Happy 2nd Birthday Ellie!

Can't believe my little Ellie turned 2!  Her birthday was on Thursday, June 7th and we had a great day!  Patrick took the day off of work to be able to spend the day together.  We started out with painting our toes(to-ees, as Ellie says it)  She loves her toes painted and will sit really still for it.  She even likes to help to blow on them when we are finished!

We then were off to get her 2 year pictures done at JC Penney.  They turned out so cute!  I will post more when I get them back.  We had to make sure to play at the mall play place and take a couple of rides.  

After that we were off to take a few pictures of our own for her birthday invitations.  They were much harder to get since she had already been sitting for a long time!  I will post the invite(which Patrick made) with her birthday party.  We got home just in time for a surprise visit from Aunt Krista.  I didn't take any pictures, but she brought her a present-paints, bubbles and stamps!  Ellie was very excited!  Then it was time for a nap.  

We planned on going swimming after her nap and of course, she decided to sleep for 3 hours!  I had to finally be a little more noisy in her room to make sure we got to the pool before it was too late:)  It was really funny because I went into her room and was just saying her name and she was so asleep.  She didn't even flinch.  I talked for about a minute and still nothing!  I then said, do you want to go swimming and without any hesitation she said yes!  Put on swimsuit.  And she was up like that!  We had so much fun swimming.  Ellie loves the water and is a brave little girl-scary for her mommy and daddy!  Luckily, grandma Judy got her a little life jacket swim thing and it worked great.  This way she could feel like she was on her own-even though we were always hanging on to her!  Uncle Derrick came with us and we had a fun time!

I really like the Logan Aquatic Center because it has the little kiddie area.  She can still touch and it's a great way for her to be a little more independent.  

She loved being in the deep part too-especially doing motor boat with daddy and uncle derrick.  She kept asked for the slide and finally convinced Patrick to take her down.(only after she started asking to go off the diving board when Uncle Derrick would dive)  Lets just say she would have spend the entire time on the slide if Patrick would have let her.  

We stopped and picked up McDonalds for dinner.  Her request of chicken nuggets and french fries:)  Then we had Moose Bars for Dessert.  I couldn't resist and had to put some candles in since we weren't having cake until her actual party!  

She did great blowing out the candles!

We ended the day with a bath.  Her friend Ivy got her some really cool bath fizzy's that change the water color.  She thought it was really cool and wanted to put them all in....:)  And she was out!  We had a really great day!

The next day, June 8th, we had a little party with her friends.  We just met at the park and had cupcakes and played.  Nothing big, but it was fun to get together with all her little friends.  I completely forgot to take any pictures:(  But we had a good time.

We had Ellie's 2 year well check on June 4, 2012.  She is healthy and doing great!  We didn't have any shots this time which was wonderful.  She was very apprehensive when the dr first came in, but she was back to her usual talkative self in a couple min.  Dr Horkley even said that she seems very advanced with talking and the things she knows.  She weighed in at 25.2 lbs in the 31st percentile; height of 33.5 inches in the 43rd percentile.  She hasn't grown much in 6 months which is crazy because I feel like she has grown a ton!  But I guess it is the baby fat that is disappearing and turning into a little girl!  Glad she is a healthy happy girl!

Here are a few things Ellie is doing right now that I don't want to forget.

*She loves to put on her own shoes.  I think we got some good shoes for this, because she does really well and is so proud of herself when she does it.  Here is a picture from this morning of her after she put on her boots!  June 10, 2012.

*We have been doing time out, not very much, but she remembers it and knows she is in trouble.  The other day she started putting herself in time out....not sure if this is a good thing...but it was pretty cute.  She has even put daddy in time out when he dropped food on the floor...May 28, 2012.

*Ellie loves books.  She loves to have them read to her, but also really likes to just read them by herself.  This is how I found her after I finished getting ready one day.  I am glad she likes books so much!  June 5, 2012.

*She loves animals and will point them out everywhere.  She does a lot of animal noises and even does a peacock noise(thanks to the Logan zoo, which has peacocks)  We have been going to feed the ducks at first dam more and more with the nice weather and she has lots of fun doing that.  She will even point out the geese and make the noise they make.  May 2, 2012 with Dutton Booth and Hadlie Doolin

 She also likes that we have horses by our apt.  We will go on walks and always stop to see the horseys:)  May 6, 2012.

*She found her binky the other day and likes to play with it acting like she's a baby....Its cute only because she doesn't NEED it:)  June 3, 2012.

*Ellie is extremely scared of the vacuum...it's strange because she used to really like the vacuum.  Now when I even get it out, she will say that she is going to her room and hide from the vacuum until I am done!:(  June 2, 2012

We love having Ellie so much in our family and can't believe she is already 2.  It seems like just yesterday when she was just a little baby and we brought her home.  I have enjoyed so much being able to be her mom and see her learn and grow.  It will be interesting to see how she responds to having a new little baby in our house.  She does really good with babies right now and is a very good little mommy to her baby doll.  I hope it doesn't throw her too much when he comes.  Happy Birthday baby girl!

Happy 29th Patrick

Patrick turned the big 29 on Wednesday, June 6, 2012.  What an old man he is now;)  We had a great day, pretty uneventful, but still lots of fun!  Patrick had to work, but his mom and brother surprised him by coming up to have lunch with us.  We went to The Italian Place on federal avenue in Logan.  If you haven't been there, you should go because they seriously have the best sandwiches ever!!!  I asked what he wanted for dinner and what kind of cake....of all things, he wanted a Sam's Club pizza(This is also really yummy if you've never tried it) and fruit pizza.  I love it that it was an easy dinner for me:)  

After work, we had his brother over for dinner and fruit pizza.  Then just played games for the night.  He got a couple of movies from me, x-box games from his mom and Ellie gave him some cool airplanes that you shoot with a rubber band and made a picture frame-she picked out the frame and paper and even helped to modge podge it on:).  

We had a great day and hope Patrick did too.  Love you babe!

Things we've been up to

I have a bunch of things I want to remember and pictures to have on here, but don't really want to do a separate post for each one, so here goes with our what we've been up to.

Eating yummy Aggie Ice Cream.  Ellie has had a cone before, but not a really yummy strawberry hard serve ice cream.  She loved it!  April 16, 2012

We went to 1st Dam to have a picnic and feed the ducks.  April 21, 2012  Ellie and Patrick kicked the ball around.

Ellie loves watermelon

 We hiked up to Stokes Nature Center for nature night and Patrick's brother, Derrick came.  May 2, 2012

Ellie loved throwing rocks in the river.

She also loves her Uncle Derrick.  She is always so excited when she gets to see him.

Ellie's friends all got together for a little picnic.  May 10, 2012  Here she is with Dutton Booth.

They all decided they should play in the rocks.  Peter Ahlstrom, Dutton Booth, Ellie and Shaylee Bassett

Dutton, Peter, Ellie and Shaylee

Grandma Judy brought these punch balloons up for Ellie.  Patrick and her have had lots of fun having balloon wars.  May 6, 2012

We spent the weekend and Grandma and Grandpa Browns.  May 12, 2012  They got a fun sprinkler.  It took a bit to get used to it.

Then she dove right in.

And decided she needed a drink.  I love how she is squatting down in this picture.

Ellie has always been a fan of Patrick's blanket her got for Christmas.  She insisted on taking her nap with it the other day.  I was shocked when she slept for 4 hours!  Then when she woke up, she really didn't want to get up at all.  She just cuddled back into the blankie.  May 23, 2012

We did snake bubbles one night.  They were lots of fun for Patrick and I.  Ellie had fun chasing them and popping them all over.  She was covered in soap:)  May 21, 2012

We've been having lots of fun around her and have been enjoying the sunny weather!

St George

We were able to spend the weekend in St George with my family for my nieces' ballet recital.  May 19-20, 2012 It was a quick trip but we had a lot of fun.  We left for my parents house, in Orem, on Friday after work.  Then Saturday morning we headed to St George.  Ellie hasn't really had a lot of longer car driving experience so I was a bit worried...she did great!  I don't know why I ever really worry about things because she always does so good with everything.  She read some books and then napped for most of the drive.  We borrowed a portable dvd player from some friends and that helped with the end of the drive and the drive home.  We met up with my brother, Eric, nephews, Nate and Taylor and niece, Katie for lunch at the Brick Oven.  Then we decided to go swimming.  Ellie is a huge fan of swimming.  She loved it last year, and it hasn't changed a bit.  She did want to be very independent though, which is scary, and wanted to walk out by herself.  We had to keep a good hold of her.  She really loved swinging on the bars at the stairs.

Katie got Ellie some fun birthday bows and a cute dolly.  She also brought Ellie a bunch of her old dolls and Ellie was in heaven.

We walked around the outlets for a while before heading to the recital.  Here is Ellie with my Eric.

 

We left the recital a little early because Ellie was getting really tired.  Katie did wonderful!  When we got back to the motel, Ellie pretty much fell asleep while getting her jammies on.  Here she is after a long day zonked out on the bed:)

On our way out on Sunday, we stopped to say bye to Katie and she had made an early birthday cake for Ellie since she won't be able to see her.  She made a really cute bird cake-she even designed it and had chocolate licorice for the nest.  How creative and delicious.

 It was lots of fun to be able to spend the weekend with family.

23 Months

Can't believe Ellie is already 23 months.  I seriously don't know where the time has gone.  Here are some things that Ellie is up to these days!

• Patrick and I went on a date to the Fun Park in Logan.  We both always love air hockey and really haven't had a chance to play much since we had Ellie.  We played a few of the arcade games....and since we are amazing got a lot of tickets....we decided to grab a couple little toys for Ellie.  Patrick picked out a little purple ninja and I kind of laughed at his choice...Ellie ADORES this little ninja.  Patrick has even taught her to say Highya and move her hand like a ninja.

• She has gotten to be quite a little daredevil.  She likes to climb on things and will now pull a chair over to reach what she needs to.  I've noticed this mostly at the park.  Bridger Park by our apt is a pretty big park.  The slides they have a really high up.  Ellie has never really gone down them by herself and is content to walk around.  She decided that she wanted to swing from the largest/steepest slide there and I about had a heart attack.  She didn't let go, but did decide to try to go down it.  She put her feet down a couple feet into the slide and flipped over the edge.  Luckily I felt like I should be as close as possible to catch her at the bottom and had moved up to reach as high as I could and caught her.  I still had a really big heart attack and she hasn't tried to go down again....April 30, 2012

• Ellie still loves stickers.  She thinks they are great and has done really good at only sticking them on herself or on paper-that is designated for stickers.  She also loves to stick them on her nose.  Her favorite is still to stick them on Patrick:)  April 21, 2012

• She has such a good memory.  I am amazed at the things that she says to me and what she will remember from weeks before.  I know she is getting older, but for some reason I never think she will remember things so well.  She talks about when we went to baby animal days and will tell me about all the animals she held and what they did.  There is an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse that we watched a couple months ago and it has a silly gilly gumbo in it.  The other day at dinner she brought up this silly gilly gumbo and how it is outside.  I didn't even really remember so we re-watched the episode and it is outside-it ends up being Willy the Giant making noises.  She now thinks that saying silly gilly gumbo is hilarious!

• Ellie really likes drawing.  I think she prefers to draw over coloring a picture.  She will still color pictures, but if I give her a blank piece of paper and a pen(not crayons) she will draw for a long time.  She really likes to draw/color while laying on the floor on her tummy.  I loved coloring this way also:) April 17, 2012

• For some reason she thinks that the wind will blow her away.  If I roll the windows down in the car, she will say/scream, "Blow me away!!!"  Until I roll the window up.  We were on a walk the other night and it was a little windy.  She was pushing her baby stroller and the wind started blowing pretty hard.  It pushed her baby stroller backwards and she started saying blow me away, blow baby away.  We had to run the rest of the way home to make sure we wouldn't blow away.

• We got a little baby stroller a little bit ago and she loves to push her baby around in it.  We go for walks just around the block and she will push the stroller:)  She always asks to bring it wherever we go, and we have taken it to the library a couple of times:) May 3, 2012

• Ellie has always enjoyed being comfy and will make sure to find the most comfy position.  This is a new favorite way to sit while on the couch. April 18, 2012 

 April 22, 2012

• Now has a pillow in her crib. May 6, 2012

• Hiding in her stroller.  She thinks its fun to get in the back basket of her stroller.  May 3, 2012

• She is talking like crazy and often we have random people ask how old she is and then tell me that she is speaking so clearly and they are amazed.  Some of the words/phrases she says that I just think are so cute are.  

Cow(when we drive to Patrick's work we pass a bunch of cows.  She gets so excited and will say cow over and over until we pass the cows.  Then while we are passing, she mooos and then says bye cow until we get to his work.  When she says it is starts out low and then gets pretty high.  It's really cute)

Sure do

What the(This one is completely my fault.  I say this all the time.  It is really funny coming out of her mouth, but perhaps no the best thing for her to say.)

Silly(she calls everything silly, and she chuckles when she says it)

Animal say...(She says this especially when we are in the car.  She will say the animal, such as cat, and then say what it says.  So, cat say....meow)

I love you-pronounced I yawwvvvv you(Ellie will be looking for something and call out for whatever it is, then she will yell I yawwvvv you, cracks me up every time) 

Sleep-pronounced seep(Whenever she sees somebody sleeping she will come up to you and say seep....shhhhhh)

Baby cry-pronounced baby kyyyy

Hold you Momma

Ellie turn(She loves to say the prayer at night or dinner and will say Ellie's turn)

Pee yew-pronounced pee whoo(This is one of my favorites.  She will say this after a messy diaper or the other day when we passed the cows, I said they were cute cows and she said, "No, stinky...peewhoo")

Don't want to-pronounced no mont to

Diaper-pronounced Biper

Ellie is growing up so fast and I look at her and can't believe she is a little girl now and not my little baby!  So glad she is part of our family!

Masters Graduation!!!

On Friday, May 4, 2012, Patrick graduated with his Masters Degree in Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences!  I am so proud of him and all of the hard work that he has put in the last few years!  Patrick started his Master's program right after we had Ellie, I quit working to stay at home with her, and he started working full time while going to school.  Shortly after, he got a calling in our ward that takes up 2-3 nights per week. He has been doing all of this while going to school full time and being the best husband and dad in the world.  I know he has felt like he can't do it all and somehow has been able to.  He always made sure to take time for Ellie everyday and I know that she loves this time spent with him.  I am sure he doesn't realize how much he has done and I know that many times he has been discouraged or wanted to quit, but he pushed through and made it to the end of school!  I know if it such a relief for him to not have to worry about that.  

Patrick did the procession walk, which was really cool to be able to have everyone cheering them on as the walked to the stadium.  We were watching on the screen and were even able to find him in all the people.  Also, as they were about to walk in, we saw him right away.  I am glad we were able to find him in all of the graduates.  There were over 1000!  They had bagpipes playing-I thought this was awesome because Patrick has always loved them!  It seemed appropriate!

 Here he is being hooded.  

And I'm so sad because the only pictures I got of him receiving his diploma are blurry:(

We are so excited to have school done with and have more time with him and have him have less stress.  We were able to have both of our families up on Friday for graduation.

Then we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  

Patrick got a new computer for graduation and is so excited to finally have an up to date computer....especially since that is what a lot of his major deals with.  We had so much fun with all of our family and had a great day celebrated Patrick.  His sister even stayed the night with us to watch Ellie and got us tickets to see the Avengers on opening night!  It was an awesome gift and great to be able to spend the time together.  Ellie loved every minute of her here as well.