treehouse museum (take 237)

On one fun day in August, I met up with my cute cousin and her two kiddos at the Treehouse Museum.  I know I've talked about this place before, but it never gets old for Ellie (which means it never gets old for me).  And Meghan had never been there before!

I think the boys could have spent the whole day playing with the trains and trucks!

But they did enjoy some of the other things, too... ;)

We had to get a "bump" picture, because Meghan is due one week before me!  And apparently Ellie wanted to show off her bump, too.

I love love love that I have been able to see some of my cousins more than I ever have in my entire life!  I have always looked up to them, and I love getting to know them even better.  Meghan, you are awesome!  Thanks for spending the day with us. :)

fourth anniversary

For our fourth anniversary, we decided to go out to eat at Olive Garden.  Somehow, the only pictures we took were "bump" pictures.  Dang you, pregnancy brain!

(26 weeks)

We took Ellie with us (obviously), mostly because somehow we just spend the whole time missing her when we don't.  We do go on real dates occasionally, I promise!

It was an amazing dinner with even better company.

After the dinner, we went shopping at Bed, Bath, & Beyond "just to look" and just happened to find a new comforter that was like 60% off!  Win-win.

I love how much I still love being with him.  I absolutely mean it when I say I could spend every minute of every day with him and still not get bored.  We have so much fun together!  It was a low-key anniversary, and we kinda loved it that way!

summer swimmin'

We did a lot of swimming this summer!  Ellie and I did two sessions of swimming lessons, and we went "swimming" in our baby pool in the backyard almost every day.

One night, for Family Home Evening, Tim even joined us!

The next three pictures are from Ellie's very first day of swimming lessons for the summer!

She was excited, but also a little unsure.  Which basically describes her entire swimming lessons experience.  Some days she was willing to try anything, and some days she tried absolutely nothing.  Some days she enjoyed it, and some days she spent the entire time telling me it was time to go home.  It was always a gamble.  (But she acted excited for it every single morning.)

Here we are on our last day of the first session:

And on the last day of our second session, Tim dropped by for his "lunch" so that he could watch her in the pool.  He took a lot of pictures that day!

I thought maybe Ellie would want to show off for Tim, but she was just as unpredictable that day as she was the rest.

Singing songs about the water made any activity a lot more enjoyable for her, though.  ("Motorboat, motorboat, go so slow...")

"Seriously, Mom, what is this?"

It makes me laugh that Ellie had like five different bathing suits and yet somehow only two made it into the pictures!  (Oh and a sidenote about that bandaid: she hit her head one day on our couch and got a pretty substantial bruise.  I put a bandaid on it to help it feel better.  Which she proceeded to wear for like the next two weeks.  She would have a panic attack any time we tried to take it off!  I was so relieved when it finally came off on its own.)

This is my cute friend, Brittney, and her kids!  (Dang you for moving to Idaho!)  My friend, Heather, and her kids were in swimming lessons with us, too, but her kids were sick for the last couple of days, so I didn't get any pictures!

We sure loved swimming this summer!  It was an amazing way to get outside every day and not get cooked by the heat.  (Which is a little funny coming from a former Arizonan.)  And believe it or not, Ellie handled swimming lessons a lot better than she did last year, so hopefully next year will be even better!

fourth of july

You'd never know it from looking at these pictures, but this was another really hard trip for Tim.  The Fourth of July itself was a fairly good day for him, and some of our hikes were okay.  But overall, it was just a tough trip.  Thank goodness for priesthood blessings, great family, and understanding bosses!

For the Fourth of July weekend, we went to my grandma's house in California.  As always :)  We love going there!  Our only regret was that we couldn't stay longer.

Ellie was not a fan of the sparklers or the fireworks.  In fact, my grandma's neighborhood basically sounds like a war zone starting at probably 5pm, and Ellie was not a happy camper.  She spent the entire evening inside with my mom and the dog.

I thought that maybe she'd get used to the sparklers and the fireworks after a while, but it seemed like she just kept getting more and more traumatized.  Needless to say, we spent a lot of time indoors, even the next day (since the celebrating just kept going).

This next picture is Ellie trying to be brave :)

And here is my brother, Jeff, and aunt, Ginny, showcasing the fireworks.

At the end of the night, Jeff, Tim, and I had way too much fun with the sparklers.  If you'd been there, you'd have thought we were all 10 years old by the way we were acting.

There was a lot of giggling.

Too bad Ellie doesn't get very much attention when we're around family... ;)

After California, we drove over to AZ and spent some time with my family.  We ended up going home a little early, and we were all sad about that.  It was hard to go from spending time with family to going home, especially that trip.  We are sure grateful for our amazing families!