Ella HEARTS Doggies!

Ella's favorite word is definitly "Doggie"! She says it when she wakes up, when she hears the dog's tags jingling and when she see's ANY animal. I'm constantly correcting her. "No Ella, that's not a doggie, it's a cat." (Or a horse, or a cow, or a mouse, or a fish!)

Needless to say, she loves HER doggies- Henry and Kya. While Kya doesn't really want anything to do with her, Henry is her best bud. He is so patient with her, and is really forgiving when she pulls his fur (ouch) or when her soft pats get a little too hard.


Ella has started crawling into the dog bed to hang with Henry, and we got a couple pics of it this week.

Happy Valentines Day!

Wishing everyone a Happy Valentines Day from our favorite lovebug!

My Uncle the Pilot

My Uncle Eric is so cool. He is a pilot for US Air and he gets to fly all over the place. Unfortunately this also means that I hardly ever get to see him. He is so important and busy. I was lucky enough to meet him for the 1st time when my Mom and I ran into him in the Phoenix airport. I was only 6 months old.

I think I was most excited to play with his cool airport badge!

Today Uncle Eric flew an airplane into Denver. This was a special occasion since he hardly ever flies here. Mom and I went downtown to meet him for dinner and we hung out.



I'm much older now, so it was cool to see him again and show him how much I have grown. He let me eat french fries and we talked about stuff....



And we took a LOT of pictures. Sometimes I get sick of smiling for the camera...


Thanks Uncle Eric for hanging out with me!!!!

Mom knows best...

Just as Mom suspected... I have a milk allergy! It doesn't really make sense since I eat yogurt and cheese all the time with no problems (and love it!). But I am back on formula after a couple of bad days... and I'm feeling like my old self again.

We're waiting to get the word from the doc (who is off today and tomorrow- go figure!), but we assume that we will transition to something else for a bit and then try milk again when my stomach may be more ready to handle it.

1 year checkup

Went to the doctor on Thursday for Ella's 1 year checkup.

Here are her stats:

Weight- 26lbs, 10oz (>97%)
Height- 31 1/4 inches (97%)
Head Circumference- 18 3/4 inches (97%)

Doc seems happy with Ella's development. Nothing to worry about at all. He gave us the go ahead to add any foods into her diet that we were previously avoiding (peanut butter, chocolate, etc). He also told us to start weening her off the bottle and to go ahead and make the transition from formula to whole milk. We are going to watch the milk carefully since I had a milk alergy as a child.

Everything else is business as usual. We are recovering from a few months of traveling and looking forward to staying home sweet home... at least for a little while.

Ella started Gymboree classes this week with her friend Emery Callahan (10 mos) and we are planning to continue those every Wednesday for the next little while.

Until next time...

Ella's 1 year photo shoot

Our favorite photographer (and a friend of mine from high school) returned to take Ella's 1 year shots. Lindsay's been documenting Ella since she was born and it was awesome to have her back to take pics before Ella's birthday party. Thanks Linds!



Check out a sampling of the photos she took on her blog...

http://lindsaybphoto.blogspot.com/2009/01/happy-birthday-ella.html

Ella's 1st Birthday Party

Ella's 1st birthday party was a blast! Thanks to all the friends that came and to our family that flew in to help Ella celebrate. We had a full house and Mark, Ella and I feel so loved to have such great friends and family.

We sang happy birthday to Ella with everyone and gave her a cupcake to eat. It was funny... and then beacause we didn't have enough amusement... we gave her another one, this time CHOCOLATE! Messy, messy!

After everyone left the party we realized that we never even cut the cake! So we sang happy birthday AGAIN with the family.

Ella was acting very timid with the cake, so we let her play around a bit....

Maybe that was a mistake! :)

Into the bath for Ella!!!!

Happy 1st Birthday Ella!

Today was Ella's 1st Birthday. It's so amazing to me that it has already been a year! I know I keep saying it, but time really does fly!

Ella has been changing daily in the last month. She says quite a few words: "dada" "mama" "hi" "light" and "doggie". She points at almost everything and says "that", asking us to tell her what everything is.

No walking yet, but we are getting close. She knows she's not quite ready and gets upset when we try to let go of her fingers and make her stand on her own. She does get around pretty quickly on all fours- crawling all over the place. She can go up and down stairs pretty well and even has a baby walker that she walks around with. We know the walking will be coming any day... and I really don't think I'm ready! Ha!

Our biggest news is that she finally has TEETH! The 1st one started poking up around Jan 15th and then by the time Mom & Dad got back from their trip to Cabo- she had TWO teeth! Look closely in the pic below to check out the chompers!



The big birthday bash is on Saturday with some family and friends and then Ella had her 1 year doctors appt next week. I will be posting a full report.

Happy 22nd Birthday Uncle Tom!

Ella wanted to wish her Uncle Tom a Happy Birthday!

Happy New Year!!!!

Goodbye 2008... Hello 2009!!

We have so many things to look foward to this year. The first of many exciting things will be Ella's 1st birthday at the end of this month (Jan 29th)! We can't wait to help Ella celebrate this big milestone. Maybe she will even get some teeth in time for her 1st birthday!