"A Utah Fan am I"

If you can't tell, we are University of Utah fans. Jake and I have each been able to attend a football game with my dad. Each time, Ellie has asked if she could go. Finally came the game my dad could attend, Utah vs. Washington State. When we told Ellie we were going to a game, she was so excited. Although the game was a blow out, the girls really enjoyed being at the game.

 

The family that sits around us really loved the girls. We had such a good time.

 

I had Jake and the girls pose for this picture and apparently the TV camera guy behind us thought the picture was cute because he snapped one too and used it at the end of the game. They were on TV. Luckily fellow Utah fans from Denver were watching the game and told us.  



 

Proud daddy, happy Sammi, and cheeser Ellie.

 The family behind us took this shot.

The next week, we went to a Utah basketball game with Poppy DeVon. Again, the girls had a blast. Ellie ran every where and danced to ever song. Poppy DeVon, along with help from my Uncle Russ, was able to catch a ball thrown into the stands. Ellie loved it.

Maybe soon Ellie will be able to sing the Utah man song. Go Utes!

Little Crazy People

We have some little crazy people. Ellie even took a class through Sandy City called Little Crazy People. It was a fun class where she could play and meet new people. If you are looking for something fun for a little crazy person, look into this class.

We took a trip to the new Scheels store here. Of course, with athletic gear and outdoor gear, it is a good combination for our family.

They have these fun photo op spots around the top level.

Bears don't scare me.

Caught my fish.

We love Elk rides.

Here was the scariest part of the evening, letting Ellie hold Sammi for the following picture.

Loving sisters.

Ellie loves yelling and screaming with family.

Ellie, wearing Kelsey's dress, and doing lifts with Uncle Devin.

She is mischievous and loves getting into things. It doesn't always turn out the way she likes.

Daddy, help me out. I'm stuck.

One day she tried jumping from the couch to the chair and missed. Later that day, she pulled the piano bench over on her. I guess one day, she'll learn.

Sammi is just as funny. She loves holding things in her mouth. She rolls everywhere and does the funniest crawl. It starts with her lifting onto her elbows and knees and rocking. She then tips forward onto her chest. At which point she has to roll onto her back because her arms are pinned under her.

Yummy lion. GGRRR!

I love my little crazy people.

Sammi is 6 months

Sammi is 6 months old. Sometimes I can't believe it. She weighs 16.5 lbs (58th percentile) and around 28 inches (above 95th percentile). She has mastered rolling. She can roll to any location she wants. So far, any other movement is just backwards.

GGRRR!!!

 Sammi has started eating cereals, fruits and veggies. It took us a little while to figure out how she wanted to the cereal. Since day one, she has liked mashed potato consistency cereal. If you try to feed her something she doesn't like, she gags on it. Not to the point of throwing up but exactly the way a pouting child would. As annoying as it is, it still made me laugh.

 

Sammi loves her sister. Whenever Ellie is around, she giggles and smiles. If she is crying, Ellie can sing (ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle, or any primary song she knows) and Sammi stops. She is still a little finicky about taking naps.

She is a very loving child. She still likes to cuddle and give kisses. I believe baby kisses keep you looking young.

Love you lots baby girl.

Happy Halloween

I love Halloween. I don't know why, but I kinda have this thing for Holidays and decorating. The minute Ellie opened her Merida dress and after we went to see the movie (Brave), she decided she was going to be Princess Merida for Halloween. Sadly I don't think, other than being able to wear the dress around, she understood what Halloween meant. Luckily we were going to make up for Ellie never having been Trick or Treating before. (Her 1st year, she was only a few weeks old. The 2nd, we decided to go watch Utah v Air Force down in Colorado Springs. 3rd year was spent in the ER.)

 

Our neighborhood "Trunk or Treat" was the Friday before. Ellie let me put her hair up in sponge curlers. Apparently she has a little of my hair somewhere in there. 

 

Pretty Princess Merida.

Look at those curls!

I did try to find a good costume for the rest of us, but sadly no one made any Queen Elinor (Merida's mom) or adult bear costumes. Had I found one of those, I would have made Sammi a bear and Jake would have been King Fergus (Merida's dad, complete with kilt). So I just wore cat ears and a tail and Sammi wore mouse ears. It took Ellie a few cars to figure out what was going on but once she understood, she moved fast. Although still a little shy, she usually just whispered trick or treat.

One night, as tradition holds, Ellie and I carved pumpkins and watched Garfield's Halloween. Ok, so I carved pumpkins while she watched the movie. This year she wouldn't even help me clean out the innards. Don't get too excited, I'm not that talented at carving.

I guess as a way of compensating for the terrible Halloween last year, I over did the trick or treat thing this year. On Halloween, we went to a neighborhood senior living/memory care facility where Ellie gathered another bucket of candy. After we went to visit my grandma.  After some naps, we traveled up to Wanship for "Trunk or Treat" up there with Jake's family and then came home and made a few strategic stops at houses around our neighborhood. All in all, Ellie collected 2 full buckets of candy. She was so excited.

Cell phone pic: Complete costume with bow and arrows.

What about Sammi? Well, being only 6 months, she didn't trick or treat. As Ellie would say, "She can't eat candy. She don't have teeth." I still dressed her up. On Halloween, I tried to throw together a fairy costume but she kept breaking the wings. She still looked way cute.

Flower Power Sammi

2 cute girls.

P.S. After napping in sponge curlers and having her hair pulled a little while taking them out, Ellie wouldn't let me use them again. I just had to curl it with a curling iron.

I have a 3 year old

I know I am way behind on this but Happy Birthday Ellie. We had a fun celebration with family and  only celebrated one time. We had family over for dinner. Jake smoked a LOT of meat and it was delicious. In between looking at pictures and videos of the Tough Mudder (which had taken place the day before), we song, ate cake and ice cream, and opened presents. 

 

Blowing out her candles.

Daddy picked out such an awesome cake.

Ellie received some awesome presents and has used all of them already and most almost daily.

The princess Merida dress that she wore for Halloween.

She wore the dress daily for several hours for about 3 weeks straight.

Her princess tent that all the presents stay in.

 Apparently bags were the head wear of choice for the night.

Here's Braden in a bag.

Why are the kids in my family so funny?



Ellie, you are such a wonderful girl. I love that you are such a great helper; with Sammi, putting away the dishes, doing the laundry, cleaning the yard, etc. Your little sister loves you so much. She laughs so much when you play and talk with her. You bring such joy to our life. I love how you love to learn and try new things. I love that you eat vegetables and like them. Although you drive me bonkers with how adventureous and dare devil like you are, I love that you enjoy doing things and are so active.  Whenever you ask to sing songs, especially when Sammi is crying, it makes my heart melt. You are such a great daughter.  I love you so much.

We like animals.

Apparently, we like animals and doing things with cousins. One nice day, we hung out at Wheeler Farm.

Although I don't have any pictures, there were animals at the farm and we did find out that workers are given eggs and milk, etc from the animals and all farm animals are caged. Any animal not in a cage (wandering around free) was most likely just dropped off or decided to hang out while passing by.

Playing in the tree house.

We rode a wagon around the farm. I didn't know it was really that larger. Apparently you can camp in the area east of the farm. Crazy, right?

Wagon ride

A few days later we went to the Zoo.  

Baby birds in the Eagles nest.

The new Rocky Shores is pretty neat. I really liked the seal/sea lion enclosure. Sammi didn't pay much attention to the animals but loves being outdoors and around the kids.

Of course there was a Carousel ride.

We got to see the new baby giraffe. The giraffes are receiving a new enclosure at the zoo. It looks to be pretty fun, almost like the one at Cheyenne Mtn Zoo where you can feed the giraffes. We are excited. Although until its done, the entire area over by the Discovery playground is closed because that's where the enclosures will be located as part of the African Savanna.

That poor, cute thing dropped almost 4 feet to the ground at birth.

We sure love animals. 



 

Jake's Tough Mudder

So after running the Dirty Dash, Jake felt pretty good about running the Tough Mudder. Go thing too because he had already registered and paid for everything. I am proud of him and excited that he was able to do something with his brothers.

Sadly, the Tough Mudder is a rotten organization in my book. They make the appearance that they make large donations to the Wounded Warrior Project. Unfortunately the only donations made are ones of friends and family of the participants. Then on top of the outrageous registration fee ($100+), spectators have to pay $20 bucks to watch, unless you buy at the gate at which point it is $40. Because of the spectator cost, I didn't attend.

Luckily for me, most of Jake's family attended and they have awesome pictures. Not so lucky, I don't have copies yet. Luckily, I don't have to pick which pictures to post. Sadly, I don't have pictures to post. Maybe one day I will proudly display muddy pictures of my husband working together with his brothers and a few friends to complete the course.

Healing Field and Armed Forces

Ever since Sandy City started the Healing Field the first year after 9/11, I have loved going. There is an amount of awe seeing the large amounts of flags and remembering those from the attacks. This year, the size of the field shrank. Instead of completely covering the fields to the south of Sandy City Hall, only the grass area of Sandy City Hall had flags. They no longer represented all those from the attacks, just those who have died serving since the attacks. Sadly, there were still too many flags.

 

I love walking/running through the flags. It was hard to explain to Ellie that these flags represent people who have died while trying to protect us. I am grateful for people who have the desire to serve and do so.

 

I wish they received more support for their decision, how ever it may come. I was watching TV and the show on was talking about how the nation they were in celebrates their Armed Forces day with parades and parties, showing their thanks and appreciation. Maybe I'll try and start celebrating it bigger as well; 3rd Saturday in May.

 

This is the section for those who have died from Utah. They are labeled
with names, ages, and other bits of info.