Merry Christmas

From our family to yours... Safe travels and Cheers!

Ella & Lo

Here's Ella and Logan over the weekend. They were having fun playing hats. Just over 2 years apart, they are pretty good buds, except when Ella puts him in a headlock!

Ella & Lo

Here's Ella and Logan over the weekend at our house. They were having fun playing with Ella's hats. Just over 2 years apart, they are pretty good buds, except when Ella puts him in a headlock!

Ella & Mike

Here is Ella with cousin Mike, who is currently staying with us covering the Presidential debates, caucuses, etc. Ella has really warmed up to him!

Thank you Mike & Susan

We have a guest staying at our home for a little while. My cousin Susan's husband from Washington DC. He's here taking pictures for the debates. He brought Ella this cute penguin! She was a little scared of it at first, but now really likes it!

Surgery

Ella had surgery last Friday to have tubes put in her ears, again. The ENT also removed her adenoids. Everything went extremely well and within an hour, she was eating a popsicle and watching Sesame Street.

We arrived back home about 10:00 AM and by about 2:00, she was pretty much back to her old self. Thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers. I was especially a little worried since the last time she had her tubes put in, she had a hard time coming out of anesthesia, but that was about 15 months ago!

Christmas Tree

Playing baby

Here's Ella playing baby as Charles & I were putting up the Christmas tree.

Ella's New Towel

That she got for her birthday. She giggles when we wrap her up in it!

Ella's 2nd Birthday Party

We had Ella's 2nd Birthday Party at Pizza Ranch in Pocahontas. She was very good. Even standing up on the chair after she opened her gifts to yell, "Thank You".

Quite fond

Ella is quite fond of her cousin, Kyla, who is just over 2 months old now. Ella thinks that she can pick her up, hold her and even feed her. She has quite the mommy instinct already.

None of you blog readers should be getting any ideas by this post....

Popsicle

The Hohensee family went out for supper on Friday night to the Palmer House in Palmer. Here is Ella eating her dessert, a popsicle, with Uncle Josh.

Popsicle

The Hohensee family went out for supper on Friday night to the Palmer House in Palmer. Here is Ella eating her dessert, a popsicle, with Uncle Josh.

Thanksgiving

We had the Anliker family at our home for Thanksgiving. Here is Charles carving his first turkey. It was also my first time cooking one. Turned out good and moist.

Ella's Birthday

For Ella's 2 year birthday, Charles & I got her a new rocking horse. This one's head bobs up and and down, it's tail flicks and it neighs. She really likes it.

Grandma and Grandpa Anliker gave her a stuffed Curious George. It was even more special because it was Charles' when he was a little boy.

Happy 2nd Birthday Ella!

Autumn...

With 10 trees in our yard, we tend to have a lot of leaves falling. Last weekend, Ella finally got the opportunity to jump in them. She's just been kicking the ones on the driveway, but once she saw us making a pile, she was off. Here is she playing with Duste!

It's hard to believe our little girl is going to be 2 next week!

Playing House

Ella loves playing in her house that sits outside on our deck. She likes it when Duste plays with her, however, Duste doesn't always like to come inside. We sometimes have to encourage Duste to play nice with Ella.

It has been a busy few weeks. We have been wrapping up outside yard work. The house is done along with a few new doors and 4 new outside lights.

Ella is getting more feisty as the days go on. She really likes the word, "No" as I'm sure most parents can understand (and sympathize).

She likes to eat bananas (she has to peel herself) and cereal in the morning with a glass of milk. She really likes to eat the milk in the cereal, but most times, we're so busy moving upstairs and downstairs that this would be a rather crazy task for us to try to complete.

Ultimately, she likes to eat cereal anytime during the day, even for snacks. She's into grapes too, although most times we can't understand what she's trying to say. Her vocabulary is growing every day and we have to remind our relatives to watch what they say, as she's in "Monkey See, Monkey Do" mode.

She has become a daredevil in the past few months, jumping off the stairs, chairs, ottomans, couches and even just jumping up and landing on her butt or whatever else. We've even been told she sometimes body-slams. Thankfully we haven't had any incident reports from daycare on that, yet.

And at the same time, she still enjoys reading books, helping Mommy bake and play with any toys she can push, ride, or throw; which includes most anything!

Happy Halloween!

From our little love bug .... We have Beggar's night on the 30th of October. Ella loved Trick-or-Treating. Probably because we just went to the neighbors (and Uncle Clark & Aunt Cindy's) who had lots of special things for Ella, like homemade cookies and playdough, plus she got to play with their dogs!

Race for the Cure

A few weeks ago, Ella & I did Race for the Cure with my mom, my friend Andrea and her son Stone and her mom Terri. We had a lot of fun, however it was a little warm to be walking.

More progress on the house

Little helper

Here's Ella helping Bonnes cut out a piece of the siding. Good thing he's not some stranger! He's actually a good friend of my brother Brian.

Coming along...

The siding is coming along. With the guys only working nights and weekends, the process takes a little longer than usual. They hope to have everything (except the gutter) completed next week!

More pictures of Kyla

We were out at Brian & Sarah's on Sunday for a family dinner (with my parents). So we got to see Kyla. Ella pretty much ignores her because she's so busy chasing after Logan.

Ready for church

Here's Ella all ready to go to church on Sunday morning. Oh my little girl is growing up so fast. She'll be 2 already in November.

She has decided to be a dare devil here as of late. Jumping off of chairs and steps onto me or just the floor. Jumping from chairs to ottomans and vice versa. Wow, how much things can change in just 1 year. This time last year, she had only been walking a few weeks.

Ella's language is really starting to develop. Her favorites are juice and whatever Charles & I happen to say. Hoooney (honey) is a favorite as well. We can't help but laugh when we are making "smart" comments to one another and then Ella rattles it off. We really need to be careful now that we are only saying approriate words!

And as you can see, Ella really like the camera these days. As soon as she hears the picture take, she says, "I see". I think she just likes to see herself on the little digital camera screen, because then she'll point at it and say "It's Lala" (Ella). Too funny!

New toy!

Ella really likes the new flashlight I got from a co-worker. She points it to the ceiling and is just amazed.

Watching carefully

Ella is carefully watching the siders as they work. She is very intrigued by all of their tools. However, not intrigued enough to reject a picture!

More siding progress

Bike ride

Since Brian & Sarah were a little busy in the hospital, Grandma and Grandpa brought Logan to our house. It's the first time we've used this bike cart, but it did work pretty well.

Good leg workout!

Baby Kyla

My brother, Brian, and his wife Sarah had their baby this past weekend. Three weeks early. She's pretty tiny, only 5 1/2 pounds, but doing very well for being so little.

Here's Kyla with Brian and Logan (her big brother).

And then Kyla with Grandma and Grandpa Hohensee.

Siding progress

Here's some of the siding progress. We're putting up hardiplank siding, which in essence is cement siding. It'll be painted, we just haven't decided on a color yet.

Before siding...

Here's a a picture of the front of our house before the siding started last week.

Paige and Ella

Typical Paige and Ella, hanging out at Grandma & Grandpa's!

Getting ready

A few weekends ago, Ella and I went back to Pocahontas to go garage sailing with Grandma Ellen. Here is Grandma and Ella before we left.

Ella did relatively well, playing with the merchandise and not buying too much. We did find some brand new clothes for Ella and lots of clothes for her new cousin, Kyla.

More to come with Kyla.

Relaxin'

Here's Paige and Ella relaxing at my parent's house.