And the party begins...

Ella's 1st Birthday is fast approaching! And the presents have started coming... What a lucky little Bean she is!!!

Part of my Mom's gift to Ella was a beautiful little dress and top that I picked out for her to wear the night of her party. So last night we stopped by to see Gramma and let Ella open her first present. It is so cute and I just can't wait, but no pictures yet...we don't want to ruin the cuteness ;) Thanks Gramma!!! We love you...

Last night when we got home, Ella had another gift from Uncle Greg and Aunt Kimmie! I pulled it out of the box, all wrapped in tissue paper and laid it on the floor for Ella to open. She dug right in and pulled out the cutest little stuffed elephant! It is soo sweet and it is the perfect size for Ella, she carries it all around the house. Here is a little video of her opening it:

Thank you Uncle Greg and Aunt Kimmie! You are so sweet and thoughtful, We love you and we miss you!!!

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!