Elly 10 months old

She is so fun! She is 16.3 lbs. and 26 inches of fun! She is a little shorty...just like mom so far.  We are now putting ponytails and pigtails in her hair much to her dismay :) She has 4 teeth...two bottom and the two side tops ones. She is a vampire just in time for the last twilight movie to come out. She is very mobile...she climbs all the way to the top of the stairs. I won't let her try going down yet. She scares me. She loves to smile, laugh, and dance! She really loves the backyardigans. She gets all excited when that comes on and she dances right along to all the music. She loves when her dad plays his guitar. She pulls herself up on the furniture and is so proud of herself that she can stand there like a big girl. She says mama, dada, baba, yaya, and hi. She is a really good little girl. She really loves daddy...she definitely prefers him to anyone else in the family. He loves that she is such a daddy's girl. She gives good kisses and likes to bonk heads. She waves backwards and loves to talk. We are so blessed to have her in this house. Love this girl.

Halloween 2012

Halloween was super fun this year. The Monday before Halloween the kids didn't have school so we spent the day getting ready for our family Halloween fun. We always do a Halloween dinner and this year we added makeup! We were all zombiefied and scary. We ate mummy dogs, bloody intestines, and worms...and drank blood with a hand floating in it. We carved our pumpkins and had a great time doing it. On Halloween we had just the 2 girls and Tony had to work so we headed over to Grandpa and Grandma Olsen's house. Grandma made Melissa and Elly's costumes, so we got them all dressed up and headed to the church for a Halloween party and then hit the neighborhood for some trick or treating. SO fun! Elly was a beautiful little snow white and Melissa was a beautiful Belle (She's waited 3 years to be Belle) Steve was the Lone Ranger and he went trick or treating with us. He didn't know quite how to respond when someone asked Melissa how fun it was to have Daddy out trick or treating with her. Neither of them responded and they walked away. Haha...later she was like, uh he's not my dad.  It was so fun and I'm glad we got celebrate! Love Halloween :)

Oregon Coast

 

The 26th of October 2012, would have been my 10th wedding anniversary to Joe. 

We decided that we needed to fill this time with new memories so that I don't get so sad...because I know Joe is so happy with where I am at. There is no way we could have afforded a vacation, but because we have wonderful friends and family, we were able to take a vacation. SO...Tony took me to the one place I've been wanting to go for a very long time...the Oregon Coast. It was a quick trip, but one of the funnest vacations I think I've ever been on. We slept the first night in the car, woke up and headed to a beach and spent the morning combing the beach for shells. We then went up the coast and stopped at the Sea Lion Caves, even though we actually didn't go down there. We did see the Heceta Light house, so we headed up to the lighthouse and checked that out as well as more beach, and caves. We checked into our Motel after that, got cleaned up and ate lunch at Mo's. (Holy yummy clam chowder!) I was in seafood heaven! We relaxed for a bit and then ate pizza. (That is only fair because he suffered through the seafood) We ate at Abby's pizza...mine was really good though, so I didn't suffer through pizza like he suffered through seafood. He is a good sport :) We checked out all the little shops and then headed home in the morning. Very short, but VERY fun. I loved every minute of it...and I very much enjoyed the time alone with Tony. We don't get that very often, so it was especially nice. I am so blessed to have Tony as a husband! How blessed am I to have found 2 exceptionally amazing men in my life!

October 21st

I cannot tell you how blessed I am to have found Tony. He allows me to grieve when I need to and he is so thoughtful and understanding. It's always hard on this day and he always does the right things. I am truly blessed to have him. It was a Sunday this year. I really had every intention of just getting up and going to church, but we didn't make it. We spent the day going to see my family, some of his family, and then up to the cemetery. Just relaxing and spending the afternoon up there brought such a feeling of peace that I didn't want to leave...even though Melissa had to go to the bathroom in the worst way. We stalled as long as we could, but she couldn't wait any more. As we were driving out of the cemetery, we found a bathroom. She went in and Tony thought it would be funny to scare her. So he went and yelled and pounded on the door. What he didn't know was that she hadn't sat down yet so she peed a little in her pants when he scared her. I laughed so hard. Those two are so funny.  I had a harder time when we got home though. I think it was more than just what the day is to me. That is the day I allow myself to just let go and grieve. So everything that has been bothering me or has weighed me down flooded over me and I just let it all out. The whole month of October is so tough, but the week of the 21st through the 26th is always the hardest on me.

Boise Temple Open House

I can't wait for the temple to reopen so we can do sessions. Even more than that, I am SO excited that the kids were able to go with us to see the inside of the temple. To be able to show Melissa the room that Joe and I were married in was so exciting. For them to see how beautiful it is inside and to be able to be with the whole family in the temple was so fun. They all loved it and it was so fun to hear them say how much they wanted to get married there. So exciting! It is so beautiful and they did an amazing job on the renovation. It is beautiful, it has also changed a lot. I was worried that it would be so different that I wouldn't have any of my memories of Joe left...but it wasn't. I still had those memories and it was different enough that I can create new memories also. We are so blessed to have the temple nearby and I love that we will be able to go back soon!

Fun

Sometimes during difficult times you just have to laugh...at yourself. What better way to do that then distorting your face. I think these 3 girls and I just needed a really good laugh that day and this did the trick. So glad we took the time to just let go and laugh!

9 month Elly

 Here is our not so big 9 month old Elly. She weighs 16.3 lbs and is 26 inches tall. So in short (hee hee) she is a very petite little girl. Her height is in the 3rd percentile and her weight is in the 17th. We sure do love our little Elly bug! Her teeth are so cute...and sharp as everyone can attest to that. She also likes to use her fingernails on our faces. She loves her dad the most and I'm ok with that. She gets so excited when he comes home and prefers to be with him.

 As you can tell, she is one happy girl, when she isn't she only cries a little, but she screams and yells to let you know that she isn't happy. She's got a temper!

 We got the crib up for her and she absolutely LOVES to be in it. When I first put her in it she rolled from one end to the other giggling the whole way. What a goof!

 She likes to eat anything on the ground...bark, grass, rocks, and even sometimes dirty diapers if she can get to them. She has learned to tip the garbage can over to get to them...no worries, she hasn't been very successful with that. It's the effort that counts.

 I love that she is so photogenic and I can get really good pictures of her any day, and pretty much anytime. She must know that makes me happy :)

 If she doesn't have her binky, she's chewing on her fingers, mostly her thumb on the side, because her 3rd tooth has broken through...it's one of her eye teeth. Not the two front teeth. So now she has a fang.

 She has discovered all kinds of tastes this month...Sweet and sour mostly. Mustard was probably my favorite face.

Her facial expressions crack me up. Enough said...

Audrey's 1st concert

Audrey is in the select treble choir this year and she absolutely LOVES it! She is always singing her songs at home. She was pretty excited about wearing her very pretty dress to the concert this time too. She looks amazing in her dress and she did an excellent job singing at the concert. So proud of her and so happy that she has found something she really enjoys doing...not to mention, I absolutely LOVE going to high school choir concerts. Those kids always do an amazing job ;)

Pumpkin Harvest

I have always loved growing pumpkins. This year was especially good in the pumpkin patch. We were able to pick 30 pumpkins! Yay for lots of pumpkins! So fun for the kids and for me to be able to freeze some and make pumpkin stuff throughout the year.

Elena's Birthday

Elena turned 12 on September 27th. We had so much going on that day that we couldn't do her birthday party, so we had her party on the 1st of October. It was fun watching her open her presents and as always so fun to have family come over. Ame and her kids, Grandma and Grandpa Flores, and Mike were able to come. Poor Mike really wanted to hold Elly, but she cries whenever she looks at him. So sad! We are working on it though :) I'm glad Elena had a good birthday!

Family Time

Good times! So we have decided to do better about family time and individual time with the kids. We went over to the kids' elementary school and just had a good time playing and swinging. Good family fun. We came up with a Family Home Evening for every week for the whole year...We have them on pieces of paper and the majority of them are a free activity. We pick them out of a jar for the month so we know exactly what we are doing. It is nice to be able to know exactly what we are doing. Look at us being rock stars!

Botanical Gardens

So this was a very fun day :) There happened to be a free day at the botanical gardens...and it was a bonsai and Koi fish exhibit. So I packed the girls up, headed to Boise, and just hoped that someone would like to have a fun day with us. It was our lucky day because Grandma, Steph, and Cameron and Dillon were able to come with us and it turned into a great day of fun. Sometimes it is nice to do something fun...and luck would have it that day that it was free!! Win, win! We all enjoyed looking at the fish, and the plants.

Elly is 8 months old!!

 Miss Elizabeth is 8 months! This month she is crawling!! WAHOO!! She has learned lots of cute things that makes us smile everyday. Her personality comes out every day and as she gets older she has shown a huge love for her daddy. She loves when he comes home...she wants him and prefers him when he's home.

She has also graduated to the big girl tub. Yay for Elly!! We sure love her and all of her funny little things she does.

Gardening

So I've been working hard on our garden this year. We've had a million zucchini's...exaggeration of course, but not too far off. Our freezer is full of shredded and chopped zucchini. We are all excited about the amount of pumpkins this year too...at least 37 pumpkins. SO exciting. We were able to enjoy some watermelon, cherry tomatoes, and green peppers. We are still waiting for our sunflowers to make it. It was fun watching the sunflowers grow to see how tall they were going to get. I think we had one that reached an estimate of 10 feet. So tall! So I've been doing lots of canning this year. My total number of jars canned this year so far is over 100. Yay for preserved food! I went over to Iris and Bill's house and got produce weekly to can...LOTS of tomatoes and cucumbers. We are very thankful for their generosity. Grandma Flores and Grandma Olsen has helped quite a bit this time of year with the canning also. I love all my moms :) They all take really good care of me and my family.  We are so blessed! We've been paying tithing, being frugal, and praying hard for finances to work out. We are trying to have faith that those prayers will be answered soon!