More Pictures of Last Month's Family Togetherness

Back in August we went to Thanksgiving Point, and I already posted lots of pictures from there. But being that I'm obviously a never-too-many-pictures kinda person, I'm happy to add some of my (many) favorites from the pictures my sister in law Andrea gave me on CD this week. (Getting pictures on CD/flash drive from other people's cameras of my own kids is like Christmas.)
Thanks Andrea!

Andrea also passed on a few pictures of the kids taken at Great Grandma Verla's house that same week.

Nathan and his new best friend, the Baseball shaped balloon.
This was great fun for both babies until it died a tragic, deflated death.

Connor and his Daddy.

Annie making a goofy face of some kind.

Ellie still confusing me as to what her actual eye color should be called . . .

I'm also throwing in a few more Yellowstone pictures from Andrea's camera too . . . just for fun. 'Cause heaven knows I haven't posted enough Yellowstone pictures. :-)

Another of Annie's Too Frequent Milestones: Her First Day of Dance

Annie's growing up way too quick.
But dang, it's fun to watch.

She started dance today, and she was so excited about it. Especially about there "being another girl named Annie there!" and "Songs about hippos and Christmas!"
She loves the outfits (we have three different leotards for her already, and the majority feature Disney Princesses . . . it's like she's gone to princess clothes heaven). She loves the ballet shoes (and she's anxiously awaiting her tap shoes, as her "marching didn't sound as good" since her shoes hadn't arrived in time for class today). She thought getting a sucker at the end of class was about as cool as it gets (she also has a similar affection for our bank though). She was so antsy to get there this morning that she bolted to the van and climbed in before I got any good pictures of her dressed and ready to go. Which meant we were well on schedule to arrive a few minutes before we could even get in the building, but it was just so much fun to get caught up in her excitement, that I didn't mind sitting out in the car listening to our Brite Music CD that has some "Watch Me Dance" song on it that we listened to a good 3 or 4 times in a row. The only problem was she kept asking me what the dance terms in the song meant . . . I should've made a list of them so we could've asked her teacher once she got to class! :-)
She informed me after class that she had a lot of fun, and that it wasn't more fun or less fun than preschool, but the same amount of fun. Which is a very, very good thing!

Annie + Cat Hair =

(Also could have been titled: Yet Another Reason I Believe Cats are Satan's Minions.)

Wordless Wednesday

Thanks a Lot Disney

Right before bed Annie asked me the loaded question, "So Mommy . . . why do some Princesses have Moms, but other Princesses don't have Moms? What happened to their Moms?"

I'm thinking about forwarding on all similar veined future questions to Michael Eisner.

(OK, so I know Michael Eisner isn't actually the head of Disney anymore, but I don't know nothin' 'bout this 'Robert Iger' character . . .)

They Grow Up So Quick

Just last year (exactly a year ago, in fact) my little girl's idea of 'dressing up' was throwing a purse on her head as a hat, and voilá, she was all accessorized and ready to enjoy a snack pack of Cheese Nips.

Now it's agonizing jewelry decisions, wardrobe options, and some serious time spent with Mommy's makeup. What a difference a year makes.




She's growing up so quick.

Note to Self

Ebay and I go in spurts. Sometimes I buy some stuff, usually in excess. Sometimes I sell some stuff, to little or no success. But the other day it seemed like a good idea to buy a pair of pants I really wanted, but didn't want to pay $40 regular price for. Ebay had some 'barely used' ones in my size and everything for $4.99, free shipping. And, I double checked, it came from a smoke free home. I was sold. And won the bidding.

Note to self: next time make sure you see the words "Smoke free AND pet free home" before bidding on anything.

It actually smelt like they had shipped thier gerbil to me, the rodent stank was so overpowering.




Update on Ellie: She seems to be doing fine, the swelling has gone down a bit more, but her whole middle part of her face seems kind of sensitive, and it about broke my heart today when she bumped her nose and lip into Greg's head and started screaming. PTSD kicked in and I practically saw the flowing blood I expected to see, that wasn't really there. She's fine though. The grossest looking part though has to be the inside of her mouth, what with the dark purple bruising and the poor lighting in there, it looks like the right half of her upper gums have turned solid black, and the roof of her mouth and her tongue both have long bruises running from the front of her mouth to where I can't see anymore. I haven't had a really good look though. (Surprisingly, the 15 months old is not that cooperative of my explorative attempts into her swollen and sore mouth, so we really only get to see stuff when she's screaming or laughing.)

My Poor Baby

It was like a scene from a horror movie. Blood everywhere; it was running, dripping, and I'm not able to even make out the origin of it all. To make matters worse, this is my sweet little baby girl, and she's screaming like nothing I'd ever heard from her before. (Screams like this were more common place from Annie when she was young. Like on days that ended in -y . . . but from Ellie, this was more disconcerting.)

My little girl's first medical 'emergency.' I've been dreading this. We've gotten off really lucky so far. Except for countless ear infections and other illnesses, we've never had a whole InstaCare injury trip with either of our children. In fact, Annie's only even ever bled a little on a few occasions, so to watch blood flowing from Ellie's nose and mouth, all down the front of her and down my arms, was a bit terrifying. But the worst moments had to be the crash of the jewelry armoire falling to the ground (well, onto Ellie's face), instantly followed by blood curdling screams, and the approximately three seconds it took me to get to her to pick her up (which felt like forever). She bled all over the two of us while I was trying to get her cleaned up enough to figure out where she was injured. After lots of screaming, blood and trauma and we ended up with a very fat lip, a cut under her nose, and incredibly bruised gums and roof of her mouth.

Here's a picture from my phone.

Her face being kinda swollen and puffy as it is, kinda just makes her look pouty all the time. I keep rushing to her to pick her up, 'cause I'm convinced she's upset, and then I realize it's just 'cause she's swollen.

Unrelated to fat lips, here is a picture of Annie with her friend Kian playing the computer this morning.

And last night when Annie was refusing to go to sleep, she made herself a bed in the hall and sat outside our room and just talked to herself for almost an hour until she finally crashed . . .

Flashback Friday

So, I had this party once.

I may have been a bit biased, but it was pretty cool. My Aunt Judy lent us use of her amazing home and gigantic backyard. Which included volleyball, ping pong, fooz ball, pinball, air hockey, billiards and more. At one point we had over 100 people there.

My very favorite part though (even including the fact that after the party a bunch of friends and I headed up the canyon and went and hiked Donut Falls, despite it being like 3AM or so) . . . was that a year later I was going through the pictures of it and found that, to my surprise, Greg had been there. (The party was mere months before we started dating). Not only that, but apparently we played volleyball together for quite awhile. Funny how I had no idea yet. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if that party was when Greg officially decided that I was amazing and he needed to pursue me relentlessly . . . I mean, I threw a pretty good party, what else is a guy looking for? :-) (I'm kidding, it was still a couple months before he seemed to even notice me.)

Volleyball. My incredible serve technique. It may be shocking given the obvious skill in this picture, but I'm not exactly the best volleyball player. But I enjoy it quite a bit, if I'm playing with people who don't take it too serious. There's Greg's back in the corner. We were in rotation right next to each other for who knows how long. Of course, we were in the same ward for like 3 years before really noticing each other, so we already had a solid history of being really slow when it came to our obvious perfection for one another.

There's a couple more pictures where Greg's back, shoes, side or leg are partially visible, but this one actually had both of us in it, and it's a cuter picture of me.

Anyway, Greg didn't stay really long, but a bunch of us kept going strong for hours and hours.
We jumped on the trampoline for awhile. I apparently enjoyed myself immensely.

We had a live band. Of course.
Which led to strange, hippy-looking dancing.

And later we played a couple rounds of "Buck Buck" (a demented version of Leap Frog).

Patio furniture was busted in several pieces.
This and the last couple pictures make it look like mass amounts of alcohol was involved, but it was actually a 'dry' Mormon party :-)

People helped me cheat at Ping Pong. Ah, the joys of being hostess.

It was a fun party.

I'm really glad I'm no longer in that part of my life where we stayed up all night, and got up real early, and somehow survived it. I couldn't do it now. At least not with mass amounts of grumpiness. But I am grateful
that I can look back on it all now and have evidence that I did really enjoy that period of my life to the fullest at the time!

Check it Out -- For Reals this Time

I posted a week or two ago about an ABC Primetime special about the unsolved murder of my sister in law Liz's cousin, Janet Christiansen Abaroa.
It had been postponed last week due to the coverage of Ted Kennedy's death. But it is scheduled to air TONIGHT on ABC.
Make sure to watch or record it.
Thanks.

Dress Up

It may be time to add some firemen or police or knight in shining armor costumes to our dress up bin.

Also, I currently doubt that any baby in the world could possibly love corn on the cob more than mine.

Preschooler

Annie woke up long before 7AM this morning.

"Is it time for school yet?" "Can I go to school yet?" "Is it preschool now?" Every five minutes until 9AM. While wearing her backpack for almost two straight hours. A backpack that is half her size (and weight). "I'm done eating now, so I can I go?" "My school is in a house in our neighborhood with a basement that has stairs and there's a sandbox and a castle and is it time to go yet?" "Me and Sarajayne and Kian and Aidan are all going to be there and it's going to be so much fun, and can we go now?"

She agreed to pose for a bunch of pictures until it was time to go. Then we walked across the street, as she happily greeted all of her friends, and bolted for the stairway that goes down to the preschool, never looking back. I am so excited for her. She has been looking forward to this for weeks, and I know she's going to love it. And now I can't wait to pick her up in 24 minutes and hear all about it!

Eating breakfast. With her backpack.

Killing time by calling Grandma to tell her that it was preschool day, but Mom wouldn't let her go until 9 o'clock.

Awww, my little girl.

Each child was asked to bring a favorite animal to school for show and tell the first day. Annie was bummed she couldn't bring her Baby Belle along, but was glad that "Care Bears are animals."

Annie and Sarajayne (who lives two doors down from us) are so excited to be in preschool together. And it practically looks like Diana and I planned their outfits with their adorable blue & white striped shirts together!

19 minutes and counting . . .