What do you think of this photo?

I decided to join the Heroes club and start watching the first season.  I'm starting off with the 'never before seen premiere episode' - it's pretty cool so far.

The guy's just about to pull a 'City of Angel's' right off the building.

Hannah the wonder kid!

Thanksgiving Vacation

One of the highlights of playing at Grandpa and Grandma's house was helping pick apples. Even after we had tons of them, they still needed to be in tree. "There are more apples up there, we need to pick the apples."

Hannah learns about tea parties from her cousin. Kimberly said they should toast and Hannah replied "toast, we don't have any toast."

And we managed to get a nice family picture. Woohoo!!

Halloween fun!

So here are some pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes. Sam was a "dinosaur-dragon who eats other dragons" or something along those lines. Hannah was a "princess with stars," she was adamant about the stars. Michelle was a duck. In this picture she is a somewhat hidden duck by the attacking dinosaur and princess.

Here are the pumpkins we carved. We carved pumpkins at two different times, hence the differing decay levels. And the candles didn't want to stay lit for pictures outside. But it was fun and the kids enjoyed it. Hannah loves to clean out the pumpkins, Sam grimaced every time he stuck his hand in there.

This is just a cool picture that Justin took that I really liked. He's the budding photographer. :)

October fun

This is one of my new favorite Halloween activities. This year was a little bit easier since I already knew that strollers were not feasible and the only one who would need a stroller is young enough to stay in the snugli and not pitch a fit about not getting out. Sam and Hannah loved the hale bale maze. Mom is a huge fan because I can see them while they are in there and not have to be following them constantly while they both run through there.

We went with our friend Spencer, this picture isn't such a good shot of him but my kids were sure cute! :) Now Sam is looking forward to carving pumpkins at Grandma's house and waiting desperately for me to finish his halloween costume.

Salsa Explosion

One of the latest disasters at our house involved an explosion of salsa. Here's what happened (with the pictures to prove the disaster). Sam was kicking a ball around the house. I told him he needed to stop. "Why?" he asks. "Because I don't want you to break something." "But I'm not breaking anything." So he proceeds to kick the ball from the living room into the kitchen. The ball (just an inflatable cheap one) went into the kitchen, knocked a brand new container of salsa from Costco off the counter and onto the floor. Now the amazing part is how far and wide spread the salsa was while no more than a cup was missing from the jar of salsa. I know it looks like someone died but I was pretty impressed with my reaction. Yes I yelled at him but it wasn't too much or even too loud. Small miracles because two hours later I was still cleaning salsa from the kitchen (and the next morning was another 2-3 hours of cleaning).

I immediately had Sam help clean it up. He mopped the floor and cleaned the fridge and the pantry. This stuff went everywhere. It was on the ceiling, the living room carpet got a few drops, the wall above the cupboards, the pantry doors, it was impressive. I had to take pictures just to prove how big a mess it was. The kitchen was in need of cleaning anyway, but I hadn't planned on a huge cleaning. We spent that afternoon and the next morning cleaning the kitchen. The floor got mopped, the cupboards cleaned and some polish on them, counter tops cleaned, dishes done, walls cleaned, and ceiling wiped (pretty much only where there was salsa).

Here are the after shots of my nice clean kitchen. I had high hopes of keeping it this clean for awhile, but a couple of days later I decided I am fine with mostly clean. Just keeping up with the dishes and keeping the floor swept and the counters clean is a big enough job. I am definitely not the cleaning guru some of my friends are. :)

I guess having an explosion of that proportion every four years is a good thing for my kitchen. I think Sam has learned why the balls stay downstairs or outside. I hope, in the meantime, I will try to keep the counters clean. And we are trying to use a whole lot of salsa since we now have two containers open essentially. Good thing my kids like chips and salsa!

Test post!

Six weeks old

Michelle looking beautiful in her blessing dress. The red bows are the way I decided to personalize the dress for her. Hannah was blessed in the same dress but with different color bows.

Nice time for a family picture. Unfortunately Sam has hit the goofy grin when asked to smile for pictures. It's cute but mildly annoying when I just want a "normal" picture. Although, this is probably as normal as you will see this family. :)

This is Michelle at six weeks old with her very cute grin. The person who can get the most grins out of this girl practically on command: Sam. He will lay down next to her and then I hear this "Mommy, look at that really cute grin."

Sam's New Skills

Yes, the long awaited day, in Sam's mind anyway, has come. With Dad home for a bit we were finally ready to take the training wheels off of his bike. I have watched him ride with the neighbors for the last couple of weeks and he can ride down the entire street without his training wheels touching so we knew he was ready. He was very excited as this makes his bike like all the bikes the big kids have. He watched Dad intently (probably a little too much if he has access to these tools in the future).
He was a little bit nervous at first and so they started down at the base of the driveway. Dad started by holding the back of his bike. . .


. . . gave a little push. . .










. . . and that was the end of the lesson. He was off and cruising. He loves it!! Now he just wants all the big kids to come out and ride with him.

Michelle Elizabeth Elliss - Born July 26th

Hey All,

Little Michelle was born July 26th - she was awesome, the labor went great for AnnaJune, and everything went well. She was 8 lbs and 20" long, with slightly red hair and blue eyes.

The kids love having her around. Sam and Hannah love playing and reading with her, plus trying to get her to do things with them, such as watching TV and eating.

Recent Activities

So I decided to try this out. Here are some recent photos, all of the Hannah girl.

We decided it was time to get the hair out of the face at least a little bit. I loved the face, you can't really tell that it's because the hair is hanging over her eyes and I had been combing it over her eyes. And as an added bonus, my belly sticking out, a nice pregnancy profile.

The new look, although a sometime wild and uncombed version of it. :)

Hannah girl loves the flowers, and loves to have her picture taken. Nice color coordination of the purples. So there is an update of Hannah. I don't know how often this will get updated but it's an attempt.

Other updates, we have three weeks left until baby #3. Hopefully this one will want to be a little bit early. That would be a bonus. Being 9 months pregnant in the heat of the summer is not the greatest idea but we are excited for this baby. Sam asked me today when I came home from my doctor visit if the baby was out. He is fairly excited about the baby and always wants to poke the baby or feel the baby move. Anyway, more later but not much later I hope. :)

Cuteness in the dance

We're back for another week!

Bruno is complimenting the 2 young dancers who just did the paso doble - they are waayyy to cute to be able to dance like that. Bruno said that they were a gigantic ball of greatness - it was funny because he was trying to keep it from being naughty.

Sam fell asleep on the couch and Hannah is fighting it. More later.

Dancing with the Kids

As a first post, we're looking at an exciting night at the Elliss household!


Tonight is officially Dancing with the Stars night at our household - we're all gathered in the family room watching the drama, passion... http://abc.go.com/primetime/dancingwiththestars/index?pn=index

and now we're watching the mango! ewwwh! But kinda funny. Steve and Jonathon dancing the tango.

It's great watching Hannah dance to the music - she looks like she's doing the chicken dance - we'll have to take a picture and post it.

Our favorites are Kristi and Mark, Marlee and Fabian, Jason and Edyta:

Now for some comments:

Jason (the NFL player of the year or something, like that's important in the ultra-competitive world of ballroom dancing) dances well and has a good attitude ( but not a 'I love everyone and especially fuzzy bunnies' attitude like Steve).

Marlee, the deaf actress, is really funny and is actually inspiring in the way that she performs, on the stage and off. I think it would be cool if she had some sort of high-tech beat indicator that helped her out.

Kristi is just really sharp and of course a great dancer. I'm really suprised that they invited her, since she has such a natural advantage having been a gold-medal winning figure ice skater - basically dancing on ice. She will be the winner, not only because she's a great dancer, but she knows what it is to train and compete, and she's hot. (Very important in this competition) Plus, there aren't really any standout guys, so I think she has this one in the bag.



Anyway, here's an interview with AnnaJune regarding who is going home tonight:

Ssilleelliss: "Who do you think is going home tonight and why?"
AJ: "I don't know, but I think Steve should. He's not a very good dancer"
Ssilleelliss: "What do you think of the controversial 'lift'?"
AJ: "The judges didn't mention it, but they should have. I want Shannon to come back, and Cristian is ok."


Ok, we're now at the end of the torture session! Steve and Anna are heading home! I think he was just too warm and fuzzy for this America. He would have done well on TeleTubbies, but here in the cutthroat world of ballroom dancing / reality voting, he was just a big target.





Sad breaking news - an Amber Alert happened today concerned a little girl who lived near where we used to live. 2250 S 500 E. It looks like a murder case. We're really happy we don't live there anymore.