Looking forward to 2012

Well the larger part of the Holiday season has come and gone. I think 10 months is the perfect age for Ella's first Christmas. She was old enough to know how to rip the paper off of her gifts and to get excited when she saw the toys hiding underneath, yet she was still young enough to sit on people's laps and let them cuddle with her during the day. One thing is for sure this girl has a TON of people who love her :) Sean has had this whole past week off which has been a huge blessing to get to spend some quality family time together. Ella has gotten so spoiled having him here all day long, I hope she can adjust well when he goes back to work. Here are some of the highlights of Christmas...



Opening presents with Daddy


Technically an "outtake" from our Christmas Eve
pics, but its my favorite one!



OK here's a better one of her by the tree


This was her Christmas Day dress

Now that all the Christmas festivities are dwindling down I am looking forward to New Years Eve! 2011 has been both the best and most challenging year of my life! This year I...

-Became a Mom
- Got fired for the first time
- Decided to stay home with Ella
- Made some awesome new friends
- Gotten really close to some old friends
- Developed somewhat of an obsession for learning how to home make things
- Connected with God in a way I have never been able to
- Celebrated 4 years of marriage to my best friend!

And thats not even the half of it. 2011 has definitely stretched me beyond my comfort zone but made me mature. I've been able to catch glimpses of the woman I want to become, the woman I'm striving to become... and I really like her :). The thought of starting a New Year is normally kind of frightening for me. I am a worry wort... I over analyze things and I can't stand not being in control of situations. However, that part of me seems to be dying off. Lately I've just got much bigger things on my plate and worrying has no room in my life. Who knows what 2012 will hold. If the Mayans are right it will be the last year anyway :). Hopefully it will bring me one step closer to finishing school. Maybe it will bring some crazy new adventure or some kick butt part time job for me. Maybe another pregnancy. Whatever way it takes me I know that God is in control and for once in my life I'm content with saying " We'll just have to wait and see".

Holiday Cheer

Normally I am a huge Scrooge over the holidays. The whole gift giving process that Christmas has turned into really makes me cringe. I would truthfully much rather get together with my family and friends, eat delicious food and play fun games the whole time. However, this year is my daughters first Christmas. I keep thinking that this is the year that we establish what our traditions will be. This is when I get to start something that future generations will remember me for. For my Grandma it was baking. We always got together the night before Christmas Eve to make cookies and desserts for everyone. Though she's been gone for 10 years now I still get excited for that part of the Holidays. My mother and I have since turned her tradition into what we call "Cookie Madness". We get all of our girlfriends together and have a baking frenzy and then exchange cookies that we package up as gifts for other family members. It truly is Madness!

So this year I am trying to decide what I want my special tradition to be. What special thing I can do with Ella each year that she can get excited about? I have a little list started but I haven't quite made any decisions yet. I know she's too young to know whats going on this year but I want to be able to tell her "you've been doing this every Christmas since you were born". I'm sentimental and silly I know. Any suggestions?

On another note Ella has 3 teeth now. I found this out the hard way because I was nursing her and she bit me. OUCH!!! She is soo close to walking too! So far she has only taken one step in between Sean and I but she will stand up in the middle of the room and just look around like she's going to just take off running. The bigger my sweet little baby gets, the more I feel the baby bug starting to creep up on me. I really miss being pregnant. Watching my belly shake and jump. We always said we wanted our kids to be 2 years apart... we will just have to wait and see what 2012 has in store for us :) For now i'm enjoying all the one on one time I've been getting with this precious little face...

Kitchenaid giveaway

Just found this sweet give away on the blog www.momspotted.com . She is giving away a KitchenAid mixer. A $550 KitchenAid® NEW 7-Quart Bowl-Lift Residential Stand Mixer to be exact!!! I have always wanted a KitchenAid Stand Mixer. Ever since becoming a stay at home mom I have been trying all kinds of new recipes and finding ways to save my family money by making everything from scratch. As of now I've just been using a hand mixer and my Magic Bullet blender for most recipes but having one of these babies would help a ton :) I know the odds aren't in my favor but hey a girl can wish can't she :) Hop on over to www.kitchenaid.com and drool over all their products like i do :)

We love fall !!!

I have not been very good about keeping this blog up. Part of that is because I've been busy with the youth group and trying to keep up some sort of social life with my friends. The other part is that I've decided to be completely selfish with my time with Ella. It just hit me like a ton of bricks the other day... she's growing up soo fast and I only get so much time with her while she is this little. I only get so many nights of rocking her to sleep, so many days that she will tolerate cuddling with me or playing patty cake on my lap, so many days that she needs me so completely. And I'm going to try to be there for as much of that as possible, without the distractions of smart phones, tv, and laptops. Yes I have all of those things but at the moment they are playing second fiddle to my beautiful baby :). Ok so enough of my soap box...

Now onto the things you really want to hear... Ella's developments. She's been crazy this month. She is crawling everywhere and pulling up like a pro. She has taken one step in between the coffee table and the sofa ( but I'm not counting it ). This week she learned how to clap. She is also very interested in books and blocks right now.
Normally Sean and I don't really go all out for holidays, but we couldn't help ourselves this fall. We are so excited about Ella's first Halloween and upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas. We took her to the pumpkin patch and let her crawl around and pick her own pumpkin. It was the perfect little one... just her size. We can't wait to see her in her costume in a few days and we know that she will be taking her first steps soon!



meeting her cousin Daniel

7 months and into EVERYTHING!!!

It has been a while since my last blog, sorry it has taken me so long to update. The reason for this is I have NO free time lately lol. I know I know you are thinking.. Heather you are a SAHM you should have plenty of free time and normally that is true except that this has started....


... and my free time has been turned into chasing Ella around and keeping her out of things. Baby proofing is an absolute joke. She finds the most random things and tries to eat them... and did i mention that she's ridiculously fast! Our poor pug Otis doesn't know what to do anymore. She crawls after him and when she catches him she pulls his whiskers.... luckily for her Otis is so gentle with kids. I'm not so sure most dogs would be so forgiving. As much as I miss my free time to sit and surf pinterest for hours or to spend lots of time baking and cooking, I do love watching her grow. I love watching her eyebrows go up and down when she's trying to figure out how something works. I especially love her little fake laugh she does to get my attention when she is about to do something she's not supposed to. I swear she will be one of those kids who tells on themselves all the time.

I am fairly sure she will be walking by Halloween. She's already walking around the coffee table and along the couch and she has let go a few times and just stood in place for a minute. Ella has also developed some separation anxiety... Mostly just with Sean and I but sometimes she cries whenever anyone leaves a room. She's been talking more and more lately and her new favorite is to say BA BA or BUM BUM and slap her hands on the table.

Ella has also discovered that she likes to sing. Whenver she hears someone singing she starts to hum... needless to say its adorable! I can't believe my little baby is already wearing 12 month clothes and will be walking soon. Now that it is fall I can't wait to do all the fun fall things... pumpkin patch, apple orchard, halloween, sweaters, boots and most of all BON FIRES!!! We still haven't decided on Ella's costume yet, but I will def. be posting pics!

Family Fun

This weekend was a lot of fun! On Friday I drove a bus full of Middle Schoolers to an Indians game... that part wasn't so much fun... but Sean, Jess and Ella followed the bus and came to the game too! It was the first time I have been to a baseball game and even though the game itself is SUPER BORING! IT was fun playing on a blanket with Ella and enjoying nasty ball park food and playing cards with my husband and best friend! Saturday was crafting day! Jess and I picked up all the items needed to do these really neat DIY watermark Tee Shirts http://www.u-createcrafts.com/2011/08/creative-guest-watermark-tee-by-sweet.html They took a little longer than I had expected but turned out great we made her 6 different onesies... this one says Team Wigglekins on the front and on the back it says BEANS and has a #7. Sean and I call her Beans and she was born on the seventh... here is a picture... taken with my webcam.... its not very good quality


On Sunday we went to church as normal but then went to my Mom and Stepdads house for a going away party for my step brother. He is a Marine and was home for the past week. It was fun to play board games and eat delicious grill food with the fam. Ella got to meet some of her family members that she hadn't seen before. She is all over the place now. She is army crawling really well and she has started to crawl on all fours now too. This week she also started trying to pull up and can get up on her knees from her belly. She can also go from being on her belly and sit herself back up. I can't believe how many things she is doing and its all happening so quickly! In a month or so she's gonna be standing and then its walking and then my free time is officially dead :)

Food Fun!

I have always loved to cook and to bake. When Sean and I first got married, like most new wives, I went nuts... cooking new stuff all the time and trying new recipes. However, recently I have fallen into a rut with it all. That is until Ella was ready for solid food. My in-laws had a magic bullet blender and I had heard it was super easy to make your own baby food, so i went to the store, bought tons of produce and proceeded to cook and puree. I couldn't believe how much fun I was having. My birthday was a a few weeks later and I asked for my own Magic Bullet and received one from Sean's Gram. It is probably my favorite appliance :) .

I have been making food like crazy for Ella. peas, green beans, lima beans and brown rice, chicken and pasta, sweet potatoes, mango, pineapple, squash and the list goes on and on. I love knowing exactly what is going into her food and Ella loves it. I actually bought some jars of food from the store when I took Ella to CIY in July and she refused to eat them ( and that never happens). All of this got me thinking about what other things i buy from the store that I could probably make on my own. One easy recipe i found was for crackers. Not something I would have thought about making at home, but it makes perfect sense. You pay what... $4 for a box of good crackers at the store and its about $.50 worth of ingredients. SO i gave it a shot and so far these are my favorites http://busycooks.about.com/od/quickbreads/r/cheesecrack.htm . I made a big batch tonight and they are GREAT! I also whipped up some pancakes that I put applesauce and pears in and now my freezer is officially FULL! I will post pics of all this yummyness soon!

6 months and lots of new developments!

It has been almost a month since I last posted on here and life has been crazy busy. Ella said her first word last month and has since started babbling like crazy. Her first word was MOM :) and then she started saying YaYa and now she says Ba and Da ( but not DaDa ) which makes Sean very sad. He kept telling me that Mom wasn't her first word until we caught it on tape so...




There you have it... Proof :)

We had her 6 month appointment on the 8th and she is weighing in at 16.1 lbs and she is 26 1/2 inches long. The doctor was very pleased with her growth and said she was doing things a little bit ahead of schedule. She is sitting up like a pro now and she is army crawling, rolling and rocking on all fours now. Its like after she hit the 5 month mark she exploded with new things! I love that I am home to witness it all!

Another development is that I have decided to try and start selling some of the crafts I have been making. I've been teaching myself how to make clothes and hair things for Ella and people kept telling me I should try to sell it so I hope to have an Etsy website up by the end of the week! Its been fun, but kind of crazy at the same time. I will post the link when I get everything done. For now enjoy some pics of Ella...

Sitting in a Black Hawk Helicopter




So Sleepy


Modeling one of Mommy's headbands


She loves to eat!

blazing sun, no air conditioning, loud music, amazing high school students = CIY

Well Ella and I had our first little adventure last week! We traveled 5 hours up to Holland Michigan to go with the high schoolers to CIY. For those of you that don't know what that is, CIY, or Christ in Youth is a week long church conference where students have the chance to be a part of amazing worship, go to classes and listen to very powerful speakers.

This year CIY focused a lot on the persecuted church and we got to watch a video called Love Costs Everything. This was such an eye opening film for both sponsors and students. It gave us an up close look at what our Brothers and Sisters all over the world go through in order to worship Jesus. The students were immediately impacted by the scenes on the movie which consisted of eye witness testimonies and real live footage of people being beaten and killed. The true depth of what they had seen didn't sink in until a few days later when they were able to process what they had watched. It was so amazing to watch them react to the information they had been given. To watch them get angry at what is going on in the world and to want to change it. That is what I love about working with High School students!

I was also afraid of how Ella would act this week. It was her first road trip and I was afraid she would cry the whole way or poop in the middle of it and we would have to pull over to change her. My fears were wrong!!! Ella was the perfect baby last week. She slept the entire time we were driving. She stayed quiet while the speakers were preaching, she slept during the loud parts of worship, she went to bed when i needed her to go to bed! I couldn't have asked for a better baby! Below are a few pictures from one day when some of the girls baby sat her for a while! They laid out a blanket and played outside in the shade with her and I have to say she is quite bored with her mommy now that all the girls aren't here to entertain her!

First Time at the Zoo!

I'm sure you might be calculating in your head... wasn't Ella born in February? Isn't she only like 4 1/2 months old... They took her to the zoo? The answer to all of those questions is yes! I got a zoo pass for my birthday and have been itching to go ever since! I will be the first to admit that this trip was probably more about the 3 of us spending quality time together than Ella really getting any sort of education out of it :) I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

The weather was supposed to be rainy and cloudy all day long, however it turned out to be overcast and not very hot. I wasn't sure if Ella would even be able to focus on the animals or be interested at all and it turns out she LOVES the zoo! I think her favorite part was the underwater exhibits. The stingrays particularly because they get SO close to the glass. She kept watching them swim all over the tank and smiling really big when they got close! I can't wait to take her when she gets older and can talk and interact with the exhibits, but it was fun watching her get excited about the animals and seeing things for the first time!

Well Hello

I'm sorta new at this, but since Sean is working nights and I have more free time on my hands I thought I would give it a shot. So. Hello. I guess this is where I'm supposed to be telling you what has been going on with us lately... The answer to that is a lot! I'm not quite sure how we used to spend our free time or why we would have ever felt busy before we had a baby, but looking back on it now we should have definitely been more productive haha. Things with the house are coming along slowly but surely... Ella is 4 months old and we just now got all the wall art put up in her room and got her a dresser and bookshelf. Sean had planned on making all of the furniture himself but when he started working nights that didn't leave him much time to do anything besides the crib. Which is lovely....




I will put some pics up of her room later. As I mentioned earlier Ella is 4 months old now... well more like 4.5 months. I have been amazed at how quickly she is growing. I know everyone says that but you never really notice it until you have your own kids. She has brought so much joy and purpose to my life though!

Your whole life you don't realize how selfish you are until out pops this little person who needs you for everything and all at once you know that you were absolutely made for this. That this was a piece to the puzzle that you didn't know was missing and once its here you can't imagine how you ever lived without it.

I can't stop saying this and I am not ashamed to admit that I haven't gotten tired of hearing it from other people either... She is beautiful. Whatever good looking genes Sean and I possess we must have given them all to her. Every chunky roll, her high pitched squeals and coos, the way her eyebrows showcase all of her emotions, her giant reassuring smiles and her contagious laughter... we can't get enough of her. She is rolling every which direction now and is at the beginning stages of army crawling. Its all going tooo fast but we are loving every minute of it!

When you first become a parent its such a shock to your system. I know I felt so very ill equipped for a while. Always wondering if were doing things right. Is she eating enough, sleeping enough, pooping enough :) Will she stop breathing if I stop looking at her or touching her belly. Somehow we have managed to calm down and fall into some sort of routine. We aren't able to parent by the book but we are one a schedule that works for us and I must say it's going pretty smoothly. I will try to keep you all updated on her growth and developments and the exciting life of our little family :)