And we're having.....

A BOY!!! We are really excited to be having a boy. Everything is looking healthy with the baby and he is measuring just like he should. The ultrasound tech saw that it was a boy as soon as she look at the baby on the screen, but Aaron made sure to get more than enough proof that it is indeed a boy.

Here are some of the ultrasound pictures:

You can see his little wee-wee from a side profile in this one

This one shows his feet, another look at his wee-wee from underneath, and then a profile shot.

My Dr.'s office just got a new ultrasound machines hours before we arrived so the utlrasound experimented with some new probs that she had. We were able to get a couple of 4-D pictures of our baby. It as really cool.

LIfe at the Boyces

Here are some pictures of our precious Ella. She is so much fun and a really good toddler. She is talking so much now and she learns a new word almost everyday it feels like.Ella is definitely mommy's little helper. I think that she is going to be a great big sister. Here are some of her new words:
Airplane
Papa (grandpa)
Baby - she has to give a little coo before she says it though, she won't ever just say the word baby by itself.
Please- without using sign language
Moo
Meow
Woof Woof

Also, whenever I ask her where mommy's baby is, she comes and kisses my belly. She reminds Aaron and me to say prayers before everything. We say prayers every time we eat, even snacks, when I get her up in the morning, before her nap, and of course before bed. She is so sweet.

I am starting to feel a little better with my pregnancy. I still get sick to my stomach, but it's not as bad as it was. I am now 16 weeks along and starting to feel the baby move more and more. I am glad that I get to feel my babies move early. It really helps me get excited about the baby, instead of being in the dumps about feel so sick all the time.
We have just 4 more weeks till we find out what we are having and I am really excited. Aaron's work is going really well and he loves it. We are so grateful for all the blessings we have seen in our lives.

Ella had just woken up from a nap and her hair was crazy.

Insantity

Aaron and I are officially insane. A few weeks ago we discovered that we had mold growing in our kitchen cabinets. We tried to figure out the least expensive and least destructive way to get rid of the mold. We finally came to the conclusion on Halloween that our kitchen cabinets had to go. Here is a picture of our kitchen before the remodel.
This is where the insanity part comes in. We decided to rip out our all our kitchen cabinets. We shopped around and decided it was the best option, with me being pregnant and all, we couldn't afford to have mold in our house.

After we ripped everything out we discovered the mold was a little worse than we originally thought. It was in most of the cabinets and on some drywall behind the stove and behind the sink. So we are glad we decided to take everything out, but now we had to put everything back in.
Because we are on a budget we decided to go with Ikea and assemble everything ourselves. Now, normally I don't really mind these kinds of projects. I like putting things together and seeing the end result. But this is a whole kitchen we are talking about. And let me remind you again that I am pregnant, still a little sick, and have a very active and curious 1 year old.
Aaron and I could only work during Ella's sleeping hours and when Aaron was home from work. Luckily, Aaron's mom, Merralee, flew down to help us put things back together.

We started our project on November 1 and the kitchen is put back together as of today. I think 8 days is pretty good timing. We still have a few cosmetic details to take care of, but we now have a functional kitchen. Here is evidence of our hard work and progress.

This is a picture of some of the mold we found behind our cabinets.Almost all our cabinets hd warped, moldy wood at the bottom like this.

Since we bought everything at Ikea, everything came disassemble in boxes.

This is our almost finished project. Like I said before, we still have some cosmetic things to finish like the backsplash and filler pieces. .But for the most part, this is our new kitchen.

Baby!!!

Here is the fist picture of our newest addition. I am approximately 9 weeks and 3 days along. They changed my due date to April 25th. We are really excited about this even though it's scary to think that we will have two kids now.

I am feeling sick like I did with Ella but we are trying different things and different medicines to see if we can get in under control. I will be sure to keep everyone up today with what's going on with us and our new baby!!

All's well that ends well

So I thought that I would let you know how the first part of our vacation went before the accident. We really had a fun time in Utah. I stayed three weeks with my dad and then Aaron came up and we headed to his parents house. We had some much fun catching up with everyone and Ella loved playing with her aunts and uncles and her cousins.

We are still trying to recuperate from the accident. We are feeling better and our bruises and such are practically gone. We are dealing with the after shock of it all. It is actually most noticeable in Ella. She hates her car seat now and she gets frightened easily from loud banging noises. I am sure it will just take some time for her to forget. We appreciate all the prayers and concerns.

I hope that the pictures and videos bring smiles to your faces, just like they do to me. Love you all!!!

Here is Ella with her twin cousins Caleb and Adam. They are only 2 months younger than here and they loved to get into things.

Ella loved playing with everyone. She just wanted to be apart of it all. This is here with Elena.

There was a doll bench that Ella thought she could fit into. This is the results:

My dad has a dog and a cat and Ella just couldn't contain herself around them. She loves to be around animals and fortunately these pets were kid friendly.

I will post some videos soon!!

Miracles DO happen

I need to preface this post by saying that we are all well, alive, and safe. While driving home Tuesday morning from our trip to Utah, Aaron, Ella, and I were involved in a car accident. We were both tired and I reached over to grab something and ran off the left side of the road. I freaked out and over corrected, which sent us rolling. We rolled, we guessed, about 4 or 5 times. Ella was strapped nice and snug in her car seat and Aaron was sleeping in the back. I was also wearing my seat belt. The car landed right side up and Aaron yelled for me to get out the car as fast as I could. I couldn't get the door opened so I jumped out the window, which no longer existed, and started looking for my daughter. Aaron had grabbed her as quickly as he could and he continued to tell me to run. I didn't really know why he was telling me to go so fast till I turned and saw the engine on fire.

Someone stopped quickly after us and was already on the phone with 911 and helping us out. Aaron had a gash on his head and I noticed a couple of scrapes and burns. I made sure to check out Ella and the only think on her was a slight seat belt burn on her neck. We had to take two ambulances to the hospital because we both had bumps and cuts on our heads. We got all checked out at the hospital. We got x-rays and CTs to make sure we had not ruptured disks or broken backs. We got released from the hospital with 6 stitches, 2 second degree burns, and many a bruises.

So, what do we do now. We are stuck literally half way between Houston and Salt Lake. We have no car and no friends or family near by. The hospital Chaplain stopped by, asked us our religion and mentioned that a doctor who works in the hospital is also a bishop for our church. We got a hold of a Dr. Brian Smith and he contacted his wife and she came to the rescue. They clothed us, fed us, and just were very friendly and a Godsend.

We flew out to Houston the next day and have now arrived safely home.
Now, I need to stress that Aaron, Ella, and I witnessed a miracle. When I over-corrected, I never slammed on the brakes, I was still on cruise control, and we were traveling at 75 mph. And we walked/ran away from that accident with some minor scratches. And the only window that did not bust in our car was the one next to Ella.

Here are some pictures of our car. Please remember that we are safe and just a little banged up today. I know with out a doubt that we were being watched over and guarded when I saw the car. We really didn't get a look at it till after the accident. So here you go.










After all that damage to the car this is what happened to us:

Leg bruises

Arm bruise

Second-degree burn on my elbow

Aaron's skinned

Scratches up and down Aaron's leg

Seat belt burn on my neck

Cut above Aaron's eye

And, although you can't see them clearly, there are six
stitches in his scalp there

We just want to thank our Heavenly Father for sparing our lives. It's amazing that we lived, but it's even more amazing that we came away with so few injuries.

Orphaned Kitten

We recently discovered that there was a litter of kittens right outside Ella's bedroom window. I think that we might have spooked the momma cat and she took off with some of the litter but left one stranded. We waited all day to make sure the momma wasn't coming back and then we decided to rescue it. The little kitten is roughly one week old. We are just guessing by size and the fact that it's eyes are still closed. I am pretty sure its a girl, but I could be wrong. But she was in pretty sad shape when we took her in. Now she is clean and warm and eating. Since it is the weekend most shelters are closed, so hopefully we will be able to get her to some one more experienced in the matter. We really don't want to take on a pet right now, but we couldn't let her die. Here are some pictures of the kittens before they were moved and the one we rescued.

Aaron wanted a picture of taking Ella out of the trash can so he can tell her one day that's where we found her. (She is not really in the trash can.)




Ella has decided that she has a blankie. She drags this poor thing around everywhere and she will not go to sleep without it. And of course the blasted thing has to be white so it always looks dirty no matter how many times I wash it.

And this is what Ella does with her Easter basket. She loves to wear it as a hat. We didn't teach her to do this. She came up with it all on her own.


This is how we find Ella sleeping a lot. I don't know how or why she does it, but she does.




I went to Washington in April to go to my best friend Jen's wedding. It was a lot of fun and I am so glad that I got to be there. She was beautiful and it was so amazing. She did a wonderful job on everything.


She just had too cute a bum not to share with everyone. I hope you think its cute too.



We just love every minute with our sweet daughter. She is so much fun and the life of the party!!

Here is a video of Ella in her new swing. She absolutely loves it.

Updates

Hey all. Sorry it has been such a long time since I last posted. Ella definitely keeps me on my toes. We really don't have anything exciting going on right now. We are just living life watching our beautiful daughter get bigger and bigger.

I recently got called to be in the nursery at church. And so far it has been pretty fun. I get to take Ella with me and she loves it. She is by far the youngest kid in there and the smallest as well. The boys like to pick on her sometimes, but Ella doesn't seem to care. She likes being involved with any kid no matter the age or size. She also loves to give kisses now. Well I guess her form of kisses. Ella just opens her mouth and then plots a slobbery one on ya.

Ella also loves to be outside. She can't actually tell us she wants to go outside verbally yet, but when she takes us by the hand, and pulls us the the back door and starts pounding we have a pretty good idea what she wants to do. She got a swing for her birthday that is in the backyard and she loves to swing on it.

Aaron is working for a good friend of the family right now selling health insurance and he really seems to be enjoying it. If this picks up, Aaron would love to make it a full time job permanently. We know that everything is going to work out.

A year in the life of Ella

Ella turned one this month!! It is so crazy to think that we now have a one year old. We threw a little party for her and a few of our friends and family came. It was a lot of fun. So I thought I would go through the things Ella has been through in her first year of life..

1. Moving to our first house
2. Living for a week without air conditioning in Houston... in August.
3. Sleeping through Hurricane Ike. It was still a category 3 when it went over our house
4. Two trips to Utah, One trip to San Antonio
5. 5 visits from grandpa Scott, 4 from grandma Kim, 2 from grandma Merralee and 1 from Aunt Kimmy
I would say that she has had a very full year. And we expect year two to be just as exciting.

This is a picture of her birthday cake. I decided to make it all by myself. I think it turned out pretty good.

Here is Ella digging into her cake. She really liked the frosting. She didn't even get to the cake.