Happy Mother's Day?

Eliza made this picture frame for me in Nursery.  When I saw the picture, I busted up laffing... she is just SUCH a serious child around other people! 

 She starts screaming "No no no no!" when we pull into the church parking lot each Sunday because she knows that it's Nursery time!  We sit with her for a few minutes as she slowly lessens the death grip and then are able to sneak out and she usually does fine for the rest of the time which is great.  

But the picture, oh the picture!  It just screams, "I love Nursery and I'll show it full-heartedly!"  We have named it her mug shot for when she got booked into jail.  She looks THAT good.  :)

Graduation!

Aaron graduated with his Master of Accountancy from Brigham Young University!

Thursday was the big ceremony with all 5,994 graduates.  The Masters students got to walk in single file which I thought was awesome.  Our seats ended up being right where he walked in too!

 

It was pretty short, which was wonderful.  :)  Elder Dallin Oaks spoke which was a treat!

 

My mom stayed home with Eliza for this ceremony and judging by the way she acted Friday, it was probably for the better!

 He posed for me.  :)  (He's going to freak out when he sees that I posted all these pics of him.)  :)

 Here is Aaron's family who came.

Friday was the Marriott School's graduation where they read the names.  We again had fabulous seats which I was SO happy about!  Here he is coming in!

He sat on the front row, second person from the left.

 

Here he is getting his name read.

 We ended up leaving early and I was so grateful because it ended up going for a couple more hours.  Eliza was... difficult, to put it nicely.

I was really hoping to get some good pictures, but Eliza refused to be with anyone but me, but I can't carry her so all the pictures turned out like this...

Luckily walking across campus calmed her down and we did get this picture which I was happy with.  :)

Here we are with my parents.

We had a lot of screaming the rest of the day from Eliza, but she was really good that night which we were grateful for.  We had a dinner that night at our place for both of our families and my brother caught this adorable picture of her.

My sister made Aaron an ice cream cake, at his request.

We are so grateful for the support from our families and were so glad to have those who could celebrate with us.

I think it's still setting in that it happened!  We've never gone more than a few weeks without school for all of our married life so we'll see if we hit a mid-life crisis or something.  Ha!   He now has to study and pass all the CPA exams to be licensed as a Certified Public Accountant, so I guess we're not completely out of the groove yet!  

It seems so crazy to us that when we got married, he was still trying to figure out a major.  We are grateful for the promptings that led to the Accounting Program because it was never even an option at the beginning.  I definitely teared up to see him walk in in his hood and when he stood up and clapped for me.  He techinically did all the homework and testing and such, but we paid for it together and I tried my best to support him so it feels like our achievement together. He/We did it!!!

Easter Fun!

We had a fun Easter.  Eliza has loved the eggs and bunnies and chicks and all the other Easter things.  She's really taken to bunnies and calls them Hoppa (hop with an a at the end). :)

My mom told me that there was going to be an egg hunt at my grandma's care center so I prepared her for weeks in advance!  I made cardboard cutouts of children picking up eggs and taught her to knock them down and I taught her how to use a plastic bat to trip people.  Just kidding.  :)

The Easter Bunny was at the hunt and she wouldn't really touch him, but she wasn't nearly as freaked out as I thought she'd be.  She just kept pointing at him and saying HOPPA!  He did not hop for her though, unfortunately!

 

The hunt had seven eggs for each child (you had to find the eggs with your number on them), but E is too young to understand that and was just so excited to pick the eggs up.  Whenever she'd get occupied with something else, I'd dump the eggs back out.

She went to get an egg behind a bush and found a live duck!!!  She was really excited and was saying "quack quack" and before I knew it she touched the duck.  The duck kinda jumped which revealed that it was sitting on a nest of eggs!  I was so grateful the duck didn't bite her!  Eliza watched the duck for a good five minutes... I think she kept thinking she needed to get those eggs!  It was super fun to go to the hunt. 

Sunday morning we put the eggs in a trail leading to a thing of bubbles.  She opened one and found a white chocolate chip and quickly went to the next one to see if there was one in it too!  (White chocolate chips are pretty much the only sugar thing she'll eat.  I'm definitely not complaining... I'm sure some day that will change!!)

My mom got her this cute purple dress and she looked so sweet in it!  She is very much at a "hate the camera" stage so getting a picture of her smiling and looking at the camera is next to impossible!

My parents hid some eggs for her to find and she just thinks it is such a fun game!  (She asks me multiple times each day to play with the eggs.  She watches me put them around the room and then picks them up.  I told her to hide the eggs once and it was cute to watch her put them back exactly where I had put them earlier.)  At my parents, I took one of the eggs out of her basket to eat the candy and seriously offended her.  :)  Oh little girl... you just wait until your little sister comes and takes all your stuff in a couple months!!

Other updates: We are not sure when we'll be going to Albuquerque.  And Aaron graduates in a week!

Our Floor Sweeper

This is the kind of crazy fun we have when Grandpa comes to town!  She thought is was so fun... she kept pulling him into the kitchen and laying on the floor!

Thinking Pink

It looks like Aaron will be outnumbered for awhile... we're having another girl!  We would have been thrilled with either, but it was kinda fun to find out that we were right after everyone telling us there was no way it was another girl.  Aaron's side of the family is 99% boys so they were sure Eliza was a fluke.  But now we've got two flukes!  Like I said, I would have been thrilled with a boy, but I am really relieved financially that it is a girl... we'll only have to buy diapers!  We are so excited and blessed to have another baby coming to our family.  We pray everything will go well and hope to meet her late June!

Smartie Pants

Eliza is at SUCH a fun age right now.  Over the past two months she has just sky-rocketed with learning things.  She's into animal sounds and words and we love it!
Just a couple nights ago as we were driving, I randomly thought about reciting the alphabet and was surprised to hear that she wanted to repeat it all.  We think it is adorable.  We especially love "h" because she always says "house" instead (it's a current favorite word!), the "x"., and how she says "thanks" at the end.  She rocks our world.  :)

Also, our ultrasound is next week... what's your guess?!

Our Extended Christmas

Ready for a holiday recap?!

We had a wonderful holiday season!  We LOVED seeing Christmas through Eliza's eyes.  She was so excited about everything... the Christmas tree, the ornaments, the jingle bells, the presents, the nativity set, etc.

If I asked where "baby Jesus" was, she'd run and grab him.  Pretty much melted my heart.

Aaron's parent's came the week before Christmas and we had a good time with them.  We went and saw the lights and Eliza LOVED them.

We also went to a BYU game.  Eliza loved sitting in her own chair.

We had our own Christmas morning.  Eliza ran to her present when she saw it and was so excited to open it!  She really caught onto ripping the paper off... so much that she wanted to open every present she saw!  By the end of the break I had wrapped up fake presents many times to prevent huge breakdowns when other people opened presents and she didn't have any.  :)

We gave her a doll in a stroller.  She was super excited to see it, but a little shy.  I've been planning on getting her a doll for probably over six months so it was fun to finally give it to her.

It took maybe a minute and she was off pushing her baby around!

And giving her kisses.  :)

After church we went to my parents and spent the rest of the day.  That night we got to skype with my brother on his mission!  We were also able to get my two brothers who weren't there in on the conversation!  Technology is pretty great.  :)

Eliza's Christmas gift to me was that she decided a couple days later to FEED HERSELF!!!!!

The week between the holidays was spent with extended family and then the week after New Year's, my brother and his family came to visit from Minnesota!
I got to meet my niece Norah!!  And Eliza got to meet her cousin!
We were curious to see how she'd do because she's VERY nervous around other kids, but she did really well and even gave her hugs.  (putting her forehead on her)

She's pretty nervous about holding her, but we did get one smiling picture nonetheless!

 And here's the fam altogether.  I love these peeps!

 

It was such a wonderfully exhausting three weeks of vacation!

And for some great news... we're expecting our 2nd child!  I'm 16 weeks, due June 28th, and we are thrilled.  We are so dang blessed.  I have been as sick as I was with Eliza, if not more, so we're both pretty sure it's another girl.  We'll have our ultrasound in a few weeks... we can't wait!

Meeting Santa

Eliza met Santa last night.

We got just the reaction we knew we'd get... and hoped we'd get.  :)

 

Go ahead and call us terrible parents for making her sit in his lap... but these pictures make me super happy.  :)

Off We Go...

So.  Big News.  We’re moving.  To Albuquerque.

Aaron has accepted an offer with a public accounting firm there and we plan on moving down next spring after he graduates.

Crazy.

Am I excited?  Excited to choose an apartment I’ll never see before living in it?  Excited to leave my family and friends?  Excited to be pretty much alone in a city I don’t know?  No, I wouldn’t say excited is the word.  I would say accepting is a better word.  But I am THRILLED that Aaron has a job and am hoping that it will turn out to be a wonderful adventure for our family.  

Happy Halloween!

We had such a fun Halloween!  My sister, Laurie, made Eliza and her matching Gwendolyn (the good witch from the Wizard of Oz) costumes.  They turned out fantastic!!!  Eliza's has been done for a few weeks and the first time I put it on her she cried and cried and cried!  There are little beads on the wrists that terrified her.  So from then on, Eliza wouldn't touch it!  She'd cry if I touched the fabric to her and would run away any time we brought it near her!  It was REALLY funny, but also sad after all the work Laurie had put into it!  Over the past couple weeks, we've had the dress hanging where she sees it all the time and have even dressed her stuffed animals in it.  

Laurie invited us to her work lunch so I decided that I'd put Eliza in it first thing in the morning to see if she'd be okay with it by lunch.  There was a lot of morning screaming and walking around like a zombie because the sleeves made her act like her arms were paralyzed, but it worked!  And for some crazy reason she let me even put the crown on her head and she would hold the wand!!  I don't know if seeing Laurie dressed like her made her feel cool about it or what!?  But anyway, she performed perfectly and it was so much fun.  She was so cute and just soaking up the attention at Laurie's work!

At night, our ward had a Trunk-or-Treat that we went to.  She had been so good with the dress all morning that I wasn't going to force her to keep it on.  She's in love with these hand-me-down boots so I let her wear those.  She got the little cowgirl outfit for her birthday from some friends of ours.  I think it is SO cute.

Eliza really can't talk and she doesn't eat candy, but that doesn't mean that I didn't want to see what she'd do.  :)  And, holy cow, she was cute!!  Once she figured out that people were giving her stuff, she was in heaven!  She figured out how to put the candy in her bucket and figured out that you went up to the person with the big bowl.  It totally melted Aaron and I!  She was just so cute! 
When it got a little heavy, she started swinging it over her shoulder like a purse.

Aaron took this video of her with her first piece of candy.  At the end she puts it in another kid's bucket and then is sad when he takes off.  So funny!

I'm excited for more Halloween's... Eliza definitely made it so much fun!

Berry Picker

We have a lot of raspberries where we live.  As in we pick 6+ cups every other day.  Yes, a LOT of raspberries.  And a lot of deliciousness.

Eliza has watched us for months and last week it all clicked and I looked down to see her picking one and putting it in her mouth.  I melted and ran to get the camera. 

It is ADORABLE.  See for yourself.

*Disclaimers:  I do not normally put two clips in her hair.  I had found one on the floor and didn't want to lose it so I just put it in her hair.  :)  Oh and yes, I know I sound like an idiot.  :)

I think her great-grandpa who planted these (and who her middle name is after) would be quite tickled and proud.

Summer Hikes

We LOVE the outdoors so we tried to get outside as much as we could this summer.  Here's a re-cap of our summer hikes.

Trail to Timp Cave with Hayley & Ben

 (we forgot her hat so we gave her a sunscreen mohawk!)

(freaky!)

Midway with my extended fam

 

Cecret Lake with my fam

Grandier Peak with Aaron's fam

 

Temple Quarry Trail with my fam

Oh and I should have mentioned quite awhile ago that she walks!  She picked it up at exactly 13 months.  I love it; it's adorable.