Little Muffy

One day I called Ellie "Bub." She looked at me and yelled, "I NOT Bub! Jared Bub!" True. We do call Jared "Bub" sometimes. I apologized and then asked her what her name was. "Ellie is Muffy!" I started to laugh. Scott started calling her "Muffy" or "Little Muff" awhile ago, but I was surprised she recognized it as her name. It fits her though it doesn't really make sense--she is just such a little muff!

For example. She is queen of eye rolling at all the right times. How can a two year old know when to do that? When she is exasperated or doesn't like what I've asked her to do she rolls her eyes. It is so cute and funny and she gets such a reaction from everyone that she does it sometimes just for laughs.

The flu is rampant around here. Ellie is doing her part in trying to keep it away from our family by washing her hands a MILLION times a day. I have several bottles of hand sanitizer around the house. If it is in plain sight Ellie will find a way to it. "Need bacterial antibacterial), Mom." And then she gives a big squirt to her hands and to each of her three babies hands. She's a good mom. She also likes to give her hands several pumps of the hand soap too. Almost every time it's quiet around her I suspect she's found the hand soap and is cleaning away.

In Sacrament Meeting on Sunday it was like 100 degrees! Someone had turned the heater on and it wasn't even cold outside! Being eight months pregnant I thought I was going to faint! Jared was wearing a long sleeve button down shirt with a sweater vest (he looked very handsome), but he was dying of heat too so I helped him take off his vest. The next thing I knew Ellie was stripping off her dress. "I hot too, Mom!" Ellie exclaimed. "I take my clothes off too!" I couldn't convince Ellie that she needed to stay dressed. Scott even had to walk out with her to get her mind off of it.

This girl gives us so many laughs! She's a bundle of energy and joy. I wonder how she's going to take our new little addition soon.

Balloon Fiesta!

I've posted before about how much I love the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. There is nothing like seeing hundreds of huge hot air balloons in the sky at once. I am excited every year to see the balloons. Scott thinks if you've seen it once, you've seen it enough times. Bah Humbug!

I was so happy that Betsy and Russ and their family and Hannah and Kendall and their boys came to visit this year to share in the excitement. Unfortunately the balloons didn't fly in our direction while they were here. We had to do a little work to chase them. I led the way to follow the balloons until I had no idea where we were and let Russell lead out so he could stop when he wanted to. We finally stopped where two balloons landed, and I was so happy to see someone as excited as I was about the balloons. Russ pulled over, jumped out of his car, grabbed a couple of kids and headed off as fast as he could to get down to where the balloons were. We even had to cross rail-road tracks and climb over a barbed wire fence!

Unfortunately being seven plus months pregnant and carrying a two year old through the rough terrain made it nearly impossible to take pictures.

The Energizer Bunny was right out our front door on one of the days! How could you not love that!?

We Love Soccer!

Ever since the first day Jared saw Kaitlyn and Brynn play soccer he has been waiting until he was four and could play on his own team. Finally this season his turn came! He could hardly sleep the night before his first game because he was so excited.

Some of our kids are naturally more aggressive than others. While we were playing a family soccer game for Home Evening Scott mentioned that it was okay to use your elbow a little. He was mostly trying to help the less aggressive children know it was okay to have a little contact and they didn't need to be afraid of hurting the other kids. I've been worried ever since that the message was taken a little too much to heart with some of the kids. Jared takes after his dad and talks a lot of smack before a game. "I'm gonna win this one mom! I'm gonna score lots of goals and if a boy gets in my way I'm just gonna kinda push him with my elbow!"

This kid is tough! He scores lots of goals and is a great defender. It's always fun to watch him play.