The Weekend! The Weekend!

This weekend (like all other weekends) flew by. We geared up for some house projects and got to have some lovely family time to top it off. Friday night we laid low to prep for our busy Saturday. I would go insane if we did that every weekend, but it was nice to eat a slow dinner, play, and then clean up at a decent hour.

We woke up early on Saturday morning (thanks to our cutest alarm clock, Ellie) and had some snuggles before we had to start the day. J.rue is the best and will go and get Ellie out of bed. He's done it since day one. It doesn't sound like a huge deal but Ellie is in the basement, and walking down the stair while caught in a mist of sleep is pretty ghastly, at least to me.

After that, j.rue was off to Lowe's to collect project supplies and Ellie and I took a stab at making our first batch of sour dough pancakes (they were amahzing, thanks Melinda!) and then we were off to the gym.

It seems like we've been working on a never ending list of house projects. Truth be told, we're getting ready to list our house. But I don't like to talk about it because it makes me so sad to think about leaving our first home, the best ward, and some really really really good friends. I don't know if any other neighborhood could top ours, really and truly. So, Saturday's project was redoing the cement. The walkway to our house was gnarly. I'm not even kidding. Basically, the biggest chin zit ever. See?

Are we glad that no one has died coming to visit us? Yes, yes we are. Lucky for us, j.rue's brother James came to help fix things up. Between the two of them, they got that cement looking nice and pretty. Thank goodness for willing family. We would be sunk without them.

It was a lot of work that I was (truthfully) thankful that I could opt out. While the boys were sweating it out outside, Ellie and I were sorting, throwing, and organizing our laundry room and office, the inside chin zits of our home. We finally go the laundry room looking nice (except for our mountain of towels. When did we get SO many towels?) and orderly, the office still has some major work to be done, but we'll get there. 

Once we packed up some of our stuff, Ellie was just begging to go "side" with dadeeee! So I happily obliged. She spent the next hour or so running up and down the sidewalk. She has a path she likes to stick to and if she can escape my grasp she's off and running.

Her other favorite activity is playing in the car. She asks for the "teyes" very matter-of-factly, grabs my hands and walks me out to the car over to the drivers side. She then proceeds to stick the key in the lock and I unlock the car for her (it's quite the team effort) and then asks to "pease" be lifted into the drivers seat. Once I set her down (sans keys) and roll down all the window she promptly reminds me to close the door by pointing and saying "door". Girl keeps her verbal cues simple. Most of the time I'll hunker down into the passenger seat and scroll thru IG, but today it gave me the freedom to help j.rue clean up the concrete mess without having a heart attack every time she would dart off on a different running adventure. Heaven help me when it gets to warm to play in the car.

We spent the evening taking a load of stuff up to James & Melinda's to store and had a fancy dinner of pizza and ice cream bars. Ellie got to end the evening playing with her two cousins Boopy and Kaka (Brooklym & Kendall) and the rest of us got to relax and chat.

I went to bed that night anticipating church the next day. Why? Ellie's first day of nursery! I've been waiting for this moment since she was, oh, 11 months old. I put her in her prettiest dress and took extra time to do her hair so of course we were running later than I wanted to be. I was still determined to take a picture. I did end up getting a good one, but not before this I caught this gem:

Doesn't she look like she's off to her first day of Young Women's rather than nursery? Ugh. Here was the blue ribbon shot that made it worth it, cute little stinker.

We walked to church and she was the first one to get to nursery. The sweet nursery leaders were there waiting for her and even knew her name. I loved that. There was a brief second that I was a tiny bit sad that she was so old, but those thoughts were quickly squashed once we entered the church and she took off in a sprint. She beat me to nursery and before I could even say "bye, love you!" She was in nursery and loving life. I haven't had such a blissful 2 hours of church in forever. Still, I was so excited to pick her up. She ran right out to me with the biggest grin and the best bear hug ever, she still loved me thank goodness. She cried a little about 20 minutes in but I'm pretty sure they distracted her in 2 minutes with food, or a baby, or something else that she loves almost more than anything else. I even got to bring home a picture that she colored with her name on it. I'm keeping. Forever.

That afternoon we got to go to Ciara's (a cousin on J.rue's side) homecoming. We loved listening to her speak and I know she was the best missionary. Ellie didn't get to sit by her cousins, so she spent half the meeting trying to get Brooklyn's attention, but we made it through. She was so happy to see her after sacrament meeting that they had to dance and then hold her hand as much as possible. Oh she adores her Brookie Jayde.

After the meeting we went back to Ciara's home and ate delicious food and visited with family that we don't get to see enough. Oh and I ate waaay too many desserts, but you know, I'm pregnant. We love you Ciara and we're so happy you're home!

Once we made the trek home we took a moment to admire j.rue's handy cement work. Look how pretty!

The rest of the evening was spent watching Curious George, we watch so much Curious George, and then J.rue had to retreat to the office to work and I spent the evening cleaning up. Does it seem like I'm always cleaning up? I think I am. Sigh.

Counting down the days until the next weekend...6.5!