Ellie's Craft

As you should know, we are big Sunday night crafters - especially in the winter months. My mom usually prepares the crafts, sometimes tests them out at work and then gets them ready for us each Sunday.

Ellie learned a craft at school and wanted us to all do it. So first she prepared an example at home and then on Super-bowl Sunday (2/6/11) during half time we all gathered around for Ellie to teach us how to create our own hieroglyphic stories.

And here is how they turned out!

Once upon a time by the light of the, not so full moon, there was a little bug who felt very alone. He set out on a long journey. He found a canoe and paddled until he was very tired. He slept out in a tent all alone, because he was brave. He sailed and sailed until he found a friend who loved him for who he was, and they lived happily ever after.

When the moon was like a blue crescent, a fire was built by a couple and a single man, they sent smoke signals to find a lone woman which they found following the smoke on a journey through the woods and over the river. After that journey, the single man and lone woman were together and happy like the other couple.

One summer day, when the sun was high, a young man decided to go on walk about. He went over the 3 great mountains, and crossed the mighty river. On the other side of the river he ran into another man and conversed with another man. And than he encountered a wild buffalo that chased him for some time. After he got away from the buffalo, he found great comfort at the Motel 6 where they had left the light on.


One hot summer day when the sun was shining, a family with a mom, dad and daughter went down to the river to go fishing. They each caught one fish. When evening came and the moon came out, they built a fire, fried the fish for dinner, then all slept together in a great big sleeping bag.

Toot-Water

Toots in the bathwater are pretty popular at our house. The first one was real...the rest are pretty much made up so we can call "the Toot-Water people" and have them send someone to take care of it. Ellie was taking a bath, accidentally tooted and I told her she would have toxic toot-water so she better hurry and get out. From that day on, we hired a new company to take care of toxic toot-water so she can stay in the bath and not get damaged from the toxicity.

Here are a few of the workers that have shown up to help. Some are more popular than others, but there is serious disappointment when they are closed!

In like a Lion....out like a Cheetah!

Forget the weather (which is just a mess anyway) the months are flying by. It's almost the end of April and I swear March just started. We were on our way to San Diego for a nice vacation with friends and then....it was time to plan for Ellie's birthday, have Jed's birthday, continue to oversee the house build, rush to Israel for work, have Ellie's birthday and week of parties...oh..on to Kevin's birthday and then Easter. What? Like i said, March came in like a Lion...but it's already running like a Cheetah into May!

Ellie lost a tooth somewhere in there. The house went from zero to drywall. Ellie is so excited about the new house. We go by often and she has shown her new room to a few people. She has the most windows (six) in any room and she can not wait for a back yard to play in. We all want spring (weather) so badly. One night when it had been a decent spring day we were saying our prayers and Ellie said, "Thank you that I got to play outside today."


So let me see what else I recall of the past two months.

March 2nd: In school each month Ellie reads a book and then does a report on it. In March they had to give their February book reports orally. The book type was biography so Ellie read, "Who was Walt Disney" and gave her report wearing pink Mickey ears. She had the report memorized, but when it came time to do it, she read it. I'm not sure if me being there makes her nervous or if that is just her personality - either way, I was proud of her.

Ellie's education and learning level is pretty amazing really. Ellie is currently reading, "Little House in the Big Woods." I remember reading that when I was about 10. So I Googled to see what reading level the book is. I found a few answers, but the most common was ages 9-12 grades 4/5. Ellie is in first grade and was reading this book at age 6 (now 7). I am so impressed at her reading and how the school continues to push them. She came home with times table homework a couple of weeks ago. They are working on their 5 and 2 times tables. Last summer I taught Ellie and Mason 0, 1, 2, 10 and the concept of times tables - it's pretty incredible to see it sinking in. I heard her telling Abby in the car ride home the other day (when she was teaching her some "first grade" stuff) how everything times 1 is just itself. Of course there are other subjects - like they know most of the state capitals, are learning cursive, science, etc. I am ever grateful that Ellie is getting such an incredible education.

March 10th: I was supposed to leave for Israel on the 10th, so we planned dessert at the Cheesecake factory to celebrate Jed's birthday. Ellie went with Garred that night and she was so upset that she did not get to spend four days in a row with Jed like Kevin got to.

The 10th was cheesecake:


The 11th was his actual birthday so family sushi dinner:


The 12th Grandma took us all to Disney on Ice (insert Taj because I was supposed to be in Israel):



And finally, the 13th was the Sunday birthday dinner at my mom's. Kevin was going to be at all four and Ellie was only at three and she continued to let us know it bothered her. It is cute how much she loves her Uncle Jed. My trip was canceled at the last minute so I was able to attend all four days.

Happy 30th Uncle Jed!


March 14th at 8:30 am it was decided I would get on the 3:30 flight to Israel. Fortunately, I had planned to go earlier so I was able to use the same schedule I had put in place before (and canceled) to rush out the door. I ran to Ellie's school to tell her good-bye and boarded a long flight to Israel. It was an amazing trip and I am thankful for Kevin and my other friends that helped with Ellie.

I arrived home on the 21st in time to get ready for Ellie's birthday on the 22nd. Kevin decided we should decorate her room so when she woke up it would be full of birthday stuff, but some of it fell off, woke her up and she ended up sleeping with us. But in the morning it was super cute. She opened her presents and then it was off to school. Her school does spotlights on birthdays so I went and told a few things about Ellie. After school we spent some time at Boondocks and then she had a fun night with her dad.

A birthday breakfast on the way to school:

A birthday call from Uncle Levi:

Some birthday play time:


We celebrate Heath style so Ellie had three amazing birthday cakes this year - one at her Sunday birthday party at Grandma's:


The second with her dad on her birthday night:


And the third was truly a labor of love from my dear friends Leea and Tara. We had Ellie's birthday party on Saturday, March 26th and we spent the entire night on the 25th creating this cake. I really had little to do with it but I will take credit for having amazing and creative friends!

Ellie chose to have another Kangaroo Zoo birthday party - she wanted a Kangaroo cake (in pink) and only girls. So we invited most of the girls we know for a Saturday morning of jumping around, blasting balls and eating cake. The party was awesome and I had zero clean up. :D






Mason got an iPod Touch for Christmas and Sage and Taj have an iPad. Ellie decided she wanted one or the other, but I told her she would need to save her own money for it. We cleaned out a few toys, sold a couple on KSL, and after her birthday (and with the rest of her piggy bank stash) she had enough money to buy one.

So she counted it all and we headed to Best Buy to get one. They were out so we ended up at Wal-Mart but got the Best Buy price and she has been so excited about it since. She is not at all worried about spending all of her money when she knows what she wants. She doesn't need to spend it as soon as she gets it, she is happy to save it for what she really wants. I loaded some music, games and pictures for her and she is having a blast with it. The latest and greatest fun is to make videos - which I will have to share in the next post.




So before I head to April (in a new post) here are a few things Ellie shared with Kevin while I was in Israel.

Every night Ellie and I take turns saying a prayer before bed. One of us prays and then we kiss after we say amen and then we say goodnight. While I was in Israel Ellie told Kevin it was his turn to pray - so he said it and when it was over she said, "Hello, I'm doing kissy lips!".

Ellie was doing her homework, Kevin was working, he hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete to log on and Ellie said, "We're allowed (at school) to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete now, we do it so we can put in our password. And I remember our password...it's pig. And I remember Grandma's password too." "You do?" "Yep, it's #####".

Ellie was doing her homework and on the "Corrected by" line she wrote "Big Daddy" but Kevin couldn't read it...Kevin asked her what it said and she said, "Big Daddy" - Kevin asked who that was and she said it was him. He asked her why he was big daddy, if it was because he was taller than her dad, and she said, "no, you're just my Big Daddy".

Oh the kid cracks me up...here are some other March joys!