Christmas Craziness

We had five parties this weekend to go to. FIVE!

We had a blast, but Elise was very tired by the end, as were we all.

Thank you for the wonderful breakfast ward members!



She got to sit on Santa's lap and ask for what her hear desired most. Apparently she was a bit intimidated though and asked for what all the girls were asking for, a Barbie doll. The next day Grandma asked her what she told Santa she wanted and she said "I don't know, not a camera." Yep, she had asked about one after her birthday. I told her we could Santa for one and we prepped her and prepped her to say camera. She started getting upset but I told her we'd write a letter to Santa and he would know what to bring her to make her a very happy girl on Christmas.

That Santa! So fun singing songs.

Rocking out to songs.



so sleepy, i took this at 9:50 am on Sunday morning. Although she quickly sat up in bed and asked "Why you take picture of me sleeping?"

Elise's 3rd Birthday!

I love this girl so much and how could you not with a smile like this before she even opens her presents?

 

 Three years seems to have gone by so fast and at the same time she sometimes suprises me with how grown up she seems now.

 

If we learned one thing from her opening her birthday presents it's that Christmas morning is going to be a long, long morning.

Disneyland!

We absolutely love Disneyland and did long before we ever had a child. Having Elise there old enough to actually recognize all the fun around her was a blast. Plus I got to ride a bunch of rides I've never done before. A Bug's Land is pretty awesome. (for kids)

My very nice sister came with us and made it possible to ride all kinds of rides and spend very little time alone. Which is awesome because I hate being by myself anywhere. 

 My sweet princess hugging cinderella was hilarious to me. She chose to spend time in line waiting for princesses and she didn't even know their names. We started trying to prep her on what to say and she got up there and was extremely shy. However now we play princess dress up and talk about them a lot more.

Lets be honest Minnie mouse is still fave. We had so much fun on our vacation.

For real!?

I gave Elise and Ryan haircuts tonight. I teared up a little as I saw her curly cues gathering on the floor. I debated about whether or not to give her bangs and then I thought "Well I have given them almost three years to get long enough and they still aren't. I guess it's time...I guess it's time."

 

I didn't think I had cut that much off, but wow, look at this picture from a few weeks ago. See what I mean about her bangs? Look how long her ponytail pigtail is. (oh by the way I'm not sure why but somehow she scrathed her face during lunch the other day.)

 

 Well I hope that she loves that her hair shouldn't be in her face as much. And she thinks it's "adowable."  Here's my new big girl.

Summer Part 2

I had to steal some pictures from my sister in law in order to finish my update of our summer. In June we went to the zoo for Ryan's mom's birthday. We had a lot of fun there.

Us in the eagle's nest. Do you think this is the same one I used to get into when I was Elise's age?

 

Big smiles and tongue...I'm not sure why....

Seals were Elise's favorite. She stayed there for ages. And squealed everytime they swam by. 

She was so proud of herself that she got up there by herself. She kept saying "ROAR!"

 And then the Saturday after the fourth we had a huge BBQ and a little swim party with Ryan's side of the family.

Here is all the cousins in the pool, DUKE, ELISE, ATLEE, LOGAN

This may be too late for some but have you seen that pinterest pin that says to put sparklers in a cup to seperate their hands from the flame?  Do not use the plasticy solo cups! They melt a hole and then your baby gets burned. I guess if we were to try this again we would try a wax dixie type cup?

They are best of friends instantly. After she left Elise would cry and we would ask her why and she would say "I miss Atwee"

I mean seriously cute right?

Daddy can be under your spell in July too right? These are the PJ's Atlee's mom brought from AZ so Elise had to have hers on too.

They were so nice to baby Duke too.

 I know that we posted about leaving Elise with Grandma and Grandpa and Kylie in my last post. Elise had a blast with them.

Kylie was really nice and babysat both her niece and nephew during the day. Elise is so sweet to him. I think they will be good friends.

Thanks Kylie!

I love Elise's face in this one. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Crazy Sauce!

 We are now home owners!

Time for a

Happy Dance!!!

Then reality set in. Boxes, sprinkler trouble, painting, things not fitting. Oh my so much work and we've no idea how to even begin! Deep breathe and one thing at a time.

Sorry to have been MIA for so long this summer. We've been super busy with home searching and well it being summer and all we found lots of time to have some fun.

Working at the carwash....the carwash Yeah!

Ryan and I on a mini vacation to St. George with a bumch of friends of ours. No children for a whole weekend. It felt so decadent. Thank you Kylie, Grandma and Grandpa for watching Elise for us.

For some odd reason I got creative with nail polish for the fourth. Elise had flag toes and fingers. Oh and she LOVED it. That's prolly why I thought it was worth it.



FIREWORKS!!!

Hiking fun for FHE

I got to go on another small girls only vacay with my sisters to St George. We went to tuacahn, got pedicures, swam, hiked, farmers marketed, went out to eat. We had a grand ole time!



Fishing with grandpa, Court, Mandi, Heyborne's and extended Heyborne Fam. So much fun!

Hanging with Cousins

Dinner up the mountains with cousins. So much fun!

We also had Elise give up her binki. Is there anything more painful? I mean she was really good as she is with most things, but the lack of sleep has turned her into a different child. She is clingy and whiny constantly now. I'm hoping things will even out once we get her used to the new house as well as the binki-less sleeping.

Also, Elise has hit the why stage. Heaven help me. Lucky for her she's really cute and well behaved mostly and I love her SO much, so I'll keep her around ;)

Again?!

Some how yet again I am behind in blogging. I have several things to catch up on. We had another lovely easter weekend. We had our sixth anniversary and my 28th birthday. We moved in with Ryan's parents, again. And today
Elise fell in grandma and grandpa's pond for the second time. She's fine now that she's bathed and dried and sleeping.

Here is a first though, her first and almost last coed bath. She's getting so big.

What happened?

What happened to my baby girl?



She hasn't been feeling well this week so she's been wanting to sit on me *all* the time. One time, when I was trying to read while she was trying to sit on me, I made some flippant comment about how big she's getting. Now when I ask her to sit in my lap for something and she doesn't want to she tells me, "I too big, mom."


I found a great deal on some summer clothes and found that her waist is still a 2T while her shirts now need to be 3T. I pulled out last years summer clothes to see if some of her shorts might still fit. Some are so short and yet still a bit baggy on her waist. I feel like I should start giving her cookies and ice cream anytime she asks.


I have to say I do love that she is potty trained, that she can climb into her car seat by herself, that she understands rules better, and that she talks enough that we can have little conversations. She's becoming her own person for sure. It helps me not feel so alone at home. It's so much fun to watch her grow.

Cute things Elise says

While home looking we have gathered a lot of papers with homes and their information on them. Elise calls them treasure maps.

She grabbed Ryan's face and said "listen to me, you're not listening to me."

After Ryan made her "cho wo colate nilk" she said he was the best ever, ever.

After walking through a home Elise grabbed my fingers and started dragging me somewhere. Thinking she had something in particular to see I followed. She took me on a tour of the home again. "Kitchen" with her arm gesturing."Another potty."

While getting ready I threw my hair towel on the toilet lid. Elise got it down and put it on the floor and said "aba-daba" lifted it up and said "ta-da!" She was doing a magic trick.

After a couple of toys had found their way to her big girl bed we had a talk about how when it's bedtime it's not time to play with toys. Every time it's been time to get in her big girl bed she tells me "no toys, mommy." I'm so glad she understands.

You always know when she has picked her nose because she complains about "oogers" on her fingers and she says all sweetly "no pick your nose." This she doesn't seem to understand.

We can't get her to say corn dog, sandwich or bicycle. They come out corn hot dog, samswench and bi-circle, bike circle, and bi circa circle.

She loves singing and dancing right now. She will sing popcorn popping, itsy bitsy spider, head shoulders knees and toes and do as I'm doing without prompting. Dancing she's learned from Mickey mouse. She marches, wiggles, slides to one slide and slides to the other side, kicks and claps.

Instead of yes or yeah she has taken to saying " sure can" or just "sure." The other day we asked her if had her shoes on and she replied "sure don't."

She 'thinks' while tapping her finger on her chin. She says, "let's think...I an idea!" and then proceeds to tell you what she wants (or wants you to do).

She learned from something bowing and saying thank you, thank you. She does it when she's saying thank you. She doesn't understand performing so I say, "you're welcome, welcome." Now she says it too.

Words that she picked up fast: Xylophone, Yo-yo, school bus, semi truck, sorry, love you too, ice cream. There are more. I just can't think of them all right now. She said something yesterday that made me laugh and sparked the need to start this blog and now I can't remember. Don't you hate that?

Fun with Friends

I would usually do several different posts for all of this but they all kind of fit under the theme of friends and I already have to come up with a post for my other blog so you are getting several doses in one today.

First off we have a playdate that happened in January. We made little marshmallow snowmen and then promptly ate them. I am so glad to have friends that will come over and do these weird activities with their kids and me. Sorry she's on her side. sometimes I just get done with trying to make the computer do what I want it to.

Next up we have a group date that I organized with family and friends to go support Kirby's improv show when they came up from California to perform at Thanksgiving Point. Some good inside jokes ensued. Harold the cow, steam rises, flipping someone off means you are flirting. Haven't laughed that hard in a while. Thanks for coming with us guys!

And as is usual I have a picture of all of our friends but none of Ryan and me. Sorry guys. I am otherside of the camera shy.

We are doing much better at FHE's as of late. Partly due to some friends starting a monthly craft night. At our first one we each came with enough copies of one family home evening so we went home with seven or eight different lessons. AWESOME. Thanks Ash. You got me motivated and the juices flowing for some other ideas. This was ours this last week. We talked about how families are together forever and made paper dolls of ourselves. Talked about who was in our family too. Hard concept for a two year old to grasp. Gamma is but Zac isn't? Jamie isn't but Manni (mandi) is? So we'll try again and again. No worries we still pray for all friends and family so her bases are covered.

 And because she saw me taking pictures she had to have one so we'll throw in this in. Here is what today looks like.