A Little Trip

I love these pictures from a trip we recently took to Salt Lake but I feel overwhelmed with the idea of having to write about it because we were there for the funeral of a rather wonderful grandmother of mine, and I don't really feel like writing the thoughts and emotions that are connected with her funeral.

So I'm not going to.

Although our reason for being there was sad, it was so fun to get to see everyone.

There were about 40 people stuffed into one house during the days, all laughing and playing and eating together.

Ella was in heaven running around with all my youngest cousins and chasing my grandparents' Siamese cat.

Ice cream was eaten in abundance and football was constantly on the tv.

^The cute dark-haired boy is my youngest cousin, Johnny, who is only two weeks older than Fenton.

Johnny is very happy and social, which both amused and freaked out Fenton, whose calm self can only handle so much craziness, even though he lives with the queen of the social crazies.

 ^When your dad is a Packers fan, this automatically means that you are too.

^Oh, that floor!! 

I love it so much! 

We are going back there for Christmas and I'm already plotting to take pictures of Fenton on that wonderful tile!

After the funeral we spent a couple days in downtown Salt Lake.

This included a trip to Bruge's Waffles, which is AMAZING.

You must go if you are in SLC.

You MUST!

Also, a trip to IKEA.

Oh, IKEA.

That place is such a problem.

It's one thing to walk into a store and have everything be adorable, but then to have it all be so dang affordable as well, I was throwing all sorts of stuff we didn't need into the cart.

And now our home looks so cute thanks to all those things, it makes me want to go back now and get more.

Like I said, such a problem.

^Even Little Girl liked IKEA (who doesn't?)

And we visited Ella's beautiful aunt Maddy and collected leaves.

Ella really loves leaves, she loves to collect them.

I love seeing the world and things as simple as leaves through her eyes.

And it turned out that we drove home on Ella's birthday and so Adam's grandparents made sure to give her some cake, which she kind of loved!

Although, we have some serious candle-blowing-out skills to work on before next year.

The Latest

 The latest: 

We survived 4 whole entire days with Adam being out of town, and it was during the weekend which is when he is usually home with us, so we felt pretty accomplished for getting through that unscathed! 

It involved eating at quick cheap restaurants every single night so that I wouldn't go insane trying to make dinner with two children crying for my attention and it was the perfect excuse to get out of the house, we try to be outside of the house as much as possible to avoid craziness.

One of the places we went to was this hole-in-the-wall Indian place that was way yummy, Ella loved it because "chickin" is currently one of her favorite foods.

There was an old bollywood movie going on in the corner and everything.

And my beautiful friend, Krislyn, who is one of the most selfless people I know, came and helped me with the kids on Saturday and Sunday when I was starting to go stir-crazy, it was so nice to talk to another adult after several days of only having kids for company.

Ella came over to me with the TV remote control in her hand.
She knows the remote control is a no-no.
She held out the remote to me and said, "Yes oh no?" (yes or no?) which is a question I ask her when she is doing something she shouldn't, "Is that a yes or a no?"
"That would be a no," I told her.
"Yeah!" She exclaimed, so proud of me, "A no!" And handed the remote to me.

Fenton's two bottom teeth have poked through, they are adorable.

And he has to have his clothes changed several times a day due to drool.

I was about to head out the door but I couldn't find a certain pair of shoes that I needed and I asked Adam, as I searched the living room, "Have you seen my shoes?"
Ella was in the living room and heard the question and she immediately walked over to a basket of shoes that we keep right by the door and pulled out two mismatched flip flops and put them side by side on the floor for me so that I could slip them on and run out the door.
Almost died over the sweetness of that and I felt so sad that I couldn't wear the flip flops since it was cold outside and I was in Sunday dress.
I thanked her profusely and when she saw I had grabbed another pair of shoes she carefully put the flip-flops back in the basket.

 I am in love with the musical West Side Story.
It is just fantastic in so many ways.
And I especially love the song "Maria" in that musical.
I've been singing that song to Ella and Fenton since each of them was born and we regularly listen to it in the car.
The other day we were driving and I started singing, "The most beautiful sound I ever heard, Ma-," and then I paused to see what Ella would do, to see if she had paid any attention at all to that song as we listen to it in the car and sure enough this little sing-song voice in the backseat responded, "-RIA!!!"
I died of pride right there and then.


 And this article, called Happiness, Your Heritage is absolutely beautiful, I love it!
When I read it I feel like every part of me just wants to sing because it's so true
(that was a cheesy thing to say but that's just what it feels like)!

Vlogged

Blue Coat and Stockings

I would like you to notice that this is the 7th post in a row that has not contained a single picture of Ella in just her diaper.

Boom.

I'm really proud of that right now.

But maybe that's because fall is here and I am so happy to get to dress her in stockings and coats again. 

We regularly go on walks with our gigantic double stroller (that we repeatedly knock into things because it is so crazily long I can't keep track of where it ends) and Ella just sits there in her seat, thumb in her mouth, and watches the houses pass by and I soak in the silence and perfect weather and Fenton happily drools.

Sometimes we walk downtown.

Sometimes we walk to the toy store.

And when I say, "Ella, time to say goodbye to the toys, let's go-de-go (a phrase I got from her)," she is so good at waving goodbye to all the toys and getting back in her stroller and we go.

But her favorite is when we go on walks with her grocery cart and she pushes it up and down each and every street and waves hello to the kids and dogs in their yards. 

And she chases after pages of newspaper ads that go skittering down the street in the wind and then she stuffs them into open parcel compartments of mail boxes and I just laugh as I watch her because what a fantastic solution! 

Fenton gets slung to me in the baby wrap and sleeps, only waking when neighbor dogs come up and lick his little feet poking out the sides.

Something that happened yesterday:

We were at the park.

She was going down the slide over and over again (over the weekend we went to a small water park and she learned how to go down the water slide on her own and she loved it so now she's all about going down every slide she sees on her own).

And suddenly she stopped, looked at me and said, "Shake a bum!" and proceeded to shake her bum in the cutest little dance I may have ever seen, it involved some side-ways hip action and turning in a circle.

Also, if I run out to the car to grab something I'll tell her, "I'll be right back," and she says, "Yeah. Back. Bye! Soon! (as in "see you soon")" 

And after I grab whatever I needed I'll be walking back to the house and notice a little gap in the horizontal window blinds and two little eyes peeking out through the gap and realize that Ella is standing on the couch inside so that she can watch me through the blinds.

And she talks with her hands, which is way cute. 

They are always flying all over the place.

Love her.