I came into the kitchen this afternoon and found Ella trying to look out the window. It is at these moments that you realize how big they really are getting! The camera just happened to sitting on the table and I snapped a quick shot...

Ella picked out her shirt today! She grabbed it out of a bag of summer clothes and held it up to Jeramy and I this morning. So that's what we wore :) In this picture, you can barely see the ONE little tooth that Ella has gotten. That ONE tooth is just taking it's sweet time pushing on up!

It was such a nice afternoon, that I decided to get some outside time in. Aunt Melissa and Campbell gave Ella this little bike and she LOVES it!!! Look at her in perfect bike form, she must get that from Auntie Holly. She had such a great time, she laughed and sang and just enjoyed the sun!

This is our pup, Danner. He is a very large dog. Danner has an under ground fence, because we live on a pretty busy road. Lately the fence has been Mal-functioning! STRESS because he has been roaming free...not good! This last time he lost his colar, so Jeramy went to Wal-Mart and bought a new colar, doctored it up and attached is voltage box to it, Jeramy can do anything! Danner fence is fixed, for now and his new colar secure. Here he and Ella are playing in the kitchen. He has such a soft touch around her...Even though it scares me to death, I have to trust him and Jeramy too!

This is a video of Ella playing on Danner. It was really sweet!

***At the end Danner is trying to lick Ella, nothing harmful, I promise!

I did it!

I successfully baked a cake!!!

Now it was not from scratch, because I obviously can't do that, but it was a delicious strawberry cake and cupcakes. I believe I have fully redeemed myself now ;)

I was in Kroger yesterday and the cake mix was on sale for $0.94. I said to myself "Maybe I should try it again with the box cake?" Pondering and walking the isles, I decided to give it a go. I also bought Butter Cream frosting and red food coloring. We got home, I was feeding Ella, baking a cake, I finally felt 'DOMESTIC!'

I have to toot my own horn, because they were FANTASTIC! I feel a little more compelled to make Ella's first birthday cake. This party planning stuff is stressful. Making sure every bodies schedule works or what to serve, when and where to have it... Jeramy has already informed me that next year will be Mommy, Daddy and Ella! hehehe....We'll see!

On the Move...

Our little Sweetheart!

Ella is on the move! Over the weekend she has really just taken off. Here is a video of last week and even since then she has improved:

(I promise her room isn't this messy, those are clean clothes that she had just thrown all over the place! hehehe)

This weekend we celebrated Jeramy's 32nd Birthday(it was Sunday). Friday we relaxed and ate dinner, here is Ella enjoying her pasta!

I love that little face :)

Saturday evening we went out to dinner with some friends to celebrate. Here is the Birthday Boy and his favorite little person!

And I had to snap a picture of her in this sweet outfit, she looks so grown up!!

And most of you know, but I'm going to share it on the blog world too, I have been running and right after Christmas, I was out on a long run and something happened to my foot. I hobbled 3 miles back to my car and could barely walk for about a week. The pain slowly got better, I was thinking it was a tendon, but 3 1/2 weeks later I was still not able to run or even walk normally for that matter. So I decided to make a Doctors Appointment. Come to find out my 3rd metatarsal bone in my left foot is broken....See X-Ray below!

Now I have to wear a lovely boot for 4 weeks! Just my luck...

Baking, Ducks and My Old Friend Margi!

As you know it's Birthday time in the Arnold household! Jeramy celebrates his 32nd Birthday next Sunday and Ella will celebrate her 1st Birthday in February. Me, being the busy mom/wife, is having a hard time deciding if I am going to buy cakes or be thrifty and make them! After searching allrecipes.com, I found a four star cake recipe and the cool thing was, I had all of the ingredients! So off to the kitchen I went... After whipping up the most beautiful batter I have ever seen, I'm talking silky smooth, I decide to make cupcakes. I place the papers in the pan and begin filling them. Evidently, cupcakes are not my for-tae! I guess I filled the muffin pans too high and after about 10 minutes of baking, the cupcakes were over flowing! And the spill over created little fires all over my oven!!! After I got the fire out and the burnt pieces scrapped up, I discovered my cupcakes were empty and looked like mini volcanos!

I guess I didn't get that Posch Baking gene.

I am going to try it again this weekend for my wonderful Hubby. I think he will be getting a cake! not cupcakes....

Jeramy, Keith and Lance (Keith's friend) all traveled to Missouri for some duck hunting. This was Jeramy's first duck hunt and he ws super excited! The temperatures were so cold they were not able to hunt very much, but onthe last day they were able to kill some birds.

Here is Keith and Jeramy and the ducks they killed!

Jeramy took off work yesterday to spend the day with Ella and I, since I was off for MLK Day. We had a very realxing morning and then headed to Tullahoma to do some Birthday shopping. After our shopping Jeramy took me out to Mexican and boy was it tasty. I even enjoyed a delicious Margi, that is Holly's name for Margarita!!! I could have had three, but I wouldn't have been able to walk out of there... We stuffed our face and enjoyed every bit of our night out!
Thanks sweetie :)

While Dad is Away, the Girls Will Play!

Ella and I have had a Girls Wild Weekend!

Friday night, my niece Katelyn, joined us for the evening. Ella was already in bed but she woke up to a fun surprise! They played all morning long.... While Ella was napping, we got ready and we all met Holly for lunch at O'Charleys! Holly is a brave friend, joining us wild people for
lunch ;) It was a fun day and we were exhausted!!

Today Ella Jean and I made Cinnamon Applesauce pancakes for breakfast. She loved them just a much as I do!!! (That's my girl)
Ella will be celebrating her 1st Birthday next month! So I have been party planning in my head. Trying to make it a simple but special event for our special girl!
Dylan and Aunt MH gave us this fun bouncing Zebra and Ella loves it!!! She gets in it and I bounce her up and down and then she tries to do it by herself. Good Times :)

Poor Baby

Yesterday morning Ella woke up with a fever. No big deal, she is getting the cold/chest stuff we've all had... I gave her some meds and off we went to Aunt Mary Helen's. As I sat at work, I could not stop thinking about EJ and hoping she wouldn't make Dylan sick! I convince myself "I must go get her!" Not long after that I got a call from MH and she was telling me of Ella's fever and I decided to leave then, my baby needs me!

We spend the rest of the day playing and snuggling. Suddenly she became very fussy! I knew she was tired but this was more of a pain of some sort. I change her diaper and take her temp..102 degrees! Oh my, so what do I do.... Call Aunt Heather! She gives me the assurance I need as well as the advice I was looking for. This is Ella's first "sickness." She has had colds but never with a fever this high! I give her a luke warm bath and snuggle her in her PJs. A while later, after she wakes up, she is burnin up! Of course Daddy is super concerned and hops on the internet to help me find how to break a fever. (I think our intuition was right) We had already removed her clothes, given her the bath and we had started Motrin/Tylenol every four hours to keep the fever down. She did good through the night, only waking up a couple of times and I also gave her some more meds around 2am.

Today has not been good! Ella has become extremely snotty and drooly. She has also had some pretty stinky BMs. After a long day, I realized there was somethin in her mouth? A tooth? NO! Really? Yep, a little white spot, where sometime soon a toothwill push on through!!! Now I have thought those teeth were coming for a long time! So with this fever and snot, I refused to say it was her teeth.

The interesting thing is that it is not the tooth that is suppose to erupt first? It is on the bottom but it is next to the middle two. So this leads me to believe that we aregoing to have an interesting couple of weeks with all of these teeth coming in and catching her up! Say some prayers for our little Bean!

The Things that Matter Most...

Look at how big she is getting!

Saturday night, Jeramy was playing with Ella and she turned to him and walked right over to him, 2 or 3 steps! He yelled to me to come watch and she walked back and forth from us a couple of times. We sat with tears and amazement. We are just so proud of our beautiful, growing little girl!

Last night Ella was playing in the kitchen after dinner and we were able to catch a step or two on video. She loves her new CARS toy and as you can tell she is all over the place with that thing!

Watch Here:

My Vacation!

As your read in the previous post, I have been off of work for a week. It was so nice! I also got some time to myself, thanks to Super Dad being his usual wonderful self.

I shared a special Birthday shopping trip with Mom and Heather, Mom's Birthday is December 27th and Heather's is December 29th so we celebrated by shopping! (my Step Mom Amy also has a Birthday on the 29th!)

After shopping we walked over to Opryland Hotel to check out the Christmas lights. It was gorgeous!

I also got a chance to meet up with "City Cousin!" My cousin Amanda and I have started a new tradition. Every Christmas break we meet for dinner at Macaroni Grill, this was the second annual "City Cousin, Country Cousin" outing. We had some wine and some great conversation! City Cousin lives in New York, Brooklyn to be exact. She works down town and lives a fabulous city life, at least that is how I see it! We have grown up together and I am so thankful that we are still able to keep in touch.


One day I will make it to the city so she can show me around....

Ella's First Christmas!

Wow! It has been a busy two weeks, but we had a great Christmas! Ella had so much fun and got so much attention. She quickly learned about opening presents and she got so many wonderful gifts. We ate, we laughed, we really enjoyed every minute. I have lots of pictures to share and will try to keep the chatting to a minimal ;)

December 23, Christmas Eve Eve! We had Christmas with Jeramy's Dad and his family. We all went over to Todd and Tera's for dinner and presents. We had a great time! The kids are all so much fun and became adapted to each other pretty well. We don't see them as often as we should but we still had lots to talk about.
Here are the girls and the babes:
Jen and Owen, Me and Ella, Tera and Ashlyn
I have no clue what was so funny, I think Ella trying to attack Owen! She is quite the little flirt :)

Jen and Owen, Tera and Ashlyn

Papa Ron and Ella

Nana T and Ella walking through the house!

Opening her first presents!

Ashlyn loving all of her Princess things!

Owen and Ella playing with Ashlyn's bouncy ball

Christmas Eve we stayed the night with Jeramy's Mom. We had such a special Christmas with her and Poppie! She has lots of pictures that I need to get from her, I couldn't find my camera. Nana made us all a huge dinner and then we opened presents! Ella receieved some great toys, books, suckers and a special CARS riding toy, in which she absolutely loves!!! Hopefully I will get some of those pictures to share.

Christmas Day, after a some delicious breakfast burritos from Nana, we headed to my family. Talk about fun... Everybody was there minus Tim, Mary Helen, Maggie and Dylan, they were in Knoxville having a big Christmas with Mary Helen's family! But we sure did miss you... We had our usual family spread, food not waistbands well maybe waistbands too ;) The kiddos were all so excited to open presents but they were all so good waiting patiently.

Grama and Pop

Jeramy, Campbell, Ella and Keely

Katelyn and Me... Trying to steal a picture of us! Katelyn is the oldest of the kids, she is such a beautiful young woman now! She is so kind and patient and helpful...

Campbell and Cole waiting to open their presents!

"The Girls!" minus Mary Helen and Maggie

Uncle Craig and Rylee Roo!

Big Man Carson, this present was a HUGE rocket type gun...needless to say, He loved it!

And here is sweet Ella! Opening her gifts at Grama's House.

I love this picture, she is so amazed by the Jack in the Box!

Her cool vaccuum from Keely!

Tearing into some paper...

I hate pictures with Ella sucking on her paci, but we quickly discovered it was a plug and a good one at that! Every piece of paper went right into her mouth... Paci worked wonders that day :)

Checking out the other kids and their presents!

Super Dad!

Ella and Keely

Reagan and her totally awesome dress up clothes! She was a happy camper clopping around in her high heel shoes :)

After we left my family, we headed back over to Jeramy's Grandfathers house, Pa Ellis. This was a special trip, Ella got to meet her Great Grandfather for the first time! We are bad parents for just know getting over to see him but that's ok, it made for a very special Christmas for Jeramy and Pa Ellis!

Here are Jeramy, his mom, his Pa and Ella Jean. What a special picture!

And here's one with me...

After a long day of celebrating with family, we headed home! Ella was so tired....

I have been fortunate enough to have the week after Christmas off! Ella and I played and slept and played some more... I offically accomplished NOTHING! Here it is January 2nd and my Christmas tree and decorations are still up. Oh well, we had a wonderful time off!

Ella playing with her new toys!