A quick post while Ella is napping

Over here, we're a little bit busy planning talks that we have to give at church on Sunday 

And also a Sunday School lesson that we are teaching on Sunday

And cuddling a baby who just won't stop smiling and giggling and stuffing blades of grass in her mouth

And we're busy being addicted to eggs benedict and lava cakes

And listening to Ella Fitzgerald

And drawing and painting like a crazy person

And running the usual errands

And thinking about when I will finally put down my paint brush to tackle the dirty laundry

And studying for the DAT

And playing basketball (those last two are definitely all Adam).

I think it's the perfect amount of busyness, it's not too much that it's impossible to do it all, but it's enough that you can't stop and rest for too long, you have to keep going to get it all done.

Hair-sucking

Why I love this picture: I was trying to get a picture of Ella sucking on my hair, so I pushed the button on my computer to take the picture and put my hair in front of Ella but instead of sucking on it she turned towards the computer and flashed this enormous grin-- I have no idea why she would smile at my computer, maybe she liked seeing herself on the screen, I don't know, but I love it! And I love how her hair is all floaty on top, standing straight up, like usual.

Which reminds me of what Adam's grandpa said about Ella last weekend. 

"She sure has wavy hair, doesn't she?" 

I wasn't sure what he was talking about since her hair is totally straight, but then he expounded, "Because it stands straight up and waves at you."

If that is the definition of wavy hair, then Ella definitely has it.

I thought it was pretty funny to think of Ella's hair as waving to everyone.

Continuing with Ella and hair, she was reaching her tiny little hands out for the corn cobs that were sitting next to her bumbo, so I handed her one as I continued to make lunch. When I looked back up I found that she had discovered a replacement for my hair, corn cob silk:

This is exactly how she sucks on my hair.

I can't even tell you the number of times I have seen Ella sucking on her thumb and on closer observation I found a strand of my hair entwined around her fingers that she had found on the ground. 

I have to keep her away from one corner of the bedroom floor entirely because my hair seems to always gather there and she is always bound to find it and start sucking on it.

Pretty gross. 

Just some pictures from our trip that I love

The Weekend

Over Memorial weekend we got to introduce Ella to a lot of people who have loved her since before she was born but had never actually met her before.

I was afraid she would get stranger-anxiety but she was positively basking in all the attention, she loved it!

She loved it so much she never wanted to sleep, which meant that by the end of the trip she was hugely sleep-deprived.

But that ended up working in our favor because she slept the whole drive home. 

And on the drive there she was so good!

Occasionally she would make quiet little moaning noises to let us know she wasn't thrilled about being locked into her seat for so long, but then I would just throw her toy or a bottle and she would be content again.

Also, I took a ton of pictures, but somehow I missed getting pictures of so many people!

Okay, seriously, this girl is in love with napkins.

She can spot a napkin a mile away.

And she does everything she can to get her hands on it so that she can stuff it into her mouth.

Pretty soon she is sitting in the middle of a large pile of torn, slobbery, chewed-on and disintegrated napkins.

That bottom left picture, that is just mine and Ella's stuff, all packed up for a mere two days vacation.

Holy cow.

One bag stuffed with bottles, another bag full of toys, another one with multiple outfits in case she pooped through a couple of outfits and then there's her entire bed that needed to be packed up and a stroller and car seat.

I had no idea how much stuff Ella needed in a single day until I had it all packed.

Also, Adam and his grandma introduced me to Words with Friends this weekend and now I am hooked.

Adam just scored a 39 point word against me and I am now losing, and I was majorly winning before, so things are getting intense.

Things are also getting intense in the two separate games that Adam and I are playing against his grandma.

She is really good at Words with Friends.

She has us both working hard to try and keep up with her high-scoring words.

I pretty much love that Adam's grandma will play that game with us.

And this wonderful couple introduced us to Draw Something.

That is an awesome game!

I drew a picture of Yoda and they guessed it before I even had drawn the lightsaber.

Whoa.

And then, of course, there's the good old fashioned games that you don't play on your phone, like croquet and hillybilly golf and Forbidden Island.

Basically, it was a wonderful weekend!

The End.

Moments in the life of the Baby of Cuteness

My favorite part is at the end

Clip One

 I just love that little grin of hers and how much she loves to play with her dad

Clip Two

She loves that song so much, it makes her smile every time she hears it, without fail

Clip Three

Ella in her bed, flailing her hands and playing and stuff

Clip Four

How much she loves splashing and swimming

Clip Five

This is the first time she's ever done something to make herself laugh

One more time in HD

It was brought to my attention that the video of Ella gagging on her veggies isn't such great quality and it's hard to see her facial expressions, so here it is again in HD so that you can fully appreciate her trying to throw up:

Dancing

Did you guys see So You Think You Can Dance last night?

It was wonderful!

I had started doubting whether or not it really was as wonderful as I remember and then it came on and it was just as amazing as ever!

I was crying right along with Mary Murphy (who, by the way, I just love, I love her smile and how she screams when she sees a dance that she loves, she just seems like someone who you want to be around because she is so happy and nice and stuff).

And Nigel's faces at some of the auditions, not only were they great, but I agreed with a lot of them.

Adam liked the hip-hop auditions, I like the contemporary ones.

This was one of my very favorite auditions:

That may have been one of the auditions where I was trying to hide from Adam the fact that I was crying. 

Because seriously, who cries over an audition?

I couldn't help it, I just loved it!

Go Hafen family!

This weekend, Ella is going to meet some of her great-grandparents and some great-aunts and uncles in the Spanish Fork/Provo area that she has never met before.

We are so excited!

But we're dreading Ella's reaction to the long drive.

We'll see how it goes.