Hair Stylings of a 15-month-old

Sticky peaches for lunch + a good afternoon nap = BEA-U-TI-FUL!






So embarrassed. Actually, she was trying to block the flash from her eyes.

A Whole Mess of Christmas Pictures

First of all, here is what you were each supposed to get as a Christmas card this year. Well, actually, some variation of this where Ellie is sitting in some dainty pose, giving a demure smile. By the time I got around to taking a picture of Ellie in her Christmas dress, she wasn't in the mood to hold still for the camera; dainty was not on the agenda. I wasn't even on the ball enough to get an electronic card done before Christmas.



Here are a few shots of Christmas morning:


Trying to get at her cousins' presents.


Us forcing her back to pay attention to and open her own gifts. Most the time she would open a present and then just walk out of the room to find something else to do. Maybe next year she'll get it.


Baby obstacle course. Like every parent ever we joked about how we could have just given the babies wrapping paper and boxes and they would have been happy. If that's true, I wonder why no one has ever tried it. Or have they?


A little tuckered out after all the excitement. Good preparation for a long nap on the airplane trip that afternoon to visit family in California. We should have taken some video or pictures at the airport. Turns out, Ellie LOVES airports. Lots of room to run around, lots of bored strangers to charm.


After church the next day we tried to catch some good shots of all the baby cousins. This is Ellie with Phoebe, about 10 mos. here. That ball Ellie is holding is a happy meal toy that one of her cousins got and didn't seem to miss. Since we left most of Ellie's Christmas toys at home, she kind of adopted everyone else's there. For some reason, she really got attached to this ball.


And really suspicious of people trying to take it from her.

Then we tried to get a group shot of all the babies. These cousins were all born within one year; the age range here is roughly 10-20 months.

And that was Ellie's pose in every group shot I got. Way to go, Ellie.


Once again, Ellie's favorite toy is any toy that belongs to someone else.

Lately, one of her favorite things has been to pull objects out of their containers and (sometimes) put them back in. She is quite proficient at unloading laundry baskets and diaper bags. This box of oranges provided quite a bit of entertainment for her. Soon she had all the little cousins in on the fun, and each baby had to be carrying one or more oranges with them around the living room. Not sure who started it, but eventually they all decided it would be a good idea to take bites out of the oranges too (which Ellie is doing in the picture).



She enjoyed her first trip to In N Out.


Quite enjoyed it.


And her first trip to see the ocean.


Almost everybody in this shot. It was a very bright, windy day.


It was a lot of fun, but pretty exhausting for this little one.


All in all, a good holiday season, but we were all ready for a good winter's nap when it was over.

The Christmas Blog That Almost Wasn't

Notice the emerging molar in the lower corner of Ellie's open mouth? That combined with the other three you can't see here and the slightly distressed look on her face tells much of the story of our holiday season.



We did have a very lovely Christmas, actually, and got to spend time with lots and lots of family. I promise to post more soon, complete with pictures of presents and toys and footie-jammies on Christmas morning and everything (the footie-jammies are on Ellie, not Brady or me). But some days, it's just too much to get a decent blog post together, you know?

A Very Brady Thanksgiving

Anyone who really knows Brady knows that while he seems to be good at just about everything he tries (don't get your hopes too high for your own success if you ever play board games or card games with him--and I won't even tell you how high his GRE scores were), one place where passion and talent collide wonderfully is in his cooking.

November is a big month for Brady, culinary-wise. Ellie's birthday, his birthday, and then Thanksgiving. Last year I was pretty much a zombie for all of November, trying to adjust to no sleep and feeding a baby who didn't want to be fed, so we didn't quite pull off the usual extravaganza. This year, it was on. I was back at my post as soux chef, enabling Brady's masterful creations (usually that means rushing around cleaning up whatever pot or utensil Brady just used so he can use it all over again--not very glamorous). For his birthday he got a new pizza stone and peel, so making flatbread pizzas was once again an option. He spent almost his entire birthday party in the kitchen making pizzas for everyone, and he loved it. And so did everyone who attended. The upside-down apple gingerbread cake didn't hurt matters either.

But the next week it was Thanksgiving, and then things really got serious. That is Brady's holiday. The cooking started Tuesday night and didn't end until Thursday at feast time, sticking somewhat closely to the carefully balanced pre-planned schedule. I documented our process, but then decided to leave out the uglier side of things (de-boning raw turkeys) and missed some of the prettier things (buttermilk pie), and without all the aromas, I don't know if my poor photography skills can do any of this justice, but here goes.


To have a very Brady Thanksgiving, you will need mounds and mounds of aromatic vegetables.


At least a dozen heads of roasted garlic for the honey garlic glaze. I, along with my brother-in-law Tyler, got to peel each individual clove. Like I said, not very glamorous, but worth it all in the end.


Brussels sprouts, even though everyone else is very leery about eating them, and most have never even tasted them. But you will get them fresh, saute them in a little bacon fat, add bits of bacon, pine nuts, raisins, currents, and a homemade vinaigrette and everyone will be pleasantly surprised.


Eight pounds of potatoes to steam--not boil--then mash.


Enough gravy to drown them in. And then some.


Cranberries sauced.


The renowned corn bread-pudding (not cornbread pudding) that family members wait all year to sample.


Sweet potato spinach pecan bacon salad you tasted at a restaurant once and loved so much you had to go home and recreate it yourself, after getting the dressing recipe from the restaurant's chef. Also a Brady Thanksgiving standard now.


Dark meat from the turkeys, which you painstakingly removed from the birds the day before and tied up to cook like roasts separately from the white meat. Because white meat and dark meat cook so differently, you explain about a hundred times to curious family members.


And the white meat, brined, cooked until partially done, then glazed, then cooked some more.


And then carved.

Everyone will ooh and ahh and be thoroughly amazed once again at your culinary skills and love every bite of every dish. Meanwhile, you will already be making adjustments in the garlic-to-honey ratio for next year's rendition and thinking of what cookbooks or new kitchen gadgets to ask for for Christmas.

ONE!

It's been a week and a half since Ellie turned one.


Time seems to be going faster these days.


A while ago someone in our ward asked how old Ellie was. When I told her about 11 months, she asked, with a bit of a knowing look, "Has it gone soooo fast?"


I think I might have disappointed her when I answered, "No. Not really."


It has actually been quite a long, rough year. Well worth it, to be sure. But quite a hard year with reflux and all that goes along with it, Brady's internship, cross-country moves, etc., etc.


I worry that when I mention the difficulties we had with reflux, people might think we are complaining or that we don't like our baby or something. Just perusing these pictures, who couldn't adore this little girl? We absolutely love Ellie to pieces and would do it all over again if we had to just to have her. There are so many things that could have been more difficult than reflux. As much difficulty as she did have, she has every right to be a grumpy, cranky baby. But she is so happy and excited about life, she's just fun to be around. And thankfully, reflux is something she has outgrown. I hereby declare reflux over! This birthday was quite a milestone for all of us.


We had a small party to celebrate our mutual triumph.


Ellie caught onto the idea of presents pretty quickly.


I got this teddy bear at a consignment sale and then made a dress and bow for it. Ellie doesn't have a lot of girly toys. Being the first granddaughter on this side of the family in about ten years, Ellie has had a lot opportunity to play with dinosaurs, trains, and cars Grandma has collected over the years. So this was my attempt to give Ellie a touch of the feminine.

Mostly she just pokes the bear's eyes and nose and then goes back to the orange monster truck she was pushing around. She's not much of a cuddler.

On her birthday Brady made a pound cake and lemon curd to spread on it. Because that's what every one-year-old wants to eat. Brady is trying to refine Ellie's pallet.


Later we had a party with more family and had the traditional first birthday chocolate mess, which Ellie also loved.


And finally, here she is modeling the dress that Brady's parents sent to her. I love it. I think Ellie does to, though she hasn't said so outright.


Sometimes I am completely in awe of this little girl--that she already is becoming a little girl, her own little person with separate thoughts and personality from my own. There are moments I wish I had captured (I know, hard to believe that I missed any based on all the pictures in this post--congratulations to anyone who has made it this far; sometimes I go on a binge and take a million pictures, and sometimes I forget all about cameras and want to experience Ellie face-to-face, not through the view finder of the camcorder). I miss the little "game" she made up last summer, yelling into a little cup "ha, ha, HAAAA," then handing it to me to do the same, back and forth. Or when she would crawl up to where the sun shone through onto the carpet and try to pick up the sunbeams. It was a rough year, but lots of good moments in there too. We can't wait to see what she has waiting for us in the next year.

Berry Picking Time

I overcame my Halloween malaise of last year for Ellie's sake. For Ellie, Halloween meant so much.

It meant putting up with funny hats your parents put on you


if that's what it takes to finally get out of the house after being cooped up all week with a cough.


It meant getting to see cousins and comparing costumes.


It meant tasty treats, of which she had more than any child under the age of one should have.


It meant going out in public to parties and stores and restaurants


and letting strangers dote on her cuteness.


But mostly it meant way too many pictures. "Seriously, Mom?" I may have turned her off to the holiday too.


Poor kid.