Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from the Williams Family! We hope everyone has a wonderful 2008 filled with love, fun, and good times. Here are our resolutions for 2008:

Ella -
1. Learn how to walk.
2. Learn how to talk.
3. Sleep better during the night and for my naps.

Suzanne -
1. Finish Ella's baby book.
2. Learn more about digital scrapbooking.
3. Organize and consolidate my pictures.
4. Sleep better during the night and take some naps! :-)

Keith -
1. Read the Bible more.
2. Go to church more.
3. Get down to a 36 in. waist.
4. Play the guitar more.

A LOT of Christmas Pictures

As promised, here are the rest of our Christmas pictures. A word of warning, there are A LOT! I put them in an album on a separate page...the link is http://www.ellakatherine.com/HTML%20Files/Ella%201st%20Christmas/index.htm.

This is a picture of Ella from the other day in a new shirt...Keith doesn't like the camo at all, but I think the wording is perfect! ;-) Heehee...

Ella and Mommy Pictures

Ella and I surprised Keith this Christmas with a picture of the two of us to put in his office. My great photographer friend Lori Mercer took the pictures for us back in November when Ella was about 6.5 months old. I'm just now getting to share them because we kept it a secret from Keith until he could open his Christmas gift. Here are a couple of my favorites. Lori: Keith and I love the pictures...I think you did a wonderful job! Thank you! :-) If you're in the Montgomery area and enjoy Lori's work as much as I do, give her a call at 334-399-1884.

Merry Christmas!

Ok, I know I'm couple of days late. But we were at my parents on Christmas day, so I couldn't get to my computer to download pictures. Plus, since I took over 450 pictures (seriously) it's taking me forever to go through them all. Here's a couple of Ella on her 1st Christmas...more to come later. I hope everyone had a wonderful day full of lots of merry fun! :-)

Williams Family Christmas

We had Christmas with the Williams Family last night. Everybody came to our house this year and we had a great time opening gifts and spending time together. We went to the Christmas candlelight service at Frazer and Ella was so good...she slept through the whole thing! :-)

Pictures Galore

Ok, are you ready for picture overload??? This week has been busy so I've got a lot to post.:-)

To start, we had a Holiday dinner with Sonya, Jerri, and Saddlar. As always, Saddlar and Ella were little flirts...those crazy kids. Anyways, we had a lot of fun and Keith and Sonya even got to pick a little bit on Keith's new guitar. (Even though it's really a Christmas present, he got to bring it out for a little while) Jerri is so good with kids and has a way of making them crack up. Ella laughed at her that night like she has never laughed before. I don't know what her trick is! While opening presents that night, we realized that Ella falls in the stereotype of a baby at Christmas; she was way more interested in the wrapping and tissue paper than the presents!

Next, Ella is all over the place! She's crawling at lighting speed (ok, maybe not that fast, but she's definitely quick), pulling up, and cruising around holding on to things. She even took her first step on Tuesday...and then proceeded to face plant. But she's headed in the right direction! If I turn my back for one second, and I mean one, she's into something. This week I caught her trying to push buttons on the cable box and pulling the blinds down at the window. I tried to contain her in bean bag chair to watch a Baby Einstein but that lasted for about 5 mintues. Ah well, at least she's healthy and active! :-)

We went shopping today on Mulberry Street and found the cutest little Christmas outfit. Too bad there are so few days left for her to wear it! I tried it on her when we got home and she thought she was hot stuff in it!

And finally just some fun Christmas pics I've taken this week. I can't believe Christmas is on Tuesday! I hope everyone has their shopping done and is looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend...ha ha ;-)

Favorite Pics

We have been super busy getting ready for Christmas (which is right around the corner...can't believe it) so I haven't had much time for pictures of Ella or blogging...I know you can't believe it about the picture part, but it's true! However, I have gotten a few and here are my faves.

Also, On Saturday night, Ella made a noise that sounded a whole lot like "Mama." She did it again on Sunday and then today when I put her down and she wanted to be picked right back up, she held her hands up and said "Maaaaama!" So I think it's fair to say that is her first word right? ;-) I know she doesn't know what she's saying, but she is making the sounds so that counts right?? Right?!?!? :-) Haha...Keith and I have a big bet going on what she's going to say first...mama or dada.

Festival of Lights and Another Visit with Santa

We went to the Festival of Lights at the zoo tonight with Sonya, Jerri, Debbie, and Saddlar. Ella did well, but wasn't too concerned with the lights. We got to see Santa again and I am so proud to say that Ella wasn't bothered one bit! I think the trick was the candy cane we let her hold while sitting on his lap. It kept her very distracted. Or it could have been the fact that her boyfriend Saddlar was sitting there also to protect her. :-) These nice people let us take our own pictures which I loved!

Pulling Up

I was finally quick enough to snap a picture of Ella pulling up. I cannot believe she's big enough to do that already!

Crawling and Spring Cleaning

Ella is really motoring around these days! Makes it super hard to get anything done around here, so I had to break out the pack 'n play again today to try and contain her a little bit while I hurry around doing chores. She's so proud of herself when she crawls to something and when she pulls up. What an amazing feat she has accomplished! :-)

We did some serious "winter" cleaning today...Ella was such a good little helper and organized the hangers for me. ;-)

Oh, PS - for those of you who can't view the pictures on the blog, I've updated www.ellakatherine.com with 6 months pictures. Some are repeats of what have been posted on here.

More Christmas Pics

I finally took the time to go through the rest of the Christmas pictures. Here are a couple that didn't make the cut for the Christmas card, but I still like regardless.

Big Bath Tub

Ella is a little fish. She takes her baths in the "big girl" bathtub now and LOVES it. She'll try to grab her rubber ducky and plunge face first in the water and it doesn't bother her a bit. She's going to really enjoy Nana and Pop-Pop's pool next summer I think!

Holiday Dinner

We had a holiday dinner at our house last night for some good friends of ours and their kids. Between all of us, we have 7 kids so it was a little c-r-a-z-y! But we all had a great time and many fun memories were made.

7 Months! WOW

Well, like I say everytime, the past 7 months have flown. I can't believe Ella is more than 1/2 a year old. This past month has really been super fun. The sleeping has gotten better, she's eating solid foods, crawling, starting to pull up, and really getting into playing and interacting. We just love love love her! Anyways, here is her 7 month pic and her 6 month to compare. It's so hard now to to get her to sit still! And smile!! The perspective of the picture is a little bit different because we had to lower her crib. I'm also posting 2 other pictures of her today just because I think they're cute. :-)

Santa Claus!

Ella went to see the "real Santa Claus" today at Eastdale Mall. No kidding, this guy is the real deal. She was so happy in her little Christmas outfit until we got to the part where she had to sit on Santa's lap. It absolutely scared her to death! The photographer was able to get one quick picture when she wasn't screaming bloody murder. Ah well, maybe she'll like it better next year. Apparently the whole ordeal just exhausted her because she conked out as soon as she got in her car seat. Poor little thing. :-)

Marriage by the Book Christmas Party

Our Sunday School party was last night. We got together at the McInnish's house for dinner and Dirty Santa. Lots of fun! We took an ornament and came home with a s'mores kit. Maybe we'll use it Christmas Eve in Nana and Pop-pop's fireplace?

Since Lori Mercer wasn't at the party, I filled in as class photographer to take the group picture. Lori, you definitely do a better job than me at that! How do you get a smaller aperture with such dim lighting? The people in the back of the pic aren't in focus...help! :-)

Anyhoo, it was a nice night out and thank you to Nana for babysitting. :-)

Women's Brunch

We had a women's brunch last weekend at our church that I attended with my mom and grandmother. We got some wonderful Christmas decorating tips from one of the husbands in the congregation (believe it or not and he knew what he was talking about :-)!) and enjoyed some time socializing. Here are a couple of pics.

Christmas Card Pics

We took pictures for our Christmas card today; I did the ones of Ella and then my dad filled in as photographer to do some family ones for us. Here are the ones that we chose to use for the card. It was hard work getting Ella to sit still and give us some smiles now that she's crawling all over the place.

Update on Ella's milestones: she is having a hard time going to sleep and staying asleep in her crib now that she can sit herself up from lying down and since she's crawling. So this evening she was crying it out in her crib and I went in to check on her. I found her standing up holding on to the railing. I guess she can pull up now! :-)