Christmas Day

Here are a few pictures of Ellie (and us) opening some of our presents. She also got some other fun toys like a huge kitchen thing for her room (which she loves), dolls with clip-on clothes (so fun!), a beautiful dress for church and a little laptop. I didn't get pictures of those ones (dang!) because we were doing webcam with grandparents while she was opening them! We had an awesome Christmas! Thanks to all for your generosity! Ellie was definitely spoiled this Christmas (she actually got tired of opening presents!)





Yay for blu-ray!

Yes I can look like this...I'm pregnant and I just woke up!! haha









Cute snuggles...wait, is that her finger in her nose? Leave it to Ellie to ruin a good picture haha!

Christmas Eve

We had lots of fun on Christmas Eve! We looked at Christmas lights, made caramel popcorn, and watched a Christmas movie, then put Ellie to bed in her Christmas PJs. After that Chris had fun doing his "daddy duty" of putting together one of her presents. It was a fun and memorable night! (warning: I included lots of pictures!)

Ellie in the car ...she was probably saying "cheese!"

Santa on a Harley...I included this for Chris' parents! So funny!

The Nightmare before Christmas...check out those reindeer!

Palm trees everywhere!!!

Lights strung very....interestingly? haha I thought this was funny..looks like someone threw up on these bushes haha

pretty house

This was at one of the houses...it's not the real sign but it's almost as big!

Opening her PJs present

Ellie with her Christmas PJs and bear

Ellie and Daddy in the kitchen

Chris shaking the popcorn pot

"Ellie, stop watching the movie and look at the camera haha"

Yummy Caramel Corn

Elf...best Christmas movie Ever!



Ellie was so tired about halfway through the movie!

Merry ChristmasTraditions!

Hey Everyone! I just wanted to say Merry Christmas and hope you all have an awesome time with your families! Also I wanted to share my excitement with new traditions I'm starting. This is our first Christmas away from "home" (Chico) so I decided that it's time to start some new fun traditions. Normally on Christmas Eve we would be at my Grandma Atkin's house having a huge dinner and spending time with my huge family...this year I decided it would be fun to make caramel popcorn, watch a Christmas movie and then go look at Christmas lights! I also started a tradition actually a few years ago that in the kid's stockings I would put Pop rocks so that they know that I think their "pop rocks" haha get it? We are carrying on the tradition from my family of lifesaver books and Chris' family tradition of gold chocolate coins (does anyone know where to get some of these by the way? I can never find them!). Anyone who knows me knows that I am a game junkie so we decided that every year we would buy a family present of a board game of some sort. The last one isn't that original but on Christmas Eve our kids get to open the one present of Christmas PJs so they can wear them to sleep that night! (No, I don't make them...I buy them...last year at Kohl's, this year at Walmart) So those are our new/old traditions! I hope you all keep your family traditions because that's what memories are made from!

SNOW!!! In Vegas?

So on Monday it snowed in Northern Las Vegas but not in Henderson where we live but today......



The first tree picture is at 3:00 ish and the 2nd picture is at 4:30 ish

Bum

This is the type of thing I find when Daddy gives Ellie a bath!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas................. in Vegas?

Well at our apartment it is anyways!
Here are some pictures of us putting up the tree and other decorations.


Here's Ellie "fluffing" the tree...

helping put on ornaments...



and posing!

Here are our stockings...I bought them 2 years ago and had bought 4 so I we could have matching ones for at least the first two kids so Hannah's already has her name beaded on!

Hannah the Incredible!

So I had another ultrasound today and Hannah is pretty much caught up!!! We are so excited! Her stomach is less than a week behind in growth now which is pretty normal. The doctor was really excited too and he said that he's going to treat this as a normal pregnancy now so...10 more weeks until D-day! Thanks so much to all y'all for your prayers and comments! Love to all!

Ellie is 20 months old!!

So I've kind of stopped counting in months and usually just say Ellie is a year and a half but yesterday was Ellie's "20 month birthday" and it made me realize how close she is to being a big 2 year old! I thought it would be fun to give a little update to y'all about what she's accomplished and what she's up to these days!

Ellie is so into her letters right now....she can't really sing the alphabet song unless I'm singing it and then she repeats it but if she sees a letter she knows what it is. We'll be driving in the car and she'll see an M or some other letter and then just repeat it over and over until I acknowledge her seeing it by saying it too! (she likes to be heard!) She's also coming into a word explosion!

Some Words that Ellie can say really well:
Mama and Mommy
Dada and Daddy
Papa
Cat
yea
no
Doggy
Hair
Head
book
chair
cheek
ear
eye
chin
neck
leg
arm
elbow
eyebrow
turkey
pray
brown
yellow
pink
car
(there are a lot more...)


Here are some words that Ellie tries to say (but only we as the parents can understand!)
Grammy (kinda sounds like Mammy)
pumpkin
camera
scriptures
grapes
crayons
t.v.
cereal
movie
music
eyelashes
belly button



She seriously cracks us up all the time! She's starting to get a little sense of humor and is laughing at all the crazy things we do...(remember how she used to just stare you down like you were crazy? She still does that to strangers but at least she laughs at her crazy parents now!) A funny thing she's doing right now is when it's time to pray we'll ask Ellie "Who's turn is it Ellie?" and she'll say "Ummmm....Dada" or "Ummm....Ellie" or "Ummmm....mine?" She never picks Mama for some reason..maybe she hears me pray too much! haha Also we can pretty much ask her any question even if it's something crazy that she'll never know and she'll answer it with either "I don't know" or jibberish. She's also a master at puzzles...I bought one of those little foamy ones that you have to get into the right hole and then push it in just enough so it doesn't fall out the other side and she's seriously got it down! She also has a little animal puzzle that her G.G. got her and she can finish that thing in like 1 minute. Ellie was a little late at crawling and walking and especially running (she's really cautious) but now she loves running down the hallway and especially running after birds at the park! Oh one other thing that she does that is just so precious is that ever since I got pregnant I've been telling her that there's a baby in my belly and then once we found out it was a girl we tell Ellie that Hannah is in my belly so Ellie will come up to me and touch my belly and say "baby" and I'll say "Who is the baby in there?" and she'll say "Nanna" (that's how she's saying Hannah...we'll have to work on the H sound haha) She's just so sweet too! At bedtime she'll give her Daddy and Me hugs and kisses and then I'll say "give Hannah a hug and kiss " and she'll come up and snuggle my belly and give it a kiss! She's just the sweetest little girly ever!

We love being her parents and watching her grow and learn!

I love Walmart!

So out here in Vegas we have a blessed thing called Super Walmart (which pretty much everywhere has except Chico!) and I am loving it! I love to be able to go to one store to get all my groceries and most of my Christmas shopping done! Also I just figured out the whole digital photo center online which is so easy! I just download my pictures online and then in an hour go pick them up at the walmart...and they're pretty cheap too! I just had to post my excitement!!

Don't Forget....

to get your free movie today!!! It's free movie Monday! The code is up in the right hand corner of the blog!

Sunday Dresses

These pictures were just too cute to not post!! Here is Ellie on the last two Sundays in her cute little dresses!

Stay tuned all you Redbox lovers!

For those of you who have never heard of Redbox...let me introduce you! Redbox is an awesome movie rental 'box' where you can rent new DVDs for only one dollar! It's only for a day but it is so worth it! (so much cheaper than 5 bucks at Hollywood!) Here in Vegas it is pretty much in every grocery store...including all Walmarts. I know in Chico there is one in the FoodMaxx but I'm not sure where else. Anyways, I just signed up online for their free Movie Mondays where every Monday they text me a code that I put in so my DVD is free! In the message it told me to share it with friends so I thought it would be cool if every Monday when I get the message I can just have a little section on my blog with the code so y'all can have Free Movie Monday too! So stay tuned next Monday for the Redbox code! Oh and it only works on the Monday until Midnight! If you have any questions about Redbox or anything just ask! Enjoy!

Random!

Here are 7 random things about me (hopefully I don't repeat any from the quirky one!):

1. I hate cleaning bathrooms

2. I like to go to Walmart and browse every once in awhile (even if I don't need anything)

3. When Ellie is throwing a fit (one that is uncalled for) I like to imitate her cry and make her laugh! (Anything to distract her right?)

4. My middle name is Rachelle

5. Apparently I've started a tradition in my family of giving my kids middle names that come from family (not that random I guess)

6. Chris and I traded in both of our cars for different ones in the last 6 months

7. I like to look on Craigslist for dining room tables even though I don't really want to buy one at the moment...weird I know.

So I decided I'm not tagging anyone because I kind of already did this once and I don't feel like tagging ha!

Bargain Shopping

I really like a good bargain! I wanted to buy some Thanksgiving decorations because I don't have any so I went to Kohl's the day after Halloween to look. I was looking at the Halloween clearance stuff and there wasn't anything that exciting but then an employee was putting some items back and he put this way cute Turkey on the clearance shelf and it said $19.99 (darn) but I asked him just to be sure and he went and checked for me...it was only $5.99. So awesome! So now I have my first Thanksgiving decoration! Yay for me!

Pumpkin Goo!

We had tons of fun carving our pumpkin this year! Ellie was a little bit tired (as you will see) but other than that she dug right in and helped. It was very fun!

Here's Ellie looking at herself in the spoon!

Ellie helping mommy get out the "punkin' goo"

Mommy distracting Ellie with Camera.

Ellie not distracted anymore and wanting the pumpkin back on the floor so she can pull out the goo!! She's a little drama queen sometimes...we don't pay attention to her fits!!

Chocolate milk is yummy!!

The finished product (a few days later...yes it's moldy I'm throwing it out once I post this!! It just makes it scarier right?) My favorite part is the twisty stem!