UTAH

Adam, Ellie, and I were lucky enough to be able to travel to Utah last week. It was a wonderful little vacation, and we were soooo thrilled to see everyone! Ellie even did super well on the planes. We were quite impressed with her maturity. She's such a good little girl. Anyway, here's a quick collection of pictures and moments from the trip.

Adam and I got to do a SLC Temple session with his
parents, which was wonderful!

Mom and Pop Roggia... how cute are they?!

One of Ellie's favorite things from the trip was the "puh-puh's".
That girl loves her some dogs. She just walked around with Joy
and Tyler's dog in the picture and put her arm around her,
pet her, laid by her, everything.

We tried for lots of family pics while we were there... but Ellie
is at an age where that is not very likely to work out. They were
still cute and fun though... so I'm posting some anyway.
Poor Daddy... he always comes close to losing an eye with her.

On Saturday, Mom and Pop Roggia, Cathy, Jason, Adam, AND
I all got to do a 5k in Provo. Even Ellie, Caleb, and Brianna got
to ride along with Jason pushing them in the stroller. It was
fun to do a race with everyone. Adam did great and ran it
in 19:00. And I surprised myself by totally getting under my
goal time (I was hoping for sub 28 min), and finished in 26:13!
Hurray for racing at 28 weeks pregnant!

Adam and his beloved Father... they're really cute together.

Adam and the boys even got to attend a Real Salt Lake game...
such a handsome group of guys... I love Evan's face in that picture.

This is one of Ellie's favorite things... a "group hug", but really
it's just her strangling the two other people in the hug...
she loves it!

Her favorite way to get around.

She liked pretending to have a baby bump like Mommy.
She was even dancing around and patting it.

Great Grandma Roggia, with Ellie's newest cousin, Elias...
he was so sweet and adorable! Ellie was very good around
him and even liked when I was holding him... a little too
much even... she got mad when someone else took him
from me. Funny girl. She'll be a good big sister in
a couple of months here.

Picnic with the cousins.

She picked up lots of habits and skills... like climbing
on everything. She's gotten even more fearless after
beingwith her cousins for a week.

The oh-so-cute Grandma Roggia... in her
Mother's Day apron.

The Roggia clan together.

...plus spouses and kids. We had so much fun. We are really
going to miss Mom and Pop Roggia while they serve as
Mission Presidents in Africa for 3 long years!
(We just wish Dean, Mel, and Roman could have come!)
Thanks for a wonderful trip, everybody! I'm so glad that I
was blessed enough to marry into such a wonderful family!

Easter and Such

So I know that blogging would be much less trouble if I
could just get myself to do it more often... but maybe
someday. Anyhow, here's some silliness from the last couple
of weeks.

Ellie -- the Mechanic
She loves to get tools out of the toolbox, do a job,
then put the tools back where they go and close the box.
She's so good at working and putting things away. She
always does the silverware for me when we empty the
dishwasher. We love our little helper!

Ellie -- the Baker
She is not quite as helpful when it comes to baking. She
mostly just steals snacks, but it's still fun to have her around.
Plus, she looks so cute in her apron.

Ellie got to do an Easter Egg Hunt with lots of kids from
church. She did great with collecting the eggs.

Till one broke open and she saw what was inside...
but I was able to get her back on track after just a
quick bite of chocolate bunny.

Checking out her stash.

She's not incredible social, but she still likes to be a part of things.
So when she saw all the kids going over to sit on the steps and eat
their candy, she went right over on her own and wanted to sit
with them all. She's such a cute girl.

Then later that afternoon, we went with Daddy to a picnic with
his Physical Therapy class next to the Washington Monument.
Here you see our All-American girl... monuments, sugar cookies,

flags, and a little red-head... quite the picture.

Then we stopped to check out some of the
Cherry Blossoms since the big annual Festival
was underway. Ellie destroyed a few blossoms...
oops.

Ellie -- the Wrestler
This girl plays so rough. She always wrestles with Daddy,
all through the house. And she loves to tackle Mom and Grandma's
heads... and do boxing matches with Grandpa. She's a crazy child.

While we waited for Conference to start last week, Ellie got to
take a ride in the Trans Am with the top down. She didn't seem
to mind it, other than she didn't like the sun on her face. Oh well.

For Easter, she got lots of yummy treats... a new Easter baby (a
lamb, actually), a new Easter dress and purse from Grandma...
and numerous other things... Can anyone say spoiled? Yep.

But at least she shares. She put her baby straight into the little
high chair and piled lots of her candy on the tray.

A nice outting to the park on a hot day.

A moment of Ellie-ness. What a loon.

Looking like a cute little athlete.

Didn't want to let go of the water bottles,
even to go down the slide.

Then we decided to go for another walk when
we got home. Mostly so she could fall asleep easier.

And it worked! Poor little red-faced girl... it was so
hot last week!

Ellie's Easter dress. She looked adorable... but
wouldn't smile for the picture. She's got too many
obsessions to distract her outside. She loves watching
birds and squirrels... and begging for the hose sprayer
to be turned on so that she can play in the water.

She did get to play in some water after church...
whether we wanted her to or not. She soaked herself
with an old rag and the doggies' water dish.

Ellie -- the Vegetarian
She just doesn't care for meat very often. I let her choose
something to eat from the cupboard... and she chose corn. Then
she asked for more food, and chose carrots. She loves those little
veggie cups. We're very lucky in that sense... she's a good eater,
but she does love sugar too... hopefully we balance it all out okay.

Keeping Busy

Hard to believe it, but our crazy little girl is 18 months old!
Actually, she has been for more than 2 weeks; I'm just slow
with posting. But anyway, at her check-up, I was simply told
that she is tall and heavy... so there's your growth update.
She's actually right around 30 lbs, but I don't know her height.
Tall enough to seem bigger than most the kids her age or
older in nursery... average to tall I guess at this point.
But yes, she has been going to nursery, the full two hours
even. I'm working in primary, so I don't get to see or hear
much of how she does, but Adam says he can hear her yelling
every now and then (just regular yelling, not crying). And
we have great nursery leaders, so it appears she does great
and has fun playing with different toys and doing activities.
Such a big girl.

We didn't really do anything for her 18 month birthday,
so I gave her some balloons to play with. Ellie LOVES balloons.

Ellie also seems to love all batters and doughs. On this night,
she was my bowl clean-up crew for banana bread. But she loves
cookie dough too, and even plain old bread dough for rolls. It's
all good to Ellie.

Aside from occasional rain days, the weather has
been pretty nice and warm most of the last couple
weeks. But sometimes when we try to drive to a cool
park that is farther away, this is all we get... but naps
are good too. I won't complain.

But most the time, we do get to play lots. Ellie and I get
plenty of exercise on all our walks and runs and climbing.

She usually likes to just walk around at the parks and
check things out, climb, or throw rocks and things, but she's
becoming more willing to actually play on the equipment
lately, which has been fun. She LOVES slides now.

We even got to do a picnic with Daddy at the park one evening.
Ellie loved the idea of having a blanket out in the park. She
enjoyed relaxing in her favorite place (OUTSIDE!)...
for a little while at least.

Ellie enjoyed our treats when she wasn't
busy running around.......

.......Or playing rough with Daddy. She has
always loved to wrestle and get tossed around.
I guess it's because Adam taught her from a very
young age... they have a lot of fun together.

Hiking the field.

Hugging the picnic blanket.

Along with the sunshine and park trips, of course
there is a lot of backyard time on the trampoline. Ellie
loves it out there. She jumps around and watches the
dogs wrestle on the yard below.

Ellie thought it was hilarious that Tex was sleeping in a
laundry basket one morning... so I told her he was going
night-night, and she gave him a kiss. She can be so sweet
when she wants to be.

So Ellie doesn't sleep in her crib.... she prefers the big bed all
to herself. But she does like to play in her crib with her babies.
They always have to be lined up just right, next to her in the
crib, then every blanket in sight has to be placed perfectly
over them all, while they watch movies and she reads them a
Twilight book... that's my girl.