Gabe funny

Last night Cory was getting Gabe ready for bed after his bath. He got out some Baby Vicks Vapo Rub and put it on Gabe's chest because he was coughing. He told Gabe it was medicine to go on his chest. Gabe responded with, "So now will I get HAIR?!?"

Dear Gabe - I sure hope not - I've been using that stuff all week long....

Some New Rules

Just wanted to inform you of some new rules that we have decided to institute at our house. I'm sure you will want to join in.

1. If any of the children in the household are sick - the parents MUST feel 100%. Kids and parents are NOT allowed to be sick at the same time - no matter what!
2. All calories consumed while sick do NOT count. If you feel like crap - you should be able to eat like crap and not have it count against you.
3. If you get a nasty bug you should have a MINIMUM of one month to recover before being subjected to another evil bug. You should have time to recover and get your house back in order before you return to the world of sniffles, freight-train like headaches and body shaking chills.
4. If one parent is sick - the other should not be allowed to feel ANY symptoms of sickness until the first one is completely better.
5. If both parents happen to be sick at the same time (which should not happen - see rule #4) - NO kids are allowed to be sick under any circumstances.
6. If everyone in the house has been sick for 3 week - JUST GIVE UP.

The SICKIES are back

Yup - we're sick all over again. I never quite kicked the last bug we had, but we have something new now. I've been coughing non-stop, Gabe's started coughing, and Cory and I both have yucky body-aches, a headache, Gabe has a fever - all the good stuff. Cory even stayed home from work - the whole day - so I know he must be feeling pretty awful. We were trying to figure out how long it's been since our whole house has been 100% healthy - and I'm pretty sure it's been almost since the first of the year. It's frustrating because I can really say we're generally pretty healthy people. The people I think we got sick from also had really bad diahrea and stomache flu in addition to the crud we have - so let's pray those symptoms skip over us.

Here is a layout I did last week as I was starting to feel better...The journaling reads:

"This picture cracks me up. Here you are sitting down to open your Valentine present...on the toilet. This just kind of captures a slice of our life. We were in the bathroom bathing Hunter, Gabe wanted to open Valentine's presents - so here we did it. I like where our life is right now though; two kids, craziness, and still in love - that sounds like a perfect Valentine's Day to me! Love you sweetheart! (February 14th, 2008)"

And at the risk of some of you thinking I'm actually caught up to Valentine's Day 2008 - not even CLOSE! :) Sometimes it motivates me to jump at current pictures - then I work on the others later...at least that's the plan someday.....

Happy Birthday Little Brother!

Today is my little brother Paul's birthday. Wish we could be in New Mexico celebrating with you guys - but hope you know we love you and hope your birthday is fantastic! I have loved to see Paul as he's become a dad. He is so sweet with Taylor and it will be exciting to see him with her as she grows up and changes.

Love all of you guys and hope your birthday is awesome!

Edited to add: A few weeks ago I said to Gabe, "Tell your little brother goodnight". He said, "Good-night little butt-fur." He knows how to say brother - so Cory and I really cracked up when he called Hunter his little 'butt-fur'. So I guess I should have said "Happy birthday little butt-fur" :)

a couple more layouts

Hunter's rash

When we got up this morning Hunter's rash is almost 100% gone! I am thinking that maybe the dr was wrong and he didn't have HSP, but a more mild reaction to the fever...but I don't know for sure. We'll still watch for the side-effects, but I'm feeling like we're a closer to being out of the woods. So here are a few pictures of what his rash looked like. They're not great pictures, but you can see how it was bright red, and also had purple marks. I hope it doesn't come back - but at least for now we'll be grateful that he's doing a bit better.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

So I had hoped to post this earlier - so I could be wishing you all a Happy Valentine's Day, but that just didn't happen. So Happy (kind of belated) Valentine's Day!

Here are some pictures of our day. In the morning the boys got to open their Valentine's from grandparents and Cory and I. Gabe was really excited about the Valentine he had picked out for Cory, and surprisingly even kept the Spiderman chocolates a surprise. Gabe got a Geotrax toy for his trains and Hunter got a peek-a-boo book (he LOVES playing peek-a-boo!)

Then we went out to lunch with Cory. I asked Gabe what he wanted for lunch and he said, "I want lunch with Daddy. I want to go to the lunch-store with him!" So we met at our favorite hamburger joint (Brad's Food Hut - YUM!) before heading to the doctor for Hunter.

Poor, poor Hunter. As I posted I thought he was getting better. That is until yesterday morning when he woke up covered with a rash all over his poor little body. His fever was down, and he seemed to be doing better, but the rash got worse. So we headed to the dr for the second time this week. He has what is called HSP or Henoch-Schonlein Purpura. It is basically a reaction to the virus his body has been fighting - kind of an allergic reaction to the virus. It can have dangerous complications, but the Dr said it is likely that it will go away on it's own. However, the rash can last up to several weeks - like 4-6 weeks. It could also go away in 2-3 days....so we'll see. Keep the little guy in your prayers - I don't think he's very comfortable. If I get around to it I might post some other pictures of it later....but they might just gross you out.

Then we came home and read some fun Valentine's stories, delivered some Valentine's to some of Gabe's friends, and called it a night. I did give the boys some fun Valentine's Pajamas. I had bought them around Thanksgiving time online at the Gap and I was so excited to put them on them after baths tonight. They looked so cute!

Oh one more thing - have to record the cute thing Gabe said today. I was telling him that when we took our Valentine's around (he picked out Cars Valentines with Cars pencils to give out to friends) that he needed to say, "Will you be my Valentine?" I said, "Now what do you say when you give the girls their cards?" He thought for a minute and yelled, "Will you be my PARTNER?" I don't know where he got that one - but it made me laugh :)

Well everyone - I hope you all had a fantastic Valentine's Day and that your sweethearts surprised you with something sweet and romantic!

LOVE YOU ALL!

Joanna

This picture cracked me up. Hunter was falling over as I was trying to get a cute picture of the boys together and Gabe started screaming, "HELP! HUNTER'S FALLING!!!!!" But as you can see - Gabe wasn't doing much to help him up :)

on the mend and a couple other layouts

Well, we're on the mend here. I'm still fighting a cough and exhaustion - but I'm getting better. Now it's just getting Hunter back to 100%, and praying Gabe never gets it. Hunter woke up pretty sick Sunday in the EARLY morning hours. He felt rotten all day Sunday and yesterday - but he seems to be doing a lot better today. I did take him into the dr this morning and he seemed MUCH better (does that happen to any other moms - you make the dr appointment and suddenly the child gets better on their own?) The dr said it's a virus (which I suspected, but wanted to be sure) and to keep an eye on him. His fever is down quite a bit today and he's much happier - so that's a good sign. He has been up ALL NIGHT LONG for the last several nights and is just a mess unless we hold him. So I haven't gotten much sleep for like 5 nights now and it's really starting to wear me out. But that's life I guess.

Here are a few digital pages I made a while back, but hadn't added the photos. It was nice to just take a few minutes this afternoon while Gabe ate lunch and finish them up. I have a few others I need to add pictures to as well - so keep watching, I'll post them when they're done.

A few people have asked if I do digital scrapbooking only now. I am still planning on paper scrapbooking....someday....It's just a lot easier to deal with digital stuff than to get out the messes with paper scrapping. Especially since my office right now is a disaster - I wouldn't know where to even start to create a paper layout! And though I have yet to print out any of the pages I do, I did get a nice large format printer from Cory for Christmas, so I will eventually start printing them. I also want to try out Shutterfly's photo books.

Sick and some layouts

This has been a crummy week at the Ellis house. I came down with the cruddy cold that's been going around and have been sick for the last several days. Yesterday I felt SO awful - I honestly don't know when I've been so sick (aside from pregnancy). We're talking fever, chills, body aches, a sore-throat like no other, headache, cough, stuffy everything. YUCK! But I feel remarkably better today after a reasonbly good night sleep. Hopefully the worst of it is over...



Well today I luckily feel well enough to sit and do some digital scrapbooking. Cory's taken Gabe with him to get the truck washed and other Saturday errands. Hunter's asleep - so I'm getting some scrapping done. Nothing strenuous, and it's even fun :)



Hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

(EDITED TO ADD: YIKES! I realized later that in the SPLASH layout that I didn't specify why I looked like a beached whale. I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with Hunter. Sadly the pictures don't look like that - but look more like I ATE an 8 1/2 month pregnant ELEPHANT!)

And the winners are.....

Are you ready?

Just a second, hold your horses! First I wanted to thank you all for the comments you made. I loved hearing what you all want to leave as your legacy and what you want others to think of when they think of you and your life. I loved the simple things - like wanting to be known as being the fastest cookie eater (although I think Dad definetly has you beat Jed!) and I also loved ones like being a good missionary, a good friend, a great problem solver, or being dedicated. The list goes on and on - I think you all have fabulous goals to work towards - and many of you are mastering those (at least from where I can see!)

And secondly I wanted to say thank you for all of the kind comments that so many of you made. I hadn't written my original post to boost my confidence - and I wasn't trying to throw myself a pitty party about being known as a stressed out person. It was simply an observation I had made, and a feeling I had after some recent comments from some people. Anyway - I really appreciated all of the comments - many brought a tear to my eye, and helped me to see myself in some nice ways. Thank you guys - it meant a lot to me. (more than you'll know!)

So now the reason you're reading this post - you want to know if you won the movie - right? We had 16 people respond to my question. So I wrote down 1-16 on slips of paper and had Gabe draw the winners. The winners were:

#3 - Jed

#11 - Mom

And for fun - #12 - Kristi

So Jed - you get to choose first which DVD you'd like.

Then Mom will get the movie that Jed doesn't choose.

And Kristi - I'll pick something fun to send you because I love sending fun mail out! (almost as much as I love getting fun surprise mail!)

New First Presidency

What a neat thing to have happen today - the appointment of a new First Presidency for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I have always had a special place in my heart for President Monson - since I was a little girl. Even ast a small child I loved hearing his calming voice, his stories, and his love of service and of the gospel. In fact, when I was in 4th grade he was speaking at the hospital my dad worked at. I begged to be taken out of school because I wanted to be there to hear him. My parents checked me out of school (which they honestly didn't do for anything short of death!) and I attended his talk at the hospital. He came out to the hall afterwards when I was getting a drink and he gave me a big hug. I remember feeling (and still do) so special that he took the time to do that. My mom reminded me today that I also was surprised at how tall and big he was :).

I know that no matter who had been called as the First Presidency would have done amazing work, but I look forward to the experiences these wonderful men will bring to the church. I love their passion for the gospel, their love of the Savior, and the way that they can speak and really touch my spirit.

I am so grateful for a church that has a seemingly seamless change in leadership - as opposed to the way the world chooses leaders (example - the current election 'mess' we deal with every day). The peace that is evident in this change is so different from the contention we are faced with as we watch the news as our country works to choose our next government leaders.

I am also grateful for the chance to teach Gabe tonight about the new First Presidency. A few months ago when we go the November issue of The Ensign we got out the pictures of the new apostles and talked to Gabe about the new member of the First Presidency. We worked on the names of the apostles, and he really caught on quickly - it was neat. So tonight we talked about how we needed a new prophet since President Hinckley has passed away (Gabe tells us that President Hinckley died - and that means he went to live with Heavenly Father). But by the time we were going to bed Gabe kept saying the names of the 1st Presidency over and over and over again - and was begging to see a picture of them in the 'magazine'. I know he doesn't totally get who these men are, or what they do - but I would like to think he has a little glimpse of their importance.

And if nothing else - for now I love how he points to his eyes when he says, "President EYE-ring" (the way we taught him to remember President Eyring's name).

Chilly

Hunter

Another digital layout done today - YAY!

Palm Springs

I did this layout last night right before going to bed. Then as I went to save it my computer freaked out and I lost everything I'd worked on. Nice...So I recreated it this afternoon when the boys were napping (something they haven't done all week - so I was grateful!) And here ya have it!

What would you want to be remembered for?

Ok, I have been thinking these last few days about what I want to be remembered by, or what I want people to associate with me. You know - when someone says, "Joanna Ellis is so_____________".

Like when I think of my friend Denae I automatically think, "Denae is one of the happiest people I know - being around her always makes me happy and I leave with a smile on my face!"

Or another friend of mine is a really disciplined person and I wish I could be as disciplined as she is with exercise and eating healthy. I wish I could be like her in her desire to run - she really LOVES it. (I'm trying to even tolerate it...)

And then there is a woman in our ward who is always selfishlessly serving EVERYONE. I've heard it said of her that she is a bloodhound - always able to sniff out when someone needs help even before they know that they do. She is always taking meals, making visits, helping in other's yards - she's amazing.

Or a friend who always remembers birthdays - no matter what she always sends a sweet card and sometimes a little gift. But without fail - I know that Melissa always remembers birthdays.

I have a grandma who is always thinking of others too. She's so sweet at sending my boys little notes and cards in the mail with stickers and pictures. Gabe loves it!

And the list could go on and on. I admire so many people for the lives they live. You all really do inspire me and make me want to be a better person!

Unfortunately I think that the one resounding thing that everyone who knows me well would say is, "Joanna is always so stressed". And it's true....I am just a stressed out person. I stress about pretty much everything under the sun. I stress about my kids being well behaved in public. I stress about having a lot to do with my Young Women calling. I stress about getting work done for our business. I stress about family and friends coming to visit - wanting my house to be clean and orderly, and to be a good hostess. I stress about looking just right when I go out with friends and I stress about loosing these last 15 lbs that are hanging on for dear life. Honestly - I don't really know what my life would be like if I wasn't stressed - it's just who I am.

But that isn't what I want to be remembered for in life. I want to live my life in a way that there are other things that people think of when they think of my name. I'd like to be remembered as a good mom. I hope as my kids get older that I can be a FUN mom - one who plays with her kids, and has fun with them. I wish I could be remembered as being a patient person - although I have a long way to come with that one..... I hope that my kids will think of me as someone who loved the gospel and our Savior. I would like to think people would associate me with being a good cook, a humble person, a compassionate friend and neighbor....the list goes on and on. But hey - I would even settle for being known for making the world's best chocolate chip cookies. :)

So what do you want to be remembered for? What do you want your legacy to be and what are you doing to work towards that? I want to hear the silly, and the deep and important. I would really like to hear EVERYONE's comments. So lurkers, frequent posters - everyone - please leave a comment!

And if you leave a comment between now and Monday morning (February 4th) I will put all of the comments in a hat and draw 2 winners. The first winner will have a choice between 2 DVD's - Ratatouille, and a collection of short Pixar movies. And the second winner will get whatever is left over :)

President Gordon B. Hinckley

So one of the reasons I'm kind of glad we came home from our trip early is that on the way home we heard that President Hinckley had passed away. I was filled with joy as we heard the news – so happy for him to be reunited with his sweet wife after being apart. I can only imagine the beautiful reunion that took place between them and the thought of it made me want to hug Cory a little tighter, and love him a little better.

I was also sad. Sad that we wouldn't be able to enjoy President Hinckley's wit and wisdom at every conference. I loved his sense of humor and love of life. I loved how as he taught us he didn't ever chastize - but he loved us in a way that made you want to be better. He never made me feel guilty, but that I was trying hard. He loved all - not just Mormon people. He loved the youth and I think that they really felt that. He will be missed, but what a joyous reunion it must have been with his sweet Marjorie.

I'm glad we've been home to enjoy the tributes that we are seeing everywhere on the local news programs. I have loved hearing about his life, hearing stories about his growing up, his experiences as the prophet, and how he touched so many lives. What an amazing man.

He certainly makes me want to stand a little taller, and do a little better.

Our trip to California

(I tried posting this yesterday - but my internet was on the fritz all day...)

We got home last night from a trip to California. We were mostly going for our annual Blind Guy awards banquet, but decided to make a bigger trip of it. We asked Cory's mom to come along so that we could attend the banquet together without the kids, and also because we wanted her to get to spend some fun time with the boys. We had planned on going to Palm Springs for the banquet and Cory's meetings (which included a lot of golf too…) and then we were going to San Diego for several days. In San Diego we were going to go to the Wild Animal Park, possibly the beach, and Sea World. We had been talking this all up to Gabe for weeks now. I showed him the websites, learned about different animals – really got him (and me!) excited about the trip.

Well…things didn't go as planned.

First off – it's harder to travel with 2 little boys than I had anticipated. At one point I was complaining to Cory about how hard it was with the 2 little guys – and he said, "What were you expecting exactly?" Well – honestly I was thinking that somehow both boys would be so excited that we were on vacation that they wouldn't throw fits, need naps, or have tough times….Yeah – I'm an idiot, and looking back I'm realizing just how dumb I was. Hunter isn't even 6 months old yet, and Gabe is very much a 2 ½ year old. They hadn't read the memo that on vacation everything is supposed to be cheery, happy and temper-tantrum free (honestly – I hadn't read the memo either – I can be a crab on vacation with the rest of the bunch!)

So nothing I had planned in Palm Springs ended up happening. There were naps in the car while Tammy and I explored Palm Springs from the seats of the suburban, a trip to Costco for Cory's new GPS toy (which ROCKS!) – which took us all over the area (since we didn't have the GPS yet, and the directions I'd looked up on the internet only took us ½ way there…), there was swimming in the pool, a semi-successful trip to one of the coolest outlet malls ever, and time in the hotel room. Poor Hunter didn't sleep nearly enough, and Gabe probably didn't either.

Cory and I DID get to go to Cheesecake Factory for a late night dessert after the boys got to sleep one night, and enjoyed most of the banquet another night before I needed to head back to nurse the baby (we were there for all of the banquet – just missed out on some of the chatting afterwards).

Then came our change of plans. We drove to San Diego Saturday afternoon. The weather forecast said it was supposed to be SUPER rainy. Everyone we talked to when we got there warned us of the rain and apologized that we had come on such a crummy weekend. They said it was supposed to be the biggest storm of the year. Since both of our big plans included being outside (Sea World and the Wild Animal Park) we were nervous. If it had just been Cory and I we would have definitely just forged ahead and gone in the rain. Hey – rain means fewer lines eh? And really, with just the 2 of us and Gabe – we would have totally done it too. But since we had the baby we were just leery of taking him out in the cold/rain/wind for 2 days. I volunteered to stay back at the hotel with the baby, but Cory decided that it would be best to head back home. We'd save quite a bit of money, and it had already felt like a long trip. This decision made me sad, I have to admit. I had spent a LOT of time making plans, researching places to go, hotels that were close to what we were going to do, and had really gotten Gabe excited about it. I kind of felt like I had failed somehow….which is silly. But none-the-less it was a bummer.

So we drove home yesterday. Cory took his mom ½ way home today (met his sister to take her the rest of the way) and now we're trying to make sense of our day and get PILES of laundry done. And I'm feeling a major we-didn't-really-go-on-vacation slump. I'm also avoiding talking about Sea World with Gabe. We never really came out and said, "And we're not going to Sea World now". He hasn't asked about it yet, and I'm praying that he doesn't hate me when it does all come up. It's funny because up until yesterday he had begged to go to Sea World every chance he got – but since yesterday morning he hasn't even said a word about it….so I hope he doesn't because I think telling him we're not going after all the hype will make me cry.

And then there is the fact that I hardly took any pictures the whole time we were gone. Truthfully I took pictures at ONE place – the outlet mall when Gabe was riding in a race-car, and they are horrible pictures (really blurry). Bummer. I guess if I don't have pictures, if we didn't really do anything fabulously-vacation like, it wasn't much of a vacation right ?

I am glad that we got to go to Cory's meetings and banquet. I'm grateful that I had a few little moments with Cory as we got our dessert at the Cheesecake Factory, and I enjoyed seeing the diversity that Palm Springs has. And San Diego area is really pretty too. I hope to go back again someday – soon. I'm also grateful that Tammy (Cory's mom) got to spend some time with the boys. I wish we lived closer to all of our family so we didn't have to rely on times like this to spend time with family. (I think vacationing makes me kind of grumpy and I wished that family got to see me more at my 'best').

So we're back, we're cold (it's snowing and super windy today), and we're good to go.

Have a great week!

Interesting...

I saw this quiz on another blog and I found it interesting. It actually confirms who I thought I wanted to vote for - so at least I'm going to be supporting the canidate that most accurately supports my views.

So check it out: http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460

Happy Monday!

He's feeling better!

YAY! Hunter is feeling somewhat better. He is still off of his schedule, and has decided he likes to be held STANDING UP ONLY, but other than that, he seems to be on the mend. He even managed a shopping trip to Walmart (among other errands) without even crying once. Way to go buddy!

On another note about Hunter, he is just NOT into sitting up. At this age Gabe was almost sitting up, at least for a few moments at a time. Hunter - no way! He arches his back, throws himself to the floor, and is in a heap within seconds. Any tips from you out there to help strengthen those muscles?

And the outfit Hunter is wearing? Yeah - Gabe wore it about 4 months from now...Hunter is weighing in at 15 1/2 lbs, which I'm pretty sure is a lot bigger than Gabe at this point (I need to go find his weights somewhere....) At this rate Hunter is going to be the 'wrong' size for all of Gabe's clothes - since he will soon be wearing summer stuff, and it's been roughly 10 degrees here this week!

I love these pictures of Hunter too - especially the 2nd one - he looks like, "WHAT!?!?!" What a cutie and sweetheart!

One of my greatest mothering accomplishments to date

These pictures are to document one of my greatest mothering accomplishments to this point. Today we went and ran errands that have been piling up all week long. Gabe fell asleep about a block from our house. Normally this would mean no nap for the day because once we'd get home he'd wake up as the car came to a stop. And if not then, he certainly would wake when I tried to get his seatbelt off. And if by some miraculous turn of events he was still asleep after I took his seat belt off - he surely would wake up as I took him into the house.

But NO! Not today! Today I went through all the motions, and got into the house with him STILL asleep! Not only that, but he slept for over 1/2 hour after being laid on the couch. YIPEE! However, waking up in a different place than he fell asleep totally threw the poor guy off, and he woke up like a beast...