Ella can work on pictures just like mommy...

Ella has been able to climb into my desk chair for awhile now and I'll walk in there to find her trying to "work" on my laptop. :-)

Party Time

We went to birthday party for one of our friends last weekend. It was fun, but c r a z y with all the kids (8 total under the age of 6)! :-)

Storytime with Mr. Keith:

I know I've been a bad blogger lately, but we've had the sickies at our house which has left us no time for pictures. I'll try to be better next week. :-)

Loving this weather!

Hasn't this weather been fantastic? It's almost like Alabama is having a little bit of fall! We've been trying to take advantage of the cooler temps and spend lots of time outdoors...one of Ella's favorite things to do.

Cutie Patootie

I thought Ella just looked so cute and like such a big girl this morning that I had to take her picture. Shocker right!?!?! :-)

This morning I wanted to really take advantage of my Mother's Day Out time and get caught up on some scrapbooking. I worked really hard on a page about all the things I love about Ella...for about 2 hours. Then all of a sudden my computer froze and restarted on me. Good thing I've had that happen before and learned my lesson about periodically saving right?? WRONG! I did not save it so therefore lost 2 hours of work...just like that! You'd think I would know better. So basically I'm just venting about it and sharing to remind everyone who digiscraps to save every 2 seconds! :-)

Ella's new friend

We had some friends over Saturday night and Ella just really hit it off with their son Grey. They just played so well together and had a great time. The cutest thing (which of course I didn't get a picture of) was that Ella would sit in her little baby stroller and he would push her around. A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E! At the end of the night, Ella and Grey gave each other bye-bye sugars and Grey kept saying "I want to say bye to Ella one more time." His parents told us that before they even pulled out of the driveway, he said "I miss Ella." So sweet :-)

Playing house outside:

Sharing their bread:

Reading together:

And a big 'ole smooch:

Ella Dancing

There's a commerical that comes on with Maroon 5 playing in the background. Ella LOVES it! I mean drops everything to watch it and dance. Pretty cute... (sorry the video is such bad quality)

Catching Up

Here's some pictures off of my Kodak that Keith or I have taken in the past couple of weeks:

When Ella "talks" on her phone now, she likes to prop it between her ear and shoulder and multi-task just like mommy...so adorable:

The men in our Sunday School class had a playdate Saturday morning which went wonderfully! All the kids came home with their appropriate parent and no child was left behind. ;-) I sent Keith with the camera to document that special day. Ella left with a bow in her hair and she returned that way! Wow! That's better than I do most of the time!

On Sunday we ate lunch at the food court with the Sunday School class (well it was actually just the Johnsons, the Taylors, and us) and then let Ella ride on the carousel with Grey (her new buddy). She got to sit on a horse by herself (almost unasissted) and she felt very grown. So much so that she did not want to get off!

My girl loves books...

and I LOVE that!

Beach Pictures!

I figured the best way to share our beach pictures was in a slideshow...enjoy! Warning: there are a lot of pictures! :-)

16 Months

Ella is 16 months today. It has amazed me how much she has learned and changed in the past month. She understands pretty much everything we say now and has really started to say a lot of words and put words together into sentences. The latest thing we've taught her is to smile and nod her head when we ask "are you rotten?" So cute! :-)

Here's how she's changed in the last few months:

13 Months:

14 Months:

15 Months:

And here's another funny "cheese" smile:

One Great Day of Service

We participated in Frazer's One Great Day of Service today. The goal was to get as many people involved in some type of service project as possible to make an impact on our city. Our Sunday School participated in two ways: the boys and women who didn't have children to care for, did yard work for a woman in need and also worked on a project at one of our local schools. The other woman and children decorated cookies and cards and then delivered them to neighbors. We had so much fun working on the projects and spending time together. It was also a great opportunity to teach our children that serving other people is not only a blessing for those who are being served but for us as well.

What a difference a few days makes...

I'm still working on all those beach pictures, but here are two that I took. One on the first day and one on the day that we left. Initially the water was so calm it was like a lake...no waves at all. Then Monday morning when the weather started to move in, it totally changed the ocean. The water was all the way up to the steps and extremely rough. I'm glad we had a few days of nice weather to enjoy!

Cheese!

Oh boy...I've created a monster! Ella understands the camera very well now and when using the point and shoot (which shines a red light before taking the picture) she gives her very best "cheesy" smile. I'll never be able to catch a candid smile again! :-)

When I was about 2 years old we lived on Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro, NC. I had a lot of little playmates, but my closest buddies were 2 boys around my age named Jason and Jeffrey. Well, we're all grown up now, married or engaged, with kids of our own. We had the opportunity to eat dinner and visit with Jason last night because he's in town with work. It's so much fun to see how we've all changed and reminisce about old times.

Our little artist

Ella is really into crayons right now. We've been letting her play with them at restaurants that offer them and the other day I bought her some of her very own. She thinks she's very big. :-)

Santa Rosa Beach

We just returned from a quick Labor Day weekend at the beach. We lucked out with two and a half really nice days at the beach and then saw the arrival of Hurricane Gustav weather. But, that didn't spoil our fun...just gave us a good excuse for shopping! :-) Love those Destin outlets!! I'll be working on pictures all this week and will try to post as I finish editing them. Here's a couple for now. We hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!