Ella's 1!!

Yep, it flew by way too fast!! Our little Ella bean is 1!! Here are a few pics from her party! It turned out to be such a beautiful day and the party went so well!

Ella's birthday invite!

I got her invites off of etsy! I love it! I'm addicted to that website! lol

Pictures by Kelli Williams

Here are the pictures that Kelli Williams took of Ella! They are so good! Kelli is so talented! Enjoy!

October is here!

Wow, it's October already! I love this month, I love the fall, and it's the month of my first born!! Tyler will be 12 this year. I can't believe it my little man will be 12! So does that make him a tween or preteen or what exactly. He's such a good kid and such a wonderful big brother to his sisters. They love him so and I love him so! We've come a long way from me becoming a mommy at a young age of 17 and tho I was WAY too young I thank god for him every day! He is such a joy and brings so much happiness to all of us! It seems like only yesterday he was born. He truly is one of God's blessings!

Shortly after his 12th birthday we will be celebrating Ella's 1st birthday. I can't believe she's already going to be 1! Wow this past year has gone by so fast! She's a little ball of energy always on the go. She can crawl with more speed than a cheetah and when she knows she has something (probably in her mouth)that she shouldn't she takes off even faster! I just love it! :)

She's crawling and pulling up, but the girl still isn't walking. I'm thinking she may not for a while we all tend to pick her up and take her where she wants to go, so why should she walk?? lol

She's a little peanut! It's been a while since I last posted so I'll post a lot of pictures!

Below is a picture of Tyler's report for his careers class, he made a 100!! Way to go Ty!!

9mos. & more!!

Wow, here again I've taken forever to post!

And again I will have to post that so much has happened since my last blog, but that's also due to the fact that I've waited so long to post AGAIN!!

School has started here for Tyler & Ally. This year Tyler has ventured over to the middle school (sniff, sniff) and he's now in the 6th grade. Ally is now in the 2nd grade. So far they are both doing well & no complaints. Ally's excited to be trying out for chorus (which when I was in school everyone made it,but that was light years ago). We find out the beginning of Sept. who has made it. Fingers crossed Ally's on that list or she will be heartbroken! Tyler's looking forward to hunting with his papa this fall so no sports for him booooooo....I miss baseball! We won't push him, but I do wish he'd join a fall team just to keep his game up! Here's a picture of the first day of school....Tyler looks so excited, so excited in fact that he forgot to comb his hair...crazy kid! lol

Ella is now 9mos. well actually 9 1/2 mos. She is crawling and getting into everything as well as putting EVERYTHING in her mouth (yuck). I try my best to sanitize her toys on a daily basis, but when she goes for the shoes I go nuts. For some reason even tho I put them out of sight and reach she still finds them. Sigh.... I try! We've gated the living room, but she's never left unattended so she's pretty safe. It's when we go out when things get sticky. I can't believe how much she is doing now. She can also say "bye-bye", "momma", "so big" (with her hands up), "dadda" and she LOVES to dance. This girl is a hoot! Tyler & Ally have the best time with her. I am beyond thankful for this wonderful family I have!

"So big"

We took a one night trip up to Chattanooga the weekend before school started. We really had a good time and we got to visit Ruby Falls. Not the best place to visit if you happen to be a claustrophobic. We enjoyed it and it was very educational!

Florida

Saturday we returned home from a week long trip to Florida. It was so nice...hot, but so nice just to getaway! We visited the beach which the kids LOVE, they could live there! So could I, I would've been happy to just stay there! ;)

We also did a nature cruise which was 3 1/2 hours. It was nice, but I think it may have been a little to long for the kids. Ella of course took a few naps! Thankfully the boat was covered and there was a bit of a breeze. We mostly saw birds and a few alligators which were a little difficult to see as they didn't come up out of the water. Just their eyes peering at us was pretty much all we saw and that's okay with me! We snapped a few pictures, but I don't have good lens so I couldn't zoom in like I wanted to! Oh well...we did enjoy it. After we went to eat and we did see a few dolphins while we were eating they were all over the place!

I just love this freckled face girl! We got to have a mani/pedi day while we were in Florida. It was so much fun!

Thankfully this trip didn't include any visits to the ER with Tyler or the girls! We really had a good time, it's the ride home that's a killer! Ella is still in the infant seat and wants to sit up so bad that she wasn't happy and had a few moments of scream therapy. Poor thing, but gotta stay safe!

Tyler got to visit the Veteran's Memorial Museum, that is heaven to him!

He LOVES that stuff!

Sadly Summer is coming to an end for us as the kids start school next week! Tyler goes into middle school and Ally will start 2nd grade. I'm not crazy about the whole middle school scene so we'll see how it goes and go from there. I'd love to put my kids in a private school, but unfortunately that's not something we can afford right now. What I'd really like is for my kids to stay with me forever and never leave for anything....but that's a bit selfish right! So it will be Ella and myself while bubbie and siser are in school!

Enjoy the vacation pics!!

My sweet little beach bum!!

Yard Sale

We had a yard sale at my granny's this past weekend and I'd have to say we did pretty good!! Tyler made the most money because he we selling some of his electronics!! And he KNEW he did good! He's so funny, he plans on using all of his money to buy 1, yes I said 1 Xbox game!! We tried to use the kids to draw the customers in!! Gotta love the fun we had!!

I have to say Ty's so hard to get a picture of, he just doesn't have time to sit for the camera! I guess that's why we don't have any recent family pictures!! Ally loves the camera and loves to entertain so she's a snap and Ella, well this was her first popsicle and the girl LOVED it and tore it up!!

Enjoy!!

Ella's ABR

Ella went in last Tuesday the 7th of July for her ABR. They had to put her to sleep for this procedure because they need her very still for an hour to test her hearing. She has not been passing her hearing tests, but this could have been due to many different factors such as her being so young as well as the probe not being placed snugly in her ear. During our pre-op the week before they also discovered that the tube in her right ear was no longer in the correct position so they would also be replacing that as well! Her apt. was set for 1:00 p.m. which we thought was horrible considering she could NOT eat or drink after midnight. This girl is a eater and a BIG eater at that!! Well, since I'm still nursing she could have breast milk 6 hours prior to the surgery so we did just that! I have to say she did so well, I am so proud of her! We got there an hour before surgery time and they took us back to our room. We got her all suited up in her white gown and little booties. The nurses loved her and couldn't believe how happy she was due to the fact that she couldn't eat!! They were so good to us there and so good to our little sweet pea! It's so hard to see them being taken away eventho we know they will be coming back, it's still hard! After a few minutes I herd a baby crying down the hall and it was getting closer I looked at David and said, "that sounds like Ella!" Well here comes the nurse with Ella and it hadn't even been 10 minutes, she so was scared! It was SO sad!! She had to bring her back because the anesthesiologist had not yet made his way to speak with us and she really wasn't supposed to be taken back until then. He made his way in 2 minutes later and was very nice and explained everything to us! Then it got really hard when the nurse came back again!! Ella was so upset and cried the whole way down the hall! It's so heartbreaking!! We had reservations about this whole procedure to begin with b/c we felt it was very unnecessary to put her to sleep for a hearing test, but then what if we didn't do this and waited to long to help her if there was something seriously wrong. We all felt she could hear just fine because she always responds and she babbles like crazy! She says "momma" and "bubba" all the time! Which I LOVE by the way and I have to say she's defiantly a "mommy's girl!" The ENT doc came back to speak with us shortly after and said the tube had been replaced and the hole from the other tube would heal with no problems! Everything looked great and the tubes were working just right!! YAY, then onto the ABR! After about an hour and audiologist came in and said they did the ABR and her hearing is just fine! She CAN hear which we knew all along, but this is our reassurance!! So I will now STOP babbling and let you check out our Super cute girl in her gown!!

My little "mommys girl"

This girl still a happy baby with an empty tummy!!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July family and friends! This is such a fun day, a day to celebrate our freedom and our wonderful country. A day to say "Thank You" to the brave men and women who have fought for our country to let them all know that their fight is worth every minute. We take what we have for granted and forget to stop and look around at what we have and just how wonderful it is! So "Thank You" to our service men and women you are truly my heroes! I am so happy for my wonderful life and the wonderful people in it!

We had a really fun and busy day! We first went to the Williams' annual 4th of July cookout, it was tons of fun. The kids went down the ginormous water slide 5million times and the bar-b-q was super yummy! Thank you Williams' family for inviting us we really enjoyed it! :)

After the cookout we met one of Tyler's friends and his family for fireworks. Tyler always has a great time with Christian. We hung out on the soccer field and waited for the fireworks, the kids all had a great time! We can't wait to do it again next year!! Happy 4th everyone!

Father's Day

Hope everyone had a great weekend and all the father's had a fabulous Father's Day on Sunday. We had a nice weekend. On Saturday we traveled down past Madison to papa Bob's huntin club so David could help with some projects in his trailer. Then we headed over to a cookout with the O'Neill family. It's always so nice to visit with them and enjoy the summer festivities! Beth mad some really yummy glumpkie (not sure on the spelling). Then on Sunday we had a really nice breakfast at auntie Marine & uncle John's beautiful house located on lake Oconee! The kids like it out there and Ally loves their doggies! We were also able to visit with golfing-grandpa (Papa Joe). Later we had a nice dinner with my family at O'Charley's to celebrate all the wonderful daddies! We really had a great weekend and hope everyone did also!

Sunny May Day

Yesterday was such a beautiful day, the last Saturday in May. We took a trip to the library to get some new books to read and spent some time outside in Ella's new pool that the Easter bunny brought! She loved it and spent a long time in there! I knew she loved her baths, but didn't realize she would love her pool even more! After a while tho she decided that the pool looked yummy and wanted a bite! Hope your weekend was as nice as ours.

Memorial Day Weekend

The school year is over and summer vacation has finally begun! That's what happens when Memorial Day rolls around! We spent the weekend in Blue Ridge in a cute little cabin with a beautiful creek that ran behind it. The kids really enjoyed the creek and the many hours they played UNO. I didn't realize they liked that game so much, but they do and they played and played until they were too tired to keep their eyes open! They had fun and that's all that matters. It was a really nice weekend, a very relaxing one! It was supposed to rain all weekend, but thankfully the only rain we encountered was on Sunday evening and we were in for the night anyway. On Saturday we took a trip to Cumming for a graduation party for one of my cousins. Congrats to Leanna and her big achievement! Then on Sunday we drove to Blairsville for a little cookout with some more of the extended family. The kids got to do some fishing which they love. They love the outdoors, which is not something they got from me because I hate the heat, rain, and bugs! I'd rather stay indoors with a good book in the A/C! Ella did so well with the car rides and I know she had to be getting sick of that car seat. Here are a few pictures of our little weekend getaway. Enjoy....:)

Ally & Ella and their goofy faces, I love this picture!

Tyler was trying to catch a salamander, or as Ally would say a "smellamander!"

Ally playin' in the creek, she was trying to convince us to get in too! She's such a goof!

Happy 6 months to Ella!

Wow, has it already been 6 months since our little sweet pea arrived? It's so hard to believe! Ella is getting bigger and has such a cute little personality. She's sitting up (still a little wobbly), eating all kinds of fruits and veggies, and sleeps so good at night and during naps! She's such a good baby and has been doing so good since the tubes were put in. We went for a check up with the ENT last Tuesday and her ears looked good, but she does have a lot of blockage so they didn't do the hearing test. We have some new ear drops and go back in 2 weeks for another check up and a hearing test. She weighed in at 17.1, she's a healthy girl! She has cut her 2 bottom teeth and let me tell ya, it's made nursing a little painful at times! Here we thought her slight fever, drooling, and chewing on her hands was from her ears! We were a bit surprised because Tyler & Ally didn't get teeth until they were just about a year old. She loves loves loves her big brother and sister and has the biggest smile on her face when they walk in the door. Tyler & Ally have been so good with her and I think it gets better as she gets older. They love entertaining her and help out so much. I'm very thankful for such awesome kids! It was over a month since my last post and now I've blogged 3x's in one week! Here are a few pictures of Ella sitting up, she loves sitting up and playing with all her toys!! Enjoy!

Ella loves kisses from her sister! Isn't she a doll in her little tutu, we love it. It was made by Kelli Williams whom also did her 3 month pictures. She's so darn talented!

Happy Half Birthday Ella!!

Spring Break Vacation

For Spring Break this year we went to Florida! Tyler didn't get to enjoy it too much as he was pretty sick and the bad part was that it took 3 different ER visits to finally get him feeling better! Here are a few pictures from that trip. We also spent a day at Busch Gardens! It was a little chilly, but also very busy. I don't recommend going during Spring Break!

Tyler found a coconut and was so excited! This was our last day in Port Charlotte and he was finally feeling better, but it was super windy and a bit chilly at the beach. We enjoyed it anyway!

Ally could enjoy at the beach no matter the weather! She is a fish and loves the water! Can't resist writing in the sand. The sand is so soft and clean, we can't wait to go back!

Ella had to strike a pose in the sand also! She wasn't too crazy about the wind and sitting in the sand! Maybe next time she will be able to enjoy it more!

This is from our visit to Busch Gardens. Ally wasn't too sure about touching the snake and at first didn't want to, but I guess it wasn't so bad after all. She's brave because I would NOT have touched it! Tyler's like whatever he's not scared!