December

2011 is coming to a close…. What a great year it has been: a new house, a new career, an ear infection free baby and lots of wonderful memories. December has been a blur. Lots of family events & holiday parties. Ella is doing very well. She is becoming quite the social butterfly. She is learning new words weekly and she keeps us very entertained and busy. She is such a blessing and we are reminded of that with every minute spent with her. Her smile and laugh brighten up any room and she is definitely the center of attention wherever she goes. Our baby is becoming a big girl quickly. Which reminds me that life is short, and you must enjoy every moment :)

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Excited to see what 2012 brings us!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Friday picture post :)

I'll do an update later... Until then enjoy some pictures from our week. Have a good weekend :)

Surgery is done!

Ella's surgery happened at 7:40am and she was done within 15 minutes. The doctor said everything went very well. She woke up very confused and upset. That was probably the worst part :( She was happy to finally be able to have a bottle. We are home now and she is sleeping. She should feel better this afternoon once all the drugs wear off. Thank you for all the prayers and well wishes!!

Ear tubes

Ella is scheduled for her ear tubes Wednesday October 12th early in the am. We will know the exact time at her pre op appointment Monday. The surgery is only about 10 minutes; they will take her back and giver oxygen and then heavily sedate her. The doctor will remove the existing fluid, cut a hole in her ear drum and insert the tube. She will then be brought into recovery where we can join her and after an after an hour we can go home. We ask for prayers and thoughts for a quick and easy surgery and recovery. I will update on here and let everyone know how it goes!

Here are some pictures of our silly goose in the meantime :)

We have a walker!

Click the links below for 2 great videos of Ella walking today!! She is so fun :)

Walking Girl Video

Sunday Funday Video

Last August Post

Well it’s been awhile, guess we are due for an update. 

Ella… last weekend she was very grumpy and had a fever. We thought she was just teething but it did not improve so we took her to urgent care. Guess who has her 7^th ear infection?! Yep! Poor girl :( They gave her the antibiotic shot (since the oral ones make her sick) and by Tuesday night she was feeling better and back to her normal happy self. I am taking her to her normal doctor next Tuesday for a follow up to check on her ears and I am sure discuss ear tubes.

Reading in Sammy's bed :)

 We are almost done with the back deck. We had all of our parents over Sunday the 21^st of August and with their help we have doubled the size of our deck! This coming labor day we will be finishing the railings and eventually we’d like to build a cover for it as well.

 My mom & Ella at Lowe's

We are still not unpacked 100%... I swear it will happen eventually! Haha.  I had my 90 day review last week and it went great… I will just quote my CEO “I don’t know how we got so lucky!” Pretty cool! I love my job and everyone here, I really do enjoy coming to work every day. Crazy that I have already been there 4 months next week.

Happy Birthday to my little sister Lisa, she is 22 years old today!! 

Hope everyone has a great labor day weekend :)

Life is crazy!

We moved on the 30^th and everything went great. Thank you to the grandparents for watching Ella. Currently we still have a lot of unpacking to do…. As you can imagine and 1 year old does not give you time to do that! ;) Friday August 5^th we celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. We spent the weekend in Seattle with Cody’s Mom, stepdad Larry, Cody’s sister Kendall and her new fiancé Garland…. Yes that is right Garland purposed to Kendall Friday night in Seattle!! What a fun night!! We are so excited for them :) It was a very nice long weekend of celebrating, shopping and relaxing.

Also new…. Due to unforeseen circumstances we had only last week to find Ella a new daycare. Luckily we had some references for other places with openings. It was a very unexpected and stressful week. So Ella started her new daycare in Albany today and we are really excited for her new learning possibilities and for making new friends :)

Cody and my Dad leave tomorrow for Alaska to go fishing with my Uncle Steve that lives in Anchorage. They won’t be back until next Monday afternoon. They will be bringing home some yummy Salmon & Halibut!

I am finally getting around to Ella’s birthday thank you’s… thank you for your patience. I am not used to be so unorganized! :( So  as you can tell our lives are a little hectic at the moment. Just wanted to keep you all updated :)

Ella's 1st Birthday Party! (PICTURES)

Happy Birthday Ella!

Ella turned one yesterday! We feel so blessed to have a happy healthy little girl. 

She brings us so much joy everyday :) 

We look forward to celebrating with our friends and family on Sunday!

Big Announcements

First of all we are buying a house in Salem! We will be closing on our 1920 downtown Salem Bungalow July 22^nd and moving in July 30^th. (We will send an e-mail out with our new address once we move) We are so excited to pay a mortgage and not rent in Salem! The home has the original hardwood floors, original built-ins as well as a quirky little hallways and so on. It’s on a fifth of an acre so we’ll have lots of yard work. The house is very structurally strong but does need some cosmetic fixes aka great weekend projects! It’s 1200 square feet, 2 bedrooms with 1 bathroom. We still have our townhouse in Portland, with renters in it. We are hoping the economy will get a little better so we can sell that in the near future. Here are some of the pictures from the listing:

Kitchen

Living Room

Dinning Room

Big back yard

The second announcement is about my work. The CEO notified me that I have been elected the Secretary of the Board of Directors for my Credit Union (Valley Credit Union). This is the first time an employee has been on the board. It is a big honor and comes with big responsibility. We will have a monthly meeting and I will get a say in the direction of the credit union as well as take the meeting notes for the board. This is pretty huge considering I have only been here for just over 2 months. I am very excited for the experience!

Here are some pictures of Ella :) We cannot do a blog post without them!!

Who wants to play "BA"? (Ball)

Pointing at everything now..

First pigtails