NYC

So Ellee & I made it back safely from a wonderful vacation to the Big Apple. Ben & Laura were great hosts and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves... to the point of exhaustion!
The picture above is just after we arrived in New York. Ellee and I had taken a little nap after our red-eye flight, yes, the same 5 hour flight in which my daughter only slept for 1/2 hour. Miserable. For both of us... and the rest of the passengers. Anyhow, Ellee wouldn't sleep any longer after our little nap and so I thought I'd get her dressed and go play with Laura and the girls. So I sat her down with me and she just wanted to snuggle. So I gladly accepted and then sat her next to me while I got her clothes out of the suitcase. Meanwhile, in the 20 seconds or so it took me to pick out her outfit, she was in this position above, sound asleep. So I too took advantage of this quiet moment to catch another snoozer for myself. Poor exhausted Ellee. However the rest of the day she was giving all of us the most delicious snuggles (and she is not a snuggler)... so maybe it was worth it.

Moving on.

Mary Poppins. The night started out with a train ride into the city. Then a taxi ride from Grand Central Station to the show. Not just any taxi though. The line was so long for the cabs that we went the non-convention route... the bike taxi. Yes, you heard (read) correctly. Who actually rides those things, you are thinking to yourself? Well, we did and it was wonderful... way faster than the standard taxi and we got a guided tour while en route. So great in fact that we did it on the way back to the train station too!

Next, we ate some good ol' New York pizza and off to the show we went.

I don't really have much to say except that it was absolutely wonderful! This was my first Broadway musical and I was not disappointed. I wasn't sure what to expect, but this exceeded all my expectations. I literally sat on the edge of my seat leaning over my knees the whole time. At one point they "blew" the stars into the audience and I got the chills... like dreams really do come true. Then when Mary Poppins herself flew over us at the end, I looked at Laura and we both had the happiest faces ever... you know the one that you had on the first time you walked into Disneyland... and I just felt the magic in the air! Wow. I highly recommend this musical to anyone and everyone! Thanks Ben for taking care of the girls for us!

The next day all of us girls hit the Bronx Zoo and had a blast there too.

The next day we trekked back into the city for some site-seeing with the girls.

First stop... Central Park.

Here is Emily doing a glamour shot for us!

We wandered the streets and headed up to the Giant Disney Store... they even had Aladdin there live in person!

Next stop... Rockefeller Center... Top of the Rock for the best view of the whole city that we could afford.

Here we are 67 stories up... you could see everything in the city! As you can see from the pictures below, Ellee was feeling extra loving and just wanted to kiss me instead of smile! Good enough for me!

The next day we drove over to see the Statue of Liberty... she was further away than I expected, but still, I saw her!

Then on to the Brooklyn Bridge. Today we were lucky enough to have Ben join us on our excursions. We parked on the Brooklyn side of the bridge and walked partway across far enough to get some good shots of the city and the bridge!

More Kisses!

So that is all for now. There are a few more shots that I want to post that Ben & Laura have on their camera, so you'll get to see those later! How lucky for you!

Magic.

More to come...

UT trip... more

Now almost a month ago, Ellee and I went down to Centerville, UT to visit my parents for my dad's birthday. We had a blast and did lots of fun things... including a trip to the zoo! Thanks to my dad's love for photography, we caught lots of Ellee on "film". This first set of pictures is just for fun, while Ellee was being super cute and smiley.

The next three are from the zoo.



Well, I had to post one last time before heading to the big apple! That's right, Ellee and I are off to NYC! My brother had a free ticket and couldn't wait any longer to see Ellee, so we are off! The flight leaves SLC at 11:50 pm and doesn't get to NY until 6:00 am or so! I'll let you know how that goes! Ooooh... we are also going to see Mary Poppins on Broadway and I am super excited for that! Not to mention hanging out with Laura and her girls all week, with the occasional glimpse of Ben! Well, more on this when I return. So for now... farewell!

I can hardly believe it!

She is walking! And she loves it! She walks to us and just before she gets there, she stops, looks around for everyone to watch and then claps profusely! She is so cute! And sometimes when we stand her up to start walking, she just looks at us and starts clapping and squealing with delight! It still isn't her first thought as far as modes of transportation go, unless she is already on her feet. But her knees still work pretty well, so that is still the go-to method of choice. We'll work on it!

What happened to a cool crisp fall?

Apparently here in Idaho we skip this season and jump right to this one... the cold one... the bitter one...
Snow in September! (yes is was just this last Saturday) You have got to be kidding me! I miss Iowa!
*apparently it was about 80 degrees or so this same day there*

Discovery

Ellee has reached the age of discovery. She is always busy and constantly learning. As she plays you can actually see the connections being made in her brain. She spends a lot of time rearranging our kitchen cupboards and putting the garbage in the toy box and the toys in the garbage (yeah, gross I know, I thought the garbage was out of reach!). Last week she was playing outside with her grandma helping her pick the dandelions and other weeds. Ellee kept busy by pulling those already picked dandelions out of the bucket, one by one, and then proceeded to put them back in the bucket, again, one by one.

Just the other day I saw her playing with the bucket of tomatoes and squash. She would reach in the bucket, pull out a tomato, put it on the windowsill, repeat. Then when she was satisfied with her row of tomatoes, she would throw, not place gently, but exuberantly throw the tomatoes back into the bucket. Every now and then, she would sample the tomatoes and each time she would remember that she didn't like them and throw them back into the bucket. So cute! However, with a whole bucket full of soft & bruised tomatoes and a few with bites taken out, we had to act quickly. We now have ourselves a whole lot of canned salsa!

More Zoo Fun

Today Ellee and I got to go to the zoo with our favorite friends that are here in Idaho Falls area, Nikki and Sarah. Wahoo! All week long the zoo is having free admission for anyone pushing a kid in a stroller. So Nikki, Ellee and I get up the counter to pay for Nikki, but since she is pushing a kid around in mother nature's stroller, they let her in for free too! Again, Wahoo! So we wandered around a bit till Sarah, Ben, Rachel & Spencer joined us. We had a marvelous time and we were sad that all of our other friends couldn't join us too. So for all of you who missed out... here are some memories for you to file away in your mind so you can pretend you were there with us.

secret recipes revealed...

So I promised Aleca a long time ago that I would post these recipes... so here they are. After living about 16 hours from the closest Cafe Rio, my mouth started salivating for that oh so tasty, mouth watering food. So I did some sleuthing and came upon the recipes below. I am not promising perfection... they are probably not the exact recipes... but they sure do taste close enough!

CAFE RIO CILANTRO DRESSING

1 1/3 cups sour cream
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 bunch of cilantro
1 package ranch dressing mix
4 tbsp. salsa verde (green salsa)
2 cloves of garlic
1/8 tsp. Tabasco sauce
juice of one lime

Mix together in the blender. Refrigerate before serving. (I like to make this a day before so that all the flavors can soak in.)

CILANTRO-LIME RICE

1 cup uncooked rice
1 teaspoon butter or margarine
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon lime zest
1 can (15 oz) chicken broth
1 1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons fresh chopped cilantro

In a saucepan combine rice, butter, garlic, lime peel, chicken broth and water. Bring to a boil. Cover and cook 15-20 minutes, until rice is tender. Remove from heat. In a small bowl combine lime juice, sugar and cilantro. Pour over hot cooked rice.

BLACK BEANS

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 1/3 cup tomato juice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons fresh chopped cilantro

In a nonstick skillet, cook garlic and cumin in olive oil over medium heat until you can smell it. Add beans, tomato juice, and salt. Continually stir until heated through. Just before serving stir in the cilantro.

CAFE RIO SWEET PORK

1 cup Pace salsa
1 cup brown sugar
1 cups Dr. Pepper
pork sirloin roast (about 2 lbs.) (I use a tenderloin)

Mix salsa, brown sugar and Dr. Pepper together and pour 2/3 of the mixture over a pork roast. Cook in crockpot on low all day. About 1 hour before serving shred the pork in the crockpot and add the remaining salsa mixture, cover and let simmer till ready to serve.

CAFE RIO CHICKEN (I have yet to try this recipe, so let me know how it goes if you try it!)

1 small bottle Kraft Zesty Italian Dressing
1 T chili powder
1 T cumin
3 cloves garlic—minced
5 lbs chicken breast
Cook all together in a crock pot for 6 hours, shred meat and cook 1 additional hour.

*********************
I melt cheese on the tortilla in a skillet, pile on the rice, beans, meat, lettuce, tomatoes (or salsa), dressing and top it all off with little baked tortilla strips (can be found usually in bags by the croutons at the grocery store). I have also found that it feeds about 4-5 people depending on who is eating it! ENJOY!

Father Daughter Bonding

Guys love doing guy things... and babies love exploring new things... so you make those guy thing and new thing the same (a motorcycle in this case) and you get some great father daughter bonding time. (these are pictures I just came across from our days in IA... May or so)

random joys

As a mother you learn to take joy in the simple things.

Typically folding the laundry is my nemesis, but not with Ellee "helping" me... usually she is grabbing the already folded clothes. But this time I am finding joy in the fact that the clothes around her and within her reach had not yet been folded!

All of these cool toys right in front of her, yet she is most fascinated with this spool of ribbon! So what if organizing these will take a bit longer.

Does my heart good to see her reading this story with her dad... the world's greatest dad, I might add!

It is fun to see her wearing the same dresses that our nieces wore at Devn & My wedding! (Ellee's cousin passed this down to her, Thanks Marian!)


A little girl who is always looking up to me

A very curious mind leads to a toy box disaster! She fell right in! She didn't think it was as funny as I did!

We are here...

{Just found this post that I apparently never posted... bummer}

though you wouldn't know that we made it to Idaho safely since I haven't blogged in a month! We are still in the process of moving in and getting settled. Ellee is loving her new surroundings and the wide open spaces in which to play. One of our biggest milestones since I last posted was that Ellee learned to crawl. As we were finishing loading the moving truck and had the house mostly empty, I found Ellee in the bedroom closet. Now this is not where I had left her playing while I was cleaning the bathroom. It turns out that we just never had enough room for her to crawl and there was always something interesting to play with in reach. She started out crawling like this...

After a few days she graduated to this more traditional style...

And next we have walking to look forward too. She already prefers it to crawling... I don't think it will be long...


Well, there are lots more pictures to post and you can look forward to much activity on this blog... however, the bulk of the pictures are on our other computer which has yet to be set up. But once we are up and running... you'd better watch out!

Sure...

I see how it is... he only posts the bad shot of me! Just so you all know... I did it right and it only took 2 tries...

My week as the mom = My week to blog

As many of you know, this week, Abby volunteered to be a counsellor for a regional EFY that 3 local stakes are sponsoring. I figured I had better let her since I was the reason that she couldn't be a counselor before. Usually the EFY counselors are young single adults and I started dating Abby the last month of her freshman year and kinda messed up her plans... So we arranged to stay in Iowa an extra few weeks so she could have this opportunity and I quit my jobs a week early so I could be a dad. And boy! I thought studying for boards was hard. Little did I know!

Ellee however is quite well adjusted to life with dad. I've only dropped her on her head once in 2 days! She's not complaining though with someone always at her beck and call. She just claps and I come running... No... Really, I do... Hasn't made for very productive packing-to-move-next-Wednesday.

But she has adjusted well to my preferred diet of soda and vitamin supplements (though I mix her protein powder in with baby food).



Ellee, at lunch time, still in her PJ's, strapped down in her car seat so she can't move, and sipping on 64oz. of heaven.


And the signal for "no dad, I'm not done yet!"


I've paid the price though in poopies changed. I'm logging 6.5/day in the past 2 days. (up from the .7/month in the fist 11 months of her life...) But it's great! I really would love to be a stay at home Dad! (once I get my endurance up...)

And sorry I don't know how to make my pictures pretty like Abby, but if everyone was as good as Abby it would give the rest of us nothing to shoot for.
I did however figure out I needed to write my name backwards with the sparkler so the picture looks forward.


(Even though obviously I have already come into stride with my doctor's penmanship)
Ha! I am better at something (at least on the first try...)


Okay fine... Hers IS more readable even though it's backwards...

Thanks for reading!
Devo

just visiting...

While my oldest brother and his family were on their way back to WI from their visit to Utah mid-June, they were able to stop by and hang out with us! It was so fun and only reminded me how cool they are!


Here is Caleb rocking out with Guitar Hero


Here are the 3 little girls... Chloe, Maddie & Ellee


Caleb was fascinated with Devn's motorcycle gear and just had to try it all on


Then Maddie followed suit


Caleb pretending to ride the motorcycle with Devn

I started!

So while on this blogging hiatus, I finally finished a few of the scrapbook pages that I started last summer and I finally started Ellee's album! 15 down, only 435 pictures to go! Wow... that is kind of overwhelming! Anyway, here they are as proof that I have been busy...


***enlarge by clicking on the picture***

5 Senses Swap

I know its been forever since this swap, but I thought you still might be interested in what I received. So fun... thanks for organizing Erica... now if I can only get my butt in gear and actually ship things when I am supposed to... sorry Brittany! I hope you got it finally!

10 months!

Well I never got a chance to post on Ellee's 10 months info, so here it is only 1 month late...

She was 16 lbs 14 oz... still no crawling... but she stands on her own for quite a long time, but cannot pull herself up to a standing position. But is a cute as ever!





I'll be back soon with some 11 month pictures for you!

I'm back!

Well, partly back, our internet is still spotty, and next week I'll be busy with EFY and the next week we are moving! So you will probably only get intermittent blogging from me, but luckily I've already lowered your expectations and cannot disappoint... you are probably just happy to see anything new from me on the blog!

Well, I have lots of adventures to blog about... so they will be coming one by one as I have the energy to write about them.

First...

ZOO TIME!!!

Kyjah took me and Ellee to the zoo with her and Owen... it was our first visit. I was set up for disappointment since most people haven't been too impressed with our little zoo... so after having visited the "zoo", if that is what you can call it, in Logan, I was actually taken back. They had lots of animals and they were all showing off that day. The tiger was pacing in front of us and playing in the water, the monkey was swinging from bar to bar across the whole cage, and the giraffes came right up to us to say hello. The lions weren't active, but at least they were asleep right against the glass for us to see them! The one in front of Ellee was in a rather awkward position! And the one in front of Owen kept putting its paw up on the glass... and cute Owen would give him "five" every time.

*** click on the picture to enlarge ***

no internet = no blogging

So here I sit at the West Des Moines public library with exactly 29 mintures left of my 30 minute internet allowance. I have no pictures with me... no good stories... nothing for you. Sorry.

But you just wait... as soon as we get the internet at home again... I am going to go blogging bananas... B-A-N-A-N-A-S! I have lots of fun things to show you... first trip to the pool pics... Ellee's 10 month info & pitures... and I am sure there are more, but with this internet allowance manager flashing my remaining time in my face on the corner of this screen, I am rather distracted... not to mention my little one here who when not singing very loudly in the very quiet library, is whining (crying) cause she wants to go home. So without further ado... I bid you farwell... for now... until a later unknown date. I will leave you with this...

After a trip to the dr. office and 2 fails attempts at a blood draw, a trip to the hospital... 5 needle pricks (more like needle probing)... one in the foot, one in the left arm, 2 in the right, and one in the head (she was cursed with bad veins from her mother), and a very tired & grumpy from screaming her head off all day baby, we discovered that Ellee has a milk allergy!!!! I know... devestating! Maybe this is what had to happen so that she eats healthy and I can't take the easy way out of cooking. No mac & cheese... no pizza... no melted cheese samdwiches... no ice cream. What in the world am I going to do!!! As I sit here, the agony of it all sinks in a little more.

That is all.