Too much me...

I truly do not enjoy putting up pictures or blog things about
myself.... but I guess as long as it's not too often, I'll be able
to get through it. I did have a fun week. The first picture is out
of order, but oh well... it was a last minute addition.

I'm not usually one for all the effects, but the picture was a little
out of focus, and this made it better... plus, Adam was directing
the editing process and thought this would be cool. He said,
"You look heroic, intense, and focused."

Just a fun shot of Ellie reading and sipping a smoothie. We still
can't get her to do animal noises (except a dog bark), but she
likes to point to the animals and hear us do the noises.

Thank heavens she has not learned or had the guts to climb
all the way out the doggy-door yet, but she does love to open
it and drop things outside or tease the dogs who wait patiently
for her to move before jumping through the door.

An extremely rare, peaceful moment between the two wild boys.

Ellie adores playing rough with Grandpa.

Notice the cute little scabs and scratches on her face...
she did a total face plant on the sidewalk last weekend, but
she already looks much better. She crashes all the time...
but luckily she's pretty tough.

This is Ellie hanging out at the race on Thanksgiving morning.
She likes watching the runners and crowds, and clapping along.

She gave me a good pep talk before the race.

Just a few random shots. It was a great race. Over 2700
people were competing, even a guy in a Wheaties cereal box.
I surprised myself by finishing in 24:49, which means I kept
a pace that I didn't even know I could keep. It was a great
way to start the holiday. I'm lucky I have such an amazing coach
for a husband!

Ellie loved all the amazing Turkey-Day food. Her
absolute favorites were green bean casserole and
pistachio jello salad... and Grandma's rolls, of course.

Then it was on to birthday festivities for me. Yes, I am now
officially a whopping 23 years old. Bring it on.

My two favoritest people were right by my side.

We had some yummy cake (as if all the pies from the day before
weren't enough), and I got some wonderful gifts from my
wonderful family. Thanks to everyone!

Fall Activities

Things are still going as well as ever for the Roggia
family in Virginia. We are keeping busy and having fun.
Adam only has a couple weeks worth of classes left for
his first semester of DPT school, then a full month off! YAY!
I know I say this a lot, but Ellie seems to be getting crazier
by the day. She keeps us laughing more than we ever thought
possible. She is just really funny, and really smart, and
really wacky. She's gotten at least two more teeth lately,
so a total of 8 that we know of for now. She was over 26 lbs
at the doctor last week and is 14 months old. Yay Ellie!

She loves to do things by herself. She got mad when I tried to
help her with the relatively huge rake the other day. She
did a pretty good job on her own though.

These are just some of my favorite shots I got of her that
same day while we were playing around in the yard.

She had to put on the oven mitt the other night so
that she could help with the cookies. She's a hard worker.
And of course, Tucker was right there by her side... usually
hoping for a chance to steal any snacks she might have.

The hard work paid off with some super-yummy cookies.

She has been all over poor Tucker lately. He tries to be patient,
most of the time. But she just loves to pull on him, follow him,
hug him, tackle him, tease him.... etc. She just cracks up anytime
she sees that she can make him mad. She lives in the danger zone.

This was from this today. I don't know how she gets so
dirty like this, so quickly. It's kinda crazy sometimes... but
it suits her, so who am I to question such matters?

Some other quick stories...
A couple of Sundays ago, Grandpa gave the prayer in
Sunday School, and as soon as everyone said "amen" and
he headed back toward us, Ellie looked at him proudly and
started clapping for him. Our classmates nearby were quite
entertained by that. GO PRAYING!
Also, when Ellie is poopy now, she will answer us yes by
grabbing her diaper. So we say, "ok, let's go change," and
she leads us from whatever room we are in, all the way to her
room, grabs a diaper, and sits or lays in her usual changing spot.
Funny little girl.

Happy Happy Birthday, Grandma Dear!

We were happy to celebrate Grandma Garner's birthday
this past Monday. We love her to death and are lucky to
have her around... super cool lady that she is.

Ellie liked helping Grandma with the candles.

And I got to make Grandma's favorite...
German Chocolate Cake!

She got some fun gifts, and we had a good
little celebration.

But then she had to decide who she wanted on her special birthday
plate..... decisions, decisions... she wanted both...

Adam thought he made a cooler Vampire than Edward...
but since he wasn't on a plate....

...someone had to win.... oh, Edward...

Halloween!

After a few attempts at costume shopping,
we decided the the most appropriate and adorable
thing for Ellie to be was a monster.... a cute, squishy,
pink, crazy monster. She pulled it off well.

She was pretty dang cute walking around
in the puffy thing.

And Grandma was the only other good sport
who dressed up.... the cutest Mary Poppins EVER,
if you ask me.

Quick Ellie moment: At the ward party, she wanted
someone to walk around with her the whole time.
As Adam took his turn, she decided she needed to stop
at every trash can and put the lids back on them.
She is definitely a character. But Dad was a good sport.
Hopefully people didn't mind the slight inconvenience.

Ellie's first trick-or-treating stash. She did pretty well,
considering we only took her to 4 houses along our street.

We couldn't get her to say much to people, but they all
thought she was cute anyway, so it worked.

She is still carrying around her pumpkin of candy.

She was posing with Gramps, but then dropped (or threw) her
monster head on the floor and went into her "uh-oh" pose.

But then found her head again.

Enjoying the fruits of her labors.

Random Catch Up

This collection of pictures is a little bit scattered in theme,
but I have been needing to catch up with things lately...
so oh well... enjoy anyway.

This collage shows what happens when Ellie is....
well... Ellie. Sometimes she just gets into her wacky
mood and starts rolling around the floor and acting crazy.
She was moving around and being silly like this for about
30 minutes on this particular occasion. She is so odd.
I love it.

Ellie has been showing some affinity for baby dolls and stuffed
animals, so I bought her one while we were at Target the
other day. She was so excited that as soon as we got to the
car and I was buckling her up, she reached for the box that had
the doll and kept saying "deese, deese.... tantyou..." So I got
the doll out and took this picture from the front seat without
looking and was very entertained to see that she was even
sharing her sippy cup with the baby. Now if only she could
be so sweet with real kids.

We made pretty pumpkin sugar cookies, and Ellie was
obsessed with eating the cookie dough. Yummm.

This is what happens when Ellie is left alone with
Daddy for too long. Yay hair gel!

For some reason, this picture won't stay rotated... but anyway.
I have to say thanks for my Dad for one of the dates Adam and
I got to go on recently. He managed to get us free tickets to see
the Caps one Saturday night. Adam and I had a blast at our first
NHL game, and Ellie was happy to stay home with her favorite
babysitters. The Caps even won in a cool shootout!

Thanks for the great date nights, Mom and Dad!

Crazy Ellie

Ellie gets hooked and addicted to games very quickly.
In this, she was dipping her hand in a cup of water, then
clapping and splashing us. As soon as she saw our reactions,
she was hooked. What a goof!