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!

Thanksgiving and Our Big News

Thanksgiving has come and gone and Christmas will be here by the end of the week! Time is just flying by but I wanted to post about our Thanksgiving and the big decision we have made. It is always nice to have this season to remember all that you are thankful for and this Thanksgiving we were most thankful for our extended family and for the opportunity we have had to live so close to them.

There are big changes coming to our little family... Dan has accepted a new job out in Hannibal, Missouri with General Mills. His start date is January 3rd so he will be heading out on the 27th and Ellie and I will follow close behind. We are so grateful for this great opportunity and it feels like this will be a great move for our family - but with all the exciting aspects of this decision there are also a lot of sacrifices that will be made.

We are so sad to be leaving Boise. It has been such a wonderful place to live and we have been really blessed here. We will miss our fabulous neighbors and friends, I will miss my job and the great people I work with, and we will miss our ward family. Most of all we will miss my dear sister and her family. We have LOVED living by Becky and it has been so great for Ellie to be able to play with her cousins. She looks up to them and watches every move they make and wants to be just like them. Sarah is our number one babysitter and always watches over her so carefully. Savannah is Ellie's very favorite person in the world and her favorite place to be is right on Savvy's hip. Andrew is her special play buddy and everytime our doorbell rings she runs to it yelling Andwew! Andwew! Emmy is her protector and makes sure she doesn't get hurt when they play. When Ellie gets hurt and is crying she always calls for Emmy. We will miss our cousins so so much!!

And of course I am going to miss my best friend Becky. She is my partner for so many activities. We make our raspberry jam, applesauce, and salsa together. We go shopping at least once a week together. We babysit eachother's kids weekly. We go swimming, we plan parties, we have weekly Sunday dinners, we go to lunch at Costa Vida, we pick out all our spring flowers together, we have been known to do some Jillian workouts or go running together, we lose every week at rook to our husbands, and she continually teaches me how to be a better cook, a better friend, and a more patient mother. I honestly don't know how it is going to work without having her so close.

Knowing that we will soon be going out on our own it was really nice to be able to spend some time with all of the Hunzekers for Thanksgiving. We are also really going to miss having Grandma and Grandpa so close because they are such wonderful grandparents/parents and Ellie just adores them.

This Thanksgiving was in Twin Falls and we were able to get the entire Hunzeker family together. We also were lucky enough to get Grandma and Grandpa Call and Aunt Renee to join our party.

This Thanksgving Ellie and Natalie decided they really liked it when Grandpa dragged them around on a blanket. Grandpa was a good sport and dragged them around all day.

Ellie also got to go swimming with her Grandpa... one of her very favorite activities.

We made about 14 pies and two cheescakes. I learned a lot about how to make a good pie crust and all of our desserts turned out really yummy. This was one of our apple pies.

Grandma and Grandpa helped the kids make their own gingerbread houses.

Since we finally had everyone all together we took the opportunity to take a family picture. So here is the Hunzeker family November 2011.

It was so great to see all of our family and we are really looking forward to Christmas where we will get to see our Risenmay and Mensel side of the family! With all the changes that are about to come we are reminded daily that we are so blessed to have the best family and no matter where we go we know we will always be able to feel their love and support.

Halloween Buzz

Ellie was our happy little bee!!

She was a busy little bee exploring the ward trunk or treat

Checking out the other kids.

Our not so happy little bee

We went to a fun Halloween party at the library with the cousins. Andrew is pretty excited about his new book!

Enjoying some beautiful fall weather before we get ready for trick-or-treating

Andrew and Emmy helped carve some of our pumpkins from the garden. Bet you Can't you guess who chose the ghost and who chose the kitty.

Fun trick-or-treat buddies. We are lucky to have them so close!

Can we go yet??

TREAT! Ellie's new favorite word. For some reason she thought each doorstep was Grandma's so she would walk up to the door saying "grandma? grandma?" By the end she learned that she was supposed to say "Treat!"

Enjoying some of the loot.

Ready to go home after a long night of Trick-or-Treating.

Happy Halloween!

Flashback

Today I have been missing my newborn baby. It probably started because I was looking at so many pictures of our new niece Kaitlyn Jane... who is adorable. How did our baby become a toddler so fast?? This phase is fun because it is really exciting to see how much she is learning. It is funny how proud I am whenever she learns a new word or puts a block through the right shaped hole. But this phase also has its challenges which recently has started to include fits of temper, pulling down furniture, and always always always trying to get on top of the kitchen table. I am ready to glue my kitchen chairs to the floor or just get rid of them all together.

So today while my little troublemaker is taking her nap I feel like looking through some videos we made when she was only a few months old. I miss that little baby! Hopefully we will be blessed with another baby soon... but for now I will just have to depend on old videos to get my baby fix!




And yes... she still loves to dance!

June - September 2011

I am behind on my blog again so I figure that the easiest way to catch up will be with some highlights from each month. So here goes!

June:

Baby girl has just been growing and growing. She loves to dress up and goes from wearing Grandpa Risenmay's hat to trying on mommy's shoes. She loves to brush her hair and look in the mirror. While she is brushing she will things like "cuuute" or "pretty". We are loving the high self-esteem.

Elisabeth is a busy busy girl and it can sometimes get her into trouble. If mom turns her back for a minute she can tear the kitchen apart in no time.

But seriously... who can resist this face:

July:
For the 4th of July we introduced Elisabeth to the famous East Millcreek Parade.
We had a great holiday at Grandma Jane's and loved seeing all the cousins!

Isn't Uncle Dan great with all the kiddos???
During the end of July and beginning of August we had a few family reunions. We saw the Risenmay family for a week and then went straight to the Fagergren family reunion at Reid Ranch.This is a shot from the Risenmay reunion:

August:

In August Dan and I celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary! Dan surprised me with a little trip.... to France! Oui oui!
It was amazing and we took over 500 pictures. Mainly we took that many pictures because there were so many amazing sights.... but the fact that it was the only activity that didn't cost an arm and a leg probably played into our over-exuberance as well.
We had so much fun visiting the Louvre, Versailles, Rouen, Notre Dame.... a lot of places. It may sound cliche but my favorite was the day we spent at the Eiffel Tower. It was the most beautiful day and we had so much fun. I would love to go back again... soon!

We also had a great garden this year thanks to a huge water bill :) We enjoyed fresh spinach, green beans, beets, onions, strawberries, raspberries, corn, canteloupe, watermelon, peas, a few tomatoes, and brocolli. Plus we have about 12 good size pumpkins ready to go for October.
Dan and Elisabeth spent Saturdays together harvesting the crops and then I spent the rest of the week figuring out what to do with all the produce... lets just say that I am getting pretty good with a pressure cooker!
Our peach tree did awesome this year. It is so fun to can peaches from your own tree!

September:
It was family picture time! Our cute neighbor took some pictures of us down by the Boise River. I will put up a few of our photos here because we had some grandparents requesting to see the latest and greatest.






Ok done for now!