Ella's Pictures

My beautiful first born.

 I will admit, I am jealous of her glorious hair!!

 Some of these are unedited.

And this is one of them.

That rose is really that bright and beautiful!!

 I know this one is repeated several times but I just love them.

It captures that light in her eyes and her mischievous side.

She was such a good little model this year. Usually I hate pictures but these went pretty well!

I love Ella so much.

Dads and Doughnuts

Brent is a wonderful daddy.

I'm glad they got to spend a little time alone together.

Veteran's Day

I am so grateful for the men and women who serve our country.

Freedom is not free.

Some have gave their lives, limbs, sight and sanity.

I am so grateful for them and have the deepest respect for them.

Thank you!!

 Ready fro the parade!!

 Waiting is hard!!

 Metro Air

Helicopters kind of scare me. 

I think it's the flying.

I have a phobia of flying things.

Like birds and bats.

The most awesome float!! 

The AG farm and their awesome cow!!

Old Simplot

Four day weekends are awesome!!.....

Unless your husband works Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.

Then they're long and lame.

My sister had mercy on us and invited us to go out to Old Simplot to play in the white sand.

It was so beautiful and peaceful.

The sun was gloriously setting and I felt a lovely peace.

 My little wild animals were so happy to be in their natural habitat.

They dug and rolled and ran and slid.

The sand was cool and fine. 

Even I took off my shoes and dug my toes in deep.

 They hiked and played hide go seek.

 And made sand angels.

Cuz that how we roll in the desert.

This is my dirt girl. 

She loves the dirt and outside and digging.

Big kids. 

They rolled down the hills, and slid down the hills.

When we got home we emptied our pockets and shoes and had a sand dune in the bathroom!!!

It was so much fun!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Halloween started a day early for us!!

First we went to see the school parade.

Every year the school has the kids walk a parade route outside so all the parents can come up and see all the costumes.

It's so cute!!

 This is how Scarlet felt about it.

Sigh.

This is usually how Scarlet feels about everything.

 The last few years I have made costumes for the girls.

But this year I was worn out and stressed out and just bought them!!

That is what I did the first 3 years of Ella life and it was a lot of fun to go to Costco and let the girls pick out whatever they wanted.

So much easier and not much of a price difference!!

 Ella was a "rock star girl".

There were at least a 100 Elsas.

I'm not joking!!

But Ella was unique and there was not another outfit like hers!!

She was pretty pleased with that!!

 We roasted marshmallows when the sun went down.

Not a single one was eaten but they were all roasted!!

 Then Scarlet rode her skewer around the back yard like a broom.

 We had a Halloween dinner at Bowler's house.

Scarlet just wanted broccoli.

 Cousin table!!

 Cousin Elsie as Anna.

Ella the Rock star.

Scarlet the witch.

 Here we have Olaf, a with, a rock star, Anna, Elsa, 

another Anna, and a little boy who is born to be wild!!

 We were ready to go and met up with our Wheeler cousins to do our trick or treating.

We had a great time!!

It is so fun to have excited little girls on holidays!!

For some reason Brent and I managed to end up with SEVEN pumpkins!!

We spent hours carving all of them and they are proudly displayed on our porch!!

The picture didn't turn out well, I couldn't get night vision to work, but my favorite was the owl!!

Ella carved the kitty all on her own!!

She was very focused and had a lot of dedication!!

We had a great night!!

Nevada Day

Nevada is a battle born state.

It was formed on October 31st 1864 during the Civil War to aid President Lincoln in election and add another state to the "Free" states.

I could never understand why none of my Utah cousins got Halloween off when I was little.

I did not realize we were in actuality getting Nevada Day off.

The school had Dress like a Cowboy day to celebrate.

I feel like this is in error because Nevada was originally full of Indians, miners and prostitutes!!

Haha!!

 I did not have traditional cowboy attire, so Ella was a modern cowgirl!!

I told her to blow me a kiss.

It kind of happened!!

 I have lived in Nevada my whole life.

As have my ancestors.

It is hot, dry, brown and generally ugly.

Vegas is a cesspool of sin and gambling and I need a shower when I get home from its smog filled air.

I will admit, however, that at least I don't live in the central part of the state which is truly the arm pit of our nation.

But at least my little cow girls looked darling!!

She was so excited to borrow my earrings!!

Pumpkin Patch 2

Holidays are so fun and magical.

But children bring even more to the experience!!

Today we went to the pumpkin patch with Ella's class.

Brent and Scarlet came too!! If Brent has to miss stuff like Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas morning and fourth of July, he's coming to the pumpkin patch!!

 Last year Ella wanted the smallest pumpkin she could find.

This year she wanted a round one!!

 She picked out a pretty good one!!

 Scarlet was so excited and wanted to take home 10 of them!!

Warning: The picture below is of Ella's knee after she tripped and tore it wide open. So if those things make you squeamish, scroll quickly!!

(I did this just for you Amy!!)

 She just had a little trip but landed perfectly on the edge of the pavement that was a little jagged. 

A chunk of skin was hanging and shredded off and we had to go home and trim it off.

I was so proud of her bravery.

She jumped up and tried so hard to act like it was ok. 

I asked her if she was ok and she looked up at me with tears pouring from her big blue eyes and whispered, "It really hurts."

It took awhile for the blood to flow, but once it did it was gushing. 

 We had to stop and borrow band aids from Mrs. Barlow!!

I tried to wash it off with water and control blood flow until we got home!!

 She tried to not let it get her spirits down and still played and had lunch with her little friends.

 I really like Ella's class this year and I am very happy with her teacher.

It's an awesome group!!

We are getting quite the collections of pumpkins!!

Since Brent hates removing guts, I have a lot of work ahead of me!!