Midnight Movie

So ever since we have had Ellie, I have felt like our spontaneity has been shot. If we have an event during the day it takes most of the day to get her on the right schedule so that we can make it and it isn't during eating/sleeping time. At about 5 pm the day before the new Harry Potter movie opened, our friends said that they had two extra tickets to the show. We couldn't pass up on it. Fortunately because the showing was at 12:20 am there was no way this had to be an eating time for Ellie. We decided that because Ellie NEVER wakes up during the middle of the night we would leave her with the neighbors and go to the midnight showing.
I was so nervous. What if she woke up? She doesn't take a bottle. Would these people hate us forever?? The theater was 45 minutes away from our apartment! Anyway, we took a chance and it worked out. She didn't wake up at all. It felt so crazy to do something that spontaneous. I really enjoyed the movie. I am a romantic so I really liked that this was more love-story oriented than the other films. We ended up going to bed at 4 am. Unfortunately because Ellie had such a good night's rest she wanted to be up and playing at 8. Yeah, pretty sleepy that day, but it was well worth it.

Fourth of July

I know this is pretty late coming, but it is still fun. The weekend of the fourth of July was an eventful one for us. First Anna's adorable 1 year old birthday party. She is such a beautiful little girl. Then we had Independence Day celebrations. Small town parades are awesome! I really love this picture of the three of us. Notice Ellie can't open her eyes fully because she was outside. She is so sensitive to sunlight even when it is overcast.

She was a little bit happier later on during the day.
Also during that weekend was Jane's blessing. It was beautiful and the food was delicious! Afterward, we dressed them in these little festive outfits. I think it is so funny that even though Ellie is about twice Jane's age in this picture they are about the same size. This little photo shoot was so fun! At one point Ellie turned her head to Jane's and started licking her head. She licks most thing that come in contact with her face, but normally it isn't another defenseless baby! I sure hope that they are good friends growing up together.

Adventures

This is how Ellie has been a lot recently. She likes to roll over a ton, but can't get on her back once she rolls to her tummy. She gets stuck a lot which results in a bunch of spit up.

We went up to Willard Bay with my family and had a ton of fun. I love Ellie's expression in this picture.
I love the sky in this picture and Anna is adorable!
We also had a family reunion on John's side. It was so fun to see everyone. We did this really cool thing where everyone talked about their childhood memories. It was so entertaining to see what people talked about.

One of my favorites was how one time John's older siblings accidentally broke a water pipe in the basement. I quote from Sarah's story:

"I remember Mom and Dad had gone out, and we kids were playing house. I was of course, the "Mom" and David was play the "Dad." This happened back when the basement wasn't finished, and Mom used to hang laundry on lines she tied to the pipes in the walls. Well David was swinging on a line, as we did often, I am sure, and it happened to break the water pipe. We were so panicked and worried. So we went and got the Meli kids to help us. They had a 15 year old, I think it was Eni, and she called the plumber. He thought it was a prank call, so wouldn't come. We didn't know what else to do, so we ran outside, and I remember Jeff yelling at the top of his lungs, Mom and Dad, come home!" Oh a cell phone would have come in so handy then. I just knew that water would rise up the stairs, so I went upstairs, got Spencer out of his crib, and carried him to the Hasting's house, about 7 or 8 houses down the street. That should have been far enough, I thought. Well, eventually our parents got home, turned off the water, and we started cleaning up. We had to scoop the water up and carry it to the floor drain in the laundry room. Things were wet for a long time. "

It was so fun to hear the different stories. This was Ellie's experience at the family reunion. The kids loved to come over and peak at her while she was supposed to be taking a nap. She LOVED all of the attention!
We also took Ellie on her first camping trip. She did pretty well, despite having a hard time going to sleep that night. She still slept the whole night through. We are pretty lucky!
I love this picture of Lucas!
Thanks guys for picking out such a cool campsite!
Thanks to Marc and Miriam for organizing the whole thing!
She is just getting more smiley and laughy all of the time. Such a wonderful little baby!