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.

I'm still alive

So I know all of you blog readers out there can't stand it when so called "bloggers" don't update for weeks... frankly it isn't much fun checking blogs daily to not find anything new... and for almost 2 weeks! I know, I know... but it is my blog and I'll blog if (& when) I want to!

A few weeks ago I decided to take timeout from the computer that I live at all day and do some other projects and activities. That lead me to the idea that I would finally start scrapbooking all of the bazillion pictures of Ellee... so I got all pumped and in the mood (which is necessary in order to be productive and creative) when I realized that I didn't have any pictures printed.

That lead me to my next project... go through the 1200+ pictures I have snapped over the last 9 months and pick the good ones. Well that took lots longer than I planned. I had to scan each and every one... crop or edit or remove the red eyes from the ones I picked... upload them to website... make sure the website didn't crop them more than I wanted... visualize the future scrapbook page so I could decide what sizes I wanted these pictures printed... anyhow... it was quite the production and I just barely finished it yesterday. So now two weeks have passed and I still don't have anything to show for it. But when that package comes filled with over 400 pictures... I will be very excited! And very overwhelmed because that means I have to do something with them! That is a lot of scrapbooking!

Anyway... so here is my post... not very interesting that is for sure, but there all of you blog readers... this is for you! Are you happy!

Now for all of you blog readers who only come here to see pictures of Ellee... here are a few of her latest.

Update

So here is an update to the info on the previous post:

Ellee is now 15 lbs 15 oz... 10th percentile for weight (down from the 25th at her 6 month) and maintained her spot in the 50th percentile for height. Judging by the size of her feet (still wears size 1's and 0-3 month shoes are still rather roomy) it shouldn't surprise me that I have such a tiny little girl! At least she is healthy!

9 months!

Can you believe that it has already been 9 months since Ellee joined our family? Crazy how time flies! Last night we were watching some of the videos we took of Ellee when she was younger... I would say littler, but I think she was chunkier then... and it is amazing to me how much they change in such a short period of time.

She still isn't crawling or pulling herself up and "cruising," but she sure can sit like a champ! Her favorite thing to say recently is babababababab... so now her vocabulary consists of yayayaya's, dadadadadada's and bababababab's. She is an especially talented book reader and loves to turn the pages and read to herself. She is a wonderful smiler and a delight to have in our home! We are grateful everyday for her.

Yesterday was the official 9 month milestone so we celebrated with a few pictures. Happy nine months Ellee!

Tulip Time!!!

Yesterday we had to chance to visit another Iowa landmark... Pella. It is a cute little Dutch town and they host an annual festival called Tulip Time. There are typically over 80,000 tulips... but this year just after the trees blossomed and the tulips all bloomed we were hit with a week long freeze and random April blizzard. So there were a few tulip beds with 1 or 2 lone blossoms amidst a huge (sad) green bed.

However they managed to save some of them this year and we ventured out to tiptoe through the tulips. Below are a few of my favorites...

Ellee & her friend Owen

Ellee mostly wanted to eat these ones...

Ellee & Me

Ellee giving Dad kisses!
(behind us is one of the big Dutch windmills)

That's a very tired Ellee...
its been a long day!