Happy Happy Birthday Ella Dear!

Happy birthday to our sweet little Ella. She is now one!
It has been fun to reflect that last few days on a year ago and think where we were at that time and how our lives were about to change.
Her birthday was on Friday November 23. We got home late Thursday night from celebrating Thanksgiving in Kentucky.

Ella slept in a little which was very nice! She woke up and we had a pretty normal morning minus that fact that she thought her parents were completely crazy because we kept saying happy birthday. We took a walk to see the ducks since that is her favorite thing.
We decided we would open presents and celebrate starting at 3:42 pm since that was the time she was born. We had my family on Skype, Ella was undressed and her cupcake was waiting for her.

First attempt at eating the cupcake

Cupcake

We put her in her high chair, sang happy birthday and gave her the cupcake with a candle. She got scared, started crying and wanted to get out. We pulled her out and she put her head on moms shoulder. We tried to open presents but she didn't like that. She just sat on moms lap holding on for dear life.
The next day she finally ate a different cupcake after mom put it upside down so she couldn't see the frosting. She was probably the cleanest baby ever!

We were able to have some dear friends over on Saturday to help us celebrate and eat all the cupcakes.

Not liking the cupcake

See it is good!

Attempt #2 with a different cupcake

A few of Ella's likes:
*reading stories
*playing moms piano...she now has her own piano and she LOVES it!
*the ducks at the pond
*standing up and walking around
*dancing with dad
*saying hi to people and waving

Ella now weighs 20 pound 3 ounces (56%)
and she is 28 3/4 inches tall (32%).

We love our little pumpkin and are looking forward to what the next year bring with her. 

October Adventures

Kettering Ward Trunk or Treat

We enjoyed our wards trunk or treat and chili cook off this year. We dressed up as beekeepers with our little sunflower. We had the back of our car decorated as a beehive. We enjoyed eating dinner and mingling with all of our dear friends.

2nd annual Spook gingerbread houses

We continued on with our fun tradition of making gingerbread houses and decorating them. My mom makes gingerbread houses during Christmas time. I wanted to continue that tradition but we decided to do it during Halloween and make Spook Houses. So, this year I made 6 spook houses and put them all together. Darrin told me he doesn't like the part of the tradition when I make them and put them together because it puts me in a bad mood.....so I tried really hard to not be in a bad mood and I only burned myself 3 times with the melted sugar!
We invited some of our friends over to help decorate houses. We are once again grateful for all of our friends out here in Ohio!

Burnham's Spook House

Lyle's Spook House

Dalton's Spook House

Roth's Spook House

Hansen's Spook House

Jensen's Spook House