birthdays

cousins matthew and josh with ellie and grandma karen & grandpa kent

in january, we celebrated grandma karen's birthday all together. it was fun having everybody over at our new home!

singing to grandma

ellie's 1st birthday!!!
ellie, todd, grandpa kent
it isn't the best photo of ellie, but her daddy is sure cute!

grandpa kent (todd's dad) thomas (my brother) and felicity (thomas' daughter)

todd, cousin felicity, and ellieellie was very lucky- two pair of great grandparents live close enough to share her birthday with her: grandpa & grandma smith (todd's mom's parents) and grandpa & grandma newman (todd's dad's parents)i love my new kitchen. we were able to get about 20 people in it for dinner.
some of the crew enjoying our cafe rio salads... yummy!!!grandma karen reading to ellie and cousins felicity, milo, and quintonellie's birthday cake. everyone got a cupcake with a "paw print" on it (a thin mint and 3 extra large chocolate chips)our little family.
i've never made a decorative cake before. i was really scared. between my mom and sisters, jessica & kim, i got enough nerve & a great idea to actually make it.ellie wasn't sure what to do with her cake.so todd got her startedhe actually had to help her a lot.grandma smith visiting with ellie.she is so cute with ellieellie sharing with grandma karen. cousins annalise & milo were near to watch ellie's progress.while she did eat some cake, ellie mainly enjoyed smooshing her hands in it.happy birthday, our little one year-old!

Christmas

i'd like to dedicate this post to my dear sister kim. each time i speak to her, she somehow is able to slide in how great it is to blog and keep updates and.... "oh, yeah, if only you updated, jeanette; i'd know what ellie looks like and could imagine her doing what you describe."
so, here we are. :)
with so many things changing in our lives, i did get behind in photo taking. plus, when we were somewhere with family, everyone else was taking photos, so i didn't. lame, i know. and now that i am back, i'll get better.
there are only a few photos from Christmas, but i'm sure nobody wants to see an entire album. ;)

our little family at my brother's home
ellie with her cousin annalise, looking at the Christmas tree
playing at grandma karen's with cousins matthew and josh
ellie playing with our indoor snowballs
on Christmas eve we had a pageant with the smith family (todd's mom's side). ellie was an angel
a little closeup of our angel
Christmas morning. we quickly opened gifts at home before the marathon day of visiting family. it is wonderful being so close to so many family members!

now, just watch- i'm going to become crazy-nuts and blog all the time!