Utah!

WARNING: Super long post (mostly due to overabundance of pictures) below.

Earlier this month we flew to Utah because Brady had some job interviews (fingers crossed!). The interviews were pretty intense, all-day ordeals. He had to do some teaching, present research, meet with university big-wigs, etc. He was pretty spent after all of it. I also discovered that vacationing as a mom is much less restful than it used to be.
Ellie, on the other hand, had a blast (she's wearing an outfit that is way too big for her, but it was the only chance she would have to wear it since it is already turning summer here, so by time she is that size it will be too hot outside to wear it). We actually had fun too, just got pretty worn out and needed several days of recovery time. Turns out, though, that Ellie is a pretty good traveler. We were anticipating horrific moments on airplanes, but she was actually pretty good about eating and sleeping during travel. Huge relief. No one explained time zones to her, though.

We haven't heard back about the jobs yet, though we did hear from one school that their search would be delayed until at least next week due to the volcano in Iceland. (?!) I don't get it either. Maybe it's like how about 12 years ago we all blamed everything on El Nino.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun seeing family and friends while we were in town.

We just had one night with all of Brady's family in town. This is his mom holding Ellie. Somehow we didn't get any pictures with his dad this time. I guess he was taking pictures too.

Grandma trying to hold all the new grand babies born since last April. You can see Ellie is mostly interested in eating her cousin's head.

Which she did.

Then we got all the cousins together. This is of course after about 2 dozen shots of kids rolling/crawling/walking out of the frame or crying or something, which are pretty funny to scroll through, but I won't make you all look at them all now.

Then just the three newest who couldn't get away.

Ages in this photo are 3 mos., 5 mos., and almost 8 weeks. Ellie is a giant.

Uncle Sam is having a hard time adjusting to not being the baby of the family anymore.

My parents also came in town to see (let's be honest) Ellie. She was thrilled to have such constant attention.
They had some pretty serious conversations.

Ellie is learning how to give kisses (read: slobber on your cheek) after you give her a kiss.

Grandma had the magic touch.

Meeting her good friend Marian. There is about an 8-month age gap here, though you wouldn't know it from this picture. It was very exciting for Ellie to finally meet this friend. Every time we read the stories she sent us, I remind Ellie that they are from her "good friend Marian." She also loaned us quite a few baby essentials while we were in town--thanks again, Marian (and her wonderful parents).
Showing Grandma her favorite dress.

Showing Mindy her tippy toes.

Laughing with Grandpa.

And finally we had to go home again. Passing some time in the Denver airport on a long layover.

All in all, the trip was a success (other than not hearing back on jobs yet . . .). Thanks to everyone who traveled to come see us, and big thanks to Mindy for turning her house into quite the bed and breakfast while we were there. We'll keep you all posted on what we hear--barring any drops in barometric pressure over Fiji or any inclement weather in Siberia.

All Our Ducks in a Row

We finally found a good reason to put Ellie in this duck outfit we got at a baby shower. Since we didn't have regular church meetings on Easter, we didn't bother with the big frilly Easter dress.
Sorry, I couldn't pick just one picture. Ellie is a pretty good sport. We had a really nice, quiet conference weekend. Brady was around a lot and got to spend a lot of time with Ellie.

Quality time. As you can see, they will both be reviewing the Saturday afternoon session together when next month's Ensign comes out. I think it's also worth noting who has most of the space on that beanbag. Not hard to see who's really in charge around here.

Also, Ellie turned 5 months old on Saturday. She's trying to be helpful here.

Very excited to be getting older (not sure why some of the pics are sideways, I fixed them before uploading them). We are very excited about this too. We hate to rush her, but we are excited for her to hopefully outgrow her reflux soon. I had heard about babies having reflux before, but I never knew how demanding it could be. I think we may be on the downhill slope of the battle, though. Ellie seems to be more comfortable and hasn't been fighting her feedings quite as much over the past few days. I'd read that reflux symptoms peak at 4 months, and several people have told us that by 6-9 months it clears up quite a bit. Fingers crossed.
For all the trouble that the reflux has been, though, we realize that it could be much worse. This is something she will likely outgrow soon, and in the meantime she does have so many happy times. She seems to be enjoying her life so far and is pretty playful most of the time. She loves being outside, sometimes even just going out on the balcony (as long as all the neighbors aren't outside smoking--ugh, that's a different post). She's been experimenting with her voice a lot lately, finding she can get our attention without crying (though that still seems to be the preferred method at times). Fake coughing and fake laughing are some of her favorites. She loves music, particularly They Might Be Giants' Here Come the 123s album. We got the DVD from Netflix and I don't know if we'll ever give it back (This is one of her favorites that we sing to her a lot). All in all, things seem to be going pretty well* for Ellie.
*Ask me again in a couple weeks after we've spent long hours in a few airports, flown across the country a couple times, and switched time zones back and forth to see if I feel the same way. More on that later.
A couple leftover pictures. This one is St. Patrick's Day.

This is a frilly dress that she loved wearing because she could play with the top layer and put it in her mouth. I guess you have to set priorities and standards in fashion somewhere.