The Roberts Family

Fashionista

2011-04-19T17:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it's been a while now that Elli has quite a strong opinion in her fashion. She rarely lets me dress her in something coordinating that I've bought her. She always has to be wearing a dress or a skirt. The most recent time that I tried to get her to leave the house without a skirt over her pants, she stood outside by the front door covering her "pelvic" region as if she felt naked, crying saying she needs her dress. And I also have to ask her opinion before I even buy something because if she says she doesn't like it in the store, I've learned the expensive lesson that they is no convincing her to wear it once we get home.

Some of these pictures are dating back to November, but here's a portfolio of little Miss Fashionista:

For random reasons, Elli feels the need to be a superhero while she watches TV.

Check out the footies in the high heels:

Can't wait til her hair grows out so it'll stop doing this:

I swear she picked this outfit... including the pink hippy head band.

My sister-in-law, Melanie is the awesomest party thrower and since she now has a hubby and two boys, I guess she needed a little estrogen around the house. So she hosted a princess tea party. She can totally put together an awesome "table-scape" as Sarah Lee would say it. It was so cute and Elli felt just like a real princess.

Yummy!
Elli and Maddie

Every time Elli would take a sip of her hot chocolate, she would say "mmmmm" really loudly and every time someone would comment to her about being Snow White, she'd reply "whistle while you work".
There was a princess make-up table with all sorts of make up and glitter and jewelry and tiaras. Here's Elli's makeover performed by Kinz:
Elli insists on wearing her princess outfits often, so here we are at the Sportsman Show at the Puyallup Fair and she is Snow White.
I wanted to postpone the whole "Barbie" phase until Elli was a little older, but she came back from the store with Daddy with this.
She couldn't wait to get on her Sleeping Beauty dress to match her Sleeping Beauty ballerina. The good thing is that the leotard is painted on so at least we won't have naked Barbie dolls laying around..... yet.

Elli in new her pink sunglasses.
I just took these today and YES there is sunshine outside!! David felt like getting some yard work done so Elli of coarse loves to assist daddy is whatever he's doing (even though she's being calling him David all week). She went outside looking like a little diva rock star.

MAJOR Catch Up!!

2011-02-09T14:21:00.000-08:00

Okay, you all know how when you let something run farther and farther behind and then it just seems more and more impossible to catch up as time, holidays, and events pass. Well, I'm finally just doing it... catching this blog up. It's not going to be pretty, but Elli is doing some pretty cute stuff and I can't blog about it until I catch up with then end of 2010 and beginning of 2011!

So here comes a photo dump:

Making popcorn balls for Halloween

They're supposed to look like pumpkins.... I said "supposed to"
This is what our bellies look like after we ate too much
Batgirl - She picked her costume this year, but if we could have found a Princess Fiona costume she would have been an ogre. If you called her Batman, she would correct you, "No I'm BatGIRL!"
Waiting for trick or treaters to come, she got so excited whenever the doorbell rang. In fact, three days later, the FedEx guy rang the doorbell and Elli screamed, " AHH! TRICK OR TREATERS!!"

Fast Forward to December, one of her winter dresses...
I crotchet'd the cute bow
Decorating the Christmas tree, we let her do most of the decorating, so basically almost all of our ornaments ended up only three feet off the ground.
peek a boo
Yes, she is wearing her underwear over her pants
Somehow Elli understood that we put pretty and beautiful things on the tree, so naturally her Belle princess underwear should be on the tree too. This was so funny to me, I left them up there until she wanted to wear them.
Getting ready to see Santa Claus at our Church Christmas party. I wanted to see if I could get her hair curly without the risk of burning her with a hot curling iron. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to let her hair dry all the way, so it ended up being kinda funky.

But when she looked at herself in the mirror, she said "I look like a queen!"

This is her Sunday Christmas dress, she still wears this skirt quite often over her jeans.

Sunday morning at my parent's place, she got princess up dress up clothes. Here she is working on her Lego train
Her new baby set
This is coming into 2011. Her best girlfriend is Lucy and here they are playing together in her room. When I told her Lucy was coming over, she was so excited and began picking out all the princess stuff she wanted Lucy to wear.

Here's after dress up time and Lucy wanted to wear a princess pull up like Elli
You know how amazing things can appear in your tortillas... Mother Teresa... Jesus.... Well as Elli was playing with her lunch she began saying "BATMAN!! BATMAN!!" It took me a second to realize what she was talking about.

Spooner Farms 2010

2010-10-24T13:22:00.001-07:00

With Halloween books and stores and Halloween talk at daycare, Elli has been getting very excited about the season. Elli talked a lot about a "pumpkin patch" since it's in one of her books. So Wednesday morning this last week, we went out to Spooner Farms.

Here's Daddy and Elli sitting on a "cowch"
Eating fresh donuts
So Elli got a little tramatized in the animal barn of which there are a few videos below. So after that, she was afraid of everything especially the pumpkin house.
Daddy trying to show her how to be a pumpkin face, but again she was too freaked out to do anything he asked her.
Very cautiously watching the pumpkins
Here she's handing me a stem she pulled off a pumpkin.
Her prize and joy: a baby pumpkin. Notice how in all the photos she's carrying her baby (named "Peaches"), and so naturally she held her baby pumpkin and rocked it.

Giving her baby pumpkin a kiss:

This is a great look : "Come on Mom! More pictures?!?!"
We couldn't go in the pumpkin house, but it was okay to stand by it.

The Hunger Games

2010-10-04T18:35:00.001-07:00

So if you don't know what The Hunger Games is, you need to go pick up these books. It's a trilogy by Suzanne Collins and the third and final book, "Mockingjay" just came out in August. Mockingjay was the September book for book club and so in honor of the movie that will be produced based on the first book, I put together a poster of all my actors that I would pick to play the parts. Okay, I know I'm a dork! But it was a lot of fun because you know how you get a visual image in your head of what the character looks like while you're reading a book... well it was fun to pick out who I thought fit the image in my head. Yes, that's right... you're getting a peek what's inside my head and that's what Elli would say is "Scaaaarrrryyy!"

Here's my poster:

front -

back -

Katniss - Emma Roberts, Okay, so as I was posting this, I realized that I don't like any of my Katniss suggestions on the poster, so I found a new one that I like better. She kind of an awkward pretty which is perfect. But she would need grey contact lenses to lighten her eyes.

Peeta - Sterling Knight, This is my favorite Peeta! Isn't he soo cute! Blonde, blue eyes, can't you picture him baking you some bread! YUM!! You might know him from "17 Again" and the Disney channel movie "StarStruck"

This is the second runner up. Alex Petyfer is his name and he's a dreamy blonde too.

Gale - Ian Somerhaulder, Awww man.... this man belongs in every movie. Dark hair and light eyes - he is the perfect Gale. He played Boone in "Lost" and is currently in "Vampire Diaries". I will watch anything this man is in :)

Primrose - Elle Fanning, cute and innocent

Primrose second runner up is Abigail Breslin, but she's getting kind of old now.

Rue - Madison Pettis, In the book, Rue is has dark skin and dark brown eyes, so I assume her ethnicity is probably Hispanic since it takes place on the North American continent as far as I can tell. So Madison Pettis isn't hispanic, but I think she'd make a good Rue.

Haymitch - Jack Nicholson, Atleast how he looks in this photo - that's how I picture him in my head, but the modern day Jack is probably too old and too flabby for what I picture Haymitch to be.

Hugh Laurie would make a good Haymitch too. He can do the grouchy drunk thing well.

Cinna - Hugh Dancy, I can totally picture Hugh Dancy as a moderate flamo. He'd be perfect.

Effie Trinket - Kristen Chenoweth, With a pink wig, she'd be perfect.

Also a very good Effie - Amy Poehler

Avox Girl - Danielle Panabaker, I don't know why, but there's something about her wide forehead and narrow chin that makes her look like the Avox girl in my head.

Fox Face - Emma Stone, It might not be the most pleasant thing being called fox face, but doesn't she look like a fox face?

Depending on the source, the movie could be out in 2012 or 2013. Still toooo long to wait. I hope they do the book justice and they put enough funding behind the movie to really make the special effects good.

I almost forgot, the theme song... yes I picked a theme song. It would be "Help I'm Alive" by Metric. I love the band Metric, everyone should totally check them out. I'm going to try to see if I can get a player to play the song on my blog, so you might even be listening to it right now :)

Family Fun Day

2010-09-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2010-08-29T21:04:00.001-07:00

Quick story to share: Elli loves all books, but lately she's had a "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" book phase. So it wasn't one that we were reading tonight before bedtime, but she sat down and grabbed it as I was turning her music on. She was sitting there on the floor counting the five oranges. And yes, she can count - I think the highest she's ever gotten has been 14. It was so cute, so I let her carry the book with her to bed. So I was thinking as soon as I turned out the light she would lose interest in the book, but at least it would be there in the morning when she woke up. As I headed for her lamp to turn it off, I heard "chocolate cake, ice cream cone, pickle, cheese, lollipop, dog hot (that was the sausage), cupcake, watermelon." She was laying down with the book propped up in front of her. I was shocked that she remembered that part of the story and could identify all the food. I turned off the light, then she says "Wait! Wait Mommy! Just a second! Just a second!" So of course that was so cute, I turned on the light and went over and asked her what all the items were so that I could hear her cute voice again. Then finally I said good night, gaves kisses and then turned out the light. And even in the darkness she was still holding the book in front of her like she was reading.

I love being a MOMMY!

Girlfriends

2010-08-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

We are very lucky to have a great family live across the street from us and they have a daughter Elli's age. This is Adrianna and whenever Elli sees her outside she runs towards her yelling, "Adri Adri - anna" and then they embrace just like in the movies... it's very cute. So this summer, we've had a lot of playdates.
Elli and I went shopping today at Target and she found these froggie galoshes and wanted to wear them right away. I couldn't resist so she wore them around the store with the string still attached between the two. I even had to hoist her up so the cashier could scan the tag. When we got home, she ran into the house yelling, "Daddy Daddy, new boots! new boots!" I just hope she doesn't want to wear them to church.

Here's a cute video of Elliana and Adrianna playing in her bedroom.

SEASIDE 2010

2010-07-28T11:39:00.000-07:00

I apologize to my sisters that I haven't created a blog post in over 3 months ... it's probably been longer. You know the crazy my life has endured these past months. But now I feel strong and healthy again and life is getting back to being fun. There is so much to update about, but I figured there will just have to be numerous back posting, so bear with me.

But the funnest thing we've done lately was going to Seaside with my parents, sisters, bro-in-law, and some aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents.

Here's Elli in her car seat ready to go, can you see her excitement?

Here's Elli up on Daddy's shoulders. And there's actually a little blue sky! It was a rare sight while we were there.

I love this expression. The water was COOLLLLDDD!!!

Andrea and UNCLE DAVE!!! We were so happy to see them. They live in CA and it's been months. They brought Elli a talking Elmo doll for her birthday so they easily won a place in her heart :)
Tossin' the ball around on the beach on a during a cloudy morning beach walk:
Aunt Bev getting in on the action:

Elli wanting to join the fun:

This is Elli's Lifeguard sweatshirt that she got last year. It fit a little better this year.

Her favorite person to hold hands with:

David continues to wear this ridiculous "i (heart) hot moms" t-shirt:
I love this picture:

And of course here's our sand castle - naturally it had to be bigger than anyone else's on the beach. But it just so happened to be the only one on the beach that day. But still - it was the biggest!

Elli did well as making sure nothing dried out:

Elli is standing in the moat but you can see the castle is twice her size. We had a lot of visitors come over to watch and comment. Even the police SUV patrolling by stopped and complimented our masterpiece.

The moat filling

Ofcourse with a Fanning-made sand castle, weapon and security enforcement precautions were taken:

Slowly breaking down...
After almost 45 minutes of waiting for the tide to take our masterpiece, we eventually all piled on and took care of it ourselves.
Elli got this Elmo baseball hat, batman PJs, and plastic sheriff revolvers with accompanying holster for her birthday - this is what it added up to:
Ryan was eager to play dead with Elli :)
Here are some fun video clips of our trip!

More to come....

CRAZY Hair Day

2010-03-13T20:03:00.000-08:00

So Elli had pigtails... yes pigtails... her hair is finally getting long enough that with the slightest bit of product and a huge amount of patience from Elli (thus requiring some cartoon playing on the TV), I can put her hair up in cute ponytails. So anyhow, the next morning this is what her hair looked like:It's funny how I managed to take over a dozen pictures of her just eating waffles.
She's so stinkin' cute!
So we just let her wander around will her crazy hair all day. Here's us at the park. She loves loves loves the swings. Even if you just say "swing", her face lights up and she starts giggling.
You can kind of see the remnants of a scruff she got on her nose. At another playground, she biffed it and landed right on the bridge of her nose. I'm sure this is just the beginning of it...

There's a new playground in the neighborhood that is just perfect for her and it's never been too crowded.

Daddy's HOME!!!

2010-03-03T18:09:00.000-08:00

I haven't really mentioned this at all on the blog, mainly for privacy reasons since this blog is still public. But David has been with the Air Force reserves out of McChord for the past 5 years and on July 4th 2009, he left for a deployment to Kirkuk, Iraq. He first went to Texas for training for 4-5 weeks or so, then was in Iraq for six months. Thank goodness I had Elli to keep me entertained, plus a decorating project in the bedroom (which I'll show in a future post) and my renewed found love of reading. I was a little anxious at first for David to come home, don't get me wrong I was totally excited, but I just didn't know how things would flow when he came home. I kind of got used to doing everything on my own and I know it sounds crazy, but I liked the independence I felt and I didn't want to give that up. But David came home on Jan. 31st and after just a few days, it was like he never left. Granted you do learn to appreciate things more after a long absence of a spouse, so I make sure I tell him all the the little things he does that I'm grateful for. Elli warmed right up to him the very night he came home, and called him Daddy like he was never gone.

Here's the front door and the front of the house that Elli and I decorated for Daddy's homecoming.

David's sister, Melissa flew up last week and was sweet enough to give all the families a photo shoot. Here's some of the cute pics that Melissa got:

I love this one because David and Elli have the same look!!!!! :)

So maybe this was photoshoped a little....
Elli wouldn't stop playing with the rocks.
Here's Elli with her cute cousin Madelynn
I love this photo - Elli loves loves loves to swing

Christmas catch up!

2010-01-20T19:23:00.001-08:00

Hi ya'll - Okay, well this is my Christmas catch up because I've been lazy about updating this blog and yet as more time passes, the more stuff I knew I needed to post and catch up on. But today, I suppose I was in a production mood... so here it goes...

Christmas was fun, here are the photos :)

Elli all excited to open presents or rather carry them around like her purses.
Elli recieving kisses from Whylie (Grandma and Grandpa Roberts' dog)

Uncle Mike dressed up like Santa :)

I couldn't rationalize spending $15 on a Christmas dress that I knew she'd wear for one month, so I went to the clearance fabric section at JoAnns and made Elli and her cousin Maddie these matching Christmas pillowcase dresses. I think total cost for both dresses was $6 of material including the ribbon :)

I was asking Elli where her nose was, where her eyes were, and then I asked where her belly button was...

She got such a reaction lifting up her dress looking for her belly button that she continued to hold up her dress walking around for everyone. Here's Eric trying to explain to her that she needs to be a modest young lady.

Preston excited beyond measure.

Elli's favorite present - a new baby doll.

Christmas morning at my parents' place. Here she is chillin' in her new grocery cart.

Here was Elli big present from Santa, isn't it cute!

Here's Elli and I all cute and ready for church:

Kisses!

This is Elli saying "cheese!"
She does this a lot, I think it's so funny!

Does she look like me?
SOOO SWEET!!!!
Here's Elli and me rockin out! I was trying to get her to play the drums, but she kept holding the "drumsticks" like they were silverware :)

New cousin Jackson!

2009-12-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

My cousin Steve and his wife Courtney came up to visit with their new little guy Jackson. I've been so excited to meet him! He was born in August so Jackson and Elli are about a year apart. Here's Jackson all dressed up cute in his suit vest and purple collared shirt - very stylish.

This was the first thing Elli did when she walked in the door. You can barely see Jackson as Elli gives him a bear hug. Elli LOVES baby dolls so she just figured this was a cool baby doll that moved and made noise :)
Jackson has the CUTEST expressions! He is such a smiler.

Here's Elli giving some more loves:
Elli probably hugged him 50 or 60 times... no joke! I just thought it was really cute how Jackson would naturally wrap his arms around Elli too.

Jackson is saying "okay... that's enough"
Steve brought back this gas mask for my uncle Joe (his dad), and here's AJ, my cousin's 6 year old boy wearing it around the house.
Dad trying it out on Elli:
She'd rather just cuddle:
Here's the video of the lovin'

Sunday morning

2009-11-23T08:45:00.000-08:00

Here's Elli all dressed up for church on Sunday. The pink sweater was knitted by my Grandma Fanning. And here's the bow that I made too - I think it makes her head look a little shrunken :)"Mom, really? More pictures?"
She likes to try and put her own shoes on now:

Her eyes look a little funny in this one because she's trying to look at the monstrous bow on her head:
SO STINKIN' CUTE!

Trick or Treat

2009-11-01T09:16:00.000-08:00

Last night was Halloween and this year I don't know if I was too lazy... well... yeah it was because I was too lazy - I didn't do anything really creative for Elli's costume. We simply went to Party City and paid $16.99 for her ladybug costume. She was still adorable of course.
She doesn't like to have anything on her head - headbands, bows, flowers - they never last too long. And lately I can barely get her to let me put a ponytail in her hair without having to hold her head between my knees as I try to grab portions of her hair while she's screaming and shaking her head violently from side to side. But I've found the trick - a sucker. She was as happy as can be sucking on her mini tootsie pop as I did her pigtails (which are supposed to look like her antenna since a headband was out of the question), and she even posed for pictures:

Ruby red lips to match her costume I guess:
Playing in the play kitchen at Grandma Roberts':

This is her hair the next morning:

Bows & Tutus

2009-10-28T17:01:00.000-07:00

So I went to Super Saturday which is totally awesome in my ward at church because we have the most coolest creative people. Here are a few things I made:

Here's Elli is one of her tutus. I couldn't decide on which colors so I made two of them. She'll wear it as long as the tulle doesn't have to touch her skin.

And here's one of the bows I made. I made a few different colors. But I didn't realize how big the bow would be in comparison to her head. I thought it was quite comical so I still made her wear it to church.

Elli likes to take her socks off, but then will try for a few minutes to desperately get them back on. I can't wait til she can competely dress herself!
So I know I should be ashamed that I'm allowing Elli to listen to this music, but what can I say..... she loves the beat! And she does the cutest dance!

She's an artist!!

2009-10-21T19:27:00.000-07:00

Elli's newest toy is a magnadoodle. I probably play more with it than she does, but she's starting to get the hang of it. It's fun how she holds the pen and then randomly pokes or slides the pen on the surface. I walked over the other day to see her magnadoodle on the floor with this draw on it!
Is it just me or does this totally look like a shark - okay there's no tail, but the top fin and the flipper and the eye and the smile (must be a friendly shark)!!!!
She must have her dad's drawing and sketching gene :)

These are funny pictures of Elli on her play cellphone. She loves the remote and can turn on and off the TV, though I'm not sure she's doing intentionally. She also knows to point it to the TV.
I promise this isn't an impersonation of me!

Pumpkin time!

2009-10-14T19:02:00.000-07:00

Elli woke up last Friday with her eyes swollen and crusted shut. So we went to the walk-in clinic and the doc diagnosed her with pink eye in both eyes. I have these lovely eye drops that I have to give her FOUR times a day now. It's not fun for either of us...
But thankfully, the drops cleared up the appearance of her eyes very quickly because on Saturday she was getting her pictures taken. On the way back from the photo shoot, we past the pumpkin farm in Buckley, so we stopped and looked around.

This is the only smiling picture I got of Elli almost the entire time.
There was a monster truck there giving rides, and she was halfway between being very concerned or scared. This is her glaring at the monster truck.
Glaring again.
This is her worried look:
This is her "Don't dare you come near me!"

Then she finally lightened up and realized that people were enjoying being inside the monster truck.

Her far-yonder look :
This girl is gonna give herself wrinkles by the age of 2!
This is the pumpkin that she got at daycare and she carries it around everywhere with her.
She likes to inspect it...
This is of course part of the investigation...

Happy Halloween

2009-10-09T22:01:00.001-07:00

So sure I have bathrooms to clean and the last 2 weeks worth of laundry to fold, but somehow I still find time to do useless things like this video. Thanks to cousin Melissa for being my inspiration (okay, so I pretty much copied you, but I thought yours was hilarious!!!) .

ENJOY!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

The sad thing is....

is that David and I really do dance like that.

French Onion Soup

2009-10-05T19:57:00.000-07:00

My dad has gotten me in the mood for home-made french onion soup. We both had a bowl at Panera Bread and it was sooo yummy. So, I started my search on allrecipe.com (love this website!), found a recipe that sounded promising and then of coarse I had to make my own changes to it.

So here's my attempt at trying to be like Pioneer Woman (love this blog!!!). My camera is not super fancy, and the lighting in my kitchen is horrible, so this won't look as appetizing as Pioneer Woman's dishes look... but that's okay.... we women shouldn't compare ourselves so much :)

So I started out with 4 onions, I did 2 sweet and 2 red.

Melted some butter in my dutch oven - LOVE my dutch oven!
Threw all the chopped onions in, and it sure looked like a lot of onions. But I knew once they started to caramelize and break down, the pot wouldn't look so full.
While that was happening, I got my beef broth ready. I usually make it using this stuff, it's cheaper than buying it in the cans and I like the fact that it tastes good while still being "reduced sodium".
The recipe also called for dried herbs - parsley and thyme. But why use dried when I have fresh in the garden!
Okay so I let the onions caramelize, stirring often. It took about 25 minutes or so.
I added 4 T. of flour and 1 t. of pepper. The pepper is very important! Stir all together so it's a little pasty.
Then 6 cups of beef broth.
Threw the chopped herbs in.
Let simmer for about 20 minutes. Then I added 3 T of Worcestershire sauce.... maybe it was a little more, just add to taste. Let simmer another 10 minutes or so.
The recipe called for shredded mozzarella, but lots of melted mozzarella tends to cause a gag reflex with me, so I choice my two favorites - swiss and parmesan.
Slices from a french baguette.
My assemble:
First layer bread.
Then layer cheese.
Then place under broiler. Yes it is sad - you see only one bowl. All this work for just me. :)
Elli wasn't really appreciating all my hard work for our dinner. She gets a little cranky when she has to wait for dinner.
Dinner Ready!!!
Bon Appetite !

Corine's Experimental French Onion Soup

4 onions

3 T butter

4 T flour

1t pepper

6 cups beef broth

1t dried parsley

1/2t dried thyme

3T Worcestershire sauce

1 French baguette, cut in 1/2 inch slices

shredded mozzarella, or cheese of your choice.

1) In large pot over med heat, saute onions in butter until really caramelized. Stir in flour and pepper to form a pasty mixture.

2) Add beef broth and herbs and simmer 20 minutes. Add Worcestershire sauce and simmer another 10 minutes.

3) Preheat oven to broil

4) Fill individual oven safe bowls 3/4 full with soup. Place sliced bread on top and cover with cheese. Place bowls in oven.

5) Broil in oven until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Since I have lots of leftovers, obviously, I actually like heating up the soup by itself, shredded just a little bit of cheese on top and then having the sliced bread on the side to dip in the soup. Or even yummier might be to place shredded cheese on bread slices and then place under broiler so you have soup with cheesy bread to dip in.

Let me know if you've made this soup and it you have any suggestions to offer!!

Pillowcase dress

2009-10-01T16:27:00.001-07:00

So I've been looking for a really cute outfit for Elli to wear in her pictures that will be taken in a few weeks. I eventually came across a child's clothing boutique website that was selling pillowcase dresses... then with more searching I found that I lot of people sew their own. So then I went to YouTube - I love YouTube for this sort of thing - I searched how to make a pillowcase dress and found lots of cute videos of ladies showing how they sew theirs. I still didn't trust my sewing skills to make up a pattern of my own. I sew quilts and blankets - so basically that means I sew straight lines and anything more than that intimidates me. So I bought a cheap pattern that I liked online and it was e-mailed to me so I could simply print in out. A cool thing about that is that it's saved to my computer, so if I lose it or Elli eats it, then I can just print up another one. But while I just typed that, I realized that I better back it up to my external hard drive just in case my computer goes psyco. Anyways, I immediately got all excited and couldn't wait to run to the fabric store. I was sorely disappointed in the lack of cute fabrics at JoAnns. I found only two cute combinations and I couldn't decide between the two of them so I bought them both.

And here's what I made!!! I'm quite proud of myself!!!

My model wasn't cooperating very well.
I think the dress looks cute layered too.

Elli is a big girl now but she still misses her binky. This is a teething toy that she found the other day; I suppose it's filling the void. She's been without a binky for about a month now, so I think this little toy is going to magically disappear very soon. But she looked so cute, I had to take a picture.

Funny videos

2009-09-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd upload some videos... this first one was after I watch Paula Dean make chili from scratch and got inspired. So I got to use my cool dutch oven, cook the bean from dry out of a bag - that's right... no beans from a can! It was pretty good but not too spicy so I let Elli have a bowl of it. I gave her a spoon thinking she would watch me eat it and maybe get the idea. She did pretty well at eating it, but I was surprised how fascinating the spoon was.

We've been very excited for the next Muse album to come out. Elli and I both really like the newest single, Uprising. So we were watching the music video on youtube, and this is me trying to teach Elli how to head-bang.

I realized that I hadn't blogged much on Elli walking progress. Well, she's really getting her balance now, and she no longer walking with her arms out stiff like Frankenstein. And she can change direction without falling down.

Birthdays and cupcakes

2009-09-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

This last week was my dad's birthday and I was also throwing a baby shower for a friend at work. So Mel and I got together to make cupcakes. Mel is the one who is really the cake master, I'm just like her apprentice.

Here's the cupcakes for the baby shower. The theme was rubber duckies and pink. The flowers are made of fondant.

Here are the sweet cupcakes that Mel made and I slightly assisted with. We've been on a sci-fi kick ever since we went through the science fiction museum (the one next to the EMP).
Notice the lovely placement of the candle:
Dad smiling for the camera, Elli glaring at the cupcakes:
Elli amazed by the "fire".

"Are you sure I'm allowed to eat this?"

"OKAY! If you say so!"

"Wow! This is really good, do you want some?"

This face cracks me up, especially with her morning hair-do.

"Peek-a-boo"

These are Elli's favorite pajamas because they have dogs of them. She always says "ruff ruff" when I start putting them on. Sometimes I'll find her sitting just playing with the dogs on her belly legs.

Rodeo! Cowboy Up!

2009-09-13T19:27:00.000-07:00

We went to the Rodeo at the Puyallup Fair this weekend. It was really hot out and really crowded, but the rodeo was very entertaining. Elli started out having a good time.

I was playing around with the setting and features on my new camera. It's still a point and shoot, but it's considered a superzoom. So far, I like it, it keeps up better with Elli's movements.

Here's a shot of the flag presentation at the beginning. The rodeo is very patriotic:

Here's a guy falling:

The the guy landing:
At first, Elli didn't know what to think about the horses going crazy, she just pointed and looked worried. But then with all the clapping and cheering, she got into it.

Some horse ridin' shots:

Elli at 8:00 (it started at 6:30), she was getting tired and cranky.
The last event, bull riding:
Here's guy underneath the bull:
The rodeo was a lot of fun and we'll probably enjoy it again next year. :)

My Little Spaghetti Factory

2009-09-09T19:39:00.000-07:00

So tonight, Elli had her first batch of real spaghetti! She's had pasta with marinara sauce before, but I didn't realize that spaghetti noodles would be so fascinating to her. She sure loved it though, I put a little over a cup worth of spaghetti and almost all of it made it into her mouth, and that was after she had already eaten some chicken that I gave her to hold her off til the spaghetti was done!

She started out slow, trying to get one noodle in her mouth at a time:
She quickly realized that she could pick up hand fulls and the noodles would stick together:

She was very good - even though she had to separate all the noodles and pick them all up, none was purposefully thrown on the floor. Thank goodness!
You Go Girl!!!
As you can see, I was smart and took off the brand new, adorable, wore for the first time shirt she was wearing before she started eating.
The aftermath: she had spaghetti on her face, in her ears, in her hair, up both arms, and on her chest and tummy..... needless to say she had a bath before bedtime!

Cute Videos

2009-09-05T10:13:00.000-07:00