Christmas in Wisconsin

All packed and ready to go to Wisconsin for Christmas! First time we were able to go home for the actually holiday in six years. We usually celebrated Christmas at Thanksgiving because that's when we could get away. So excited to get to take Ella home for her first Christmas! :o)

Grandma and Grandpa French were pretty excited to see Ella at the airport. Pretty sure Grandpa boxed Grandma out to get to her first. :o)

Getting reaquainted with Grandpa! She acted like she remembered them.....I am convinced that Skyping every weekend makes a huge difference.

Grandma had a turn pretty quick too! Uncle Tim hadn't seen Ella since she was two weeks old!

Uncle Tim still a little nervous holding Ella! That will change quick...as you will see in later pictures! :o)

Grandpa was pretty excited to get to feed Ella her breakfast!

We drove through a horrible blizzrd all the way home from the airport! So, of course, just like old times, Jeff and Tim got up the next morning and snowblowed the whole block! They loved it...esp. Jeff, since we don't really get snow in Texas.

Spending time with Grandma. She pulled out all of her special toys and dollies for Ella to play with . Ella, of course loved it!!

Uncle Tim and Grandpa had a fun time playing with Ella and getting reaquainted with her.

All bundled up and ready to go play out in the snow.

Ella and Uncle Tim

Sitting on Great Grandpa French's old bobsled. It was so fun to see so much snow again!

Ella thought this was so much fun! You can tell she is the first grandbaby/ neice on this side! :o)

Ella loved being outside in the snow. Plus, she loved all the attention she was getting!

I LOVE this picture! She was literally stuck down in the snow!

The three of us!

It's tradition to have Christmas Eve dinner at great Grandma and Grandpa French's house and open gifts with them. Great Grandma made a wonderful ham and potato dinner. Ella was the star of the show...she made us all laugh by making funny faces and laughing all the way through dinner! she is such a little ham. she feeds off of attention for sure!

Christmas Eve night...ready to open presents.

Ella playing with Kristi.

Like father like son!

Of course Ella loved all of this attention!

Great Grandma French

Great Grandpa French

Early Christmas morning

So much fun at grandma and grandpa's!!

Present from Great grandma and grandpa

Look at all my presents!!

A dolly! So excited!!

Grandma helped me open some of my presents!

Right before Ella's first haircut

Grandma gave Ella her first little haircut! :o)

Mommy gave very strict instructions.....only take off the very tips!

The French family(minus Chester and Oliver) Christmas 2009

Take two

Our little family... God is so good to us!

Tim and Kristi being silly.

Grandma and Grandpa with the light of their lives! :o)

Snuggle time with Kristi

Last night at Grandma and Grandpa's house before meeting up with my family for three days. Ella decided she didn't want to go to bed.....and since it was our last night, we fudged her bedtime by like three hours! She was so proud of herself that she got to stay up with the big people! :o)
We had such a wonderful three days together!! It went by way too fast! So much fun to be able to bring Ella home for her first Chrstmas! Thank you for the wonderful time!!! We will be back! :o) Love you guys!

Mauston with my family.

We rented a huge log house with my family in Mauton, WI...which happened to be a great place for us all to meet in the middle. It was great because they had a clubhouse with a pool....so great for the kids to wear off some of their energy. I love this picture of Danny and Caleb in the pool.

Jeff, Ella, and Sophia swimming.

Ella got to meet Uncle Jon for the first time! He got acquainted with her ears right away! For those of you that know Jon, you know what I'm talking about! :o)

All of the kids exchanging their Christmas presents! It was so much fun to watch.

Ella loved taking baths in the kitchen sink. It was really big and deep....the PERFECT sink for a baby bath!!

And of course Grandma and the girl cousins wanted to help.

Ella getting to know Uncle Danny and Aunt Krissy

Uncle Jeff and Anthony

SISTERS!!!

Sophia loved feeding Ella...she was such a great little helper!!!

My brother went outside and picked us this beautiful "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree! lol

We all had fun playing the Wii.

Grandma reading Anthony(Bubba) a story.

Lots of snuggle time with Aunty Dawnie

Brittany and Sophia....such little buddies

Uncle Jeff pushing the girls down the hill. They had so much fun sledding.

This is the beautiful log house we rented for three nights. It was perfect for our family!

The DiCandilo's out for some sledding!

We celebrated Danny's 29th birthday on December 28th.

Anthony and Micah were such little buddies! It's so much fun to watch the cousins play together!

Too bad cousin Sophia doesn't live closer...she would make the best babysitter! Between her and Brittany, we would always have someone to watch Ellabear!

The Lowery Family

The whole clan! Mom and Dad Lowery, Scott, Deann, Ryan, and Brittany MacPherson, Jon, Dawn, Sophia, and Anthony DiCandilo, Danny, Krissy, Caleb, and Micah Lowery, and Jeff, Darla, and Ella French.

It was so nice to all be together again!

Sweet girl cousins!

You have to love cousin pictures! Even if someone is crying, and someone is picking their nose, they are always so fun to look at....esp 10 years down the road.

Take Two! ;o)

My BFF Laura was able to stop by with her husband Andy on their way home from their family Christmas! It was so special to get to spend a few hours with them! It was especially fun to see Laura because she is pregnant and was definetely starting to show at this point!!! We have had such a special friendship throughout the years....starting on our first day of college our freshmen year! ;o) Love you to death Laura!

Love, love, love this picture!!!

Ella thought Andy was interesting. She kept wanting to touch his face. lol

Grandpa Lowery loving on Ella.

Snuggling on the couch our last night together! We were telling goofy stories and drawing silly pictures for each other!! Love these guys!!

Giving Ella kisses before mommy flew home to Texas. She and daddy were heading back up to Grandma and Grandpa French's for a few more days while mommy went back home to work her holiday. It was so hard to say goodbye!!!! sniff, sniff.

Cousin Sophia saying bye to Ella bear!

I think Grandma and Grandpa were pretty excited to have Ella back!

Lots of loves and kisses for Ella.

"Grandpa's girl" as he calls her! :o)

Trying out Grandpa's new leather chair he got for Christmas.

Playing with my new stuffed toy from Great Grandma.

Playing dollies with Grandma.

What a ham!!

Ella with Great Grandma!

Ella learned how to hold her own bottle while she was at Grandma and Grandpa's. I am also told that she took her first few crawls there too while I was at home. I'll let them think what they want....LOL ...no, she really probably did but she didn't really take off with it until she was back home for a couple of days. Grandma and Grandpa did work with her a lot though on learning how to crawl!!! :o)

PLAYTIME!

Bathtime at Grandma's!! She has fun rubber duckies for me to play with!

More playtime with Grandpa.

Great Grandma and Grandpa French came down one last time to say goodbye to Ella.

Great grandpa French teasing Ella.

I know Grandma and Grandpa were sad to see them leave, but I was SO ready for them to come back home. It was no fun being apart for those four days.!!!

It was so special to get to go home for Ella's first Christmas!! We had such a great time with both of our families!! It was fun to get to go play in the snow, but also fun to go back home and not have to deal with it everyday! Thank you everyone for such a wonderful Christmas!! We love you all so much!!!!!

December 2009.....up until Christmas

We had a photo shoot taken for Christmas. This was by far our favorite one of the three of us. We sent this one out as our Christmas card as well. I love the sweet smile on Ella's face. We are so blessed to have her in our lives this Christmas. It was so fun to have a baby around for the holidays. She lit up every event and made things so much more fun. Ella was so close to crawling all month long. We thought it was going to happen before Christmas, but she just didn't quite get there. She is very active though...never wants to stay still, and there is never a dull moment.

Here are some of the other pictures from the same photo shoot. I love this one. This was just before she was totally sitting up on her own, so we had to sit her up and snap the picture really fast before she would slump over to the side. :o)

I thought this was such a cute idea, so I brought my own lights with me....well, little did I know that these lights get HOT really fast! We had to snap a few quickly and then shut them right back off.

She liked the lights! :o)

I love her little Santa hat! I brought all these little props with us to the studio, and they turned out so cute. :o) I love the little drool about to fall out of her mouth....she is really focusing on that big shiny ornament!

"Do you think Santa will bring me anything for Christmas?? I'm good most of the time!"

So thankful for our little family! God has blessed us so much!

Here's a few more that we liked.

LOVE THIS! A true daddy's girl for sure!

We had one snow fall in Texas! It melted in a matter of an hour, but I had to get a picture of Ella with her very first snow fall.

I loved her little snuggly teddy bear suit.

It did make it a lot harder to her to move though! :)

This looks like a typical play afternoon in our family room. We were skyping with Dawn and Sophia. Skype is such a great way to keep in touch and for Ella to remember all of the special people in her life that live far away.

All dressed up for church on a December Sunday morning!

I think this picture of our tree is so pretty....this was before I had a chance to decorate it, but I still love the lighting.

We keep our house on the chilly side, so Ella and I dress all nuggly in the morning hours of the day. I love these little fleece suits on her...so soft. They just made it a lot harder for her to try to crawl. She certainly still tried though!

I finally got the tree decorated by the second week of December, and Ella was facinated by all the shiny ornaments.

I bought a few new special ornaments this year...This one is in honor of my friend Laura. She is having a baby girl this year after a long hard trial time of waiting. They are naming their little girl Hope, and I wanted to get this ornament to commemorate this special year.

This one speaks for itself. A shiny sparkly "E" for my little Ella bear. My sister Dawn also bought me a baby's first Christmas ornament. I didn't take a picture of it yet, but it will be on our tree next year.

Just a few more pictures of Ella trying to learn how to crawl. Mommy makes it a little more difficult by dressing her in outfits that make it harder to move. I can't help it...they are just so cute! :o)

This is Ella's little friend Drew. Drew's mom Amy watches Ella for me one day a week so I can sleep after working night shift. It's so cute to watch Ella and Drew interact with each other. They always light up when they see each other. It will be fun to see them play and interact more as they get older.

Aren't I cute?

Ella played so hard that she fell asleep in her jumperoo! :o) Hilarious! She is like that though...she plays and plays and plays until she just drops! This girl has way more energy than me, but is quite the match for her daddy! I'm so glad they have each other to wear themselves out! :o)

In the process of learning how to hold my own bottle.

Trying on mommy's scarf. It's so cute to see her sitting up on her own. She had only been able to do this now for about a week or two. This was the week before we left to go home for Christmas. I was excited that she was sitting on her own by Christmas. It's so much easier to play with her now that she can sit on her own.

Three stockings on our fireplace this year! I don't take this for granted and am so thankful for the new precious life in our home this year! She has forever changed us, and brings joy into our home every day! WE LOVE YOU ELLA GRACE!

This was the last Sunday before Christmas. Ella is wearing her red Christmas dress from Grandma. It ended up fitting her just perfect! Thank you Grandma French!

We were asked to dress up as Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus for the preschoolers at church. I unfortunately had to work, but my friend Lindsay was gracious enough to step in for me. I think Ella made a pretty cute little baby Jesus. And then there's Jeff! :o) LOL

We are so excited to get to leave for Wisconsin in just a few days! We havn't been back to Wisconsin for the actual Christmas holiday in six years!!!