Christmas Eve at the Martin's

Rockin' by the Christmas Tree in the little rocking chair that used to be mine

We spent Christmas Eve with our Martin side of the family. All of Ella's cousins from that side are home living in Portland again so it was really fun to have all the kids together. It's amazing how having a baby and having kids around at the holidays makes it so much more exciting and special.

All the cousins, Ashley, Emily, Ella, Abby, and Rylan

Santa brought Ella a dolly, her name is Sara and she was pre-loved, she was mine when I was little. I remember the Christmas when Santa brought her to me!

Twas the Night Before Christmas

On Christmas Eve night Ella wore her special jammies that Grandma Lorri gave her just for Christmas Eve. We read her 'Twas the Night Before Christmas by our tree before heading to bed. No cookies for santa were set out this year....(mom & dad were too tired, Ella didn't miss them though) Santa figured it out anyway and spread gifts for Ella's first Christmas all about the city at each our families houses.

Christmas at the Beasley's

Ella with Grandma Teah and Grandpa Scott

The weekend before Christmas we celebrated with a white elephant gift exchange with our Beasley side of the family.

Aunt Carrie, Cousin Connor, Ella and Cousin Mason

Christmas with the Manson's

First Christmas

The weekend before Christmas we celebrated with our Manson side of the family. We opened gifts and had a nice dinner with Jason's parents Dale & Lorri and Sara and Jeff. As you can tell I'm a bit delayed in getting any Christmas photos up so I'm keeping this short and sweet.

First Christmas with Grandma & Grandpa Manson

How the heck do I open this?

Chewing it must be the best way! Thanks for the paper...it tastes great!

Rockin' and Rollin'

Ella has been changing daily as far as getting moving goes. A week ago she really started army crawling, and scooting on the floor. Saturday she really started to get her knees under her and getting her butt up and yesterday she started rocking on all 4's...good thing the Christmas tree only has to last a few more days because it's a prime target for a crawling baby!



She doesn't always run around the house half dressed, she was headed for bath time when her daddy attacked her and she decided to show off her new mobile moves! :)

Laughin' with the Lail's

We recently had dinner with the Lail's. Reid is 6 months older than Ella, and it is always so much fun to see what he is up to and what we can look forward to (or what we are in for :) ) in 6 months. We had a fun evening full of great company, laughter and tasty food!

Sharing toys, new stuff that is someone else's is always more fun to play with!


Peek-A-Boo Laughs...it's not a video of her face but it was oh so cute anyway, Ella just got a kick out of Cody's game of peek-a-boo.

Reid showed Ella the ropes with his very cool 4 sided baby entertainment center!

First Visit To Santa

Ella's first visit to Santa. She was a bit apprehensive about him. She didn't cry really, just stared at him like "who the heck are you" or maybe it was "I really want to pull your glasses off your face and tug on your beard". There were no smiles to be had though, she was miss stoic! Maybe no tears this year but we can only imagine the scene next year might bring about! Oh how we love to torture our poor children with these strange but jolly traditions!

Posing by the Christmas Tree

All dressed up to go visit Santa, so we made it a photo opp...they are a bit grainy though, sorry we used our old camera. She's sitting like an angel by the tree, maybe we should make her the tree topper! Actually Ella isn't really all that interested in the tree. A couple of times she's rolled up to it, or should I say nearly under it and then decided the branches looked fun to play with and run through her hands, but in all she isn't all that interested. She'll roll from one side of the room to the other if she's in the right mood, and will turn in a full 360 if something catches her interest, but I think it'll be another month before she crawls, lucky for us I think! Once and a while she'll get her butt up and her legs under her, but nothing too intentional yet. We've got a gate up at one set of stairs down to our garage & front door just in case she gets overzealous with her rolling, but we still have another set of stairs to our 3rd floor to think about once the time comes. Oh the challenges that will come with a moving baby! For now we'll just savor the cute bow-wearing baby that will sit still and give us our photo opportunities.

"....um excuse me Santa, don't forget the dolls and teddy bears, maybe tickets to the rose bowl for mom and dad, and oh ya, a puppy to chase wouldn't be bad either! Thanks Santa!"

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree....

This is the one!

Jason and I have never had a Christmas tree together. We've been together almost 8 years and this is the first year we put a tree up. We've always been away at college and would come home for the holidays, or in California and come home to Oregon for Christmas. We're finally settled a bit, and it's a special year being Ella's first Christmas and all so decided we should get a tree, especially before Ella is really mobile next year and we can't have one again. My step-dad John knew of a place in Estacada to u-cut trees for $8...any tree on the lot was just 8 smackeroos - tough deal to beat. We found a beautiful 7-foot tall douglas fir just calling our name! The fun of the tree hunt and pretty tree in our living room were well worth the freezing cold temperatures we had to endure.

The tree hunters

Putting up lights

(Pictures of our decorated tree to come once our computer decides it wants to talk to our photo card again!)

Thanksgiving

Reading with Aunt Meme, it's one of Ella's favorite things!

Ready for the feast!

The cook!

Grandma Betty supervising Erin's gravy stirring skills

Ok, so I'm a bit behind on the blogging...it's been busy around here! We spent Thanksgiving with my Beasley side of the family. We had great food and good company. Ella played lots with her Aunt Merideth and Uncle Erin and Grandpa & Grandma and Great-Grandma. She even got to have a turkey dinner of her own....yummy pureed poultry, appetizing isn't it?! We had a great day and have so much to be thankful for!

Ella was really diggin her turkey dinner

Hugs from Uncle Erin

Aunt Meme cuddles

Go Ducks!!!

We're all in ducky garb just in time for the Civil War game tonight! Ella even has her ducky jammies all ready for tonight. We'll be cheering loud (until the baby goes to bed) for our favorite team!!! Let's go big green!!!

Pink Glove Dance

This is a breast cancer awareness video that they made at my hospital. My department was hoppin busy on the day they made this so we didn't get to be in it, but thought I'd share it anyway. It's pretty cute I think! Remind all the women you love & care about to do self exams and get annual screening mammograms when they are of age!

Toy Box Raid

Ella's new trick is to pull over her box of toys and roll on top of them all. It's pretty interesting to see which ones she chooses to play with. Most often it's the one with the longest tag to chew on that she likes best. We've given her random kitchen items that are safe to play with and funny enough those too are the toys of choice. She has a pink thermos lid that she loves to chew on and talk into. We think she likes the echo back at her. It's metal and cool too so it probably feels good on her mouth. On an unlucky note this same lid is a bit heavy, and apparently when thrown from the towering height of a high-chair it's capable of breaking kitchen floor tile! We have 2 big gouges in our floor and this is the only heavy thing that has fallen on it....we're now searching for a way to repair travertine tile without replacing the whole thing...any ideas please comment and let us know! (Our condo management thanks you!) :(

Sorry this is a bit long and may be funnier when in person but still kind of cute.

Manson Thanksgiving

Playing with puddles the duck and Grandma Lorri

Hanging out with Aunt Carol

I'll share my toys with you Great-Grandma!

"Uncle 'Tricia" is trying to eat my toes!

Cuddles with Great-Grandma

Last weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving with Jason's family. It was nice to visit and catch up with family and to share a great meal together. Jason's Aunt Starr is a great cook and I always leave her house with a new recipe or meal idea. Ella had a good time playing with all of her Aunties, Grandparents and Great-Grandma. More Thanksgiving fun to come this week!

Snoozing with Daddy

I came downstairs Sunday morning to find these two cuddle-bugs together on the couch. Ella woke up too early from her first nap so daddy gave her a blankie and cuddles and she fell fast asleep in his arms. I'm sure she loved every second of it since she has to sleep in that big dark lonely crib all by herself these days (what cruel parents we are!), and Daddy doesn't look too heartbroken either.

Notice her duckie jammies....she wore them in honor of the Oregon football game last night, Ella had to go to bed before the game was over so this was "her" way of cheering from dream-land. I (Julie) am not a huge fan of the new Duck uniforms so Ella and I decided that her PJ's could be a good alternative for the team...rubber duckies plastered to their chest sounds like a nice option right? We'll be contacting Mr. Knight with our new plan...be prepared, changes coming soon! :)

Exploring My World

Ella rolls all over the living room. She has one direction that she really prefers to roll over the other. It's pretty comical; she'll roll until she hits an obstacle like the couch or the wall then we'll move her back to the other side of the room to start all over again. I found her the other day inspecting the underside of her swing. She seems a bit old to have the thing still around but it's great to have when she's in a grouchy or sleepy mood and just wants to kick back in a baby daze.

Visit with my cousins

Alyssa, Natalee and Ella

Ella got to visit with her cousins Alyssa and Natalee recently. She is really fascinated with other kids. It's so cute to see her with other babies or kids, she just stares and watches everything they do....taking notes for later I think.

Grandma Teah, Grandpa Scott, Alyssa, Natalee and Ella

Davis Graveyard

There is a house in Portland that we heard about on the radio that decorates their yard and house like a graveyard each year for Halloween. They have crazy good decorations. We went to see it on Halloween during the day, but apparently it's a whole new level of decked out in decor, fog, lights, scary sounds and haunting at night. It apparently changes & has new decorations each year so we'll have to hit it again next year. It's so fun to find the cool local festivities going on now that we're back in town. Starting our own traditions has been really nice!