Videos of Ellie

Memorial Day Weekend

For Memorial Day weekend, we headed down to Dudley, Georgia to attend David's niece's graduation. Crazy! He has a niece that is not much younger than I am! Anyway, it was a great opportunity to see some family we haven't seen in a couple years, and it was also a great opportunity for Ellie to meet cousins, aunts and an uncle that she's never met before!

I don't think I took any pictures (fail) but we had a good time. We only stayed until Sunday, because we wanted to make the long (6-6.5 hours) drive back home and still have a day where we could get a few things squared away back home. 

On Monday, we did a lot of running around, as well as some shopping! We bought some flowers to plant in our little basket that is on our front porch and David and I each bought a new pair of shorts! Woohoo...maternity shorts... hah!

After getting back home, we fed Ellie a quick lunch, then decided to head to the lake. It was about 30 minutes away, but it was well worth it. We paid our $2 day use fee and parked on the grass on the side of the street because it was SO darn crowded! Even though there were so many people, we still had a lot of fun.

Here are some pictures

I only added this one because Ellie looked so cute...now if only I didn't look like I was in pain, or something...

Ellie didn't want to leave, but I was getting tired, and I was also burning so after about 1 1/2 hours, we called it quits. We came back home, cleaned up and assembled our little mini grill that we've NEVER used that we got for our wedding. It worked well and we had some tasty hot dogs and macaroni salad. 

All in all, it was a great weekend and we had a lot of fun!

Pictures and updates

So I finally got around to plugging my camera in to my computer so I could get pictures off of it! It's about time! Some of them are from before my birthday in March! hah!

This is my best friend, Hillary. She and I ran a 5k that our stake put on. I suck at running, and didn't actually "run" the whole thing. Maybe next time?

David and I celebrated my birthday at Tucanos! Tasty!

We took our last trip to Roosevelt before leaving to TN for Easter weekend. It was a lot of fun and we had an Easter Egg Hunt for all the grand kids! They loved it!

Grandma & Grandpa wanted a picture with Ellie before we left!

Ellie decided to learn some calculus...

David graduated from BYU! WOOHOO! We celebrated California Pizza Kitchen style!

 This is Ellie and Lexi. Lexi is Ellie's best little friend ever! She's only 3 months younger, and they love to do everything together!

 

Playing around our apartment for the last time while the movers pack us up!

Ellie stole the neighbor kid's tricycle and she wouldn't get off of it! Luckily, the other kids were all at school!

Just before leaving to TN, we stayed with my brother, Boyd and his family. This is Ellie playing in the little playroom with her cousin Scarlett.

Checking out the airport and the airplanes!

Ellie's first flight!

Only one of the fun adventures we've had in TN so far. We went and visited David's sister Alayna and her family and David's parents for a day. We all went to these fun fountains and Ellie had a blast...until she got knocked over and hit her little head on the concrete. OUCH! She was OK though and still had a pretty good day after that!

Ellie: 13 months

Ellie's another month older, and she's just seeming bigger and bigger to me! She's learning to say some words (in her own language of course) and has so much personality, I can't even stand it sometimes. She is mostly happy, except for right now, because she's sick! We went to the dr. yesterday for her ear-tube surgery follow-up and found out that one of the tubes was plugged with fluid, and the other probably had some fluid. Both her ears were full of fluid, and he didn't like that. We hadn't seen any drainage yet, (which is when you start putting antibiotic drops in her ears) but he says we would have seen it in a day or two. Ellie's been pretty awful the last few days, so I hope these little ear drops do the trick! If not, I'll be taking her to her pediatrician for a hefty treatment of antibiotics...the exact thing I thought I wouldn't be doing less than 1 month after having ear tubes put in...

Ugh. It seems we just have the worst of luck here in the Grigsby residence. At least with sickness we have bad luck.

Anyway, here are some things about Ellie at 13 months:

• She can say ma ma, da da, papa(grandpa), wow, go and kick.
• She loves to jibber jabber.
• She loves to sing the theme song to the Backyardigans.
• She loves to dance to any and all music.
• She loves other little kids.
• She barks whenever she sees ANY animal. Especially cats and dogs. They're her favorite!
• She LOVES to walk outside and if we let her, she'd probably just take off and wander around for hours!
• She loves to eat and is doing better at eating a variety of veggies.
• She loves to wear jewelry. Necklaces, bracelets, rings, you name it.
• She also loves to wear clothes on her head.
• Bath time is still one of her favorite activities.
• Her best friend is our little neighbor, Alexis, and she runs to the door when you ask her if she wants to go see Lexi.
• She's got 3 teeth and will soon have 4! The bottom two have been around for a while, but she only has the top right so far.
• She takes 2 naps a day, but sometimes they're not very long. Naps have been crazy lately, with the sickness, and all!

She's such a cutie pie and we love to have her in our family. I don't know what I'd do without her. Life would be pretty boring. She keeps us on our toes and we're so thankful for that!

p.s. this blogging thing is not for me lately. I haven't felt like writing anything down for the longest time! That needs to change, though. I think once I get over this cold completely, I will take the time to write about Christmas, Ellie's surgery and anything else that's going on in our lives!

Crazy week and other events

This week has been insane! I feel like we've had to rush through it/do so many things this week that we haven't had time to just sit back and enjoy life!

Monday-Doctor with Ellie, ear infections (YUCK), David's birthday, David's sick, Running errands like crazy because David was home with sleeping Ellie (YAY!)

Tuesday-David had to get to campus relatively early, had class from 10-7!! My mom & FBLA came to stay at the Marriott that's like 3 blocks away, Dinner @ the Mall w/my mom to visit & catch up.

Wednesday-Play with my mom and go shopping, sheet-music buying, go visit grandma, go to lunch, David gets a call from BMPC about them wanting to recruit him for a Crew Training Engineer position (In Charleston, SC) clean the house after playing with mom, thaw & frost cake (we all know how THAT turned out...) make random impromptu dinner, party w/cake and ice cream & friends.

Thursday-Catch-up day, David comes home sick AGAIN! Walk to Macey's to get some groceries/get exercise, Temple Recommend Interviews, prepare talk for Sunday.

Friday-Clean house, do laundry, go BACK to the doctor because Ellie's not really getting any better, go visiting teaching, carve Ellie's pumpkin with her, Go to Sam's to get Halloween candy, Have friends over to carve pumpinks, finish writing talk.

Saturday-Pick up bountiful basket, David intramural game at 12, David AICHE relay race 2 p.m., make soup for Trunk-or-Treat, 5:30 Trunk-or-Treat pre-soup potluck & then Trunk-or-Treating. Go over talk again.

Sunday-Give talk.....RELAX!

Busy week we've had/are going to continue to have until SUNDAY! I hope things start to slow down!

On the happy side of things, here are some pictures of our adorable little Ellie just being herself!

Shoes, Shoes and MORE SHOES! This girl loves to chew on shoelaces, flip flops, high heels, you name it. It's disgusting, so we usually hide our shoes...


Ellie's not afraid of anything, this fat lip sure proves that!

She was not wanting to go to sleep, then when I went in to check on her, this is what she was doing. Comfortable? To Ellie it is!

Ever since she had enough hair to do piggies, we do them as often as possible to get Ellie used to sitting and getting her hair done. She loves to hold the elastics while I do her hair.

I never EVER want to forget this hilariously cute face that Ellie makes when she gets excited about something! I'm so glad I caught it on camera!

Happy Birthday, David!

On Monday, David turned 26! We had him open a present before he left for school, since it was his birthday (and sadly, we all over-slept so we didn't get to make him a special breakfast because he had to be to school in less than 30 minutes after he woke up!).

The present he got to open was from me and it was Mary Kay High Intensity Cologne. David's been out of cologne for quite some time, and the cologne he had was from a Mary Kay type company in Brazil, and it was like triple the cost to get it shipped to the US, so we had to settle for something that was easily obtained. Luckily, he likes the way it smells (and so do I!)


Later that day, I took Ellie to the doctor because she was just not feeling/acting well. Turns out she has ear infection in BOTH ears! YUCK! While I was at the doctor with Ellie, David text me to say he was coming home because HE was feeling yucky! Not a great day to get sick!!

So we decided to have David open the rest of his presents and he let Ellie tear off the wrapping paper! She LOVED helping him, and it was so cute to watch her get excited about the paper. It's just fun to think how Christmas will go this year!

This present had 2 pairs of jeans from my Parents


Havainnas Flip Flops (Made in Brazil) from Ellie

He also got a card from Grandma Holman, and a card from his parents with a birthday check inside!

David says Thank You to both sets of parents and Grandma for cards and presents!!!

Since David wasn't feeling well, I didn't make the dinner I planned for that night, and I didn't frost his cake (luckily I froze each layer so I didn't have a wasted cake!) and we decided that Wednesday would be a better time to have cake and ice cream.

Well, I kind of made a huge mistake, got distracted, interrupted while frosting his beautiful home-made Red Velvet cake, and long story short--it toppled to the floor!

We rushed to the store to pick out a substitute since we were expecting guests for a little party, and all was well. A handful of our friends made it to have cake and ice cream and it was fun to have people over to sing Happy Birthday to David and just hang out, talk and have fun!

Store bought cake (wasn't even close to as tasty as my Red Velvet cake disaster was!) with my cute little cake banner!
Picture of the cute birthday banner I made David!

Thanks to those who came! We had a ton of fun celebrating David turning the lovely age of 26!

p.s. Someday I'll maybe try to make another cake and frost it myself. We'll see. It's just too bad it was wasted, because it was DANG good!

Out as long as In!

9 months old? My little sweet pea is 9 MONTHS OLD?? Seriously, where has the time gone?

I can't believe it but it's true, so we'll just move on to fun and exciting things about Ellie and how much she's grown in the last 9 months!

We aren't having a 9 month well child check, since we went so close to 8 months to catch her up on immunizations. So, I measured her myself last week and she weighs 18 lbs, she's 27 1/2 inches tall and her head circumference is 17 1/4 inches.

According to the app that I plugged her measurements into, she's in the 50th percentile for all of her measurements. So, she's still on the small side, but I'm OK with that. She's such a little joy to be around and is happy about 95% of the time!

On an average day, Ellie and I sing and dance to primary songs, play with her toys & anything she decides to make a "toy" (pens, xbox control, empty no. 10 cannery can, her comb & brush, and her shoes). We eat breakfast and lunch together (and Ellie usually makes a HUGE mess because baby food is evil and only finger foods will do for her!) and boy oh boy can this little girl eat. She LOVES food. Mostly, she loves anything I'm eating and gets very upset if I don't share with her. Her favorite foods right now are peas, pears, toast, shredded cheese, sweet potatoes, yogurt, strawberries, bananas and blueberries.

She's got SO much personality and make hilarious faces almost all the time. She likes to copy whatever we do and say and likes to say "uh-oh" when I drop something or she throws something off her highchair tray.

She's standing every now and then for about 5-10 seconds at a time, but has only taken 2 mini-steps (2 separate times). I'll give her another week or so before she's finally getting the courage to take a few more steps, then take off! (p.s. I'm not ready for that to happen, but I know it's inevitable!!)

Here are some more things about Ellie:

• She loves it when we crawl towards her and play with her
• She loves to dance to any music
• She loves the Backyardigan's theme song
• She's wearing size 3 diapers, size 3 shoes and is in 6-9 month clothes and some 12 month clothes
• She sleeps from about 8 to 7:30 without waking up!
• She likes to carry anything around in her mouth like a puppy and crawl all over
• She is pulling herself up on anything and loves to walk along things
• She loves to play with books and turn the pages
• She loves to listen to me or David read to her
• She likes to listen to anybody sing
• She likes to find my flip flops and chew on them (YUCK!! I am always in awe at how she finds where I hide them so quickly!!)
• She hates being wiped off after making a mess while eating, but LOVES bathtime!
• She is still super friendly and loves to meet new people
• She likes all other kids and thinks little kids are hilarious

I am so thankful for her to be a part of our lives and for the joy she brings to us every day! We love her more than anything else and it's been so much fun to see her learn and grow!

photos taken at FotoFly. Best. Place. Ever!

Gathered thoughts?

I've started about a million and one blog posts in the last week, and none of them feel right. I can't seem to get out the thoughts that are in my head lately, and it's really starting to drive me crazy!

So here's to hoping I can finish THIS post. Because frankly, this is getting ridiculous!

One of the posts I started spawned from listening to and thinking about the song, "You're gonna miss this" by Trace Adkins. I have been thinking a lot lately how fast the time has gone since Ellie joined our little family and I can't believe that a) Christmas is only 3 months away b) that Ellie's turning 1 in 3 months and c) that Ellie's just about to start walking! Seriously, where has the time gone??

As more and more people I know are finally having babies, or have just had babies, I start to miss Ellie as a sweet little sleepy baby, and I marvel at how much she's grown in (nearly) 9 months time! She is so sweet, and she's becoming such a cute little girl! She's not a baby anymore, and it's so hard to let the baby things go! I want her to stay my little baby forever, but I know that's not fair to anyone. She has such a huge personality and her smile is so contagious. She's a very happy baby 90% of the time and being around her makes me happy (when she's not destroying all in her line of sight...).

Another post I started a while back was about being a stay at home mom. I am extremely grateful every day that I get to stay home with Ellie to teach her, help her learn and grow and to be there to watch her accomplish little milestones. When we were in New York, I really loved staying home with Ellie, and the thought of leaving her to go back to work really broke my heart this time because I think it would be harder to leave her now because she really knows who I am, she is doing more and more fun things every day and she is always sad when I leave her anywhere. The fact that we can squeeze by with me staying at home is such a blessing, and I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father for providing us with what we need so I can be with Ellie to nurture her and teach her the things she needs to know to return to Him.

Being a mother is one of the most fun/exhausting/trying/emotional things I've ever done, but I am so thankful for the opportunity I have to be Ellie's mom! It's such a rewarding thing to do!

I'm still feeling bleh about this post, but that's OK, because I'll just move on to more exciting topics and maybe things will become less "bleh"?

Last week was a CRAZY week in the Grigsby home. It was career week at BYU, and David had something EVERY DAY and that meant that he had to go to school dressed up all week because he'd be talking with recruiters and potential employers. He had a few interviews and I even got to attend a dinner with him and recruiters from Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil, The Navy, IM Flash, and Celanese. It was a fun opportunity except for the fact that there was a fiance of one of the chemical engineers there that just talked and talked and talked and TALKED AND TALKED AND TALKED! I thought that I was going to go insane, because she wouldn't let ANYBODY say anything because she had to know EVERY little detail about EVERYTHING that every company did. It was annoying and I'm still upset about it because she butted into a conversation and David didn't get to talk to one of the recruiters for Dow, which is one of the companies he'd most like to work for. Anyway, moving on before I get more frustrated about it. On Friday, David played in a golf tournament with various recruiters, and his team tied for 1st place! They didn't win anything tangent, but it was cool to know David's good at golfing (well I already knew that) and that his team did well. He was very pleased about that and so am I.

Besides all the jobs he applied for during career week, he's been applying to basically anything and everything out there. We're hoping that we get positive news back from at least one company because knowing that he'll have a job when he graduates will be great and will relieve a lot of stress for us!

Just in case anybody is wondering, the jobs are basically all over the east coast. From Texas and over. There are a couple companies in Utah that he could work for, but he doesn't think he'll get a job at them, so we're probably not staying here. Though I really want him to get a job with IM flash because then we wouldn't have to move until we needed to because it's just before the point of the mountain and he could easily commute to work every day. Here's to hoping that happens!

Like I said, life has been crazy lately, but it's fun and we're so excited that David's ALMOST finished with school!

Also, I'm very excited for General Conference this weekend! The Relief Society Broadcast was amazing, and I honestly felt like all the talks were written just for ME. Especially President Uchtdorf's talk! Talk about amazing and spiritual! I hope everyone enjoys conference weekend, and that you hear something that you need to hear to strengthen your faith in Jesus Christ.

Life as of late

Here are some pictures of what's happened in our lives recently...

My brother Boyd invited David to go to the Coach's show @ Lavell Edward's Stadium before the BYU v. Utah game.

Ellie's hair is super long! So it sticks up if you put it in pigtails wet and pull them straight. Love it! Also, she loves this bottle of Velocity Facial Cleanser. Silly girl loves to go into my bathroom, find it and run away before I take it away.

This girl seriously loves the Xbox control. Like A LOT! She likes to push the middle button and turn the Xbox on. I turn it off multiple times a day, then I'll turn my back and it's on again. Silly girl! She also likes to lounge with her daddy on the couch while eating the Xbox control.

Hiking the "Y"

Ever since we moved to Provo, I have wanted to hike the "Y" and we finally did it!

We left our apartment a little after 9 and got started up the trail at about 9:30. The weather was perfect & the temperature was just right so it wasn't cold, or hot!


David carried Ellie in the Kelty backpack & she LOVED it. She loved looking out at all the different things along the trail.

It took us almost an hour to get up, and I thought I was going to die for a part of it (I'm still very out of shape from having Ellie...) but once we got to the top it was worth it! We took a few pictures, got Ellie out of the backpack & took a little rest, then headed back down.

We made it!


On the way down, Ellie fell asleep in the Kelty. It was pretty funny, but it seemed SO uncomfortable, so I folded my jacket for her little head to rest on.

(also, she plopped the binky out of her mouth on the way down, & we lost it :( we're sad about that)

We ran into a guy I went to USU with & worked on ATV News with. Random, but cool. It was good to quickly say hello & catch up briefly.

David was exhausted by the end of the hike, but I was feeling great (because I didn't have to carry an extra 20 lbs!!)!
David & Ellie at the trail head AFTER we hiked :)
We tried to keep Ellie asleep once we got to the car, but it just didn't work. She woke up when I put her in the car seat, then didn't take another nap until later that afternoon.

It was great to get out and enjoy the outdoors while the weather is still nice! I'm hoping to go hiking every Saturday until it's too cold to do so, so stay tuned for more pictures of more fun hikes around Utah Valley!