Santa Claus is Coming to Town

And our little girl isn't too pleased about it.
That's right. She was braver last year. John says that he has never felt her grab onto him so tight as when he tried to set her on Santa's lap. Go figure she does like seeing pictures of Santa just not get too close. Whatever.

Nigh-nigh

As I have said before, Ellie likes having her stuffed animals do what she does. So she puts them "nigh-nigh" often. One night while John was playing with Ellie, he figured out that this is what she wanted. I think that might be all of her stuffed animals and two "bay-bits" (blankets). Sadly, since John took this picture the teddy bear has gone missing at church. It has been a great loss.

Halloween Fun

In anticipating Halloween this year, John and I debated whether or not to have Ellie participate in the pumpkin carving experience. This was mainly a question because it was so cold outside that the only option was to do it in doors. I was mainly scared of the mess a one and a half year old could make in my kitchen with a bunch of pumpkin seeds and slime. I shouldn't have worried. My little texture sensitive girl wouldn't touch the slime and only really participated by putting the seeds back into the pumpkin that I had cleaned off to toast. These were really yummy by the way. Check out our scary masterpiece. Gotta love the pumpkin carving kits. This is my attempt to get a picture of Ellie in her Halloween outfit. Turns out that she doesn't like to sit still for pictures anymore.
Our costumes. What a cute Clark! Yes, those are old sunglasses with the lens popped out. The three of us. Sadly we were not a themed family this year. Ellie was a Care Bear. Yeah, it is my kid that is ruining the photo. We went to Halloween party at a friend's house. They sure hosted a great party. Ellie loved it (except maybe this moment). One of the best parts was that they did a Halloween hunt. It was such a hit with Ellie! Thank you Matt and Julie!!We gotta get a piano!I was so impressed with everyone's costumes! Here's our little trick or treater. She LOVED it!!! Seriously, we were freezing our tail ends off, but Ellie and Madeleine were laughing and running to the next house. I think she mostly just liked knocking on everybody's doors and running around with her friend. So cute! Since Halloween Clark's glasses have become a great toy. Everything that Ellie does, her stuffed animals now do. So here is her "ba-bear" with the glasses. This isn't that great of a shot, but I think it is hilarious that she likes to wear the glasses around her middle. I think she decided that her tummy is where the glasses fit her best. Happy be-lated Halloween!!!

Fall Love

This year I have really clung to summer--mostly because of the harvest season. However, as I have come to grips with the end of cucumbers and tomatoes, Fall has started to show its delights. We wanted to get some pictures of Ellie and went up Provo Canyon just when the leaves were starting to turn. So sad this one turned out blurry!
Bright red hair!

My Honey

Isn't it funny how pet names have a way of evolving. Sweetheart turns to Sugar turns to Shug which turns to who knows what. We're no different in our family. Only for us there has always been the dependable 'honey' that gets us through all of the other weird nicknames we come up with for each other.

A few weeks ago my honey turned 27 years old. Sheesh he's getting old. ;) John picked out a game that he wanted to own, and I surprised him with chocolate candies. This has been the surprise for so long that I am sure he would be surprised if I didn't get him it.

However this year more chocolate was added to the fray with a humongous chocolate cake. We didn't eat a ton of it in one go, but it was still enjoyed with raspberry yogurt and bananas on top. Yes, fruit/chocolate combination are the best--I don't care what you say. ;)

I wish we had some of that chocolate cake now because we have a reason to celebrate. For the last two months John has been studying for the qualifying exams for his PhD program. These are four very difficult exams that were three hours each. He was told to expect to fail at least one of them. However, if he failed any of them twice he would be kicked out of the program. Well, he showed them. We just received the news that he passed all of them. In fact in Math and Heat Transfer he got a 'high pass.' I am so proud of him! I am grateful that he is willing to work so hard to achieve his goals. What a great guy my honey is!

Ellie's Friends

One of the things that Ellie gets the most excited about is seeing her little friends. She has her own way of saying each of their names, but almost always it is accompanied with a little squeal or a pull towards the door to go see them. Ellie does the same thing when she sees this picture. It is one of her favorites. The funny thing about this is that whenever we do have a little playgroup for the most part she doesn't really play with them. She likes to watch them play, do her own thing, or try to take the toys they are playing with. It is only really recently that I have seen her actually collaboratively play. It sure is cute to see them together though. I love seeing all of their little personalities. What cute kiddos!

Around the house with Ellie

This morning as we were dressing for church, Ellie absolutely insisted that she put on her jacket. She wanted the hood up and everything. Check out this awesome outfit.One day I walked in to see that she had put my pajama shorts on her head. I have a lot of pictures of her trying to grab the camera.
One of her favorite activities during the day is to listen to the Wee Sing baby songs. She loves to spin in circles and wave her arms. Of course the video won't load
This is attempt number three for her to feed herself with a spoon. I don't know if she is learning how to use the spoon or not, but we learned that she can now reach the counters. A few minutes after getting cleaned up from this we saw that she had taken the left overs off the counter and and taken it all over the house. Yogurt was everywhere! It was mostly on the carpet and on the doors. She really likes to knock on all the doors in the house. Turns out we need to investigate what's going on when Ellie isn't being noisy or demanding. It is hard to get Ellie to stop moving when I get the camera out. She gets so excited.
She is hopefully learning that balloons get popped this way.
Ellie likes to walk around in my shoes. I love it!
I love her blue eyes. She looks so innocent. You wouldn't believe that right before I took this picture she grabbed a whole stack of books and dumped them on herself.
Some of her other favorites are: going eye-y-eye (outside), reading stories, and doing her shape ball. She also loves climbing on a dow (chair), turning on and off the light, and identifying people from the screen saver on our computer. Ellie loves the songs: wheels on the bus, popcorn popping, and this little piggy. She has her own versions of all of the actions, which are pretty cute. I think it is funny that her action for the wheels going round and round has become what she does when she wants to sing. Lastly, but definitely not least she LOVES starfall.com. She calls it 'B,' and every time we get on the computer she asks for it. Although since we have let her look at it about once a day, she has started to recognize when she sees letters and points them out on our shirts.