Tis the Season

Hey family & friends!

I just put Ella in her swing for her n-a-p of the morning. Needless to say, she's cooing & smiling at me while I type this. I think she's changed her mind about sleeping. Ha! She's discovered that she can do things on her terms. Like feeding for example, she'll eat what she wants & stop... 2 hours later... she's hungry again. LOL. Schedule? What's a schedule? One week I think we've got it down pat, then next, I'm like, "What's going on?" She's a lot of fun though, but wears me out. Ha! And she's not even crawling yet! :O) Luckily Daddy will be home once that starts up unless she decides to do it before 7 months! Yikes! Anyways, Ella is doing wonderful. She loves her exersaucer & flips around everywhere on the floor. She's learned how to scoot over towards toys/presents that she wants to touch. She can sit up but needs at least one hand to balance her. She's a cutie!

Jonah is doing well. He's going out into the desert for 10 days. I don't know much about the operation, but I do know he'll be doing his job which is very dangerous, so please keep some extra prayers in for him & everyone else going on the op. He won't be able to contact me at all during this time which it going to be really tuff b/c we won't even be able to speak to each other on Christmas day. :O( This holiday we're both ready for it to be over with so that we'll be closer to being together. :O) I love you Sweetheart!

Ella & I will be heading up to MI next week the day after Christmas. We're going to be flying & a little bit of driving involved, so please keep us as well in your prayers for safe travels. May you all have a blessed holiday with your families & know that you're in our hearts.

Enjoy the new photos! :O)

Ha! Ella just fell asleep.

PS- Here's a picture of Jonah taken a couple months ago. :O) We love our Marine! Be safe & come home soon!

Isabella is 4 months old!

Ella is growing rapidly. On Monday she had her 4 month check up with a local pediatrician in town. She had to get her immunizations (not fun) & the doctor said that she's doing great according to her growth chart. She's 14lb 10oz & 24 inches long! When she was born she was 7lb 10oz & 18 inches long. She's going to be so big when Jonah finally gets to see her! :O) She rolls over all the time now from both sides. She loves to put everything in her mouth & drools a lot! She's working on sitting up but has a way to go until that will be conquered. Maybe her cousin, Aylah, can give her a few pointers on how it's done. ;O)

Jonah has received some packages from people recently. Thank you to all of you that have sent them! It's really difficult not being together, especially over the holidays, but I know that the packages will help some. However, we're going to be home together as a family in less than 4 months! We're already talking about how excited we are. :O)

I hope that you all have a blessed holiday & fun with your families. For those that are far away, we miss & love you dearly. Ella & I will be spending time with the Bruner's on Christmas day & then flying up to Michigan the day after. Please continue to keep our family in your prayers, especially for Jonah!! :O) We love you Jonah!!

Here's pictures of Ella taken this week. Ella loves her musical keys & bear blanket.

Christmas Dress

Ella got her Christmas present early from Jonah & I. It's an exersaucer. She seems to like it. It says 4 months & up on it, so I'm assuming it'll be something she'll really enjoy even later on. It's another tacky toy to go in our little town home out in So Cal. Ha! Unfortunately, I've to mail it out there, but it seems to have been a good purchase for our little one. (Meaning, it keeps her entertained.) Ella also got a package from her Aunt, Uncle, & Cousin out in Texas as well as a cute little bear blanket from her Grandma Bear. She kneads at it (like a little kitten) while trying to go to sleep in her swing. She's so cute.

The house is all decorated for Christmas. Ella seems to be fascinated with the tree & gets distracted sometimes when feeding. LOL. Right now I'm waiting for Jonah to call me. He's going to another base somewhere to do a special training for a week. Please keep him in your prayers for safety. He should still be able to email me though. :o)

Well, I'm going to post some pictures of Miss Ella. I dressed her up in her Christmas dress the other day to send Jonah some cute photos. Enjoy! :o) 3 weeks & we'll be up in MI for the post holidays.

PS- About the pic of the cows. This was the highlight on Sunday, the neighbor's cows got loose & decided to come graze in my parents yard. It was quite humerus.

We're 1/2 Way!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It was a small celebrated Thanksgiving with the Bruner's this year. Mom, Dad, Grandma Pat, Ella, Brett, & I ate a lot of food. As did everyone else I'm sure. :O) I got a phone call from Jonah & he told me that he ate lobster & steak for his Thanksgiving meal. Neat huh? He also informed me that he got 3 packages around Thanksgiving. The one that I sent had the best surprise though, a huge jar of cheese dip that splattered everywhere. He said it was molded and went all over everything. I must have been in baby la la land while packaging that present b/c I seemed to have forgotten to bubble wrap the jar & put a plastic bag around it. Haha. I get the stupid award this month. He said he was able to salvage a few things. One of his buddies made the comment of, "Did your wife send you a dirty diaper?". I found that quite humorous of a comment. Needless to say, I'll be checking the packages more intently before sending them from now on. ;O) Love you Jonah.

Ella has discovered that she can put more than just her hands in her mouth. She grabs everything now. I've to be careful while holding her during a meal b/c today she caught hold of some sauce I was using and got it all over her hand. LOL. She loves her toys & enjoys doing more big girl things... like sit up (with help), play on things other than her play mat, & likes to get in on the conversations by adding her baby talk. She's a hoot. I sent Jonah a CD this week of footage from her during the month of Nove, but I already need to go ahead and send another new CD b/c she's already started doing new things. She's growing up quickly.

So, this week marks 1/2 completion of Jonah's deployment! We've only 3 1/2 more months until we'll finally be home together again as a family!! We're so excited!! Jonah sent me flowers yesterday that are absolutely gorgeous to kind of celebrate. Please continue to keep our little family in your prayers. Their is to be a lot of traveling in the next couple of months for all 3 of us & we want to all be safe. :O)

Well, it's late & I'd love to get some rest b/c the little one is already down for the night. Here's some recent photos from Thanksgiving up until today. Ella has already started wearing some of her little Christmas outfits which one says "I love Dad" with her candy cane stripped pants that Jonah calls "ridiculous". Hehe. ;O) Another outfit she's pretty grumpy in b/c I think she was very uncomfortable (the blue dress). Needless to say, that one was changed out of within minutes. I also am putting just a couple more random cute ones of her.

Love you all. J,E,&I

Isabella is 3 months old!

Hey friends and family! Isabella is now 3 months old! Crazy huh? She's growing so fast. She finally rolls over frequently. She sleeps throughout the night only waking up once to feed. This is a blessing that I thought would never come. Ha! She has learned how to talk more & uses all different types of vowel sounds. I ask her questions and she answers with an, "Ahhhh goooo." It's adorable.

The holidays are near & we are lonesome for Jonah. We're almost to (as Jonah calls it) over the "hump" in our long distance. We hope that once we reach that point that the days will start going by much quicker. A bunch of you have already gotten together packages to send Jonah over the holidays (thank you so much!), for anyone else that is interested, please email me edornbos@gmail.com & I'll give you his address. I know that the packages won't make up for how much we wish he were home for the holidays, but they sure will send some love his way! :o)

This week I'm going to Knoxville with Mom & Grandma with Ella to visit with my brother & one of Grandma's friends. Also, Mom & I plan to do some Christmas shopping. Their isn't a lot of shops to offer in our area, so we're going to take advantage of us being in a bigger city. Ella does well when leaving the house. However, she's a lot more aware of her surroundings, and sometimes it can be pretty exhausting to her because of all the over stimulation. We usually aren't gone more than 3 hours at a time b/c of this. LOL.

I'm going to post some more recent photos of Ella. Thanks for all your support & please continue to keep our family in your prayers, especially for Jonah. Love you all!

In the photos: Ella is wearing an outfit that I call her little red riding hood outfit, a couple cute ones of her in her swing (one she is holding her favorite toy: a fuzzy pooh bear), and the last one is of her in her cute little bunny hat. :o)

Our Baby Pumpkin!

Happy Halloween everyone! So, my parents live in a neighborhood of approximately 10 other houses withing a couple acres of each other. We weren't expecting any trick-or-treaters, however, we got one large group around 7PMish tonight. My favorite costume was a little girl dressed up as a hot dog. It was cute; mom liked a nun outfit. LOL, I can't remember any of the others. We handed out huge handfuls of candy though so that we didn't get stuck with any leftovers. Haha. Also, we turned of the lights afterwards b/c it really didn't look like anyone else would be coming. Ella wore a little pumpkin hat & got to meet the treaters when they came by. Needless to say, she wasn't very excited because it was late and right after her feeding time. Next year Jonah & I hope to get creative with costumes & do perhaps a family theme. It'll be fun, especially because little Ella will be older then. :o) Hope you all had a safe Halloween!

Ella rolls over!

Ella rolled over from her tummy to her back last week! The first time she did it, she was surprised and looked happy about her accomplishment, however, the second time she cried. LOL, I'm pretty sure she doesn't enjoy her "tummy time" all that much. She hasn't rolled over again since, but I'm sure in time she'll be doing it quite often! Also, last night she only woke up once! She went to bed around 11:00PM, woke up around 5:30AM, then woke up again at 8:00AM. She's doing so wonderful with her sleeping! It's the longest I've been able to sleep since she was born which is great b/c I can get by without having to take a nap during the day.

We had a pretty uneventful weekend. This morning we got all ready for the 11:oo AM church service, arrived at church, and then discovered that it had be merged with the 9:00AM service. Needless to say, all the effort of getting ready in the morning was for nothing. Haha. I did get some cute pictures of Ella in her little pink jumper though! Uncle Brett came over today to spend time with the baby. It was a nice afternoon spending time with him. Tomorrow Mom is going to show me how to make curtains for Ella's bedroom back home. We're going to try and spice it up a bit with some colorful ones to go with her bumble bee theme. The fabric is quite colorful and should be fun for her to look at. Jonah is doing good. He says that their is a lot of down time, so it's hard for him to come up with things to do to help the time go by quickly. It would great if everyone could send him a package sometime before or around Christmas. It's especially going to be hard on him & the rest of his fellow Marines around the holidays. Please email me if you are interested in knowing his address! Other than that, please continue to keep him in your prayers. :o)

She's 11 weeks old already!

Well, Ella turned 11 weeks old yesterday. She is growing like a weed & is already fitting into majority of her 3 month clothes. Good bye to the newborn days. She loves to play on her play mat. She's figured out how to kick at the toys with her feet, however, she is not coordinated enough yet to grab the toys that she aims for. When she's on her tummy, she can lift her head about 90 degrees. She's doing wonderful & as healthy as can be. She sleeps through the night only waking up 2-3 times. This has been a blessing because she was waking up at least 5-6 approx. a week ago. She smiles all the time now, and loves to take naps throughout the day.

Jonah is doing well. He is in Al Qaim. There has been great progress with what our military has been doing in this area. The city was even able to open a bank. That tells you that some progress is being made. Please keep him in your prayers though because he still is in a war zone even though it seems to be a lot safer than what we expected. If you are interested in sending him a package, just shoot me an email: edornbos@gmail.com, and I would be more than happy to give you his address. Other than that, we (Jonah, I, & Ella) are incredibly homesick for each other. Only 5 more months to go though! :o)

I've joined Curves to help get myself back into shape. It's a pretty good program & I enjoy the "Mommy Time" I get with the help of my mom watching Ella while I'm out. Other things, Mom has been teaching me how to sew & yesterday I learned how to make a purse! Well, baby girl is waking up! That's all for now.