I need more time...

How can I get all of the necessary things done when I am too busy having fun? I have zucchini to shred, floor to clean, room to organize, and pinata to make (not so necessary) but I hardly have time to sleep and slap on sunscreen before the next party begins. I wonder if I am using up all of the fun on memories two of the three children won't remember. It is all down hill from here. No other summer can top this one...if we survive it.

First of two tries to see the balloons at the Fourth of July Balloon Festival. Sadly, the weather never did cooperate. On the Saturday before the Fourth we went back to the Balloon Festival with Jessica and her boyfriend. It was still windy. Then we relaxed till Allison and James came down. It was fun to have 4 out of the 5 of us together. We decided to take the short walk to Bridal Vail Falls after a little BBQ. I always forget how close we are to such lovely places. Monday we made it to the parade before we said goodbye to James for a few days and started our trip.

After all of the fabulous Fourth of July festivities, we (Allie, me and kids) headed to California for a vacation. Vacation in this case meant ALOT of driving and coming back exhausted.

We did have a few really great moments. The highlight of the trip was not Sea World but going to visit James in Hollywood. Grace is still talking about it. She was oblivious to the hour Allison and I toured (were lost) in Hollywood before we met James. The other highlight was swimming at the hotel. It was warm enough to swim by 8 a.m. and Grace took advantage of it. Isaac loved the play set at the hotel and pretended for hours that he was feeding sharks. Sam liked the beach and Shamu.

That was the first two weeks of July, and I am too tired to catch my typos so I better get some sleep before I have to put on more sunscreen.

Introducing Samuel

Good bye Sammy, Sam, Sam-bo...

I have someone I'd like to introduce to the world. You may have heard of my baby Sam, but he is gone... with his curls, and in his place is a more serious toddler, Samuel.

He would like to say Hello!

No more party in the back, this boy is ALL business!

Welcome Summer?

Grace's last day of preschool was last Thursday so I considered Monday to be our first day of summer. I was looking forward to running through the sprinklers and catching bugs, but woke up looking at snow. Today has been much better, but I hope our garden (which we planted on Saturday) survives. Due to the poor memory recording on my part, I just can't be satisfied skipping the last few months, but if I want to get to the gym in the morning I need to go to bed soon so I can't cover it all now. I want to share a video I made of Grace's preschool program. It is long. In the middle is Grace's talent that we came up with (all of the kids did a talent). I am mostly sharing this video so Grace can access it easily and my mom has been kindly asking for a few pictures or something for the last few days... weeks... months..... As for everyone else, the Ellis family is alive and kicking!

Happy Birthday Grace and Isaac!

March begins with non-stop partying. For the past ten days we have celebrated Grace's birthday, Grace had a friend party, we had a family party and then we had Isaac's actual birthday. We have a tradition of lots of streamers and ballloons that Grace wakes up to and then they stay up and we refresh them for Isaac's birthday. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE a good party but now I am tired and perhaps getting sick again! I still have one party left-- Relief Society heritage formerly known as birthday party. And for those of you know have kept track I know I haven't posted Christmas which I still plan to do because this may be my only form of documenting for another couple of months and my memory of Christmas will be completely gone if I don't post it soon. Let me document the least fuzzy stuff first.

Grace's birthday began with a package in the mail from Marmee and Papa. They sent her this jumper and an outfit and the boys a few shirts. They also sent a zhuzhu pet for Grace and Isaac but that came a little later. Grace then went to preschool were she was adorned with a happy brithday hat and necklace and was given a book and candy. We could have stopped there and she would have had a wonderful birthday but it continued. We then went to lunch at Joe Banditos-- a family favorite-- with Grandma, Grandpa,Great Grandma and Aunt Eleanor. She played with her new toys in the afternoon and then her friend, Vanessa, came over and played. We sang happy birthday and blew out candles and ate cupcakes. But wait folks, the fun doesn't stop there. We then had a friend birthday on Saturday for Grace. She said she would rather have a friend party than presents from us. We did give her a new leapster game and then we had a friend party. She had 5 girls over and we made tissue paper flowers (still a little difficult at this age). We then decorated pots and filled them with soil and wheat berries (seeds) and if the girls watered them they now have grass around their flower. We did some dancing and played pin the tail on the donkey and did a little Easter egg hunt upstairs (thanks Grandma and Grandpa). It snowed the day before the party and since we had planned on a pinata we switched it up with the indoor Easter egg hunt which was fun. (We had to do something with all of the pinata candy Jake bought. I did a few snacks but the girls were so busy we hardly had time to even eat cupcakes. Grace was great with all of the girls and I was proud of her. She did melt down after the party but that a huge improvement. Grace is growing up to be a lovely lady. The ruffled hair is from the break dancing Grace did on her head. She also wanted to use the MaMa Mia soundtrack as her dancing music. Wow you may be saying if you have stuck with me for this long. No No No we are only half through. Grace is the party queen. This Christmas she woke up at 6 excited to open presents. Two weeks later, she woke up at 5 to decorate for my birthday. She really loves a celebration.

On Monday night we had a family party and my goal was to avoid squeezing everyone into the basement. Somehow the plans morphed and we all squeezed in the basement and then headed over to Nickle City for some fun! (by this point I was exhausted) It was fun to have Jesse and Liam, Justin and Wendy, Allison, Jared and Trisa and cousins, and Grandma and Grandpa over. Nickle City was fun, but somehow I can't help thinking I am training my children to be gamblers. Grandma made a shamu cake which was fabulous, thanks! Everyone left with a few prizes and a full tummy. Last but not least, Isaac had his chance to be the big birthday boy. We usually sing happy birthday to the kids right when they wake up. Isaac woke and walked out of his room and we started singing and he ran scream NO! back into his room. He needs a few minutes to warm up in the morning. He wore a new fire truck shirt Grandma gave him and then he opened a present from Grandma and Grandpa which turned out to be his favorite thing ever! It is a truck that can be disassembled with an electric drill. I tried to take a picture with his smiling but it is serious work!He went to the donut store with grandma and grandpa and then we played. The weather was perfect! He wanted to watch Dora and then we went to the dinosaur museum at BYU to see the new bones they found. After that (all of 15 minutes where Grace grabbed every pamphlet she could find, Sam being a squirmy worm and Isaac running and pulling on the dinosaur teeth ) we went to McDonalds for lunch. Jake met me there and not a moment too soon where we took the kids home for Isaac to open presents. He got some plastic food you can cut, a few books, a squirt gun and a leapster game and a few balls. Grace received some gardening tools from Aunt Joanie that we let her open which led Grace and Isaac back outside to dig for worms and squirt everything with water. Isaac then spent another hour taking apart his car. For dinner we went to IKEA where Isaac played in the play land since his is now potty trained. We only were called there once because Isaac couldn't pull his pants up. We had hot dogs and then went to visit Grandma in the hospital. She had neck surgery and we were happy to see her looking so good. We then took a trip to the nursery because Grace wanted to see the babies. On the way there I realized that this is where Isaac was born exactly three years ago. He is not a baby anymore and is the first to tell everyone what a big boy his is. He is curious and determined and thoughtful. When we came home we had cupcakes courtesy of Grandma and read the firetruck book and then Isaac's last birthday wish was not to take a bath so I scrubbed him down with a washcloth and sent him to bed-- happy.

procrastination cooking

I am determined to get back to blogging because I like it and it doesn't make me feel so isolated from those I love who live farther away. I will not be posting Christmas or any pictures because I have been toooo busy this past week. Cooking. I am really close to finishing my cooking class which I should have finished months ago. I did not so here we are. Cooking. I have made in the past week... blackberry ginger salmon, biscuts, orange cranberry muffins, cinnamon rolls, sesame pork chops, spicy split peas, chile verde chili, shrimp pad thai, carrots with a white sauce, and a few other side dishes to accompany a few previously mentioned dishes. I have one more week of cooking marathon to go and I will be done. I love to cook but it has been alittle out of control. The kids are being wonderful. Grace is fabulous and yesterday she made a special drink for everyone, a cup, a straw, and a strawberry sliced part way and stuck on the side of the cup. She loves garnishes. Isaac is growing so big and is almost potty trained. We have had to use a timer, starburst and sour ropes to motivate him, but he is starting to get it. Isaac is a sensitive soul who barrels in to doors and trips over his fast moving feet but he always calls out, "Fine." before we even have the chance to ask. Sam is adorable with his pony tail length hair. We might chance his name to Sampson because I can't bear to cut his curls. He says "Thank you" for most everything. He also says the word "stuck" alot. He is the most climb-y baby we have. He loves Grace and Isaac.... loves to annoy them. He also loves Kora and shows his affection by sitting on her. Jake is busy with classes and a little work. Our winter is rolling along. I guess no news is good news. Hopefully I will have some good news and pictures to report... next week.

A Singing Telegram

I know to make up for my lack of blogging I needed to produce something amazing. I am satisfied with this. I still need to go back and document Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, but until I edit the pictures... Have a great Valentine's Day!

Christmas 2009

This Christmas will be forever remembered by me as the LadyBug Christmas. This was the year the second floor of my parents' house was visited by an abnormally large amount of ladybugs. Why it happened we can't be sure, What was the purpose- who knows? but even though it was a little unsettling, I consider ladybugs lucky, and seeing them made me smile.

It seemed as if the whole Christmas was full of unexpected, unsettling, abnormal events yet many of the clouds had a silver lining.

First us, at the last minute, I got tickets with the kids to leave in the middle of December. A week before the flight Papa had a doctor's appointment that lead to open heart surgery three days before our arrival. We contemplated staying home, but decided to go and it seems like the kids were a pretty good distraction for Papa as he began his long painful recovery. My dad ran a marathon three months before his triple by-pass. It was completely unexpected but we are grateful that they caught it before he had a heart attack and as much as I was worried about being in the way... it was nice to be a useful distraction.

Second, Marmee was sick on Christmas day. The traditional breakfast with the missionaries was pulled off by the adult kids as Marmee regretfully stayed in bed on Christmas day. The missionaries then stayed the majority of the day playing games with us. It was a change from the normal but not a bad thing.

Speaking of not a bad thing, this was Wendy's first Christmas with us. My brother Justin's wifeis lovely and it was fun to have her there, even though she is really good at Bananagrams. I don't remember the presents given or recieved except the Cricut machine I gave Marmee which she said she didn't want and then has used it frequently since. I do remember feeling like it wasn't the normal Christmas, but somehow it was still a time to connect and enjoy. Even amidst the chaos and the ladybugs, there were many reasons to smile and feel lucky.