9 months old and cheap fun

This kept her entertained for quite a while, I just have to make sure she's not eating pieces of plastic. Ellie has learned another tongue trick...purring. She can roll her tongue fast now so that she sounds like a purring cat! She cracks me up. Tonight we had FHE and she was the activity. Nate and I watched her, laughed and played with her for quite a while before the lesson. She loves to climb on top of us as her ladder, giving her access to oh so many fun things, like the laptop. She caught Nate's cold late last week, so we've been having fun sucking out her snot. It seriously is a torture session. I have to pin her whole body between my legs, keeping her head contained, while Nate then sucks out her nose (of course with the bulb syringe, though he says once on the mission he saw a mother suck out her kids nose with her mouth, ugh. I think he said she was either South American or African. Definitely not a Spaniard thing). Well, on that pleasant thought, I'm off to bed.

last minute adventure

I got a tip last week from my sister in law about a child's hiking backpack she saw on craig'slist and we ended up buying it. It can be used as a stroller in addition to the pack. I was driving home from visiting teaching last Friday morning, windows down, wind blowing through my hair and I thought "this would be a great day to try out that new pack and go on a hike." I got inside the house and Ellie was in bed. So, after telling Nate of my plan for the afternoon, we put together a sack lunch (which we ended up eating in the car on the way home), a bag for Ellie's stuff (man, the bigger she gets, the more stuff goes into that bag. Glad that once she hits a certain age she'll be able to carry all her stuff in her very own big girl bag), and then we waited for her to wake up. Once up, we hit the road. We found a quick hike not too far from the PIR. Our last hike was in the Provo Canyon, so this hike was a little anti climatic, being in the barren wasteland we live in. But, as Nate said, if you stop long enough and are still you can find life, and quite a bit of it, out there in that saguaro cemetery. At least there was plenty of quail, if anyone ever wants to go quail hunting, though I don't know if they do that here or not. Anyways, the pack worked great, we enjoyed our short 2 mile hike in the not hot weather, and then raced back home for the rest of our scheduled day. When I got back and had to use my dirty bathroom I remembered all the things on my cleaning list. But, those will always be there; nice weather and a mid morning with nothing "scheduled" rarely happens!










"where's the baby?"

what daddy and ellie do while mommy is sleeping

getting so big

nate calls this her "lord of the dance" look


good at throwing tantrums


still deciding if she likes the dog...she finally warmed up to her.

Ellie's busy morning

playing with the recycling, walking around the table, practicing with her sippy cup, playing with her toy, going for a walk, being pensive, reading a book, helping mom with the dishes, phew!

What Ellie has been up to...

She has found the stairs, the vcr/dvd player, and she loves eating her bananas!

First Halloween