First Snow!!

We got our first snow! I LOVE snow and I'm hoping to pass that on to Ella :-) She had a lot of fun.


putting on her new snowsuit ($2 at a yard sale this summer!)

Doctor's Visit

Ella had her 2 year check up today. She was a hero with the flu shot and getting her blood taken (we're doing a check for Lyme disease since we found a tick on her a few weeks ago). The poor tiny girl had 4 vials of blood taken!! Speaking of tiny, she's still a little over the 25th percentile for height and weight. She's gained 5 lbs and 3.5 inches in the past year-no wonder she's worn the same size clothes for about 7 months!

Dec Last Year: 20lbs 12oz, 30 inches
This Year: 25lbs 13 oz, 33.5 inches

All around she's a very healthy girl and doing everything (and more) that 24 month olds should do. She's still working on identifying letters and colors but is stunningly good at remembering every animal and random object we've ever pointed out to her. She knows all the words to "Jesus Loves Me" and sings a long to most every other kid song she hears. She's putting 6-7 words together in complete thoughts and though her speech isn't always discernable to the untrained ear, I understand most of it. She is in a FABULOUS phase (ever since the wretched refusing to sleep phase) where she's been sleeping from 8pm until close to 9am and napping from 1pm until 4:30ish. It's probably a growth spurt and I know it won't last so I'm enjoying it :-) I'll take and post some more pics soon. Oooo maybe I can scan our Christmas card onto here...I'll try.

New Tradition

We decided to start a new tradition of decorating for Christmas (or at least starting) the day after Thanksgiving. Ella had a blast!

Looking ADORABLE and ready to go pick out a tree

Helping Daddy get the tree set up

Saying "Oh My!"-her favorite new phrase- when she saw the tree unwrapped for the first time

Ella got a kick out of being wrapped up in the tree netting

Ella picked ornaments and showed me where she wanted me to hang them

The finished product :-)

Thanksgiving 2007

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun! We spent most of our time at my sister's apartment with my family plus a bunch of Marissa's friends from her grad school program. It was one of the most fun, least stressful holidays in a long time! Yay for hosting Marissa! Here are some pics.
Sitting with GG and coloring!

Marissa's friend brought her son who became Ella's new buddy, they had fun chasing each other under the table!

Different people kept feeding Ella ice cream-she was in heaven!

Ella and her new little buddy

Smiley

My friend Kristin moved to New York City last year to pursue modeling and acting and after a tough first year is doing really well! Her day job is working with a French company that is bringing their perfume and other products to the US. The perfume is called "Smiley" and is supposed to be the first product of its kind that makes you feel happy! (It has cacao and other things that cause endorphins to be released). Anyway, Kristin brought us lots of samples and Ella got to help her pack gift bags she later delivered to stores in the area. Maybe we have the next Smiley model on our hands!







Kristin and Ella also got to play the alphabet game on her computer :-)