Max - 18 months

Max is 18 months old today!  Some things you might not know about our little man: 

• His favorite thing is "buttons" aka "bubbots." Literally anything that you can press and get a reaction out of is cool. This includes the power button on the computer, the volume switch on the piano, and any button on a remote that would turn off the kids' shows and/or video games.
• Max's other favorite thing is Titus aka "Itus." They love to wrestle and bite each other. I'm not sure if Max realizes he's a boy and not a dog--or that Titus is a dog and not a boy. His first two-word phrase was, "Bye, Titus!"
• He is constantly eating. And eating and eating. He has discovered recently that some things are yummier than others and will now ask for chips, cheese, bread, candy, apples, and cookies. Everything else is "more." He's also very good at signing for a "drink" and asking for juice. He is very good at answering yes or no questions with a full-body nod or shake of the head. It's very adorable, and better than that, incredibly helpful that he now understands us so well.
• He no longer has red, red hair. It has become a very fair strawberry blond. We miss the red hair, but he is just as handsome blond (and looks more like his dad!).
• He wants to do what the big kids are doing, and is very good at imitating them.
• He can climb on top of chairs, tables, bar stools, couches, and stools.
• If there is a drawer or cupboard within his reach it was meant to be emptied, disassembled, and it's contents scattered and/or destroyed.
• He really likes shoes, aka "shs." And he hates being left behind when someone is going somewhere. Just today he said "go" for the first time. He was thrilled to find he was "going."
• He loves to look at pictures, especially of Jesus ("Sheesus") or himself. Besides Christ, he can correctly identify Grandma ("Mawma"-pronounced differently than "Momma") in pictures.
•  Max is the first Ellis to be a blanket boy; he has to have a satin-edged blanket at bedtime.
• He gives the best hugs!

I took Max to the park this morning in hopes I could get a good picture of him.  Most of the good portrait-type shots I got were of him looking worried, listening fascinated to a man with a power saw across the street:

So, instead of a beautiful portrait shot you get the few of the 100-some-odd "playing at the park" pictures I took that weren't (very) blurry-Mr. Max is always on the move! 

Happy Half-Birthday, Max!

Hiking at Red Cliffs

I was so glad Shelli invited us to go hiking at Red Cliffs a week and a half ago!  The weather was beautiful, and it was the perfect time of year since there was water in the creek and pools to wade in.  Here are my favorite shots from the hike. 

On the hike:

Wading in the upper (actually the middle) pool:

After this Adam actually jumped in to the lower pool!  The water was pretty cold, so he was pretty adventurous to jump all the way in.   

Don't laugh--remember I'm at that horrid stage of pregnancy where nothing fits, and you don't look pregnant, just fat! 

Gorgeous scenery all around:

It was a fun day!

Teeth

Isaiah's been seeing an orthodontist for a while now (ever since he had his first "shark tooth" growing in behind his baby teeth).  After having a few consultations over the last year, I'd kind of forgotten what purpose they had until we went in a few weeks ago, and Dr. Beckstrom said, "I want to see him back . . . oh, about August . . . and well put on some braces."  Gasp!  Braces!  Already!  Poor kid, his teeth are really so crowded.  About two weeks ago he had four teeth (five if you count the one that was about to fall out on its own) pulled to make room for his permanent teeth. 

Before:

After:

He was so brave at the dentist, waving me off to head to the library while he sucked down laughing gas and played his DS (it's right across the street, and I was only gone about 20 minutes, tops).  I came back and checked on him and he had even fallen asleep and slept through them filling his cavity.  Unfortunately, he woke up to them pulling the teeth.  Even still, he was super brave and held still.  Isaiah was really proud of all those teeth, they were "so cool!"  So cool, in fact, that the tooth fairy couldn't find them that night.  It turned out he had hidden them.  We discussed it with him, and he decided to leave her a note:

Desert Rose Labyrinth

Over Easter weekend Anne and Jer (and Porter!) came to visit, and I'm so glad they did because it gave me a chance to spend time with them.  Also, Anne really wanted to check out Coyote Gulch at Kayenta, and despite having lived in St. George longer than Kayenta has been around, I'd never been there.  We had lots of fun that Saturday walking around, perusing the art galleries and chatting.  And when we went to the Desert Rose Labyrinth, we knew we had to bring the family back.  So Easter Sunday, after General Conference was over, we set out for a little adventure.  The sun was just about to set, so there was beautiful lighting for a little while before the clouds came back out.  Here are my favorite pictures from the day:

Friday Favorites: Happy Earth Day!

Yes, I realize I'm late, but you can't do a Friday Favorite on a Thursday, right?  (Okay, maybe I'm just a slacker . . . )

I've actually planned on doing a post about this but have never gotten around to it (recycling isn't all that glamorous, I guess).  But with Earth Day this week, I thought it was high time I shared something that makes me strangely really happy every day: curbside recycling. 

If you live in Washington County, curbside recycling is available!  You have to pay for it, but it is available.  In Coral Canyon and Santa Clara it's only $4 a month, and only $6 everywhere else.  They give you one of these lovely blue cans and a magnet showing you what days they pick up (since they only come every other week).  It seriously makes me so happy to fill this can up.  I keep it in the garage, just inside the door from the house so I can just crack the door and chuck it in as I go about things. 

It has taken a bit of getting used to to rinse containers out, but nothing has to be separated.  It's been so nice just to put the newspapers, milk cartons, cereal boxes, and millions of papers from school in there and forget about them--not have to hang on to anything and drive to a binney to shove each thing one by one through those teeny weeny holes, or worse (and more commonly) feel guilty as I throw it all in the trash.  Our recycling bin is usually very full after two weeks, but our garbage can is rarely more than half full, which is a nice change since we were taking two cans to the curb every week before this. 

You can have fun recycling, too!  Click here to sign up. 

A recipe!

We made these quite a while ago, but I really liked them, so as I was going through pictures and came across this, I thought I would post it and share.  My awesome sister in law Shelli gave me this recipe, who got it from a friend.  She made pretzel bites and cinnamon-sugar pretzels with hers and said they were really good, but we just did traditional pretzels. 

Amish Soft Pretzels

Mix: 1 1/2 c. very warm water
1 1/2 TBS yeast
1/2 c. brown sugar
Let sit to soften yeast, then add:
3/4 tsp salt (scant)
4 c. flour

Mix then knead together and let sit for 15 min.  Form pretzels by taking a small piece of dough (size of lemon) and roll into a "rope".  Form into knot and dip into a solution of:

1 1/2 c. hot water
2 TBS soda

Place on GREASED baking sheet and sprinkle with pretzel salt (or you can use Margarita salt or leave plain). Bake at 550 degrees until browned - bakes very fast. WATCH !!  Remove from oven and dip tops in melted butter. May sprinkle with cinnamon sugar at this point if you haven't used salt.

Tips: When you are rolling out the dough, don't flour the counter.  They roll out better if they are just as-is, although no matter what it takes a long time to roll out the stiff dough.  The scale is hard to tell based on my picture (the pretzel is on a small salad plate), but I rolled them out too thick.  Bake them on the middle rack so they aren't too brown on the bottom or top.  Watch them as they cook, once they are an even golden brown they should be about right (if there are light patches, they may be doughy).

ETA: I made these again last week with my young women (church youth group, girls ages 14-15), and it was so fun.  There were only three girls that night, but we ate 10 by ourselves.  We did some regular pretzels with salt, but also the bites and some with cinnamon sugar, and they all turned out yummy.  The dough was also much easier to roll out this time, so it may have been the humidity or yeast when I made them before that caused the dough to be tougher to roll out.  It made about 13 pretzels whole pretzels (12, plus one cut into bites). 

Easter Recap

Easter Best:

and from our annual Easter egg hunt and barbeque:

Note: For those of you that were at the party, if I missed getting a picture of your child, I sincerely apologize.  I tried to get everyone, but I didn't do that well at getting faces! 

Friday Favorites - Altoids

Do you remember when I was pregnant with Max and posted a list of my favorite things in pregnancy?  Well, when I was pregnant with Max Katie was potty trained already and I didn't have to change diapers while I had morning sickness, so I didn't remember something I used frequently when I was pregnant with Katie. 
In fact I had forgotten all about it, gagging through every dirty diaper, until someone complained about that very same problem, and I recommended popping a mint just before changing the diaper.  Eventually a lightbulb went on, and after that I eventually remembered to pick some up at the store (gotta love pregnancy brain!). 

I prefer peppermint Altoids, because they are so strong I really can't smell the poopy diaper at all as I change it--it's amazing!

P.S. Be sure to vote in the gender poll to the right!

A visit up north and SNOW!

We went up to Taylorsville for Porter's blessing the middle of March, and had lots of fun visiting and playing.  We weren't there long, but we had ample opportunity to enjoy the snow:

And here's what Isaiah chose to do, rather than get cold and wet:

And then, after getting cold and wet, we thought, well, let's get wetter and colder: let's go swimming!  My mom was staying at a hotel in Sandy, so we drove down and swam in the pool while big white flakes fell outside.  Then my siblings came and met us and had pizza all together. 

Sunday was the blessing, which was beautiful.  Such a special time for such a special family! 

Porter at two months

This took me so long because no matter what I tried, I could not get the hang of the editing techniques I was trying to teach myself.  So, here they are with what little color correction I already knew how to do.  (But you have to admit, he's pretty darn cute on his own!)

Porter is so fun, such a joy!  His little laugh makes you stop dead in your tracks and laugh along.  I hope you enjoy his pictures half as much as I enjoyed snuggling him again this weekend.