Happy Birthday Ellie!

My little girl is all grown up!  She turned one on JUNE 8th at 6:47pm!  The next day she climbed onto a chair.  Guess she was waiting to turn one for that :)  She is healthy, tall/lean, and super spunky.  She loves to climb!  You chase her up the stairs and she giggles the whole way in anticipation of you catching her.  She even snorts when she laughs hard, is super ticklish like her mommy, and looks so much like her father!  Her eyes are blue with brown in the middle.  We will see if that sticks.  We love her soooooo much!

Happy Birthday to YOU!  She didn't get to blow out her candle cuz the wind kept doing it for her.  oh well!

For Ellie's birthday we were in Sandy, UT, visiting Grandma Elaine.  We rode with Grandma Kathy and Aunt Stephanie and cousins in a van and made it in 12 hours with one flat tire and one diaper blowout in the mix.  Ellie barely slept a wink.  We were so happy to finally be there and recover.

Michael drove down on Ellie's birthday and so we had a family get-together with cake and presents.  By the time everyone showed up it was past her bedtime so she wasn't smiling much in her pics.  I made the cute banner for her in the car on the way over.  It is so fun to see all her cute facial expressions on it.  It now hangs in our living room with all her birthday cards hanging on it.  So fun.

Ellie's yummy Coconut Pineapple cake!

Cousin in-law Melissa and son Lance

Starting to dig in to her slice of cake ever so slowly

She started out really clean

And then finally got a good handful!

She thought it was strange having so many people watch her eat, like "hey what you lookin at?"

"Hey Daddy, want some too? Ok."

Michael's cousin Stacie and her two girls.  So cute. 

Zoning out after eating all her cake.  Made a good mess.

Fantastic goobers!  At this point I was really happy I got a cake that didn't have staining colors!

Tearing up the paper plate.

Cute little face.

She loved seeing her birthday banner hanging up behind her.  Made faces at her faces :)

Present time.  Thanks to everyone who gave Ellie a present.  I didn't expect it and it caught me off guard as I said we were just getting together for birthday cake.  For some reason, it is a weird thing as a new parent to experience people giving your child stuff.  Anyways, we are grateful to everyone, and Ellie enjoys all her new toys and stuff every day!

Starting to unwrap.

Wearing one of her new hair bows and already reading her new book

Reading a birthday card.

Playing on top of her present.

Glittery toes from glittery paper :)

Come on Grandma Kathy, faster faster.

Checking out her new book.

Lance trying to eat grass.

Callen loved this car the whole time we were there and did not want to share it.  It was comical.

Ellie tried real hard to climb in to no avail.  Such funny faces of determination.  Love it!

A great shot.  Callen is so cute.  Ellie is still trying to climb in.

Ellie got to do a flip on her birthday with Dad.

Just so in love with this car!

Me after the party.  Why, because I'm never in any pictures these days!  Happy Birthday Ellie!

Trip to Littleton

We've traveled quite a bit this summer.  These pics are from our visit down to Littleton at the beginningish of May.  It was mainly Ellie and I on this trip, because Michael had to head back to school for his finals, giving a final, and of course grading them.  He's finished his second year of graduate school.  It seems so much longer.  And we have three more years to go!  Yeah!  Such a fun time in life.  We really are enjoying it.  Michael sometime talks of getting a PHD in Education later so he can reform math education, and maybe education as a whole.  It will be neat to see where he goes with it.  He loves to teach and teach well which I consider to be a great gift :)

Go horsey Go!

Touching her cousin Tyler gently on the noggin.

Splashing around with cousin Callen.

Dad helps Ellie run way fast!

And leap real high into the water too!

Cousin Callen with the hose wand thing.

Blowing water out of Grandpa Kerry's pvc pipes like elephants.

Very entertaining.

Back at home playing in water with her friends.

Ellie!

Here are some cute pictures of Ellie from the past two months.  More recent pics to come soon.  Enjoy.

Sweet potatoes.  Everywhere.  Sporting bulging gums and a new tooth. :)

Ellie loves avocado!  She devoures it as fast as her banana.

Miss big eyes.

THANKS Leila for this awesome onesie!  So cute!

Ellie loves to fly.  Dad of course is the best at this.  She can't get enough of it.  Not the best pictures cuz I had my camera on the wrong setting, but still priceless nonetheless.

 A Tisket a Tasket a Baby in a Basket!  And loving it!

Ellie always has some crazy fun the 30 minutes before bedtime.  She just buzzes about the house doing things  really quickly, like she has to cram it all in before bed.  It's really funny and that is what these pictures are of.

Ellie loves Piggy (my old stuffed animal pig named Wilbur) and loves to give him kisses on his nose.  I find it funny that she loves pigs and snorts like a pig when she laughs or is excited because I loved pigs growing up.

By request of Snortney (you know who you are:)

Ellie snorts a lot on purpose.  It's so cute.  We call her Piggy :)  This just happened to be a snortarama meal!  She was a crazy piggy!  We love her!  She is so fun!

Spring Break!

We love spring break around here.  Michael couldn't wait!  And, of course, it was not long enough for him :)  So we went to Denver at the beginning for a couple days and saw lots of family and went shotgun shooting (I did pretty good this time round--it was exciting).  Ellie even rode on a quad-she didn't like it.  Ellie loved watching her cousin Callen run around like crazy, and also had fun looking at her new cousin Tyler. 

On Tuesday we left for Salt Lake to stay with Grandma Elaine.  Ellie did great in the car.  I sat with her the last 4 hours and helped entertain and play.  Grandma loved spending so much time with Ellie everyday.  Ellie is usually very reserved with strangers, but Grandma was very persistent and Ellie seemed to warm up to her very quickly.  It was very cute to see.

Grass!
The weather was pretty lovely so we went outside.  Ellie had only sat on grass a couple times before and this time she decided that she didn't want to sit down.  She kept giving us faces like "do you really think I'm going sit on that!", then get bashful about it,  or "this is so totally disgusting!" to "this isn't so bad", back to "I hate this, its gross!"  It was really entertaining as you can see by her facial expressions.

Playing Grandma's organ was pretty fun.  She got to wear her really cute orange fluffy cotton skirt I just bought her.  It is usually too cold here in Laramie to wear it.  I loved seeing her cute legs.

We spent time with Aunt Amber and Uncle Briton.  Ellie always loves Briton.  She will just sit on his lap as he reads to her from a novel, just listening.  It's pretty cute.  On Saturday, Michael and his brother Chris went shooting and Ellie and I hung out all day with Amber and Briton.  I got to help Amber decorate a little bit and clean out the soon to be nursery.  Then Sunday we left around 11am, drove through a little snow and mostly rain until we got past Evanston area and then it was smooth sailing.  We think we hydroplaned a bit on the wet road.  It was a very strange feeling, not like ice, and not like road :)  So we are happy to be home.  The weather has been gorgeous!  It got up to 83* on my porch yesterday and today it is already 73*.  We like global warming around these parts.  Makes us wonder if we might actually have a spring?

Our Mission Impossible baby!  Didn't want to touch the grass!

Who knew!

Who knew raw meat could look so good?  These are meatballs all portioned out and ready to cook for my yummy Hearty Meatball Stew. 

I saw this recipe on TV and thought, YUM!  Even the mushrooms were good :)  It also works to throw in other veggies.  I used canned green beans in a pinch.  I've made 4X the meatballs ahead and frozen them.  It was great for a quick pasta with meatballs or, of course, this recipe.  Browning the meatballs takes a while tho with 50 meatballs.  I'm going to look into cooking them in the oven next time :)

I turned my meatballs about 3-4 times during browning and this is as round as they got :)

Hearty Meatball Stew

Giada De Laurentiis 

Ingredients

Meatballs:

• 1 slice white sandwich bread, torn into small pieces
• 8 ounces 20-percent-fat ground beef (about 8 ounces)
• 2 sweet mild Italian sausages, casings removed
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Hearty Meatball Stew:

• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 small onion, sliced (about 1 cup)
• 1 large red bell pepper, cored, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch strips
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 pound large white mushrooms, quartered
• One 8 to 10-ounce russet potato, peeled, halved lengthwise and sliced into 1/3-inch slices
• 4 ounces green beans, trimmed, cut into 1-inch-long pieces
• One 15-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Directions

For the meatballs: Place the bread and 3 tablespoons water into a medium bowl. Mash to a paste with a spatula. Add the beef, sausage, egg, parsley, salt and pepper. Blend the mixture thoroughly with your hands or a flexible spatula. Form the mixture into 10 to 16 meatballs. Arrange the meatballs on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet until ready to use.

For the hearty meatball stew: Sprinkle the meatballs with the flour and turn to coat with any flour still on the foil. Heat a large heavy nonstick skillet over medium heat for 1 minute. Add 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Drop the meatballs into the skillet, spaced apart. Cook until the bottoms are set and brown, about 2 minutes. Using a flexible thin spatula, turn each meatball onto an uncooked side and cook until the bottoms are set and brown, about 2 minutes longer. Turn and cook a third side, until set and brown, about another 2 minutes, so the meatballs are browned and set all over. Transfer the meatballs to a large plate.


Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in the same skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions, peppers, 1/4 teaspoon of the salt and 1/4 teaspoon of the pepper. Cook until soft, 4 minutes. Add the mushrooms and the remaining salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms have softened, about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes, beans, tomatoes, red pepper flakes and broth. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover the pan and cook until the potatoes are tender and the meatballs are cooked through, about 20 minutes.

 Enjoy!