Christmas at Thanksgiving!

Well, after a long break of not posting here we go!  For Thanksgiving this year we traveled to Idaho Falls and had a nice break with Mom and Dad Gilbert, Katie, Robby and Kathryn and their cute kids!  This is a picture of Elle with her cousin.

It was so rejuvenating to spend so much time with family. It was a great trip.

No pictures...

For safety reasons.
A while ago we did a post about how Elle was scooting, albeit unintentionally. Well she is FULL ON crawling. What a mobile babe we have now! She can get basically anywhere. She loves to pull herself up and walk along the edge of the couch too!
Again, a while back, I promised a post about a crawling story. Well the reason it has taken SOOOO long to get it up is because I had great intentions of recreating the scene and taking pics. Yeah, that didn't happen. To be fair, I don't even have internet access during the daytime, so all my blogging has to happen at night. That is, by the way, also when I have other things to take care of. So the blogging has suffered. And so have you. Sorry about that.
SO: here's the story. Our apartment is pretty small, so it's hard to make sure everything is out of her reach. We have to use all the cupboards to store our stuff. As a result, I usually put all of Elle's toys out on the living room floor and let her explore in there. To keep her in that room I place our coffee table between the couches. To keep her from crawling under the table I place the couch cushions underneath it. Well, the other day I was putting something away in another room. It sounded like she had crawled around our barricade to the tile portion at the front door. Imagine my complete surprise when I found her "pacing" back and forth on top of the coffee table!!! No one told me she could climb. So now we prop the cushion upright in front of the table. They are too big to fit underneath, so the excess part she can use as a stepping stool.
Needless to say, I immediately removed her from the situation and did not take time to snap a picture. You're welcome!
If you need pictures (and don't we all?) check out our cougar post right below.

NOT a fair weather fan :)

So, as you may be aware, our BYU Cougars have not had the season we were hoping for. However, while some people were ready to throw in the towel partway through the season and wait for better things to come next year, I want to announce that we still kept going to all the home games. See for yourself:

The BEST part about being able to attend the games was taking this cute girl to cheer them on:

I wish you could see how cute the whole cheer outfit is, but it was not meant to be that night. No good pics of it. As it is, we'll have to get the whole outfit in a picture at the Marriott Center, where the Cougs have their home basketball games.
Another quick note: do you see the ladies in the background of this picture who are admiring Elle from a distance? Yeah. Every time we take her to the games people are talking about her from rows away. I can see them pointing her out to their neighbors. She really brightens the day for many people!

It might rain

Elle and I have been going on lots of walks lately. Today we needed to go pick up Ted's contacts, which had just come in at Shopko Optical. It is about a 25-30 minute walk each way, which is perfect because we're trying for an hour/day.
Unfortunately, when our opening came I looked outside and saw that it had been raining just before. I wasn't sure if the rain was finished, so I decided to put her in a jacket and hat. The good news is it did not rain on us at all (don't worry--I had an umbrella too. It covers the opening of the stroller PERFECTLY!). The other good news is how CUTE Elle looks in her hat... even if she doesn't really like it all that much. Check out her cuteness for yourself:

 

Check out our blog soon for a Cougar update and a crawling story!

Recent Events!

Two weeks ago we went to the temple as a family!  It was a wonderful day.  The day after we went to the temple we blessed Elle at the churchhouse.  Again, a wonderful day.  Here are some picture from the two days.

Last weekend Ted ran in a relay with his cousins, aunt, and uncles from Smithfield, Utah to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It was an amazing experience. The first picture is of everyone who was at the finish line. The other picture is of Ted and Elle hanging out at dinner after the race.

ALMOST scooting... intentionally

Elle is now quite proficient at rolling around. Back to front and front to back. She has mastered the art of moving around the room. She is trying to so hard to use her skills to go where she wants to be, but she is still in the phase of her momentum just taking her where it will. She usually ends up, as you will see, with half of her body under the couch or end table. She gets pretty excited about it! Here, see for yourself:

Can you hear her eyes? They are saying "I DID IT!!!"

Hello again! It has been awhile, but here are some pictures with a few notes.

A couple weeks ago we went to Kansas City, Missouri for a family reunion.  It was SO fun!! Elle met a lot of cousins.  The picture below is with her cousin, Levi.

While in Kansas City we decided to snap a family picture under a big shade tree.  It was a beautiful day!

Before we left Grandma Gilbert took Elle shopping for some summer clothing so she didn't get overheated in the hot, humid weather. Here is a picture of her in one of her outfits.  As you can see from the look on her face she really liked it!

Another momentous event that happened this month is that Elle is eating solid foods...well, mushy solid foods.  Here are a few pictures of one of her first eating sessions.

The last notable milestone is how well Elle is sitting up on her own.  She is still a bit wobbly, but she is holding herself up! :)

Here is another cute, random picture.



We are so grateful to have Elle in our family.  We are eternally grateful and full of love for Elle's birth parents who gave us a gift that we could never give ourselves.