Easter

Finally I am writing about Easter Sunday. Here it goes:

Dan spoke in church and did a really great job. He was lucky that he was so prepared because the youth speaker forgot his talk at home and the first speaker only spoke for a few minutes. Dan spoke for 30 minutes and kept everyone interested. Honest! I looked around several times and everyone was paying attention. He got so many compliments too. I wish that I could have paid better attention myself, but listening to Spanish and keeping Elena entertained don't go together very well. I was grateful to feel the spirit of the message. It was an uplifting sacrament meeting. It is so nice that Easter is always on a Sunday. I love to be able to concentrate on the reason for the celebration: He is risen!

My mom bought Elena an Easter dress when she was visiting a few weeks ago and I love it. This was the best shot that I got of it. I couldn't get her to sit or stand still - she kept walking away or trying to grab the camera. Hunt #1: I know I've said it before, but holidays are so much more fun with a kid! This is the first year (obviously) that we have done an egg hunt and it was a lot of fun. We were surprised how good she was at finding them. She found most of the ones that I hid without help. The ones that Dan hid, however, were a little trickier. He put one hanging from the ceiling fan, one on top of the mirror, etc. She is so lucky to have such a fun daddy!


After the hunt at our house, Elena was happy to pose with her goodies. I'm glad that Emily gave her a cute new basket that night because at 14 months, she had already outgrown this one.
At dinner: I didn't get a picture with the whole group in it, but here is one with Kristin, me, and Emily. We had a lot of fun, the food was fantastic, and it was great to meet so many nice people. Thank you Emily and Mike for hosting (all 15 of us), for providing an Easter egg hunt for the kiddos, and for the leftovers.
[If I was my dear dad, this is where I would insert a picture of a plate of food. He always starts off holiday meals by running and grabbing the camera to take a picture of his plate with a little of everything on it. Sorry Dad, I didn't think of it at the time. :) ]

Egg Hunt at the Evans's: Will could get the wrappers off of the candy with lightning-like speed. He was definitely the best hunter out of the three.
I'm sad that I didn't get a picture of cute Emerson's face (don't you love his name?). He was the most laid-back of the 3. Once he had an egg or two, he just sat and played.
I almost forgot to upload the obligatory family picture. I don't know what it is about Easter and having to take a family picture, but here it is:

New Skills

The past week has been full of accomplishments for Miss Elena. First and foremost, she is now walking like a champ. In these videos she does fall down once or twice, but check out how big the feet are on the pajamas! (Sorry that they are kind of dark.)


Accomplishment #2 - Elena now has enough hair for a ponytail! Just kidding - it turns out that it is only enough for a rat-tail, but I was still excited to be able to get a rubber band around it.
She also learned how to dye Easter eggs on Monday night. That's right folks - after 5 1/2 years, Dan and I are finally trying our darndest to have regular Family Home Evenings each week. It was a lot of fun, plus she enjoyed cracking the eggs and eating the yolks this week for lunch (she's allergic to the whites).
As if all this wasn't enough, she showed me a new skill that she had learned yesterday. I left the pantry door open after I put the toaster oven away, and the next time that I turned around this was what I saw. I have no idea how she got up there. The Easy Mac box that she is standing on comes up to her waist when she is next to it.
This last pic doesn't really have anything to do with the title of the post, but I thought it was cute. Dan and I are so grateful for our little girl and we can't imagine life without her. I hope that we love each one of our kids this much or else there'll be some serious sibling rivalry issues. :)

Happy Easter weekend everyone!

Zoo Trip

The last time that Elena and I went to the zoo was a sometime in the early fall and Dan had never been, so it was a real treat to get to go on Friday with Dan and my mom -- who by the way avoided getting in any zoo pictures somehow. :) She was here all week while my dad was on a business trip in Utah.

Family pic:

The elephants were some of Elena's favorite animals. We were able to get close which was cool. If only they had trumpeted. That would have been great. We've been teaching Elena animal sounds for a long time and she knows tons of them. It was funny that we were seeing all these animals in real life, but they were totally silent. I guess we'll have to go on safari and see them in the wild in order to show her that lions really do roar, monkeys actually say, "oo-oo, ah-ah", etc.

My mom took this picture. She thinks that it would be great to have Elena twins in real life because then she could take one home with her. Sorry, mom!

Here we are on the carousel. She sat on an animal when Granny took her, but when it was my turn, she was happy to sit on the swan bench. She loved waving at her daddy each time we went around.

At the zoo playground:

This is the best picture of the day. We taught Elena the end of the BYU fight song: "Gooooooo Cougars!" She rolls her arms during "Gooooooo" and then raises her hand in the air when we say "Cougars!" We couldn't resist when we got to this majestic animal's pen. Dan threw his sweatshirt over her to the add to the effect.

Dan decided to imitate the sleeping geese in the background.

I forgot to edit this video when my mom was still here with her Flip, but I still wanted to post it. It's a great little camcorder, but you have to have it plugged in to edit the videos - I think.
Dan and Elena are watching some geese fly by and they look identical as they both squint in the sun and turn to reveal matching profiles. The video is way too long though. All you have to do is fast forward to 30 seconds and watch until 40 - feel free to ignore the rest.

Thanks for coming, Mom! We had so much fun and we miss you already. Come again soon. :)

Quarantined

Things have been slow around here the past week because Elena is sick. We have barely left the house for a week. She had an ear infection which is probably gone by now and a stomach virus that just won't go away. The doctor said that it would last 7-10 days and I doubted her, but today was #7. Hopefully our sweet girl will be feeling like normal soon. She is doing pretty well and hasn't had a fever or anything, but she isn't eating very much and when she does, it usually finds its way back out pretty fast. Anyway...I thought I would post a couple of pictures even though there are no new/interesting stories to be told - unless you are wanting to hear gross ones. :)

Elena helps her daddy to do the dishes. He is so patient with her. He hands her the silverware one by one and she will put it in the basket.
I just took a couple of pictures of her in her pajamas the other morning and she was actually smiling for them, so I thought they would be worth sharing. Now that she is talking, it is hard to get her to pose for pictures anymore. She is to busy asking for "leche" or a "cracker" or saying: "no, no, no" which is her newest word. And she knows just how to use it.

Now that I think about it: I guess I haven't been stuck at home as much as it sounds above. Dan studies here at the house in the evenings, so I sometimes go run errands after we put Elena to bed (or sometimes just before Dan puts her to bed). I actually did a lot this past week - it was just mostly at night. I got together with friends on Saturday and we made baby-girl hairbows and saw the movie 27 Dresses which I really liked. I babysat for the Resident Spouses Association tonight which was a lot of fun for me. I miss older kids sometimes and tonight I got to play with like 10 at once (ages 1-6). Also I chaperoned a youth dance last Friday night plus I cheered for our branch's Young Women in their basketball game on Saturday while Dan watched Elena for the afternoon, and I went to Shelby's last Wednesday to hang out and watch American Idol after all our kids were asleep.
Thank you Dan for being so sweet and helpful!!!

Virginia, Music, Snow, and Hide & Seek

Virginia: Elena and I took a trip to Virginia two weeks ago because she hadn't seen my family since before Christmas. I love that my mom is able to drive down and visit about once a month, but my dad and sister can't come visit as often since the poor things have jobs. :)
My parents have pictures just like this of us kids playing the piano when we were about her age.
When we were in Virginia, we went to the aquarium. Elena liked people-watching just as much as she liked seeing the animals and fish. I guess my mom took most of the pictures while we were visiting because I only have two aquarium pics. Here she is with my dad watching the otters and some little boy.
Music: Elisa, one of the Young Women in the branch was in All County Orchestra, so Elena and I went to go see her (Dan had a church meeting). The music was great! I really enjoyed the performance. Elena did too, but she enjoyed it by standing on my lap and pointing and saying, "Oooo" and clapping repeatedly, so we ended up listening to the second half from the hallway. I think that next year I'll go again (without Elena) and this time Dan and I can make it a free date. :)
Snow: It snowed (big fat Utah-sized flakes) the night before Valentine's Day here. It was beautiful. We actually got 2 inches! We went out to play in the morning before it melted and she loved eating it. This is the only picture that I got without her hand in her mouth. The one below is her eating the snow off of her pants when we came inside. The video is more of the same, but if you listen closely you can hear her suck on her mittens.



Hide & Seek: She started hiding like this yesterday. I thought it was so cute. Then today she did the same thing only she "hid" behind a postcard.

Elena's Favorite Things

Elena's #1 favorite thing is her dad. I love the way that she looks at him. She is in love! She literally cries for him sometimes when he leaves the room even if she and I are playing. They have so much fun together. I love this picture. I took it last week. They both look so happy.Elena's #2 favorite thing is her pig. She always sleeps clutching her "teddy pig", and each time she wakes up, I go in and see her holding and talking to it. Because she so attached, she is only allowed to play with her pig when she is getting ready for bed. Other than that it stays in the crib where it "sleeps" during the day. Well, Elena loves her pig so much that I had my mom buy an extra so that I could wash one while she used the other. Earlier tonight she discovered where I had the spare hidden and she was so excited. She made a happy noise and I looked up and saw her hugging them both with a big smile on her face. Adorable! I happened to have the camera in her room, so I was able to take a picture - although of course she stopped smiling right before.
#3 is books/reading. This girl loves to read. She has started to request certain books or stories by barking for her book about dogs or patting her head and saying, "bump" to request the book where the monkeys fall of the bed and bump their heads. She loves being read to, but she also really likes flipping through the pages by herself.
and #4 is her Cabbage Patch baby doll. She loves to give hugs to her baby and say, "Awww." In this picture she is sitting in the box for her new car seat and patting her baby's belly. That's about it for the list. Oh wait! I forgot to include me. Elena likes me too. I don't think that I should be in fifth place, but I'm also not tied with Dan, so let's just say that Mom is number one and a half. :)

In no particular order...

I have been so busy for the past couple of weeks that I haven't had time to post some random pictures and videos that we have taken:

1. My friend Kristin and I went to the BYU game when they played Wake Forest. It seemed like half of our ward was there. It was their first time playing each other in almost 40 years and it was a lot of fun. I was surprised at how many BYU fans I saw. Unfortunately, the Cougars didn't do very well. :(
2. This is kind of gross, but I thought it was so adorable. Elena got into the tub of Desitin while I was unpacking from our trip. I looked over and saw this:
3. My mom thought it was time for Elena to eat her first ice cream cone and I agreed. Elena definitely enjoyed it. (Her face would be messier, but it had just been wiped.)


4. My sister-in-law Amy made this awesome sign for Elena's door while we were in Utah. She is so talented and crafty. I love it!
5. The following video was taken earlier tonight. Elena is showing off her newfound knowledge of animal sounds. It might be hard to hear because she was too interested in all her new toys to sit for the camera, but she does a pretty good job if I do say so myself. :)

Happy Birthday, Elena!

Our sweet girl turned one on the 17th! She is such a happy and lovable kid and we are so blessed to be her parents. It is funny how she has really started to seem older and more independent since her birthday. She has always been talkative, but now she knows so many real words. She says: book, banana, hi, bye-bye, ball, mom, dad, baby, etc. She can also tell you what sounds a monkey and a dog make as well as where her tummy, ears, hair, eyes, etc are. She is getting more adventurous too. Although she takes steps each day (2-4 before she falls), she isn't walking yet. She sure doesn't let that slow her down though. Sometimes she crawls so fast that she trips herself up, and she loves to cruise around furniture/people and crawl over and around things. She is so much fun to have around. :)

My mom came to visit on Wednesday and we have had a great time (my Dad had work and a conference in Maryland). She was so excited to be here for the big day. On her birthday Elena opened some presents in the morning and we went to the Children's Museum between her two naps. Her favorite parts of the museum were the hollowed-out treehouse with baby dolls and the Krispy Kreme make-believe factory.

Amazingly enough we woke up to snow on the 17th. The last time that it snowed here was on January 18th last year (I woke up to see snow the morning after Elena was born). This past weeks snowfall was our biggest storm in a couple of years. Seriously, they canceled school the night before in preparation. The house looked like this:

Saturday the 19th was the day of Elena's little party. We invited her friends that she knows well from play dates. I was so happy that everyone was able to come. We had a great time and it was nice to let her enjoy spending time with so many of her favorite people all at once. Here are a couple of pictures from the party. These first two pictures were taken at the end of the party when we tried to get all of the kids onto the carpet so that I could have one picture with all of the children in it. It almost worked. :)
(Notice: Cute 11 week old Michael propped up on the couch behind all the kids.)

Pizza/hot dogs for lunch...
...and chocolate cake for dessert.
It was a blast! We love our Elenita!