More December highlights

When you don't blog for a while you forget a lot of really important things that happen. While my mom was here visiting we finally made it out to Virginia City. The town is an old mining town about 30 minutes away. It is similar to other fun small towns we like such as Estes Park, Truckee etc with sandwich and fudge shops, and random Native American gift shops.

Ellie loved riding the horses that were lined up and down the streets. The sidewalks are still wood planks. We ate some really crappy food at a restaraunt but it was really fun, sometimes crappy food is fun when it's all about the experience.

I like this picture of Maude and Ellie

Andrea also paid us a visit. Her boy...whatever bought her a ticket to see Joni for the weekend. It went by really quick.

Guess What?!?! We now have a Five Guys near our house...our life here is now complete. No more mean pictures from family members when they go there without us. Speaking of complete, we got 2 gift cards to Five Guys for Chirstmas. If Five Guys was a girl I would say "You complete me..." (I was just watching Jerry MaGuire), I definately consider it a romantic date. I don't care what anyone says, NO ONE beats Five Guys Burgers and Fries. The best part is that it is next to In N Out, now you can see everyone walk across the street and go to the good guys. Although I have to give it up to In N Out shakes...is anyone else hungry?

Going to church in our red Christmas stuff...Ellie giving her best pose of her new dress.

On Christmas Eve we had about 15 people over for dinner. One family brought a huge ham, shrimp and salmon, and the rest of us brought sides and desserts. Joni has to overacheive and make some creative little elf donuts out of cheerios. She also made some rudolph marshmallow treats. It was fun to spend the time with other families with kids.

We forgot to take a picture with everyone, so 3 girls will have to do, Becki and Marsha are becoming a regular part of our blog.

Chirstmas morning was awesome. Ellie wasn't quite sure what to do but she learned quick. She wanted to play with each present she opened and got a little overwhelmed by the end.

Nemo toys were a big hit...

Reese loved this little laptop (more like a music playing toy with buttons). She was shaking and moving her arms because she couldn't contain herself. It didn't taste as good as she thought it would, and it bonked her on the head once, but she was content with this thing for a while.

Ellie's first order of business was to find all her new toy fish a fish tank...

Joni made Grandma's famous sweet rolls for breakfast, having that with scrambled eggs is amazing. I had to test out Ellie's new Hello Kitty headphones to see that they worked.

A princess dress, some cars, a helicopter, some books and some toys later and Ellie was a pretty happy girl.

Reese is so smily, and when she is not screaming, this is basically what you see when you meet her. Poor kid can't sit up on her own yet because of the size of the melon.

She is also a wiggly, wiggly worm. She frequently gets limbs stuck in the crib, and finds a way out of her clothes.

The highlight of my week last week was taking Ellie to her first movie, Monsters Inc in 3D. I wasn't sure how she would react, she LOVED IT. She actually kept the glasses on the whole time, had a big tub of popcorn, a drink and lots of candy. She couldn't stop talking about it on the way home, and kept saying how much she wanted to watch a movie on the "big TV". It really made me appreciate movies all over again, I only wish I could have shared the experience and shown you the looks on her face. The pictures above give you a small idea as these were taken right after we got home.

Ellie talks so cute. Our favorite thing is how she pronounces her r's. Instead of saying "water" or "computer", she says "wateee" or "computeeeee".

Another favorite of ours lately has been to go to Scheel's in Reno and ride the Ferris wheel and see all the fish.

Not much other than that, New Year's Eve was pretty quiet, I was the only one who ended up staying up past midnight. We haven't really made resolutions other than minimizing Five Guys intake, and making it out to the temple more often. We still need to get Ellie potty trained, she starts primary this week. She just does not get the concept of going to the bathroom in a toilet and she's shown no signs of caring. I know there's a bazillion ideas out there, we've tried many of them, I guess when she knows she'll know...or else I'll tell her she can't date boys until she learns to go potty...when she's 16.