Happy New Year :)

Happy New Year! Hard to believe the holiday season is over-well not officially over for us since we haven't done Christmas with Rusty's side of the family yet-that will be next weekend. Thankfully it's not at my house so the de-Christmasing has begun! I was already clearing out the Christmas decor the day after Christmas. The only thing left is my Christmas tree which is hopefully coming down later today! It doesn't help that it's been warm here-it was almost 60 degrees yesterday! It put me in the spring cleaning mood so I was going nuts cleaning and organizing yesterday!

Our Christmas was great! Chris & Sarah came from TX and stayed Weds-Sun with us. It was hard to see them leave. Ella just LOVED them. We were worried about how she'd do since they left in August, but it was like no time had passed! When we saw them at the airport, she immediately went to Aunt "Sawah" and rode the escalators with her. She was just in her element the whole time they were here.

Christmas morning was fun. Ella loved all her presents-here she is with the easel that daddy bought her

...and her tickle monster hands. She likes to put these on and chase us around the house.

This pic is a little blurry, but this is Ella in her Christmas dress in front of the tree. She was pretty darn cute if I do say so myself!

Before the "heat wave" came in, we had a ton of snow. Remeber Ella last year in the snow?? Well this year was a different story. She loved it and didn't want to come in! She was so funny though-we had a sled for her but it had just been sitting in our garage so it had gotten a little dirty and there was a tiny little dead gnat in it. We wiped it out but she just couldn't get over the fact that there had been a dead bug in it. So the entire time we were pulling her on it, she wanted to get out because she didn't want to sit on a bug. Girly girl!

Our other big news (which probably everyone already knows) is that Ella is in her big girl bed! Her crib converts to a day bed/toddler bed thing, so it wasn't a huge transition. We started out by putting a safety rail up, but since it really wasn't supposed to go with this particular bed, it came up really high. We weren't sure she realized she could get out. We wanted to teach her to stay in bed even though she could get out herself. So yesterday we took off the rail. It makes me nervous because she could fall out, but I guess that's just something she needs to learn too. If she does fall out its a very short fall to the floor and we have it lined with a ton of pillows so it wouldn't hurt. So far so good though! She's stayed in her bed all night long and hasn't fallen out! I'm still not sure she's even thought of getting out. When she wakes up, she just calls for me and when I come to get her she's standing up in bed waiting for me. So we'll see if the realization of her freedom kicks in any time soon :)

Here's a video of her seeing her big girl bed for the first time...

I'm excited for 2011! This will be an exciting year for us, obviously with the addition to our family in June! My pregnancy is going pretty well so far. Over Christmas, I did have a little scare with some spotting. Since our miscarriage last year occured on Christmas Day, it made me more worried than I might have been otherwise. But thankfully when I went to the Dr. when they opened, they said everything was fine. I just overdid it a little over Christmas. We find out Jan 20th if Ella will have a little brother or little sister! Ella has said over and over that it is a girl, but I'm feeling more boy this time around so we'll see who's right! I admit I'm hoping a little more for a boy just to have 1 of each but of course I'll be so happy either way! Ella is starting to understand more and more about the baby. She'll kiss my tummy or sometimes if she's in not so nice of a mood she'll "crush" the baby, pressing her hands on my stomach. Hopefully that won't be something she does to the baby!!

Wishing you all a blessed New Year!