ella in her "Future Astronaut" bib that she got from Great Uncle Dave who works...eh hem...worked, for NASA. (He retired this year!)

Ella outside picking off the dead flowers.

Ain't she cute?