Spring 2012

To celebrate Ellie's second birthday this Spring we went out to visit family. Our first stop was in California to see some of the Hunzeker side of the family. We stayed with Aunt Audrey and Uncle Juan and had a great time.

The birthday girl

They have the best bouncy castle ever and the girls had a blast wearing out Grandpa

Grandpa would throw them over the top then let them bounce it out

One happy little girl
Ellie opening her first round of presents. She loves loves loves her Elmo sweatshirt. She still asks to wear it whenever she sees it even if it is 105 outside... like it was today

We also celebrated my birthday a bit. This was my special birthday treat. Thanks Grandma LuAnn!

We got to see new baby Leah for the first time and we just fell in love with her. I love this picture of Ellie loving her up. She is the sweetest baby ever and I loved having the chance to snuggle with her

Grandpa Don with all his granddaughters. We just needed Zander there to have all the grandkids present

After California we went off to Utah to see more grandparents and cousins. We had a great family reunion at the Midway Cabin where the cousins had so much together time that they all came home with RSV :) But before the virus outbreak we packed in a lot of fun. On Ellie's birthday we went to the zoo with the cousins.

They were pressed to the glass at the monkey house.

Ellie has been missing her Uncle Chad time so she was pretty much his attachment as we walked around the zoo

Cutest baby Kaitlyn ever! Her mommy worries about her eating habits but she looks pretty well fed to me!

And Ellie's favorite. The giraffes... she calls them gigis.

For her birthday we had an Elmo themed party.

So happy we could celebrate with our cousins

Happy Birthday Elisabeth!

Living it up at the cabin and sporting Daddy's socks

Aunt Becky organized a great easter egg hunt. This was the first time Ellie was really into the hunting and it was so much fun to see her snatch up those eggs

This is back in Hannibal at another Easter egg hunt. I would have posted more picturesof the great time we had and all of Ellie's new friends.... but our camera died and this is the only picture we had of that day.

In April we had a fun visit from Grandma LuAnn and Grandpa Don and Great Grandma and Grandpa Call. We also had our good friend Patricia Glenn here. It was so much fun to have a full house. We took them out to Nauvoo while they were here to see the sights.

Grandpa kept Ellie happy and busy all day

Good Friends

Their flowers were beautiful

And to finish off the digital representation of our Spring I added a picture of Ellie and her new wade pool. I had to put this picture up because our grass was acutally GREEN! I will be posting pictures of summer soon.... and it is sad how our grass has just completely died because we have hardly had any water this summer and apparently they don't believe in sprinkler systems here in Missouri.

Anyway we were blessed to see a lot of family this Spring and we look forward to more visits later this Summer!!

February 2012

Most of our January was spent in limbo. Ellie and I pretty much moved in with Becky because our house was lonely and we wanted to spend as much time with them as we could. Dan started his job January 3rd but Ellie and I didn't move out there to be with him until the last week of January... although I did make a trip out to help pick out our house. Dan was staying in a very small studio apartment and when Ellie and I finally came out we really filled that place up! There was just room for a pack and play. We did alright for a few days but I was sure glad when we finally closed on our house!
The day before we closed we made a visit to make sure everything was in order. It was Ellie's first time at the house and the first thing she did was run straight to this bedroom and run around in circles. She knew exactly which room was going to be hers!
We closed on Monday February 6th but our movers were a few days behind so we spent our first night in sleeping bags. Good thing Dan thought to bring the camping stuff ahead of time!

And then the unpacking began. I was lucky to have a little helper! She loved to take everything out of the boxes and then turn them on their sides. I was always finding all sorts of toys that she was hiding away for later. She loves a good hiding place.

We were able to get most everything unpacked by Valentines Day. Here is my little Valentine!

And my sweet Danny made me some Valentines Day cookies. I think he enjoyed cooking in our new kitchen. I will have him do more of it :)

Near the end of February we were lucky enough to have some very special visitors. Mom, Becky, Robin, and Kaitlyn all came out to visit us and help get my home in shape. We spent days shopping and shopping and organizing and rearranging.... and shopping. By the end even Mom was tired of shopping :)

We took a break on Sunday to go visit Nauvoo. Dan and I are now about an hour and a half away from Nauvoo. It is pretty neat and because there isn't a huge LDS population around here we are actually in the Nauvoo Stake. It was pretty neat attending Stake Conference in Nauvoo. We are looking forward to this summer when tourist season kicks up and we can see more of the attractions and attend the Nauvoo Pageant.
This is me and Ellie in front of our new temple.

However it was still only February when we went out to visit so it was pretty cold. Elisabeth got to snuggle up in her blankie to stay warm. But she wouldn't stay in her stroller for long.

She loved this horsey statue. I love this picture because of the coat she is wearing. My mom got this coat when Becky was Ellie's age. She wore it, I wore it, Robin wore it and Becky's girls wore it and now my little Ellie gets to wear it. It is still in perfect condition and I love having this special treasure for a short time.

There are some good looking ladies strolling around Nauvoo... when it was really really cold.

When we got back to my house we went for our favorite Sunday night tradition. Tapioca night! We all ate so much Tapioca. It is our very favorite snack ever.... and there might have been some Gilmore Girls as well :)

They day they left we all went down to St. Louis to visit the Gateway Arch. We all went up the arch and had a fun time learning more about St. Louis.

I love this picture of Grandma and Ellie. I put it up in her room so she can see everyday what a beautiful Grandma she has!

This was outside the arch right before they all left me. I am so grateful they were able to come out and help me so much! Hopefully we can have another fun trip together soon!

When February started feeling a little warmer we ventured outside to explore some of the neighborhood around us. We are a short walking distance from this beautiful lake on the golf course. Ellie loves to go find golf balls and if I let her she would love to go running into the lake. We really do live in a very beautiful area and as the trees have bloomed and Spring is here it is prettier than ever.

Ellie likes her time outside and never likes to leave the lake. I guess we all know how hard it is to leave a good thing. I sure love this sassy little girl.

December 2011

Now that I have more time I am really hoping to keep up with our blog better. My new resolution is to blog once a month. I hope grandparents and other friends and family will enjoy our pictures but I also think it will be a great way to keep a family journal of some of our happenings.

So lets start with December!

Our December started out with a little case of Roseola. Ellie started feeling warm in the morning and as we have struggled with her fevers in the past we took her straight home from church and got her some medicine. She had 3 febrile seizures that day. One as soon as I got home from church (so glad we weren't still at church!), one after visiting the doctor and having them tell us she had a high fever (really?) but there was no sign of ear infection, pneumonia, etc and to just keep an eye on her, and then one later that night. It was frustrating because in the past we at least knew what she had that was causing her high fevers. A few days later she started feeling better and she and I went to stay at Aunt Becky's house while Dan was out of town.

After waking up from her nap one day Ellie was covered in a rash from head to foot! I thought at first it was her food allergies again but I couldn't think of anything she could have eaten that would cause that rash. She acted like nothing was wrong... it didn't bother her at all. After some research and a call to her doctor we confirmed she had Roseola. High fever spikes and then after they are over a nice body rash. I didn't get any good pictures of her full rash but this picture below shows her the morning it started going away. You can still see a little face puffiness.

The rest of our December went a lot smoother after Ellie got feeling better. We were of course packing like crazy to get ready for our move out to Missouri but we did stop to have our own little Christmas at home before we spent the last two weeks of December in Salt Lake.

It was pretty sad knowing this was our last Christmas and last big family event in our little home. We have loved our Boise house and it served us well for the past 4 years.

Like I said the last two weeks were spent in Salt Lake City with family.... because if you think leaving our little house was hard...

We had a nice nativity scene on Christmas Eve and you can see that our little lamb wasn't too keen on staying put. She did pretty good for the most part.

And then the cousins got in their matching jammies and went off to wait for Santa. I took several pictures of these girls in their jammies but this was the best one I got... Neither of the big girls looking at the camera and Ellie giving Emmy the staredown of her life. You can imagine what my other pictures looked like :) At least in this one no one is crying.

We had a wonderful Christmas and it was so nice to spend time with family before our big move. Dan left for Missouri two days after Christmas and Ellie and I followed about a month later. More on our move in the posts to come!