Ellie Update

While we were gone in March, Ellaria turned 1!

We were visiting my parents and the day of her birthday she was so sick, but took a taste of frosting on a cupcake.

Ellie with my mom.

RJ was feeling great on her birthday!

And even got his birthday presents from Grandma and Grandpa a month early!

Ellie's first year went so much faster than RJ's, we love this little girl!

She has some teeth and pretty much feeds herself.  She seems to be looking a little more like me.  Like RJ, around one year old it seemed I may have some genetic influence on her...which hopefully will continue as no girl wants to look like her dad in a wig.

Her hair is getting long enough we have to pull it up in a pigtail to keep it out of her eyes.  She's done crawling and walks now too! 

Here's Ellie recently walking,

here's her Easter outfit.

So far she only says Mama and Quack.

She's a little sweetie and still laughs like a man.  She's never been one to giggle, but always just roars when something is funny.

Sand Dunes in Delta

We spent the month of March in Rhett's hometown Delta.

He worked with the physicians there and we hung out with all the family there, going to basketball games, elementary volleyball games, and hung out with all the kids.

Rhett had to work the next day so he stayed home, but I took a bunch of the nieces and nephews to see the midnight showing of Hunger Games.  We were in 7-11 getting slurpees after at 2:30am on a Thursday school night and the checker did ask what we were doing.  It was a fun night.

 One night we took our kids and a few of the kids to the sand dunes a few miles east of Delta.  RJ loved them and still talks about going to the hand hills all the time.  

This photo cracks me up because RJ is built so much like his dad.  Check out those ham hock thighs. We have a photo of Rhett on the beach at about this same age with those same short, thick, beefy legs.  I guess it will be good when RJ's a teenager if those girl-tight skinny jeans are in there's no way those thighs will fit in them, or if they do he'll look like those ballerina hippos.

Ellie wasn't the biggest fan of the sand, but did OK. 

I stunk it up at sand boarding.

As much as I've ripped on Delta since I first went there prior to Rhett and I dating, it did seem almost pretty that night.

And "pretty" is never a word I've ever used when discussing Delta, Utah in my life.

I guess it's growing on me or Rhett's been brainwashing me these last 8 years.

Ellie Girl has Hippo Teeth

We've found RJ's little Radio Flyer bike works a lot better as a walker than the bulky one in the background.  The bike has 4 wheels so it's pretty stable and the perfect height for her to walk around.  She has had a tumble trying to get off herself, but walks around really well otherwise.

Here's our cute girl, she's 10 months old now. 

She's a light sleeper and hates to take naps. 

Shirt hat.

Here's the latest development.

Hippo snaggle teeth and piggy spikes.

Her hair was getting in her eyes and by the end of the day the tips of her bangs were crusted with food she'd rubbed in trying to get it out of her eyes.  I don't want to deal with bangs, so we're growing the hair out and so she now has cute little pig tail spikes.

RJ loves her new hair style and has told me at least 4 times today: "Mom Ellie's hair is so cute!"

Here's a better shot of her huge gap between her front teeth like her mom had and RJ

Thanksgiving

Rhett had to work again on Thanksgiving this year so I took the kids down to my mom's house in Highland where we had our family.  We broke off from going to my Grandma's a while ago, so it's nice to just have my parents and siblings and to have a really nice dinner on china and not sitting on a card table.

The huge paper plate Thanksgivings are fun too, but it was nice to have  fancy meal.

It was fun to see my parents since we don't see much of them now they live in St. George.  RJ especially loves my dad and had fun raking leaves all morning with him.

Lynette crocheted this hat and scarf for Ellie, and made her this little wool coat, and the lace fancy pants.

After dinner my dad, my brothers, and Lynette and Drew and myself went west of Utah lake to shoot guns.

I'd never really shot guns and it was really quite fun.  The weather was so unusually warm and nice.

 We took the left over pumpkins from my mom's porch to shoot.

  

Not all of us had ear protection.

This rifle was my dad's favorite.

I think my favorite was the .22

Herschel knows a butt-load about guns.

Here's my dad trying to get his ear plug out of his ear canal with Herschel's machete he got for his birthday that day.

The rest of the night was pretty lazy, except for Drew who threw RJ high in the air over and over. 

All in all a really great Thanksgiving.

RJ Menace

Trying to catch up on the last few months.

RJ cut his own hair with scissors...to the scalp.

In his defense, it was kind of my fault.  I put the clipper case in front of him and told him when he was done eating his breakfast I needed to cut his hair.  I went up to change out a load of laundry and came back to his new look.

Here's his technique.

Another occasion he gave him self a dry-erase marker beard and uni-brow.

He laughed and laughed when he saw what he looked like in the mirror.

{Notice his shaved head from the previous exploits.}