Ohhhh, Ella

I was driving home from church today asking Ella what she did in primary...
"Uh, we sang the "Mother Song". And then I tode dem dat I want to be a mother too."


"Aww, that's great Ella. Being a mother is a great job to have"


(very excited now) "yeah! I want to be a mother so I can have milk in my nipples!"

Oh Wow.

A Camping We Will Go

Last week was Spring Break for Joseph so we took our only day off together (Wed) and took the kids camping up to Tortilla Flats. (it's a real place. you can google it.) It was our first camping trip as a family and the first camping trip Joseph and I had to plan for ourselves. (usually, whenever I went camping someone told me where to go and I'd go there and magically everything we needed was all there.) This was fun. The kids loved to play in Ella's little pink camo tent.





We went swimming in an ice bath aka: the lake near the campsite. It was super cold but the girls HAD to go in it so Joseph and I took turns braving the Arctic waters.






After our lips turned blue we dried off and went back to the campsite for dinner. We all roasted hot dogs, cooked baked beans in a can (I know! Totally roughing it.) and then roasted marshmallows. I showed Ella how you can light them on fire and she loved that.


(Don't worry about my cheeks being stuffed like a chipmunk with my hot dog. yikes.)


The scenary was beautiful. I know there is a glare but this was the best view.




We ended the trip with a hike before we went home. Ella was a little freaked out about the cactus' and held my hand for the whole hike. Joseph had to carry the weight of our hefty little 15 month old. All in all we had a blast. We found some fellow hikers to take a picture of us all. I think the only thing I can complain about would be the horrible night's sleep I got. I'm a minimalist so I tried not to bring unnecessary things. I thought about bringing foam egg crates to sleep on but decided against it b/c I've slept on the ground before and I was fine. Plus, we had enough padding from blankets...so I thought. The campsite was on GRAVEL! Needless to say I didn't sleep a wink. The girls were in the tent sleeping with us and we learned a thing or two about their sleeping habits. Ella has night terrors (we already knew this) and would scream in her sleep and Carly was allllll over the place tossing and turning. Joseph was knocked out b/c he had been awake for over 30 hours. I got to the point that I didn't care if I didn't get enough sleep, just let morning come so we can be done with this. :)Other than that we did have a blast together as a family and can't wait till we can do it again! (only next time bring some extra padding to sleep on!)

Look Mom! No Hands!

She's such a cutie. I swear every time I look at her I love her more then the last time. She's finally started walking at 14 months on Wednesday 2-25-09. But she's still more content to not walk. She walks when she thinks it's a game but otherwise, she feels safer holding on to something. Ella thinks it's just great and after the video she says to me, "Lets do it again!" and showers her with kisses. (can you see Carly pushing her off of her, yeah, sometimes she gets a little too smothered) Awww, I love these girls.

here are some pictures that I took of the girls. They were being all giggley and cute so I took advantage of the opportunity.