To Be or Not To Be A Real Christmas Tree

On Saturday we went to Bosch's tree farm to get our Christmas tree. For the past couple of years Brad has begged me to let us get a fake Christmas tree, but every year I convince him to keep letting us get a real one. My family always had real trees when I was growing up and Brad is the one that introduced me to frasier furs and now I don't want anything else. I want to keep up the tradition and I hope that our little family will continue to go out and cut down or pick out a Christmas tree as a family for years to come. Brad and I are both suckers for anything Christmas so it is my prediction is that I will always win this argument:)

Ella on Santa's lap - not loving it to say the least:)

Checking out the baby chickens - she was loving watching them sleep but when they sprang to life, she was outta there:)Our little snow bunny

The Matchmakers

A little over a year ago Brad and I decided to try and set up two of our friends...my dear friend from work and his buddy in his band. We put our heads together and decided they would be an awesome match. I wanted to take an aggressive approach but Brad insisted we keep it low key:) Through a couple of "chance" meetings" Eric and Kathy got acquainted and we were right - sparks flew...and they took it from there all by themselves! Fast forward 1 year, Kathy and Eric were very much in love and wanted to start a life together. They decided to get married in an intimate ceremony at a family cottage with their immediate family. We were blessed to be able to be invited to share in their joy...after all, we were the matchmakers:) They asked me to take pictures and Brad sang/played guitar ("Unfailing Love"). It was a very special night...as you can see from these pictures they did an amazing job at creating an enchanted forest ambiance. We are so glad that God used us to bring these two loving souls together and we are blessed to have them in our lives! Congrats Eric and Kathy and may you have a life full of love and happiness!

What we've been up to...

It has been a while since I have updated the blog, so I thought I would post some highlights of the past few weeks. I should post more about the day to day things going on, but I am trying to play a little catch-up here so here are some recent family activities that I have captured with pictures (I am sure that I am cutting out some highlights with only using those that have pictures, but that is how I work I guess:)

A few weeks back we decided to take advantage of the closing of the autumn season by heading out to Crane's orchard to run around in the open field area and grab some cider and donuts. Ella loved having free rein running around and playing with us and she of course liked having the treats just as much. Here are some Mommy/Daddy moments.

We welcomed the beginning of the winter season by going to the Christmas Parade of Lights downtown Holland with our neighbors. It was a perfect night - not too cold but cold enough to put us in the Christmas spirit. Ella loved to look at the lights and all the people, but her favorite part was us letting her walk up and down the empty sidewalks while the parade was going on and waving to all the people...she is definately a girl who wants her independence but only at arms length away...thank goodness:)

Our buddies - Grah, Carrie, Chris & Ella

Ella was very intrigued when the first snow began to fall - she just stood at the window and pointed so we decided to venture out and give her a "taste" of it close up. She absolutely loved the snow- she wanted to run on it, lay on it and eat it:)

Ella had her boyfriend, Alden Lucas, over to play the other day and at the end of the night I told her to give him a little smootch...she did and then gave him seconds and thirds and even fourths...hopefully she doesn't make me regret using the cute little command:)...I don't think he minded though.

John Ball Zoo

This past weekend we decided to go spur of the moment to John Ball Zoo. Ella is in love with anything to do with animals so we thought going to the zoo would make for a great afternoon! She LOVED it. She did lots of smiling and lots of pointing - it was so fun watching her experience the animals in person considering we look at books with animals in them every day:)

Ella's cute little faces as she looked at the animalsShe liked watching the lion walk back and forthHer favorite animal to see was the otter...she giggled and waved and just wanted to stand there and watch it. It was super cute...before we walked away the otter stood up right across from Ella and looked right at us...she started squealing with delight.

Although we can see ducks pretty much every day if we wanted to, Ella was still so thrilled to see ducks and couldn't get enough of watching them - go figure!It was a fun day at the zoo and I imagine that this was just the beginning of many visits to the zoo in the years to come.

Like Grandmother, Like Granddaughter

My mom found this picture of her when she was around 1 year and thought it resembled Ella...so in light of my last post, I thought I would post these for her:)

Like Mother, Like Daughter

When I was a little girl, my mom said that I always tried to climb into this basket and sit in it. This past weekend Ella kept going in the other room to climb into the basket too. Of course I had to take advantage of this photo opportunity. Me at 15 months - December 1982Ella at 13 months