A Thanksgiving to Remember

We had such a fantastic Thanksgiving! Ellie and I flew up the week before Thanksgiving, while Mike stayed behind to finish up classes and study for finals, which started right after Thanksgiving. I felt slightly guilty leaving him behind in Phoenix for the holidays, but the big reason we went up was because my brother's family from Alaska were making the trip down. They've lived in Fairbanks for the last year and a half, so it was very exciting seeing them again!

We also got to spend some time with Mike's family. Ellie enjoyed spending time with Grandma and Grandpa. And Tiffany and I made some cute Thanksgiving cookies!

Ellie also loved playing with Kingsley. She likes to hug and hold hands with babies, and she does so in a very loving, albeit rough manner. She also doesn't like to take no for an answer, so if Kingsley is done hugging, and Ellie isn't... well, the hug doesn't end. Same with her cousin Ada.

He sure had fun in the snow, but I think he might regret his wardrobe choice in a few years!

Kings became a full-time walker too! My theory is he had to learn to walk in order to avoid Ellie's "hugs of death". It was very cute to see him toddling around!

Since we had the whole family on my side together in who knows how long, we took family pictures. You might be thinking, "Hey! I thought you said Mike stayed behind in Phoenix?" Completely unbeknownst to me, he found someone to watch the pup and bought a plane ticket to Salt Lake. And it just so happened that he made it right on time for family pictures. He completely surprised me, even though most of my family knew. It was a very nice surprise, and although he studied almost the entire time he was up, it was still nice to be together on Thanksgiving!

Stacy knit all those cute hats for the girl cousins!

My parent's house was a circus! 16 people sleeping in beds, cribs, couches and on the floor. The laundry machine and dishwasher were used more in that two weeks than in the past 5 years combined. It was so much fun to have the entire family together!

And Ellie LOVED having her cousins around. She'd wake up in the mornings and say, "Where's my boys? I LOVE my boys!"

Here's a video of the family playing Just Dance. Ada is perhaps the best dancer I've ever seen.

Thanksgiving day was wonderful as well. I insisted that my Dad teach me how to make his *delicious* rolls this year, so he supervised while I did all the grunt work. I kept thinking to myself, "If I mess this up... Thanksgiving could be ruined." Everyone knows the rolls are the best part of dinner. Surprise, surprise... the rolls didn't raise, so we had Thanksgiving biscuits instead of rolls. I was so disappointed. We later found out we had accidentally used old yeast instead of the new stuff my Dad had bought. So I guess someday I might muster up enough courage to try making them again.

And these are the infamous sweet potatoes that my Mom makes. Every year the smoke alarm goes off from the burning marshmallows. This year though, they came out perfectly toasted. Congrats Mom!

I think everyone felt like this afterwards!

It was such a fun trip, and I'm grateful to my parents for housing and feeding everyone! And I wish Fairbanks wasn't quite so far away. But it does make you appreciate more the time you do get to spend together!

Weekend in Sedona

A few weeks ago, my parents drove down to Arizona to celebrate my Mom's birthday. We all met in Sedona, and spent a really nice weekend hiking, playing, and eating.

This was the house my parent's rented for the weekend. I think the owners said it could sleep 11, but I seriously think we could've fit 20. It was a really nice place!

Ellie and Ada loved the hammock!

They had a patio on top of their garage that had a fountain, barbecue, table, etc.

Cathedral Rock: one of the most photographed places in America, especially at sunset. (My Iphone obviously didn't do it justice.)

We hiked around Red Rock State Park. This was a house that was built before the area became a state park. We hiked right up to it, and it was an enormous house with a beautiful view, and it was all fenced up and in disrepair. Sad, really.

Ellie fell asleep in the middle of the hike, and spent the rest of the time riding in luxury in the hiking backpack.
This picture made me miss fall. We don't really get seasons down here in Phoenix. Would you believe me when I say that I'm actually sick of nice weather? There's not a lot of weather variety down here.

The inside of a dead cactus.

I don't know what these bushes are, but they were everywhere! I really want one someday.

Who's driving this thing?

Watching YouTube videos with my Dad. This is one of Ellie's favorite things to do in the world!

My Mom's birthday cake.

Here's the view from the patio on top of the garage. Sedona is beautiful, and we had a really fun time!

Howdy Halloween!

Here's some pictures of Ellie on Halloween. She loved Trick or Treating, probably because she scored some serious chocolate. I'm pretty sure she's the cutest cow girl I've ever seen!

We've been busy

Haven't blogged for awhile. Here's the reason why:

Yup. We got a pup.

And it's like having a baby all over again. Except I wish this baby could wear diapers, cause then she wouldn't mess on my carpet.
This is Tilly, a Chinese Shar-pei/Chihuahua mix. We got her from the animal shelter, and she's 2 months old.
She's a pretty fun puppy, and she's added a lot of happiness to our family.

And you can see how Ellie and Tilly get along...

A Few of my Favorite Things

The other night we went through our bedtime routine, and as I'm laying her down in her crib I said, "I love you Ellie!" To which she replied (totally unprompted), "Love you too, mama." That might have been my favorite moment of motherhood thus far.

Also, I've been singing "Baby Beluga" to Ellie since she was born, and you can imagine my surprise when just the other day she stopped me in the middle of the song and said, "Ellie do it," and then proceeded to sing the entire song by herself. She missed a word here and there, but probably sang about 95% of the song. And instead of saying "Baby Beluga" it's "Baby Ah-boo-ga". It's awfully cute. If I sing new songs with her, she can sing along with me after a few repetitions. Musical prodigy? Only time will tell...

Visit from the Stocktons

If this seems like a long post, it's because we've had an action-packed week! Mike's sister, Tiffany and her adorable little boy, Kingsley, came to visit for a week. We had so much fun!

Aside from the jealousy, and the total lack of sharing, I'd say Ellie did pretty well having Kingsley around. Ok, it wasn't all that bad... but the girl definitely needs to learn a few things before she gets a sibling (which won't be for awhile... sorry grandparents).

Mike had Monday "off" for Labor Day. He didn't have classes, but he did study for most of the day. Despite his studying, we managed to go to Los Reyes De La Tortas (another feature on the Phoenix edition of Man vs. Food, although this one wasn't featured for a food challenge, rather their exceptionally good food!). It was delicious!

We all tried the Torta del Reyes, which was massive. Luckily, Tiff and I shared one which was more than enough food.

We managed to go swimming a few times.
It was Kingsley's first time swimming in a pool, and as you can tell by the picture, he really enjoyed himself!
Wednesday was my birthday! Tiffany made some seriously AMAZING Andes Mint Cupcakes.

We all enjoyed them, and true to form, Ellie licked off all the frosting and left the cupcake part untouched.
We also spent a day driving out East to the Superstition Mountains. We stopped at the Superstition Museum which was really neat! For years, there was a place called Apache Land, which was a town/movie set where several Western Films were made. In 2004 the entire city, minus a few buildings on the outskirts of town, burned to the ground. So they moved the remaining buildings to this museum. They had a wall full of pictures of actors and actresses who filmed movies in Apache land: Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, etc.

This building was called the Elvis Chapel because it was used in parts of Elvis' film, Charro! (which is the only film he did which didn't feature him singing). In the movie, they built a fake steeple and blew it up with a cannon!

And people get married here all the time.

These are the gallows...
Steve McQueen's boot prints...
A Stage Coach
And of course, a jail...
And they also had a display of like 300 different kinds of barbed wire. Who knew there were that many different kinds?
We drove just a little further to Goldfield Ghost Town, a genuine 1890's ghost town which has turned into a large tourist attraction. Although, since it's the beginning of September and still deathly hot, half of the shops were closed and we only saw a handful of people. So it really felt like a ghost town! The Superstition mountains were beautiful! You can sort of see them in the background of this picture.
We drove about 30 minutes further on the Apache Trail (a twisty-turny road with beautiful scenery) and saw Canyon Lake. It's kind of weird to see a lake out in the middle of the desert.

Tiffany served her mission in the Philippines, so we found a little Filipino restaurant for dinner. I'd never tried Filipino food (aside from the Ramen/hot dog thing my little brother made once). It was really good!

The best part was the dessert though! On the left is Halo-Halo, which is kind of hard to explain but it's delicious. It has shaved ice, evaporated milk, fruit, sweet beans, and purple yam (ube) ice cream. It reminded me of stuff I had on my mission in Korea (pat bing su). And on the right is a coconut boba drink. I think it's also called bubble tea, or pearl tea. It's basically a coconut smoothie with these huge tapioca balls (boba) at the bottom. So it comes with this massive straw so the boba can fit through. It was SO good.

Speaking of delicious food, Tiff and I also made a few fabulous recipes which I highly recommend: cookie brittle, crispy chicken wraps, and a fantastic pulled pork recipe. I definitely need to commit to my diet again after this week!
We also drove to the Mesa Temple, which looks so different from most other temples, but it's really beautiful in its own way.
We had a really good time, and hope Tiffany and Kingsley did too. So there you go folks... come visit any time and you too can experience these things first hand! We'd love to have you!