Delicious Little Ellie

So fun this little girl is. Her little attitude and antics keep us on our toes and keep us laughing. Here are a few examples of what I mean:

We were on our way to Brian's soccer game in Provo (an hour + drive). Once Ellie was buckled in I figured we were in for a looong drive with a fussy toddler. As she started to complain I handed her a pen and figured I would deal with the consequences later. Naive I know, but she was so quiet the whole trip. I figured she had fallen asleep and I didn't want to lean back to check . . . in case it woke her. When we got to the field we discovered our little miss, bright-eyed and oh so proud of herself.I love it! She got the whole ball. I can just imagine her little tongue sticking out in concentration as she worked on her masterpiece.
A little while ago we went to temple square/downtown to kill some time one evening. Disneyland couldn't have entertained her more. She started talking a mile a minute, mostly about everything she could see. She walked around with her chin held high looking up at the buildings and of course the temple. We tried our best to steer her little head away from walls, poles, and people. It was fun to watch this girl discover. Of the many things she discussed here are a few I caught (and understood).

• "Nie! so high on top" (Nie = Moroni)
• "Stinky horses. Need wipes."
• "Desus. Owie hands. Need bandaid, make it all betta."
• "Dolef Smilif."
  

I love this picture. She may look terrified (and who could blame her, that mask looks possesed!). Really she was just commenting to me and this is what the camera caught. She is at such a fun age to pull out stickers and crayons and watch what she creates. She loves it and gets completely engrossed in her work. The masks were fun, but she had no interest in wearing hers. (thanks Ms. Apple for the idea:)

Babymoon

The count down is on. In just a few short months we will have a bran-spankin' new babe to sniff and cuddle, to ooggle and awe, to kiss and love to bits. So much to look forward to . . . and about a month ago as I was looking forward to all of this, I remembered. I remembered the new parent delirium, the sleep deprived walking into walls, and pacing the floors at all hours of the night. I remember 3 months of house arrest, 9 months of no dates, 13 months of not one entire night's sleep. I look at Ellie, oh how I loved her, and even in the thick of all of that I still felt like the luckiest. I am in no way dreading the new adventure of #2, bring it on! However I was filled with an urgent sense of carpe dieum as I looked to the future. So I got online booked a trip for two for a one day, two night trip to San Fransisco. Ellie loves grandma's and grandma loves Ellie, so that is where our little girl hung out.

An hour after dropping her off I called see how she was doing, I was already missing her. But we were off.We stayed in a hotel right in downtown San Fransisco (because I didn't know any better). We kept the window open at nights because there was no air conditioning (a commonality among the older hotels in the area). The bed was comfy so I slept well, but it was noisy.
When we woke up the first morning it was so beautiful outside. Not a patch of fog so we had to go find a beach. We drove North (I think) over the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. It is so much more magnificent and beautiful to see in person, as most iconic things are. I got chills as we drove over the bay and I looked out toward Alcatraz. Awesome.

We stopped at Muir beach. Awesome. There were happy wet dogs splashing through the waves and dirty happy kids chasing them. This is so much more our style. Again, we missed our Ellie and Annie. Our next trip to SF we will stay on this side of the bridge.
We drove past Muir woods and through a few snooty little towns along Hwy 1. Snooty, but very characteristic and fun. We stopped in a very environmentally conscious town (I know because that is what they claimed on their welcome sign, they still sold water in plastic bottles so I wasn't impressed:) and walked through a very stinky artesian cheesery -- or whatever they call a place they make cheese. Cheese would be a fun thing to get into I think, kinda cool. But it smelled rotten and I didn't dare take any samples seeing that I pregnant and all.
Whoa, check that baby bump, yup I'm definately pregnant.We strolled through a harbor, bought some hats for our little toe-head back home and went back to the hotel to rest before the show.
And oh the show! Really, besides the whole impending babydum, this was a big motivating factor for the whole trip.Our hotel was a 15 minute walk from the Orpheum theater. So we got all glammed up, I put on my shiny new red high heels (they looked awesome!) and about 5 minutes into the walk I wondered what I was thinking. I had blisters before we got to the first cross walk. I toughed it out to the theater and walked bare foot after the show. Gross I know, but it was better than bleeding feet.

It was the perfect babymoon. I love Brian so very much and am so excited to enter this new stage of parenthood with him. And hopefully we will always find ways to squeeze in one day, two night us time. On the BART ride to the airport, however, we both agreed that we couldn't wait to see our little girl, and by the look on her face when we walked in the door she was glad it wasn't a longer trip too.