What's on our wall?

Here at the Elliss household we're slowly re-decorating things, putting up new pictures, etc. Below are the latest images.
Ben the Cannonball - he's the latest and biggest addition to the household. Luckily for all of us, he's very good natured and can either be held or carried around on the shoulders. His huge size (99% for his age :)) helps prevent his siblings from throwing him around too much.
Hannah is learning her letters and sounding out words now. She's really looking forward to the age where she can go to school just like Sam. She's a monkey who literally climbs up walls, runs around in a cape, and teaches her little sister how to get her parents to do whatever she wants.
Michelle is loving life as girl who knows what she wants, and she wants it now, and you have to give in to her demands due to her dual powers of cuteness and screaming. She has basically the whole family wrapped around her finger. Luckily she can be defeated by simply not letting her take a nap during the day and cuddling her at around 6:00 at night. Out like a lamp.
Sam is doing great at school and at home - he's reading just about anything with words on it. We never knew how interesting the words on the cereal boxes were or what exactly the signs along the highway were saying. He's very competitive and keeps a tally of who is the smartest in his class, along with what he needs to do to catch up. But he loves playing games and also takes time out to do things that actually help other people.

Overall, the kids are doing well and playing well together. They're really into Mario (Sam), Princess Peach (Hannah), and Bowser (whoever is the bad guy at the moment - usually an uncle) - playing games all the time about Princess Peach getting kidnapped, rescuing herself and Daisy (Michelle), and jumping from couches to chairs to tables to avoid the lava. AJ is doing well - her patience usually runs out around 5:30, but I make it home by then to let her recharge for the next day.




Merry Christmas to all!

Recent Activities

We had a busy October. Here are a couple of snapshots of our activities.

Here's the best photo we have currently for our family. This is up the canyon in Cedar City where we were for Heather and Jonathan's wedding. Next is the only photo we have of them (we aren't as talented at juggling children and camera yet).

And we had a fun day of baby blessings for Baby Benjamin and Baby Martin. Yes they are the same size but that's impressive for Martin who started out just under 3 lbs. And Benjamin is an overachiever (or overeater, however you want to look at it). That was a really fun day since we had my whole family there. And what a fun opportunity for cousins to be blessed on the same day.

And completely unrelated to the pictures we have some t-shirt sayings that fit my children so well:

"Everybody knows I was born this cool" is Ben's onsie.

"I have Daddy under my spell" for Michelle (if you don't believe it come spend the night at our house, around 2 am you may hear a toddler start crying and insisting that all she wants is her daddy).

And for both my girls (I don't actually have this shirt yet but I am seriously considering it): "This princess saves herself!"

I don't have any shirt sayings for Sam. His recent activities include doing a science fair project and making great progress in spelling. The spelling has led to him wanting to be quizzed on how to spell all kinds of words. Then he quizzes me on a few words, fortunately I have been able to spell all of them so far. :)

One Month

Here's a couple of pictures from the last month. To start with we have the painting project. Justin asked me for a "honey-do" list of things to do while he was home on paternity leave. I gave him ideas like clean the house, a good cleaning, the kids want a rope swing, a sandbox, weeding, etc. The kinds of things I haven't been able to do all summer. So he decides to paint the house. The entire upstairs except the bedrooms is painted. I don't know how well the colors show but the lighter wall is a yellow with the kitchen being our accent of a brick red. I took this picture because it should an area that was really clean at the time. It looks really nice and I am impressed he managed to get it down. It did get done thanks to my mother-in-law, who helped us get good colors and helped Justin get started and our home teachers who helped him finish.

Benjamin is starting to get a "social smile" as the doctor calls it. I managed to get this picture the other day. Isn't he so cute? He's one month old but pretty much grown out of things that are 0-3 months size. He can wear some of them still but some are being put away already (not that I had many to start with).

We drove up the canyon last weekend and I missed being in the mountains. I didn't do any hiking or camping all summer (we did go to NM but we didn't camp or hike really, well I didn't). So we contemplated going camping this past weekend and decided instead to camp in our backyard. We had a short fire, which was perfect. Just enough to roast a couple of marshmallows and enjoy being around a fire and easy to put out. And then the kids and Dad slept in the tent outside. I decided not to since I knew I would just worry all night about whether Benjamin was cold, were the kids covered up, etc. They all loved it of course.

Cute as a button! Ben has arrived!

Ben arrived last Sunday at 3:30 AM - a massive 10 lb 1 oz baby. He's really quite even tempered, crying only when he needs to be fed.




He has to survive a monkey of an older sister, who wants to help out in every way. She especially likes to try to shove the binky into his mouth, which is something that he doesn't like.




His older brother has promised to teach him everything he needs to know, especially how to survive two older sisters.




Here's where we are trying to get him to take a nap - Michelle is holding him to get him to calm down. It suprisingly worked.

Summer Fun

I wanted to write more often this summer about all our activities and projects but, yeah, we can see how well that went. We had great plans of doing something everyday to help entertain the kids but I forgot how tiring being pregnant and the heat of summer makes you. We did get to go on two trips for vacation. We went to Philmont which I loved and I think the kids enjoyed. I want to go in another year or two when I am not so pregnant that I can actually walk around with my kids. Then we went to Southern Utah to the Elliss home. We saw my whole family in a matter of two weeks, except Glenn. Sorry Glenn, at least we got to see you after your trip to the junkyard earlier in the month of June (BTW, Sam thinks we should ask you how a car works since you spent "a whole week underneath a car"). We saw Jenni and her family on our way to and from Philmont. I know the kids liked that, especially since Dan shared his Diary of a Wimpy Kid books with Sam and then also taught him a game to play with Pokeman cards. Now he wants us to buy him Pokeman cards. We saw Amber for a couple of hourse before she headed back out on another mountain trek. We of course saw my parents (the main reason for the visit). Justin hiked the Subway with some friends and coworkers and killed his camera. Fortunately he just reached his goal weight and now gets to buy a new one anyways. We visited Heather in Cedar City. The kids loved taking Zoeken for a walk to play at the park and then feeding her ice cubes while they enjoyed their popsicles.

Some pictures from the summer. We have done things at home and gone on some excursions (mostly swimming at the rec center, free summer movies, play dates, and running through the sprinklers at our house, library trips). We have done some projects (ice melting and then just throwing the ice into the street, making popsicles, making ice cream, decorating sun catchers, and discovering K'Nex).

First we have Michelle and her fascination with bugs. She will always point our the bugs that she finds outside or inside. Now we are working on not trying to poke the "flies" that are really wasps.

Next we have one of our wear out the kids activities. Katryn has stayed at our house several times in the last bit (thus we have seen Krystal and her family also) and her and Michelle have loved riding their bikes down the hill. They go down, and then push them back up and go again. This can last at least 30 minutes. What do I do, sit in my chair and watch.

Almost everyday we have popsicles for a snack. Krystal said Katryn hasn't had too many popsicles before. Never fear, she learned quickly how to eat them. They both have gotten quite good at not making too big of a mess with them. Of course we go outside to the porch to eat them.

Our most recent activity was trying to make homemade ice cream. This recipe came from the Children's Friend Magazine June 2010. 1 cup milk, 2 Tbsp sugar, a little bit of vanilla. Put in a ziplock bag and then inside another with ice and rock salt. Shake for several minutes. This picture shows Michelle and Hannah taking their turn at shaking the bags. We then resorted to putting it in a can and rolling it down the driveway. After a while a of that we just put the bags in the freezer to thicken. It made really good ice cream, it just wasn't ready when I was expecting it to be (I got the impression that it should be ready after shaking it for the time it said, no such luck).

We are having a good summer so far. We'll see if we can get some more pictures from other activities as we finish out our summer. :)

Quick update on the various things we've been doing. First, I ran up to some radio towers the other day during lunch - it was awesome!


















Next, a picture of Sam's soccer team - we're going to have to sign him up again for the fall season soon and need to decide if we want to go with the same league or go with the West Valley Fitness Center league.























Next a picture of a summer storm coming across Salt Lake - I submitted it to KSL for their weather gallery.
















Finally a shot of what Sam and Hannah are doing a lot of lately.

Quilting Trick--Half Square Triangles

I finally have tried this technique and love it, especially when you need lots of small half square triangles. I learned this technique from Cathy U'Ren and I am sure it is out on the internet somewhere. I did this for my friends who keep saying they need to sit down and do it with me but we of course can't make our schedules work out to be able to sew together.
For this example the pattern called for 2 3/8" squares to be made into half square triangles (and I needed 20 squares, or 40 finished half square triangles!). I cut 5" squares to start out. These 5" squares will give you 8 half square triangles. Draw an X on the back.
Sew your 1/4" seam on both sides of your X lines.

Cut the square in quarters and then along the X lines.

Iron your seams flat and then trim to the square size you need (not the finished quare size, don't forget the 1/4" seams). So mine were 2" squares. (Not in this picture, I hadn't trimmed them yet.)

One final note, I added just a little bit to have to trim them down. My pattern said 2 3/8" squares so I just figured 2 1/2" per square and then you put four of them in a square, hence the 5" square to start with. It worked wonderfully. Yes each one had to be trimmed but I didn't have to sew 20 separate squares to get my 40 I needed. I only have to do the 5 squares! Woohoo! Happy quilting!

Test slideshow!

What my kids do

We have to make regular trips to the library. Not a bad thing at all. We love to go to storytime and Sam always loves when he comes home from school and he has new books to read. I loved the day I saw Michelle lay down next to Sam and open up a book. She kept looking over at him until she was convinced that she was ready to look through her book. Now when she reads she makes noises or identifies objects (her favorites being dogs).

This picture shows exactly why I often cannot get Sam out the door on time. Fortunately this day he was already dressed. He sees a book on the floor and has to look through it. On several occasions I have gone to find him, calling out as I go that it is now time to go to school only to find him still in his pajamas with a book. And he gets quite mad when I take it away, even if he has read it a million times.

And this picture is just for fun. This is one of Michelle's lastest favorite activities: empty the pots and pans from the cupboard. Hannah taught her how to drum on the them one day. I just let them because it kept the happily occupied for about 45 minutes. Justin wanted to throw the wooden spoon away when he was doing dishes that night (it is broken, taped back together and we really don't use it). I told him absolutely not, it kept the girls quiet while I did stuff that morning. His response, it's worth it's weight in gold.

Just some fun photos of things we've been doing lately. Hannah here is having fun climbing rocks during our hike near Red Cliffs in Southern Utah.




A volcanic rock in the same area. That was basically the most green available and it was just in the crack of a rock. Spring had not quite reached there.



A lens flare along with turning the photo to sepia in Picasa created the cool look above. Temple Square




Finally a fountain near Temple Square with a longer shutter opening.

Springtime Fun

We have had spring weather and then snow and back and forth. I guess that is what spring is all about. On one of the nicer days we got out in our yard and started our garden. This is my birthday activity. As soon as it starts warming up Sam always wants to start planting things so we try to wait a little bit. Fortunately, peas, carrots, and broccoli can survive getting a little snow.

Here is the start of the garden. First box planted. And for an update, it is now growing. We have peas sprouting up out of the ground. I love it! The kids loved planting the garden.

Here's the smoothed out dirt and the drip system laying out and us with our seed packets.

Dad has finally decided to finish the last garden box (or probably the last one). Sam wants to help Dad grow corn. I already have the other boxes claimed with what I will plant. Corn had to wait for that last box. Hannah loved helping Dad. She handed him the screws and held the boards up for him while he drilled the screws in.

And this is what Michelle did during any of these activities. Dug in the dirt or bark quite happily.

That's the start of our spring adventures. We are keeping busy with the regular activities. Maybe, just maybe I will get around to posting pictures of more of them later on. At least you have these to enjoy for now.

My Adventurous Children

I have been reading several blogs and love hearing the stories about their kids. So I finally decided I needed to write a couple of ours. We have had lots of birthdays, well, two but that's plenty in a row. Sam had a "not so good" birthday. He didn't get to ride the bumper cars and hurt himself playing on the playground. But he will tell you all about it so it must have been somewhat fun, right?

On of the toys he got was a helicopter. He took it outside to play with the other day and of course it ended up on the roof. He came and told me and I said we would have to get later, when Dad came home, unless I suddenly felt like hauling the ladder out back to get it (not likely). When Justin came home I told him about it and he didn't seem inclined to get it. As it got a little bit later in the evening I thought it might rain and didn't want to ruin his new toy already. So Justin asked Hannah if she wanted to be thrown on the roof to go get the helicopter (he asked her because she was standing right there). She said she wasn't sure she could get it. He told her "I'll throw you up and you get the helicopter and then you jump back down." She looked a little unsure about the jumping down part and then a minute later said "Come on Daddy, let's go." And do what he asked her. She promptly said "Let's go throw me on the roof and get Sam's helicopter." She was all set on being thrown on the roof. We both just laughed because she was convinced Dad was really going to throw her up on the roof and she was perfectly fine with that. Fortunately they did find a stick/pole long enough to get it down without having to throw her up on the roof. That's my adventurous child.

Sam's latest adventure is just to build obstacle courses to challenge himself and his sisters on. Usually the obstacle course involves the kitchen stools and dining room chairs, while I am trying to cook dinner. Justin wonders sometimes why they are all over the place and tries to put them back only to promptly have them put back in their "place" and see kids racing around them and down the hallway. I just work around them. He also likes to build forts with all the couch cushions. He makes forts for Hannah to play in while he is at school.

That's pretty good for now. I am being summoned to be "tested" on the Wii. We'll see if I pass the test and am deemed worthy to play on a higher level with Sam. :)

Just an update from our life - we had Hannah's birthday party over the weekend as you might be able to tell she had a ball - AnnaJune took this shot of her just about to blow out her candles. She had some other 4 year old girls over and it was little girl power all the way!

Earlier on Sam and Hannah took over my camer and took pictures of each other. It was really funny to see what came out. They took pictures of things important to them - I was suprised at some of the toys that they loved and the pictures that they had put on the walls.

Sam's missing tooth -will it ever come in?

Finally Michelle looking a little lost during the party. She's really grown lately, not wanting to go to sleep at all, and using her 1 word (BINK!) to apply to just about everything. She also says Mommy and Daddy, but mainly it's BINK! (drink), BINK! (cereal), BINK! (toy), and of course, her favorite BINK! (Binky). If you don't do exactly which BINK! she's saying she will repeat it until she gives up on you and tries to do it herself, with amazing success. She also has gotten her older brother wrapped around her finger already, since he will help her get whatever she wants when she goes up to him.

Anyway, those are our thoughts from this last weekend. We saw the post from the Camisas and really want to go view the Ice Castle up in Midway now as well - I think the kids would have a ball!