Happy Birthday Bradley

Bradley's is 9, I can hardly believe it! Wayne was right at the end of his deadline on Bradley's actual birthday, so I took Bradley and Elli up to the dinosaur museum with Crystal and her kids. It was fun because they had some Halloween activities going on as well. Afterwards we came home and had Oreo ice cream and opened presents. We celebrated with Wayne a couple a days later, which worked out to be fall break. We took a trip to one of Bradley's favorite places....the zoo. The temperature was perfect and we saw a lot of animals that you don't see in the summer because they are too hot to be out.

Elli really enjoyed this trip too. We took her last year, but she didn't really get into the animals like she did this time. It was fun to watch her reactions.

This was one of Bradley's favorites, it's a fossa from Madagascar. It wasn't what I expected at all. I thought they were like hyenas, but they are much more cat like.

I think this was Elli's favorite. She loved watching baby Zuri run around and play. She really is cute!

Here is mom eating her dinner. Elli got a kick out of this too. Now whenever someone says elephant to her she will try and imitate an elephant reaching up to get food.

This is Bradley's favorite cat. We were really glad to cougars were so visible.

The bears were easy to find too. They kept yawning and licking their mouths, so what do you think Elli was doing as she watched them?

The zebras are one of my favorites! It seems like they are always turned with their back sides facing the crowd, so I was pleased to get a photo of their faces!

Reading about the red panda. Bradley loves animal facts, and it amazes me how much he knows about all kinds of animals. He tells me all the time that he wants to have his own zoo someday.

These are my other favorites at the zoo. I think they are adorable! It was hard to get a photo with all of the giraffes, but this is the baby, and I think both parents.

The hard to find cheetah was out today, AWESOME!

Here are 2 of the 3 tiger cubs. They were having a great wrestle over a bone. We really enjoyed the tiger area because the dad was on the other side talking to the cubs. He would go the edge of his enclosure and the cubs would come over the the edge of theirs. It was really loud, and not something you hear very often at the zoo. Pretty cool!

Hiding behind the tree is the snow leopard cub. Also usually really hard to find, but not this time. The mother and the cub were running all over the place playing together.

This is by far Bradley's favorite place in the zoo, it's the reptile house. He is looking for the iguana, but we never found him. He was hidden really well.

Rocky Mountain Rattle Snake.

This a one of Bradley's favorites, it's a Gila monster.

This is a rubber boa. We found one once hiking in Provo Canyon, so Bradley always likes to find this one to remember when he caught one in "the wild".

Bradley measures up to the adult female. I like the new sign!

By the way, Bradley doesn't usually wear shirts that are so big on him. He is wearing a Los Hermanos shirt because that's where we took him for his birthday lunch before the zoo. He ordered a Diablo Verde for free because he had on the shirt. We also asked them to sing Happy Birthday to him. He was a little embarrassed, but he liked the fried ice cream. And the salsa that day was absolutely perfect. Not too hot, just a hint of heat....mmmmm, delicious!!

On Saturday we threw Bradley a birthday party. Bradley has some great friends!

They really liked this game. They had to be in teams of 2, one would wrap the other with toilet paper like a mummy, and then the mummy had to hop to the finish line. Michelle and Amara did the best job on wrapping.

Braydon and Jex won the relay.

By the time Bradley crossed the finish line he wasn't wrapped anymore. He just kept his legs together to keep it fair. Good job Bradley and Ben!

How do you like the birthday cake? Bradley loves doughnuts, so this I thought he'd like a giant one for his cake. I also got glazed doughnuts and made homemade Reese's ice cream. Yummy!!

Elli was such a good sport. I was constantly busy doing games or getting lunch ready. Because of that, she was in her pajamas until after her nap. She stayed in her stroller most of the time watching the kids. Here she is enjoying her hot dog dipped in ketchup and chips dipped in ranch. At one point she picked up her plate and started licking the ranch dip. Lots of good fat in that for her! Maybe that's what I need to give her everyday to help her grow!

Thank you to all of Bradley's great friends! We even had 3 friends from our old neighborhood come down. It was so great to see them again!!!

Ben (Bradley's cousin) had spent the night with us, and he was at our house for most of Saturday. They had a great time together, especially putting together all the Bionicles and Lego's from the birthday party. It was a really fun day!

Happy Birthday Bradley! You are such a smart and good boy! We love you!!!!

It's Autumn Time

I really love this time of year! We thought it would be a fun FHE to take a picnic up to the mountains and go for a hike. It really is the best way to enjoy all the fantastic fall colors.

There wasn't anyone else up there, which was perfect! And the temperature was in the mid 70's which was even more perfect!!

This really is a beautiful trail, and not very hard. We didn't take it all the way though. It's the Mt. Loafer trail up Payson canyon. It was a very kid friendly hike, AWESOME!!

It started to get dark, so I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get very many good pics. But I did get a few good ones, if I do say so myself.

It's too bad fall doesn't last longer. It really is my favorite time of the year!

Elli's baby

Elli loves her new baby doll. She feeds her several times a day. She doesn't carry her around yet, but I think once Elli learns to walk that will change. It's hard to bring something with you when you need your hands to crawl around.

Giving baby kisses. So sweet!

Here is another compare and contrast photo of Elli. This is her tiny Clifford dog that we used in the hospital so show her size. Below is the first photo we took with Clifford when Elli was just over a week old. Pretty amazing! Elli now weighs 18 lbs. 1 oz., and she is 32 1/2" long.

She is 10" long and weighs 1 lb. 2 oz. in this photo.

Here is our little smarty! She can go up and down the stairs with ease now. (For my own nerves, I did duct tape a blanket around the post at the bottom of the stairs.) I never had to teach her to turn around at the top of the stairs so that she was going down backwards. She just did it all on her own. She really has terrific problem solving skills. It was the same getting down off the couch, she just automatically turned over onto her tummy to slide off feet first.

I realized another bonus the other day. By the time she learns to walk there won't be as many bumps and bruises on her head (I hope anyway). The reason being, she is already too tall to stand under the table, which means that she never learned to walk under it in the first place. Hopefully that will save us a few tears, although I'm sure there are other things that will bring on the tears. Wayne had to get her off Bradley's bunk bed ladder the other day, and put it up so that she wouldn't try climbing it again. I'm afraid that we do have a little monkey on our hands, which is totally new for us. Bradley didn't climb anything, I never had to worry about that at all with him. We are certainly in for it with this little sassy girl! But that's okay, I think we're ready?!?

Happy Birthday Elli

It's hard to believe that Elli is 2 years old. We are thrilled with the progress she continues to make. She has hit all the normal developmental mile stones so far except for walking, and that isn't too far off at this point. She learned to crawl over the 4th of July while we were in Oregon, and she has gotten really fast. She is also pulling herself up to anything and everything and walking along furniture. She can go up and down the stairs, which is nerve racking to me, but I'm glad she can do it. She is saying 50+ words, and her verbal comprehension is even better. We are just so grateful that she hasn't had any side affects from being born so early. She is such a testament that miracles do happen.
Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!!


I hope you will indulge me a stroll down memory lane. It's good for me to look back and see how far we've come, and how blessed we are to have such a healthy and vibrant little girl. (warning: this blog entry is long)


Here is Elli about 9 days old. She was 10 inches long and weighed 1 lb. 2 oz. Her eyes were still fused shut at this point, and we couldn't wait for them to open. It was just a few days after this photo that she was taken by ambulance to another hospital for her PDA surgery, after which she contracted pneumonia for the first time. She was so beautiful, it broke our hearts that we couldn't pick her up and cuddle her.


This is Elli when she turned 1 month old. We celebrated her birthday each month while in the hospital. She was a little bigger at the point, but still so tiny as you can see by the 5 dollar bill next to her. She had finally gotten over her pneumonia, but we had a bit of a scare when her doctor wanted to test her for meningitis which would have likely been fatal in her case. The test was negative, and I can't tell you how relieved we were. She was having a little trouble with her tummy. It is hard for these little ones to digest their food because their bodies just aren't ready for that yet. It wasn't long after this that we were finally able to hold her for the first time.


Here is our sleepy little 2 month old. She was starting to digest much better at the point, which helped her to grow. You can see it in the clothes she's wearing. (This green onesie is the same size as the one it the previous photo.) They aren't quite as big on her. They still didn't fit, but they were getting closer to fitting. It was just a week after this that she was put on the C-PAP to transition her to a nasal cannula. It took her 3 tries to be able to stay on the C-PAP but before her 3 month birthday came around she was on the nasal cannula. She was the cutest little cheerleader for Halloween, I bought an outfit for the American Girl dolls for her costume. It was darling!


Here is our big 3 month old girl! She was doing well enough to start learning how to nurse. It was wonderful to snuggle her close. There was a lot more freedom in loving her once she was put on the nasal cannula, plus we were finally able to really see what she looked like. She is nice and plump in this photo from all the calories they were pumping in her, I loved all her rolls! We were transferred into nursery B which is where the babies go that are getting closer to going home. The end of the hospital was in sight now.



Elli is 4 months old and dressed in her pretty little Christmas dress. We had learned that she had a paralyzed vocal chord, a side affect from her PDA surgery, which made nursing nearly impossible for her. So I continued to pump and fed her by bottle. She was the delight of so many nurses. I loved that there were so many that wanted to care for her. We were finally able to bring her home right after the New Year.



Here is our sweet little One Year Old. She had really weak muscle tone still, but had made tremendous progress in so mant areas.



She wasn't doing well with solid foods yet, so we didn't even do a birthday cake for her. Her brother and cousins were all given a cup cake with one candle and they all blew them out after we sang to her. She did enjoy her birthday ice cream though.



She would have days where she didn't feel well about every 1 and 1/2 weeks, and sadly she was in that cycle over her birthday. We called it "crooked" because when she didn't feel well she couldn't support her torso and would lean over to the left.

Elli loves flowers (she inherited that from my dad), and flower was actually one of her first words. (She says "wowah".) So we decided to go with a flower theme for her birthday. We had napkins and cups with flowers and butterflies, and we had multi-colored balloons on the table. We had a flower garland hanging from the canopy, and the cake was covered in flowers of course.

I was really excited about how well her cake turned out. It was a yellow 9 X 13 cake with 5 regular size cup cakes and 4 mini cup cakes on top. I found the idea on familyfun.com, but I tweaked it a little. I used blue frosting instead of white, because I thought it would be fun to have sky color for the background. I also added the dirt, crushed Oreos. Instead of making flowers out of m&m's and other round candies, I warmed Starbursts in the microwave and rolled them out. Then I used scissors to cut out my flowers. The leaves are gum drop fruit slices that I sliced even thinner. It was a little more work than I anticipated, but I had a lot of fun making it.

For dinner we had hamburgers and hot dogs, and veggies from the garden. Yummy! Patrick is holding Clara, and Marianne is in the purple with Bradley and Wayne next to her. Crystal and Alan are next to Patrick. It was really nice to have the family over to help us celebrate.

Elli loved the hot dogs. It is so nice that she will actually eat some foods now. She is still rather picky, and her gag reflex is still obnoxiously sensitive, but it's getting better all the time.

One of Elli's favorite things right now is blowing bubbles, so we got bubbles for all the kids to blow for a while as adults finished eating their dinner.

Aunt Marianne blowing more bubbles.

We were also very glad to has Wayne's brother Steve (on the right) come down. My sister-in-law Kerly (2nd on the right) is from Ecuador, and these are her parents. Her dad has been working in New York for the last 8 years, and her mom finally got residency this year. They are both living here with Steve and Kerly while they look for work and a place to live. I am really happy for Kerly, she has wanted to have her family close to her for a long time. Congratulations!

When is came time to blow out the candles, Elli was feeling a little overwhelmed. She didn't know what to make of everyone gathering around her and singing. She really does know how to blow, but we couldn't get her to do it. So we counted to 3 and let Bradley and the cousins blow out the candles together. Maybe next year she will understand the procedure a little better.

Here is our feminine little eater. She wouldn't try to pick up the whole thing, she would just pick off tiny little pieces (crumbs really) and carefully put them in her mouth. I kind of knew before hand that we wouldn't get one of those cake all over your face pictures, it's just not Elli to eat like that.

Cute little Clara enjoying her ice cream cone. Mom made Butterfinger ice cream, and I made black berry. There is nothing quite like home-made ice cream in the summer!

Mom and dad enjoying their dessert.

Silly Noah eating his cake and ice cream.

Elli discovered that she could used a petal from the flower on her cake as a scooper for frosting. After that she pretty much only ate the frosting.

When it came time for gifts, Elli was a little confused at what she was suppose to do with all the pretty packages. Bradley was more than happy to help her open the gift he gave her. It was 3 coloring books: Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and Winnie the Pooh, and a box of water colors. I think she'll have a lot of fun with it. Alan and Crystal's family gave her a Backyardigans book, my mom and dad gave her a cute little purple striped dress, and she got some bubble bath and fall clothes from Wayne and I.

This gift was from Steve and Kerly. It was hard to open, so Sadie and Sawyer stepped in to help. It was a beautiful off white dress with a pink sash and little pink embroidered flowers. Thanks Kerly! I'll post photos of Elli in the dress next week. She didn't wear it yesterday because of the temple dedication. So she'll wear it the church this coming Sunday.

This was the gift we had to save until the end because we knew if she opened it first she'd ignore all the rest. It's a doll that has a bottle and when you put the bottle to the mouth she will begin to suck. After a few minutes she will burp and fall asleep. She will also giggle if you tickle her tummy. She is a really cute baby doll, and Elli LOVES her!

She couldn't wait for Wayne to get her out of the box. She stood there on her tippy toes saying "BeeBee" over and over again. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures after it was opened, but I will get some pictures of her holding her baby real soon. Did I mention that Elli really really LOVES her baby!?! It was a fun day, and we are so happy to have our little 2 year old! She is a sweet and sassy bundle of joy. Happy Birthday Elliana!

Mirror Lake

We took a trip the other day up to Mirror Lake. We had such a lovely day in the 70 degree weather. There were tons of wild flowers everywhere, we went up at the perfect time!

This was Elli's first time in the backpack, and she did quite well. She did eventually tire from riding on Wayne's back, but we've decided that we just need to go hiking once a week to help her get used to it. We didn't fish right on Mirror Lake, it's usually too crowded. We walked along the stream that comes off of the lake which is the north fork of the Duchesne. The fishing wasn't the best, (they did catch a few little brook trout and rainbows) but the hike along the trail is so pretty and very peaceful! We didn't see anybody else the whole time.

Bradley carried our water and snacks in for as long as he could. He was a trooper!

Elli and I just played along the way. We were going to wade in the little stream, but it was too cold for her, she didn't like it very much. But she was thrilled with all the flowers!

Wayne has seen moose in this little pond before. We didn't see any that day, although there was plenty of evidence that they had been there, but we did see a cow moose further down the canyon on our way up.

Flower heaven!

Bradley and I walked over to the Balm Mountain Overlook. It was gorgeous! I really love the Uintahs, I think it has to be one of the loveliest places in Utah!!

We haven't decided where we are going to hike to next. Sadly we only have a couple of weeks of summer left. The nice thing about Utah is that you have so many choices and they are all within pretty easy distances. We are lucky to live here!!

Pioneer Day Weekend

We spent Pioneer day with Wayne's family this year. Everyone was there, which makes 22 adults and 28 1/2 grandkids. Thanks goodness that they built the cabin so that everyone has a place to stay.

This is the Sevier River. Some of the uncles and cousins discovered that jumping from the bridge into the river is a whole lot of fun, so here are a few shots of the brave ones jumping. I can't even jump from a low dive into a swimming pool without my heart thumping out of my chest a little, so I couldn't do this!!

Here is Bradley's cousin Braden going in feet first.

Trevor was the bravest of them all. He kept doing flips off the bridge. CRAZY!!!

Next it was Bradley's turn. He has just stepped up onto the edge of the bridge. He didn't like jumping off either, it was easier for him to have his uncles just push him in. Wayne was already in the water waiting to help him get to shore.

Unfortunately, I shot this picture a split second too soon. I chopped off Bradley's head. What I missed was a lovely belly flop at the bottom. He was a little sore for a few minutes afterward.

Swimming back to shore. Wayne only jumped once. He said that was enough for him. He was surprised how warm the water was though. It was a nice break from the heat.

Just before the boys went swimming, I had gone on a little shopping trip down to the local antique shop called the Wooden Nickle. They had a lot of really cute things, but I found the cutest wooden doll house that I'm going to fix up for Elli for Christmas. I got it for $19, what a steal! I think I'm going to have to go back there next time we go down to visit Wayne's parents.

Some of us decided that a weenie roast up in the mountains would be fun, so we headed up on the afternoon of Pioneer Day. Elli really enjoyed the mountains, I love the sweet grin on her face.

Some road up in vehicles, while others road 4 wheelers. I am glad we were in the trooper because we got a pretty good rain while up there, and those who road the 4 wheelers were soaked through by the time they reached us at the lake. The rain did let up long enough to let us build our fire and have some dinner, but it sadly ended out fun early. We all went back down to grandma's house to get warm again. Wayne and I had actually reached that lake before the rain and got a few pictures of the kids throwing rocks into the water.

Kristen and Lindsey

Katelyn

Sadie (she road up with us while her mom and dad got soaked on their 4 wheeler)

Here they are seeing who can throw the farthest. I think they were letting Sadie win every time, and she loved it!

Here are some of the cousins lined up to watch the parade. They had 2 sides of the street covered to make sure they brought home as much candy as possible. This photo had Jade holding Brennan, Taysen, Landon, Katelyn, Sarah, Kaycia, and part of Bradley.

Here is grandma on the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers float. She gets roped into doing this float every year, but I do think she enjoys it. In this photo she is just about to throw a handful of candy which ended up hitting Elli right in the face. I didn't see it happening because I was taking the picture. Needless to say, Elli wasn't very happy about the whole thing. Not too long after this a float with some boys and squirt guns came by, and for some reason they aimed directly at Elli's face again. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get her to go to another parade this year. Maybe by next year she will have forgotten and like parades again.

more cousins, here we have Breanna, Amberli, Sarah, and Dawson.

Here we have Sawyer in the red and white shirt, Sadie in blue, Rachel has the pretty brown hair with the red bow, Aaron is the little guy with curls in the red shirt and closet to the camera is Alton.

The night before we had been down to the park for the annual scout dinner. They serve dutch oven potatoes, and pot roast (which is absolutely amazing!!). They also auction off pies there. I told Wayne that I want to enter a pie next year and see how much it will go for. Some of the pies were being sold for $30. Later, after the dinner we all gathered to watch the fireworks. I was really impressed with their fireworks, they had a great show for such a small town.

It was a really nice weekend. Hopefully we can get back down there really soon!!

Depot Bay

This summer we took a family trip to Oregon. We came up for 2 reason: Isaac's baptism and our trip to the coast. We look forward to our trip to the coast with my family every few years. This year we had a little cooler weather than our last trip, but it didn't stop the fun!

Wayne took Elli for a walk on the beach Monday afternoon before the storm cleared. Early that morning Wayne, my dad, my brother and brothers in law all went fishing for sea bass. Most of them got sea sick from the stormy sea, but they still caught their limit of 34 or 35 sea bass total. (I have pictures a little further down of the cooked fish).

Joel on the left was the most sea sick, you can see that he is still a little green in this picture. The man with the yellow overalls was their captain.

This is Drift Creek Falls. It was a beautiful hike with a really neat suspension bridge you had to cross to get down to the bottom of the falls. The kids were a little afraid of crossing the bridge, but they all did it. They were proud of themselves for being so brave.

This is one the the things Wayne was looking forward to the most. He has just casted out a crab trap into the ocean. The only thing he didn't anticipate was the horrible sun burn he got on the back of his legs. He remembered sun screen everywhere but there. He was pretty miserable the next few days.

While the boys all went crab fishing I headed down to the outlets to go shopping with my sisters. I found some great deals on some really cute things. That is one of the things I looked forward too! :)


Here is Patrick after he just pulled in the trap. You can see that there are several crabs dangling in there. They caught a lot of crabs, but only 2 were big enough to keep.

Elli enjoyed the Oregon dandelions, or at least that is what they reminded me of. They grew all over the place like dandelions do here at home.

This is one of the many tide pools that was a short 5 minute walk from our beach house. We went down at low tide nearly every morning and evening. (I doctored this picture a little to make it look like an illustration. I like how it brought out the colors a little more.)

This is a cute little crab near the tide pools, but don't be fooled by it's tiny size (only about 1 1/2") These little guys will draw blood when they pinch.

Another fun tide pool. There were star fish everywhere, and even more anemones and barnacles.

There were also hermit crabs, but they were hard to get pictures of because they would hide behind the anemones.

Here is one of the fish dishes, it was some kind of herb and butter fish. Some was baked, and some was grilled. Joel and Patrick made the fish for us.

I think this was my favorite fish, it was a Parmesan cheese crusted fish. YUMMY!!!

This was another great meal. Patrick made ribs, and Marnie made flank steak. We ate really well on this vacation, and we never went out to eat either! With cooks like Marnie, Patrick and Joel, who needs restaurants?!

We stopped at the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River on our way in to Portland. The kids were tired of the car and it was a great stopping place. In the pic they are watching the enormous rainbow trout.

We all enjoyed walking along the beach looking for sea shells. Noah found this huge muscle shell, it was a great find!

My mom and dad brought their kites. Oregon beaches are great for kite flying!

This was the beginning of Bradley's treasure collection. Only a few things made it home though, none of which were crab claws. (too stinky)

The is our beach house named Sheltering Pines. This is taken from the beach. The wooden stairs are just feet from the deck and take you straight down onto the beach. It was such a perfect location, and the beach house was really quite lovely! It has 3 bedrooms with king size beds, and 2 of those rooms had their own bathrooms. There were 2 more common bathrooms. The 4th bedroom had a bunk bed with another pullout, which was enough room for all but 1 of the older grand kids. The rest of the family used the 3 couches in the family room at night. It worked out really well! Next time we do this we are thinking of renting the house right next door so that there will be room for my my sister who couldn't join us this year.

This is the view from the deck of the house, and yes I doctored this photo too. I am enjoying learning how to edit my photos.

One of my favorite things to do on our trips to Oregon is go to the local blueberry farms to pick fresh berries. In total we picked close to 50 lbs of berries. It's hard to pass up when they are only $1 a pound. We took just under half of them to the beach house to nibble on and make blueberry sauce for ice cream, and the rest were frozen to bring home. Can you believe the size of this blueberry? It was super delicious too, I ate it right after I took the picture!

This is the fish hatchery again, it's one of the 9 foot or so sturgeons they have on display.

Thank goodness for the invention of portable DVD players. Bradley and Elli enjoyed their time in the car (around 13 hours) much more than they would have without them. We also bought us a new van which helped tremendously because Elli still needs her infant car seat when she is drinking her bottle. I was able to switch her over to the infant seat so she could have her milk and take a naps, rather than needing to stop every time she wanted her milk.

This was taken at my sisters house. The first van was Marnie's brother in laws rental (who came up for Isaac's baptism), the next is Marnie's van, then my mom and dad's and then ours. I guess white is the family color. We all bought them within a month of each other too.

This is Noah, Isaac and Bradley. We can't wait to come back again in a few years!