hold it?

Yesterday marked Ella's very first trip to the ice cream truck. it was exciting! we were actually taking a walk around the block because she was having a cranky day. i know how that goes, i'm a girl too :) so we hear the music coming down the road. luckily mommy had some change in her pocket. so she takes off running down the sidewalk because she instinctively knew something good must come from a truck with a catchy tune blaring from the speakers. so i picked her up and she picked out the tweety bird popsicle from the pictures. so at first she asked me "hold it?" and i told her that mommy was going to hold it and she was okay with that. then i stopped and thought to myself that sooner or later, i have to let go of hating sticky messes and just let her be a kid. so i put her down and handed over the tweety bird. oh man, that was a long walk with no wipeys! so we get about halfway back to the house and she has eaten almost all of it. she got down to the gumball eyes and ate one. she loved it! then all of a sudden, the other half of tweety's face (including the other gumball) fell to the pavement. at that moment, she knew it was a disaster. she started saying "oh no" over and over again! i forced her to keep walking and leave behind the ice cream. she wasn't happy about it, but she trudged on with what was left attached to the stick. every once in a while she'd look back at the ice cream. it was so funny! we got home and promptly got in the bathtub! :)

here is a picture of the aftermath from ella's first popsicle:

i was out of town last weekend working a chrysalis flight (which was awesome, by the way). But i was gone thursday through sunday. it was hard being away from ella, but not as hard as i thought it would be. i'm so used to being away from josh. the two of us are good at that. but it was my first long weekend away from the girl. well, let's just say she still hasn't let me off the hook. she is the ultimate daddy's girl. she and josh were sitting on the couch this morning and i was sitting on the other side of the couch. i decided to slide over and put my head on josh's shoulder and ella did not like that. she made me take my head off of his shoulder and then she squeezed herself right in between us so that i couldn't sit next to him. someone is jealous (and that someone is me!!)

i'm hoping she goes easy on me soon.....she'll need someone to buy her new clothes someday and it definitely won't be daddy. she'll come back to me then :)

4th on Main was a raging success! We had the most amazing planning committee and I have to say, I think we pulled it off! Here are a few pictures from the talented Laurie Heath. She really captured the spirit and the atmosphere of the event. An all-american, small town, old fashioned, family oriented picnic. Thank you for sharing your gift with us, Laurie!

Here Matt and I are working the Watermelon Eating Contest

And our round one winner is....

And our round 2 winner is....

Josh entered round three, but he lost...

The Jalapeno Eating Contest:

And finally, the Hot Dog Eating Contest:

Here's my beautiful little watermelon. Her favorite part was dancing to the blue grass music. Or the train....

Cousins Ella and Piper had so much fun playing!

And to finish it off with some volleyball.

Babies grow up so fast. I can remember countless people telling me how fast it will go by and to enjoy every moment. You don't really know it until you look back yourself and think "Wow, when did all that growing up happen?" But I admit, I am one of those moms who kept saying "I can't wait until Ella can ___". When she was rolling, I couldn't wait until she was crawling. When she was crawling, I couldn't wait until she was walking. And I have to say that each stage has been better than the last. I don't look back and miss the baby stage. While it was wonderful while we were there, it passed. But right now, where we are today, I never want it to end. Ella is talking so much. Not only is she talking, she's making sentences. She understands practically anything I say and she always responds appropriately. It's amazing. She is just so much fun and I never want her to get any bigger!! This is definitely my favorite age.

Well, we made it back from our first real vacation with Ella. We had an absolute blast. I seriously could not have asked Ella to be a better child. We took our first plane ride. We ran into a little snag as our luggage made the first flight, but we in fact did not. So we woke up at 3am that morning to make it to the airport in time for an 11am flight. But, we managed to have a little fun while we waited for the next flight! Ella had a great time playing the "hat" game where she found anything and everything to put on as a hat and then tell us "Hat!". I was able to snap a few pictures of her in her hats. She also had a fun time pretending to take a nap. Too bad there was a smudge on the lens of my camera and all of my pictures turned out a little foggy.

As soon as the plane took off, you could tell she got a little dizzy as the plane was turning to head in the right direction. About 30 seconds after takeoff, she was asleep! I have a video to prove it....

After she woke up, she looked out the window and played and really just had a wonderful time. She loved looking out of the window while we were taxi-ing and seeing all of the other airplanes.

Next, we picked up our rental car and headed to our hotel in Memphis. Again, she was amazing. But we didn't get much downtime. We had to head out to the rehearsal dinner. Here are some pre-rehearsal dinner family pictures.

And Daddy was able to snap a great family photo! I can't believe she was smiling! :)

Sleeping in the hotel was a bit tricky because Ella doesn't ever sleep in bed with us. But we found that if we turned on the DVD player and put in Monster's Inc. (her new favorite movie), she would watch it and then pass out due to exhaustion! She stayed up later than we did! :) If you ask her about Monster's Inc, she'll tell you about "Sully/Kitty", "Baby" (Boo), and "Circle" (Mike Wizowsky). She's so funny!

The next day, we were able to take a trip to the Childrens' Museum in Memphis before the wedding. I cannot even explain how much fun Ella had. She could've played an entire day away, but since we were on a time crunch, we had to make sure she saw every single inch of the museum in the hour and a half before we had to leave. Her favorite part was definitely the wall with all of the doors, light switches, doorbells, and locks. She loved it. The tooth puzzle was also very fun, but she kept giving the mouth a "snaggle tooth".


Ella and Daddy also had a little fun playing basketball. Ella and I made some paper trees and paper dogs.

After the wedding was over, we headed up to Clarksville where we had an AMAZING time and caught up with our wonderful friends that we dearly miss! We got to see Joe and his girlfriend Bre (or as Ella would say, Doe and Bee). Ella had a great time playing with Lola's toys while we sat around and caught up (beer and pizza!). The next day, we were able to visit with Jon and Nicole and Addison and ate lunch at one of my favorite restaurants: Blackhorse. I had to forgo the vanilla beer as I was driving us back to Memphis right after lunch. We made our flight home on time...barely. Apparently we can't be early anywhere we go (which drives Josh crazy!). But all in all, it was a wonderful trip and we can't wait to go back to Tennessee, my favorite state.

It is such a privilege to be a parent. We tried for so long to get pregnant and when it finally happened, we felt like it was a dream. But no dream could compare to actually being a parent. I get to experience so many things all over again through Ella. My daughter is so incredibly smart and such a fast learner. It's not something that I feel that I somehow taught her, but more just what she was born with. Since the day she was born she has been outspoken, opinionated, and passionate. During the newborn phase, I felt like this was more of a curse than a blessing. As Ella has grown, I've gotten to watch her use those traits for good and not evil...anymore :)

Yesterday, she was at work with me and she has this really cool table that she got for her birthday from Mimi. It has lots of different colors and my mom discovered yesterday that she can differentiate between yellow and red. Today, she got down green and blue. Orange is still a little confusing, but she's definitely on her way to getting those primary colors down. It was so cool to watch it click in her brain. These may seem like little things to most people, but to watch your child learn is one of the most amazing experiences. She is so smart and I am so proud!

Well, I've finally gotten a moment to sit down and write. It has been a hectic few weeks. Work has just absolutely eaten my lunch almost every day and then all of the little projects for the church have really filled in what few gaps of time I have left. Last week as I was driving to the 4th on Main meeting in Danbury, I had a break down. I hadn't seen Ella hardly at all that week and I wasn't going to get to see her at all that day. She was asleep when I left for work and I ended up working until I had to leave to go to my meeting. But then I realized something. Life was pretty easy before I started working for the Lord. Satan was really attacking me on my way to that meeting, although I didn't realize it until later that night. But this week has really rejunvenated me. I got to stay home on Monday with Ella since both my mom and Drew were back at work. We went to Bates Park and Ella was in the swing for 25 minutes straight! It's something about those swings....Then we went swimming with Aunt Heather, Alley, Cane, and Nonnie. It was a great day! It was so much fun that I didn't even think about breaking out my camera, so no pictures.

Josh started back to school this week after a short break. His schedule isn't too bad, though. I'm just excited that I get two to three days at home every week. Tomorrow is another one of those days :) Josh has also been helping my parents around their house doing some home improvements. We all spent the day over their on Saturday. Here are some pictures of what we were up to:

Daddy was definitely not having as much fun as us....


And here's a picture of my little white trash baby girl in her swim diaper and crocs....

Rowan actually learned how to ride her bike a few moments before this picture. What a cool day to have the camera ready. I still remember the day Chase taught me how to ride my bike.

Ella and I hit a milestone the other day. I got to fix her hair for the first time! :) Here are some pictures of Ella's first pigtails:

To finish it all up, I'm going to tell you to go by the Tenth Avenue North CD. I had one of those moments last night where I encountered Christ in my car. I think those moments only come to me through music, so I love it when it happens.