End of July...Summertime!

We are all doing good in the heat of summer! Jay has been loving Coach-pitch Baseball this summer. Andy has been loving taking pictures with my phone (consequently I gave him my old digital camera so that I didn't have to worry too much:) He took a lot of the pictures for this post.

We spent the long weekend with the Family in Denver. There was lots of fun had!

We got a call that the "cutest calf" picture we submitted to the Chick-fil-a cow contest WON! She got a 3 foot cow and a milkshake, and some Facebook love!

We are getting new carpet this week (obviously needed!), so last week was painting weekend. We switched one wall from a greenish to a tanish. Jay and Andy got in on the action.

We stayed busy at a bouncy castle place and in the basement while John did all of the painting:

Ellie has been getting around faster and has been cuter than ever putting her dollies in her car and making us kiss them on the head "mmwwwah".

John has been drumming at Davina's church in Denver once in a while. After the service, he let the boys tap a bit.

Ellie 14 months

Here are a few videos of her doing what she does best...babbling, playing and being silly. She is actually singing Twinkle Twinkle in this one... She repeats Uh-oh! She loves seeing Daddy pull up the driveway after work and always gives him a big smile when she sees his face:

She is learning to feed herself, although mostly she eats finger food and squeeze applesauce pouches because I don't want to deal with the mess.

She gets in plenty of trouble, although we keep a close eye on her:

She LOVES playing outside, especially with water:

She is learning to pray like her brothers: She makes an adorable cow:

She tried her first slurpee and eats Chick-fil-a sauce by the finger full:)

The first time she was afraid of the cow, the second time she waved, and the third time he went by...she petted him!

Her brothers often build things to excite her like this stuffy/ball pit:

I never got her numbers from the Doctor at 12 months but my guess is that she is 60-75th percentile. She is really easy going, but I do notice when there are not things going on she acts up more. Only 2 teeth on the bottom, but those teething poops and whiney cries are coming at me full swing this week, and I felt a top tooth poking through! She still loves the bottle when she naps/sleeps, and throws down any sippy cup with just milk in it (if it has formula mixed in she will often drink some of it). She naps 1-2 times a day depending on what is going on. She loves PB&J, Pizza, and hot dogs but she will BEG for: Cheese, Blueberries, Strawberries and Grapes. She is great at saying "Thank You" when we empty the dishwasher together, but no other time. She waves "Hi and Bye" to EVERYONE and I get so many compliments about how cute she is. She can walk very well but not run yet. She is just learning the squirm and squeal for when she doesn't want to be held. I want to take pictures of EVERYTHING, because she is so fun, because she is so cute, and because I know she is my littlest...but then again sometimes I just want to enjoy it. I think we picked next year's birthday party theme (unless we change it before then)= Luau!

She loves almost everybody...but if a male who she doesn't know well (or if Mommy isn't around) gets right up in her face, she will probably freak out and cry and cry! She is learning new words every day. She learned to blow kisses, so say "Moo", You can tell when she thinks things are funny, and she got really excited when I gave her a bracelet and necklace to try play with. We love our Ellie BooBoo!

Family Vacation in Decorah

We had so much fun in Decorah with everyone! We did our normal stop at the "waterslides" and then continued to Mom and Dad's place. After a nice lunch we decided to go boating. The boys tubed and had an amazing time despite Jay's headache. I was taking amazing pictures on my phone and then (whoops) I dropped my phone in the lake at 20 mph (it was gone!). We did grab a few photos with John's phone:

Then we traveled the next day to Decorah. I really wanted to stop at the Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, so we did!

After we got there we went to Lori's and then went to the Roundhouse which we rented. The first night was a little rainy, so many stuffy wars ensued.

The next day we went to the lake and went Canoeing, Bug Collection Finding, and Fishing. The kids had a blast!

We had some snacks, and Ellie loved the dirt!

We spent some time chilling:

We also went hiking a few times. I can't remember where this one was:

Chad took this sweet picture on a back area of the hike:

Lincoln told a fish story on the trail: We spent one night catching fireflies and having a camp fire:

We also went to the Fish Hatchery:

We Celebrated Jay's Birthday:

We did more hiking:

We had a little too much fun with my new phone camera:

We stopped at Lori's for a bit:

Then we hit the road back to mom and dad's. We stopped at Pizza Ranch in MN on the way home for supper.

Andy was super excited to catch fireflies!

Firefly video: Ellie Video: We had a family get together:

We visited the farm:

We left for home on the 4th of July.

She did great on the drive, but did get sick of it at the end. So fun!