The Big Dance

I decided kind of last minute that I would join Daniel and his team in Tampa for the NCAA tournament. We brought Camille with us and dropped the other 2 off at various friends houses. People were so nice to take them and Kaylie deserves a special shout out for encouraging me to go and volunteering to have them for the weekend. 

 The NCAA charters the flights for every team in the tournament since each team can bring cheerleaders, a band and administration, and it's too many people to get tickets for last minute. So we got to fly on a chartered plane out of Provo. Oh man, chartered planes are so great. No liquid restrictions, no dealing with being checked in super early, getting sweaty walking around the airport, and many more things. When I wanted Camille to sleep on the plane I just paced the aisle and didn't have to worry about disturbing people since I knew everyone and didn't care about disturbing them (ha). 

We got off the plane in Tampa and immediately went to Clearwater Beach. The sand was so soft and smooth. Like butter. A month later and I still can't get over it. 

At first Millie wasn't sure about the wet sand. When we tried to make her stand in it she would pull her legs up. But pretty soon she liked it. 

On Friday morning I woke up and attempted to work out. The resort gym was-- no exaggeration-- 3/4 of a mile away from our room. Our resort had a golf course in the middle of it. I ended up only having time to run a mile and then run back before Daniel had meetings. After breakfast the team had practice and media stuff at the arena so Mills and I hung out at the pool, took a nap, and then walked around the resort grounds.

That night we had a team dinner at one of the resort restaurants where I had one of the best steaks of my life. 

Saturday morning I built the walk to the gym into my workout. Working out at lower elevations makes you feel invincible! Seriously, I could breathe so much better. Then Camille and I strolled around again and took a few pictures. The little marsh had so many beautiful birds. Everything was so green.

We took the team bus over to the arena but they wouldn't let any of the spouses in early. We sat in the sun outside until 1 hour before the game, when they opened the doors. I was so anxious for the game to start. I was feeling so good about the game. About 3 minutes into the game things started to fall apart. BYU just kept turning the ball over. We looked totally outmatched. Louisville had 9 players who could play interchangeably and not miss a beat. It was hard to watch. Camille got really tired so I ended up pacing around the upper ring for the last 1/2 hour. Tough way to end the season. It kind of ended up feeling like a bad season, even though they exceeded what everyone expected this year.

On Sunday morning we flew back to Provo, with everyone a little sad and disappointed. Everyone except Millie, who had no idea what was going on except the fact that it was just her and mom and dad with no annoying sisters hogging attention.

We are all happy to have a few months off from the busyness of basketball season.

Miscellaneous March

I just don't have the patience to write out individual posts for all these pictures.

Elise reading scriptures to us

One day Sadie played soccer and basketball in the garage for a good hour and a half. I thought her use of the sled behind the bin to keep the soccer ball from going under the car was genius. Daniel always talks about how Sadie isn't interested or particularly good at sports, but she was looking super coordinated to me. I was surprised. Perhaps we wrote her off too soon.

A friend of mine brought over a bunch of puzzles and books that her kids have outgrown and my girls have loved them.

One day when I was running Elise laid between the wall and the treadmill and fell asleep.

The girls love reading our printed blog books. It takes a lot of work to put them together, but seeing them look through them 

Elise is our snuggly girl. One morning when Sadie got up at 7:30 Elise climbed in bed with us and went back to sleep.

The girls played super heroes for a few hours one day after I got them some new costumes.

Easter Party

Some of our neighbors hold an annual Easter egg hunt at their house complete with face painting, bounce houses, and treats. We missed it last year but last Saturday we made sure we were there. 

Elise got nervous around all the kids and refused to go down the bouncy slide but she did participate in her age group's egg hunt. I had to prod her to pick up eggs and candy. She just kept excitedly walking around, telling me there were eggs, but not picking them up.

Daniel ended up leaving with the younger 2 girls after the egg hunt because they were both tired. 

Sadie and I waited for 45 minutes for her face to get painted (ya can't complain when it is all free), and Sadie chose a to get a painted cupcake. I got to hang out and talk with some neighbors I didn't know too well and Sadie got lots of sugar. Also, now we don't have to mess with going to some crazy crowded city egg hunt. Win-win-win.

Spring has Sprung

February was crazy warm in Utah. March was warm too, with the exception of one small snow storm. Now that it is officially spring the temperatures have continued to climb and we have been outside a lot. Life is great when you can play outside again.

11/12

 This baby is 11 months. She is adorable. She is happy. We are all in love with her.

There are some real changes to report this month. 

She worked so hard to figure out how to go forward. She would go from sitting up to her hands and knees, but couldn't quite get it....

Until one day she started doing a hybrid of the worm/army crawl/roll...

And 3 days later she was crawling with perfect form. I have already pulled wood chips, legos, and various other things out of her mouth. She has been rolling around for a while, so it's not like she was immobile, but somehow she didn't notice anything small on the floor. 

She also cut her third and fourth teeth this month. The third one is about 2/3 in and the fourth one just peeked out of the gums a few days ago. 

She loves to stand up and is getting pretty good at balancing without holding onto anything. She's especially good when she doesn't realize I have let go of her. Once she realizes she will lean over to me or sit on her bum.

Camille likes to squeal/yell and flex her muscles at the same time. She sticks her little arms and legs straight out and then tenses everything while telling "gah!!!" as loud as she can. 

She is graduating to a majority of solid food. I usually give her some baby food as well, but the majority of her meals are real food. She likes everything, but typically eats: cheese, avocados, tomatoes, pears, black beans, bread, corn, strawberries, peas, etc. It's probably dumb to make a list because she eats whatever we give her. Mills is great at drinking out of a sippie as well, so she gets water at each meal too. Then she also has 4 formula bottles per day. Still trying to figure out how to phase out at least one of those.

I am starting to try to sign more with her. She doesn't sign back to me, but she understands when I tell her to drink water and sign it and then when I sign all done she gets really excited to get out of the high chair. 

Goals for the next 2 months: getting Camille to sign at least 5 words and walking!!

The 11 month old girl herself:

Primary Talk

Sadie gave her first talk in Primary. She spoke about prophets and used the examples of Noah, Joseph Smith and President Monson. She practiced reading it a lot and she was very excited to stand up in front of everyone and read it. She did a great job and even went off script by calling him Thomas Spencer Monson instead of just using the initial S. like was written on her paper. She had me hold up the visual aids and got a little annoyed when I didn't hold up Noah's ark quickly enough. 

We were so proud of her. I hope she is always so excited about public speaking. 

Ice Skating Date

 Sadie and I went on an ice-skating date. Ice skating is much harder than I remember. Trying to help a 5-year-old ice skate makes it even harder. Luckily we got a walker for Sadie. I realized I just couldn't help her. Every time I tried to stop or turn to help her I almost fell. The walker was great because even if she fell she just pulled herself back up on the handles.

After 1 time around the rink Sadie said she hated it. But she kept trying and ended up enjoying it, even with the constant falling. I fell one time and got a massive bruise on my knee and my ego.

I sat on the sidelines and watched a lot. I forgot how much skates hurt your ankles. Sadie was perfectly happy skating around by herself so I just took a million pictures and giggled when she fell, or skated into the wall, or took people out with her walker. We stayed for 2 1/2 hours. That's enough skating for me for the next ten years.