Ellis the Ballerina

A couple of weeks ago Ellis started her first dance class. She absolutely loves it and every Friday, since the only class they had was during the day, my FIL Gary takes her to her class. She looks forward to it and it so cute doing it. She calls it her "dance class". I am very excited to see her develop and grow throughout it and she even has a performace at the end of the year (June, I believe). She is my tiny dancer. Here she is before her class:


yes the tights are too big, but finding dance clothes for a 2 1/2 year old is a little tough. Although we did get her slippers at Payless and they are adorable (not pictured because she is only allowed to wear them at dance class). I have more pictures from her first day and will post those later.

Updated Picture

I found this picture (and stole it) from my friend Kyla's blog. I liked it so I thought I would post it. We are on the pier in Des Moines enjoying a nice sunset and then all of a sudden these gale-force winds come up and we thought the peir was going to fall over! Naturally, this picture was before the wind came. Enjoy!

PS - Thanks Kyla for being such a great photographer!

In Memory

Lon Athan Weaver

September 11, 2008

Sweet dreams, little man
God Speed, little man
My love will fly to you each night on angels' wings
Can't wait to meet you some day.

Love,
Mom and Dad

Skills to Pay the Bills!

This past Saturday we (being Loni, myself, Marcus Stevens and my dad) decided to go to the gun range and shoot some guns. I haven't been shooting in a couple years, so it was nice to go out and refresh my skills. :) Anyway, it was a lot of fun and after two hours of shooting, we were all ready to head home.

My dad was kind enough to let us use his pistols: a Glock, a .357 Revolver, and a Rueger .22. We brought our Rueger and then they rented two more guns, so needless to say we were going to run out of ammo before we were going to run out of guns to shoot! :) It was lots and lots of fun and thanks to my mom for watching Ellis for us while we shot!

that's right - don't mess with me! (shot with the .357 revolver)

not bad for a man who is blind in one eye!

Loni and Marcus

Conversations with Ellis

Last night Ellis had the hardest time going to sleep so for part of the night, I laid down with her. While I was laying with her she did the cutest things:
- Anytime I would lift my head up, she would grab my cheek and push my head back to the pillow and say "lay your head down, mommy"
- She would reach over periodically and check to see if my eyes were closed by touching my eyelashes and making sure the bottom and top lashes were touching eachother.
- Anytime you lay with Ellis, she lays right next to you, facing you. We were like this last night with my arm over her body. Any time i would move my arm, she would bring it back so I was cuddling with her.
- We had lots of mini conversations, but this was my favorite:
E: Belle likes the Beast
Me: Do you like the Beast?
E: No, he is scary.
Me: Who do you like? Eric?
E: No, I like Belle.....and Mermaid. I like Mermaid.
(pause)
E (turning to face me again and grabbing my face with her hands, and looking me in the eyes): But I love you, Mommy!

Made my heart melt! She is such a doll and moments like that make the difficult two's worth it. I love her so much!

Sundays....*sigh*

So, before having a kid, I remember Sundays as being very relaxing and restful filled with lounging about, reading books and enjoying church. Now that I have a two-year old, I am filled with fond memories of those peaceful Sundays because they do not exist anymore. Especially during church time. Especially Sacrament meeting. Ellis has not been a great sitter and does not have an inside voice, and she seems to choose Sacrament meetings as the time to really make these traits known - to the whole congregation. Here is a timeline of how our sacrament meeting went yesterday:

12:30 - 12:40 : getting settled in and Ellis asking for a sucker(a DumDum which is my quite trick that will usually keep her occupied for about 10 mins). I keep telling her that she has to wait until after the bread and water are passed, which subdues her for about 1 minute before she is asking again. Opening song and prayer are given and the whole time she is talking about her sucker.

12:40 - 12:45: Ellis constantly moving from Loni to I; I give her some paper to color on. She is good for about 2 minutes and then starts asking me to draw pictures for her (mermaids, grandpa, sucker, Donnie - whatever she is thinking of at that moment). Still asking for sucker, but thankfully the bread is getting ready to be passed. Take the bread and proceeds to ask LOUDLY for her sucker. I tell her the water still needs to be passed. She protests LOUDLY.

12:45 - 12:50: Prayer for water is getting ready to be said. Ellis chimes in with "NO PRAYER...NOOOOOOOO!" Finally we get her to quiet down. Water is passed and she takes hers, then while I am getting mine, she starts sipping out of another cup - while it is in the tray! Once the water leaves us, she immediately asks for her SUCKER, which i tell her she can not have until everyone who is passing the water sits down.

12:50 - 12:55 : Ellis gets her sucker and is happy for this little while. Then she starts talking loudly. Loni threatens that he will take away her sucker if she doesn't whisper.

12:55 - 1:35: LONG meeting filled with squirming, bouncing between Loni and I, whining to see Jaida, trying to climb onto the bench in front of us, being taken out of the room 2 times, protesting about singing and prayers, coloring, giving me loud kisses, speaking very loudly and being obnoxious to everyone in the room.

So we finally get out of sacrament meeting and ship her off to Nursery *Thank Goodness*! Once in the car after church, she beats the world record and falls asleep before we are out of the parking lot. Oh, sweet relaxing Sundays - how i miss thee!