DESERT TRIP 2011

Desert Trip this year was fun.  Much less windy than 2 years ago when we went, although it was quite windy the first day and very cold the last.  The kids had a fun time being outside.  Ells loved playing with Enok.  It was fun to see our family and friends.  We have no pictures for the last day due to our camera breaking because of all the sand.  The same thing happened to our camera last desert trip.  I was even more careful with it and it still broke. :(

Face Change

Sometimes, a face change is good... sometimes, not so good.

For example:

Good Face change - the recent work done on our yard

Before:




After:





And of course, there are bad face changes... for example:

Before:



and After:


Yes, Aayla tried to pick a fight with the concrete steps and patio at grandma and grandpa Roper's this last weekend... She lost.

Despite the changes, good or bad, life goes on. We're excited for the other changes that are to come soon around the house! We'll be posting them shortly!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLERY #4

Happy birthday to Ellery!!  Yesterday we had a fun birthday for Ells.  She woke up to see that her 'angry bird' had flown out of her room leaving little white dots that led down to her presents.  She thought that was pretty funny.  We got her a new bike, fishing pole, glow in the dark stars and bubblegum.  Since it was conference Sunday, we went to my parents house and had a yummy breakfast.  After conference Ellery got some presents from my family...Tangled, Just Dance for kids, dress, shoes, new outfit, and a remote control truck.  I think she loves all of her presents because every time I ask her what her favorite one was she says something different.  We played her Just Dance game and oh my goodness, she is so funny to watch dance!!  She chose her birthday dinner which was chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli, and refried beans.  To end the day we had birthday cake.  She wanted an Angry Birds cake, so that's what we made her.  Jacob made the birds and the pigs, and he helped me assemble it together.  I liked the way it turned out despite how bad the frosting job was and the fact that the cake broke while I was getting it out of the pan.  I can't believe how big she has gotten.  Ellery is so silly, crazy and funny.  We love having her in our family.

Cloth diaper and pre-birthday dinner.

The other day Aayla had a really bad diaper rash.  She kept waddling when she walked and when I held her she wouldn't let her bottom touch me at all.  Poor girl.  I wanted to let her bottom air out for a while without her diaper, but I didn't want her peeing all over the carpet.  So I grabbed a cloth diaper that has never been used as a diaper but rather a burp cloth, and pinned it on her!!  I thought she looked so funny, and she even thought it was a little weird and kept grabbing at it. 

 Tonight we all went to IHOP to celebrate Ellery's birthday (which is tomorrow).  She has been asking both Jacob and I to take her there ever since we moved to Springville.  Since her birthday is on Sunday we decided to go today.  Ellery makes me laugh.  She is the silliest, most grown up girl.  She had no problem talking to our waitress and telling her what she wanted.  She is much braver than me when I was younger.  She ordered her food but instead of her eggs scrambled she ordered them poached.  What 4-year-old asks for poached eggs???  Mine does!!  Then after our drinks were brought to us, she asked our waitress for a lemon.  When we were getting ready to leave, she again blurted out to our waitress, "Can I get a box for my food?"  Nobody even asked her if she wanted one, she just asked!  Seriously, she makes me laugh. 

 Here she is drinking her yoke from her poached egg that was very runny.  Eww eww eww.

Aayla was on the naughty list though.  She is starting to be pretty picky and particular about everything.  She wanted to drink all by herself and eat her food and everyone else's food and who knows what else she wanted, but she wanted it and she let everyone know.  Oh well, we still love her even though the sweet little happy baby she once was is turning into a tantrum throwing, whining, crying toddler.  :)

Celery and the Jedi

Sometimes I wish I carried around a video camera and/or a voice recorder whenever I'm around Ellery and Aayla. El's has been saying more and more funny things lately, especially her nightly prayers - they're much less repetitious and much more... well... heartfelt I'm sure, at least in her eyes - but she does pray for some funny things. The other night for FHE she prayed that we could go get ice cream afterward. A's is getting so big - I guess that's a normal part of life. But it's nice to see her learning and growing. The past few days she's REALLY seemed to start using more of her sign language and even seems to try to verbally communicate more too... although, everything still just comes out as a series of babbles, at which she just laughs.

I wanted to just post a couple recent picts of each of the girls. It's difficult to get a picture of Ellery with her clothes on so here's one of her showing off her leprechaun socks grandma and grandpa Roper gave her.



As you all know, Aayla LOVES to eat, so I had to throw an eating pict in.


Today we all had a picnic in our neighbor's yard (it's okay, we know them)... we don't get grass for another four weeks. That can seem like a long ways off, but when there's still SO much to get done before it gets here, I'm almost wishing I had a couple extra weeks!



Aayla is a pretty smiley baby.