Merry Christmas!

Elly Quotes

Mom, from the other room: Elly, what are you doing?

Elly: Just playing with the activity, Mom.

I come around the corner to see...oh...

The NATIVITY.

BOY

He doesn't talk yet, but we wanted to document some of the awesome things that Boy does. So this series of posts will be similar to Elly Quotes, but for Boy. So, here's some catching up:

Boy got a runny nose a few months ago and detested having his nose wiped. He would go to great lengths to get away from any tissue looking item heading for his face at all, including hitting my hands, shaking his head from side to side, etc. Then, one morning I walked into the bathroom to wipe his nose. He again protested but I won the wrestle. After wiping his nose, I threw the tissue in the toilet and flushed. He was mezmorized. He squirmed out of my arms to get closer to this amazing discovery. Every time I tried to wipe his nose after that- as long as I did so in the bathroom by the toilet- he would gladly let me do it without putting up a fight so that he could watch that tissue swirl down the toilet drain.


This is me with Boy heading to the Live Nativity at my parents' Stake Center last week. We LOVE this new scrunchie nosed smile that Boy does all the time now:

Elly Quotes

(Eating dinner)

Elly:  Dad, isn't that chicken delicious?

Brandon:  Yeah, it sure is.

Elly:  I can't even get my head out of that chicken.  It's so good!

Our Grateful Tree

I got this fantastic Thanksgiving idea from my friend, Anna (Thanks, Anna!). We did this for Family Home Evening on Monday. We had a lesson about being grateful (thanks to the Prophet) then, we each put several leaves on the Grateful Tree. I just took a big branch off of one of the trees in my back yard, cut the leaves out of felt and we put them on the tree using safety pins.

Here are some of our leaves (the pen didn't write super well on the felt):

Family -Elly

Holy Ghost -Daddy

Music -Mommy

Elly offered to write one for Miles -Bed

4 Years Old!

This girl is 4 years old today. I don't know how that happened. It went by so fast. We love almost every minute of her, though.

Today, she requested these waffles for birthday breakfast and healthy chocolate milk. She also requested the birthday present she accidentally found when I gave her a time out in the room I was hiding it in yesterday (whoops). Then, she went to dance class where she shared donut holes from Provo Bakery with everyone. Right now, she is playing with two of her favorite friends. And later, a friend of ours is coming to watch Miles (Thanks, Elisa!) while Mommy and Daddy take Elly out for a special birthday dinner and ice cream all by herself. She has requested Panda Bear Food for dinner. It's going to be a good birthday.  We love you, Elly bear!

A Tea Party Birthday

Elly is turning 4 tomorrow, so we celebrated on Saturday and had 7 of her friends over for a little Tea Party. It was super fun and several parents have told me that their girls have wanted to have tea parties non-stop since then.

The Email Invitation

I bought tea cups at D.I. and let each girl take hers home.  I painted their names on little wooden hearts for place cards. 

I bought the roses at Costco and put them in this cute white pitcher.

As each girl arrived, I took a picture of her with Elly.  This is Elly's cousin, Lily.

Elly's playmate from the neighborhood and our ward, Addy.

The table

We had so much fun serving them hot chocolate and I pulled out some herbal tea, too. We let them put their own marshmallows or sugar cubes in their drinks. I think one girl put 10 sugar cubes in her tea. It was hilarious. My favorite was the little girl who asked to switch her tea and have hot chocolate instead "this tea just tastes like water"...indeed.

Elly and Ayda...isn't her hat adorable?

The stirring with the tea bags was a little tricky.

Ahhh, the presents!

It's cupcakes for our parties from now on...sooo much easier and no one has to eat a piece of cake that the birthday girl/boy has spit on!

Boy is 9 Months Old!

Here are some facts about Boy at 9 months:

Boy would like to be doing this all day long (playing on the computer)...like his daddy.

Boy is still smiling...at everything.

Boy is curious about everything and is super fast at crawling.  He pulls himself up on all the furniture and I saw him trying to climb the bookshelf the other day!  Boy is a boy.

Elly is his favorite playmate...

He even likes it when she does stuff like this to him!

He just loves the heck out of her!

He even smiles when he does this.  He still does it...just not as much as he used to.

California Vacation

We went to California at the end of September and spent a few days in San Diego and a couple of days at Disneyland.  Here are a couple of highlights:

Elly loved the water attractions at California Adventure.  It was pretty hot, so I can't blame her for not really wanting to do anything else.



My cousin lives in San Diego, so we got to hang out with them.  Elly loved playing with their kids and their kids' friends at the beach at Mission Bay.  They had a great time collecting sand crabs.

Elly Quotes

Completely out of the blue:

Elly:  Mom, what did it feel like when baby Miles was in your tummy?

Lacy:  Uh.....

Halloween 2010

My Sister, Keri, did it again!   She crafted (with no pattern whatsoever) this amazing traditional "cowgirl" costume for Elly.  (Last year, she did the same thing with Elly's Belle costume.)She is completely amazing.  I hope we never move too far away for her to make Elly's costume every year.  Elly LOVED it and thought it was the best thing ever to wear around.  Elly dressed up a total of 4 times this Halloween.  This is right before our Ward Party:

 

The chaps were a little difficult to keep in place, but that's my fault (I was supposed to pin them).

On Friday, we went to the BIG Adobe Halloween event.  The employees spend countless hours transforming their offices into a "spook alley" that people can walk through and get candy.  Each building on the campus had a theme and each department had a part of the theme.  It was pretty darn elaborate with offices decorated like Shrek, Sesame Street, Super Mario Bros, Avatar, Board Games, Video Games, etc, etc.  Elly was already wearing her dorothy costume (that my sister made for her own daughter years ago); she uses it for dress up now.  So, I slapped some ruby slippers on her, braided her hair and grabbed one of her stuffed dogs and a basket.  Voila!  Two Halloween costumes in one year:

Boy was the absolute most adorable monkey on the planet (a costume I picked up at Target- I can't abuse Keri too much).

Someone snapped a quick photo of our family after the Adobe event:

PS, sorry about the gigantic photos, I'm working on it.

Miles is Mobile

Miles has been crawling for about 2 months now.  He's super fast, pulls himself up to everything, and pretty much wreaks havoc wherever he goes.  Here's a little clip of the crawling and standing action:



Tonight we came into the playroom and found him walking like this for the first time:

Elly Quotes

We have a nice view of the valley from our front porch and family room, and almost every evening we get to enjoy an amazing sunset (this picture doesn't do it justice).  I was looking at the sunset the other evening, and had this quick exchange with Elly.

Brandon:  Elly, come see the beautiful sunset!  The sky is all orange.

Elly:  Dad, I've seen that like a thousand times.

Elly Quotes

Yesterday, Lacy was "testing" Elly based on her 4-year check-up questionnaire.  It had questions like, "Can your child catch a ball?" and "Does your child use articles like 'the' and 'a'?".  Lacy was going through the list out loud and Elly was helping her answer.

Lacy: Do others understand your child when he/she speaks?

Elly:  Yup.

Lacy:  Does your child understand others when they speak?

Elly:  Well, I don't understand Spanish.  But I understand English.

Follow the Prophet

For Elly's sake, we call General Conference "Follow the Prophet".  It makes more sense to her than "General Conference".  The other day we were re-watching one of Pres. Eyring's talks and taking some notes.  Elly wanted to take notes too, so I suggested she draw a picture.  This is what resulted:

I have to say: not too shabby for an almost-four-year-old.  I love his hair (or lack of) and the fact that his mouth is open because he's speaking.

Elly on Campus

Today Elly and I had a Daddy Date.  We went to lunch (she always chooses Panda Express) and then went to the BYU Bookstore on campus to get a couple of things.  Lacy was in Salt Lake, so I let Elly dress herself.  Because it was raining when we left, she grabbed this awesome leopard print coat, which she decided to wear on her head after the rain stopped.

BTW, Fall in Utah is pretty amazing.  The leaves are all changing right now, so we often go for a drive or walk just to look at all the colors.

Elly and Ava Playing "Haircut"

Our good friends The Greens live in Las Vegas, and we stopped and stayed a couple of nights with them on our way to California over the summer.  Their adorable little girl, Ava, and Elly are only a few months apart and are pretty much best friends - or would be if we saw each other more often.

Here's a little clip of them playing "Haircut".  Well, Elly's playing anyway.  I think about half way through this video Ava is ready to be done, but once Elly finds a playmate, she doesn't let her go easily.

Elly Quotes- Halloween Edition

Elly: Mom, why do you always feel like someone is watching you?

Me: What?

Elly: You said you always feel like someone is watching you.

I finally realized that she heard me singing this in the car after hearing it in a store.

Elly Quotes - Dead Edition

Elly (to her friend, Rory):  Let's play "Sleeping Like Dead"!

Rory:  Yeah!

Lacy:  Elly, what's "Sleeping Like Dead"?  That sounds like a scary game.

Elly:  It's where you pretend you're sleeping, but everybody thinks you're dead.

(I guess this comes from watching Snow White over and over again, and maybe Sleeping Beauty too.)

Elly Quotes

"Mommy, there's something beautiful in here...and it's my toes."

Elly and Miles on the iPod

Elly was showing Miles a little game on the iPod...and making noises at him...and licking him.

Miles Peekaboo

And...

Elly Quotes

On the way to school today, Elly got to sit in her new booster chair.  She was pretty excited that it had armrests, cupholders, and no special straps - that is, that the car seat belt goes over her instead of the car seat harness.

Brandon:  Elly, what do you think of your new seat?

Elly:  It's great!  I'm just like a big, old lady!

Brandon:  Wha?

Elly:  I get to use the seat belt from the car, like a grown-up lady does.

The Baby Whisperer

(Make sure you click through to the actual blog post in order to see the video.)

We saw this video about the Puppy Whisperer, so we thought we'd give it a try on Miles...cuz, well...he's kind of like a puppy.  Anyway, it apparently puts him in a trance.

Oh yeah, and Elly's in a princess dress of course.

Elly Quotes

Elly:  Dad, watch this!  (She begins spinning around)


Brandon:  Oh, are you going to get dizzy and fall down?

Elly:  No.  The house is going to spin and move all around.  Watch!

(After a moment she stops and looks around)


Elly:  Look!  It's moving!

(I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I couldn't see it, so...)


Brandon:  Cool!

Elly Quotes

We have a big unfinished basement room where we keep all our stuff (read: boxes and boxes of crap we don't use anymore). Elly had wandered in there from around the corner where we had been together.

Me: "Elly, where are you?"

Elly: "I'm in the baby section."

Miles is 7 Months Old!

 
 
 
 

We love this shirt that Adobe sent us in the mail as a gift for Miles' birth (I wish I had one just like it!). Miles is still the best! We all just love him so much. He's so easy going. He lets other people hold him and gives strangers smiles. He sleeps through the night (most of the time). He is the smiley-est person on the planet. He loves technology; if there is a screen (TV, iPod, phone, computer) anywhere in the room, he heads directly for it. He has the best belly laugh ever. He likes food. Mashed potatoes is a favorite as well as frozen peas, "puffs", and blueberry muffin (thanks, Daddy!). He likes to get in the shower and scoot around on his tummy, but ends up playing with the drain the entire time, trying to stick his fingers in it. The water pours down on him. He comes out with his eyes all red; but, he doesn't care. His favorite thing now is rolling over during a diaper change. This is not something I love about Miles. But, he's usually laughing all the while so I can't really be mad.

LOVE HIM!

Elly Quotes

Elly learned about Australia in preschool today, so we talked about it on the way home:

Mom: "Elly, did you know that I have a friend from Australia?"

Elly: "What's her name?"

Mom: "Esther."

Elly: "Oh! Cause she's from Estheralia!" (As if to say, Of Course!)

Elly Quotes

Elly is almost 4 and still pretty dedicated to sucking her thumb. This is causing us some concern. So, today I tried to scare Elly out of sucking her thumb by explaining the concept of "buck teeth" and the resulting braces. She looked a little confused, so I offered to show her pictures online.

Me (pointing to the grossest pictures): "Elly, if you keep sucking your thumb, you'll have to have these metal pieces glued to your teeth."

Elly: "Mom, that will be really pretty...see?" (pointing to the kids who had different colored elastics on their braces...halloween colors, christmas colors, pastels.)

Plan officially backfired. I should've known that to her braces are like jewelry for your teeth!

Elly Quotes: Heart Breaking Edition

Elly threw a complete fit today. Both kids had fallen asleep on the way home from the grocery store and both had woken up in really bad moods. Boy was screaming and Elly started to scream and cry because I couldn't carry them both up the stairs at the same time and I left her in the basement while I took Boy upstairs to his bed.

Over her screaming and crying, I told her that when she was all done crying I would be happy to talk to her. But, until then, she would need to stay in the basement all alone. She screamed and cried for a good 10 minutes or so. And then, I heard this through the tears...

Elly: "But Mommy, I love you, Mommy... I still love you."

And then my heart broke.

But, I did NOT go down there and get her. Sheesh, she has to learn somehow!

She did eventually stop crying (after about 15 minutes) and we had a good talk about being a big girl.

Elly Quotes

Lacy has this thing about milk.  It can't sit out for more than like 15 seconds before she drinks it.  If it sits out too long, she has to dump it and get a new glass.  Apparently, Elly has it too.  Tonight at dinner her cup of milk had been out for about 5 minutes, and she'd been drinking it off and on.

Elly:  Dad, will you please get me some clean milk?

Brandon:  Clean milk?

Elly:  Yeah, this milk is dead.

Brandon (containing my laughter):  Dead?

Elly:  Yeah, it's dead.  So I need some clean milk.

Brandon:  Well, what do you mean it's "dead"?

Elly:  Look at it.  It's just, like, been there for a long time.

Brandon:  OK.  I'll get some clean milk.

Elly:  Thanks, Dad.

Rainbow Update

We've been looking for a rainbow all week, but no luck yet.  Except that our good friends Kevin and Bree Ahlstrom read our post last week and sent this picture to Elly.  They snapped it in the car on their phone.

How awesome are they?  Thanks, Kevin and Bree!

Miles Is Almost Crawling

Yeah, hold on to your hats.  This kid already has his hands in/on everything, and he just recently figured out how to kind of scoot around on his stomach.  He'll be crawling really soon.  Then things are going to get real crazy.  Elly never crawled, so this is uncharted territory for us.

Elly Quotes

Elly is pretty chatty with me in the morning on the way to school.  It's awesome.  Today we were talking about how much we love Mommy.

Elly:  "I love Mommy so much!"

Brandon:  "Me too."

Elly:  "When I grow up, I'm gonna be a mommy too."

Brandon:  "That's right.  You're gonna be such a good, smart, loving, beautiful mommy."

Elly:  "But first I need to find a man and get married."  (Yeah, she actually said 'find a man'.)

Brandon:  "That's true."

Elly:  "Then you and mom will be the grandma and grandpa."

Brandon:  "Yeah."

Elly:  "But how are you going to change your face and your voice?"

Brandon:  "What do you mean?  Grandmas and grandpas have different faces and voices?"

Elly:  "Yeah, they're all...like...different."

Boy is 6 months old!

And this is what his cute little face looks like most of the time:



He is so super smiley! We sure gave him the right name and Elly often calls him "sMiles"


Here he his showing off his new trick: He is ALMOST completely crawling.


...and back to smiling.


Miles is the best thing ever. We are so happy that he came into our family. He makes all of us laugh and we love playing with him everyday. He and Elly have a special thing going. When one of them is sleeping (or at school), the other one looks all over and waits. They crack each other up and love to cuddle together and watch "a show" together. Elly is super helpful when it comes to Miles. She always "babysits" him while I take a shower. She gets his toys and loves to feed him baby food. She checks on him when he's sleeping (on the monitor or in person). She reads him books and lets him lie right next to her. She is the best big sister and he LOVES her. Elly can make Miles smile or laugh when no one else can.

Miles loves to give kisses. He leans in close to your mouth and just waits there with it open for you to give him a kiss. It's the sweetest thing. Warning: Miles' kisses are extremely wet...but worth it.

Miles likes to "wrestle" with his dad. That usually means that Brandon rolls around with Miles in his arms and Miles- correction: both of them just laugh and laugh. They also like to watch Nightly News together, play the piano, look at screens (iPod screen, computer screen, cell phone screen, TV screen, etc.) and eat mashed potatoes.

Miles and I also have a little thing going. We mostly hang out late at night or early in the morning and mostly one of us is half asleep and wants to be completely asleep. But, we also love to cuddle during waking hours and one of us is VERY squirmy and doesn't like to cuddle as long as the other. But, we make it work and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this boy!