25 Cent Fuuuuuuun....Where a kid can be a kid!

We took Elli to Chuck E. Cheese tonight. It was a first for all of us (except Eric, who last came here about 20 years ago) and it was really fun!

We had some pizza that wasn't the greatest, but I've had worse (obviously Eric liked it!!!)

Then we played.....

And played......

And played some more. This was by far Elli's favorite. The faster you pedal, the higher y0u go...

She even got to meet the mouse!!!!
Even Eric had fun!
I think he thought it was his person mission to win a bazillion tickets tonight!

Well, he didn't quite get to a bazillion, but he did get enough for this cute little hat!

That she loves. And loves her daddy (even more than she already did!) for winning her this hat! And, of course, for taking her out on a fun family date!

Trip to Los Angeles

That crazy little sister of mine called me up one day and said "Guess what! I got tickets to the Ellen show, can you go?" At first, I was like, "Ya right. I can't afford that!" She then told me the price it would be, and it was totally reasonable, since there were so many of us going. So, I talked to Eric, called her back, and said "Count me in!"

We headed down to LA on Wednesday morning, and made it to St. George to pick up the rest of the tribe. By the time we got to St. George, Marge and I were both hoarse because we SANG ALL THE WAY THERE!!! I have never had so much fun on a long, boring car ride before. We picked up the rest of the girls and headed out to LA, which according to my clock, only took us 47 hours to get from St. George to LA. Not really, but that's what it seemed!This might have been why we took so long getting to LA, we stopped at....Hmmm. I don't remember the name of the town, I call it Whiskey Pete's. Anywho, we ate at Taco Bell there, which for the record, is THE NASTIEST TACO BELL EVER!!!! It was fun though!

Next, was our stop in Barstow, which was were I had my first experience with BOOB DONUTS!!! This was the funniest thing ever. I am not going to post any pics of this, and I am not going to go into it.....
The next day was the Ellen show. It was kind of a rigamarole, and I don't know that I would jump at the chance to do it again, but I am definitely glad I went, and can say that I did! The guest that day was Shaun Hayes (aka Jack McFarland from Will and Grace). He is so stinkin cute! While we were there, Ellen tried to get Shaun Hayes to say "jigsaw" and if he did, we won this fabulous prize:"This" fabulous prize is a boom box/iPod docking thingie from Brookestone.

Also, Ingrid Michaelson was there and performed, and we got her CD, which is amazing!Ok, I think the post is long enough...and I am tired. So, I will post more on the trip tomorrow....

I guess it's time to play catch up!!!

Well, I haven't posted a thing for 3 months now. I am REALLY REALLY going to try to do better with this....I hope! Well, things have actually been pretty boring since November. Let's face it. We are boring people!
For Christmas, Grandma and Papa gave Elli a "new room." Elli has wanted a princess room for quite some time, and while I was reluctant to do THE princesses, we did come up with a pretty cute room.This is the "before"
And these are the finished product. I think it turned out really cute! Thanks Grandma and Papa! Now if we could just get her to keep it clean! Haha, ya right!

Elli's Halloween dress

This year for Halloween, I wasn't real sure what to dress Elli up as. Then, Eric's sister, Karla, showed up at her mom's house with the most GORGEOUS prom dress for my niece. Complete with hand stitched bead work and all. So, I asked her if she could make Elli a dress for Halloween, that I would buy her the pattern and the material. Well, as many of you have probably seen on Facebook, the stupid Money Fairy keeps messing up my order, of course, leaving me short on cash! So I never did have the money to get her the pattern and material. One day, she called me up and asked me if I was still going to have her make Elli a dress for Halloween. I said "Well, if I get the money for the material and stuff between now and then, yes. If not, then no." She proceeded in telling me that her friend had given her some blue satin, and asked if I wanted her to use that. OF COURSE!!! Well, she made the dress. AND IT IS GORGEOUS!!! It honestly looks like a miniature prom dress! I almost felt bad letting Elli wear it outside of the house! But, I dressed her up as Cinderella for Halloween, and she was beautiful. We both want to thank Karla for making her the perfect Cinderella dress. She is an awesome aunt and even better sister in law!!! Pics to come soon....

Wow...has it really been that long???

Ok, so I know that it has been awhile since I have posted, but a lot has been going on so....get of my back! The biggest change in our lives has everything to do with Eric. On February 18, he called me at about 4 in the afternoon and said "Can you come get me from work?" When I asked why, he told me they thought he was having a heart attack and he needed to go to the hospital. WOW!!! So I gathered Elli up and called my mom on the way to Autoliv and asked her to come get Elli. She met me down there with my dad and our bishop. They gave him a blessing, and I decided to take him down to McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden. We got to the ER and they ran tests for everything from a stroke to pneumonia to sarcoidosis to lupus, without ever coming to a conclusion. They finally admitted him to the ICU step-down unit around 6 am on Thursday morning. The first couple of days were kinda crazy and scary, they had no idea what was going on with him. So finally, they did a stress test and decided that his heart was only functioning at about 29% of what it should be. This required more tests to see what was causing this. So they did an angiogram to see if there was damaged heart tissue or a blockage, and said they would try to fix it with stints and an angioplasty. They said that if they weren't able to fix it, he would probably have to go in for bypass surgery the next morning. During the test, they determined that he had no blockages or anything, just that his heart is really weak from fighting high blood pressure for so long. They also diagnosed him with Congestive Heart Failure. When they got him back to his room, they started and IV of lasix, and boy oh boy, did he pee! He put out over 6000 cc's in about 2-2 1/2 hours! So after all this, they kept him at the hospital to get all of his meds under control, and finally let him go home the next Tuesday. Since then, we have had major changes at our house. He has quit smoking, as well as starting a new workout program at the gym. He was put on a low sodium/low carb diet, which has been interesting. I have been trying to keep things interesting for him as far as the food goes, cuz I don't want him to get bored and start eating all the "bad" stuff again. So...if anyone has any meal ideas in these areas, feel free to share!!! He has been off work since Feb 18, so I have been trying to double up on everything that I'm doing so that I can make ends meet. Working more hours with homecare, doing more Pampered Chef shows, etc. I have even considered selling my uterus! Haha! (HINT HINT: If anyone wants to do a Pampered Chef show to help out our financial situation, I would love you more than I already do!!!) Even catalog shows or online orders would help....yes, I know I'm begging. Anyways....
Elli is doing really well. She loves loves loves having her daddy home. They get into quite a few arguments, especially in the afternoon when he really shouldn't be here. But at the end of the day, she crawls into his lap and he rocks her to sleep, almost nightly. I really hope she doesn't get to attached to that idea, cuz it probably won't continue when he goes back to work!!! She is doing really well at school, and is improving immensely with her reading. I tried to spell something out the other day, and when she sounded out what I was trying to spell, I thought..."Oh crap. No more easy readers from the library for you!"
So...I know this is long, but necessary, I will try to keep up on it better in the future, but no promises!!!

What a mess!!!!

As many of you may know, I struggle with keeping our house clean. It just seems that there are not enough hours in the day to keep up with Elli's tornado! So, my dad gave Elli a full size bed and we decided that we would move her into the "office" because it is bigger and turn her room into the office. In order to do this, we had to move most of her stuff into the living room and then just kind of juggle everything around to it's proper place in the proper room. Our house is a giant mess now, so when you see me again, if I'm bald, it's because I have pulled out all my hair in my efforts to get this house back to being somewhat clean!

Our new hobby

So, after careful consideration of what may happen if I pursue this, I have decided that it is time for me to start teaching Elli to cook. My mom taught me to cook a lot of things when I was little, the rest I either asked questions until I am blue in the face, looked up on the internet or flat out just winged it. I like to consider myself a pretty good cook, and I'll be damned if I am going to have a daughter who can't cook to feed her family! So...I bought her a Pampered Chef apron and we got to work. We made sugar cookies with her little friend last week, and again today. We were asked to bring sugar cookies for our contribution, and Elli asked (oh, so sweetly) if we could please make them at Grandma's so she can make them with her Aunt Chelsey. (She idolizes Chelsey ALMOST as much as Toree does:) So. Today we took it a little further, and I let her crack the eggs. She thought this was great. It was eewwy and gooey and I had to pick out quite a few shells, but all in all, she did great. She loves to cook with me, and honestly, I really enjoy that one on one time that we get! On ya...we went and bought the 101 cookie cutter set (which is now only 100 cuz we threw away the cross) from walmart and had a grand old time with these cookies!