It's been a good week. Here are some pictures showing what we've been up to.

Saturday morning, Valentine's Day, was a little "cold", so Ana Elisa and daddy decided to snuggle up in a blanket to keep warm.

Emerson got the camera out on Sunday morning before church, Ana Elisa was excited to be all dressed up, so it made for some fun pictures.

Emerson went to play soccer on Thursday evening, so Ana Elisa I had a little girls night together. We went to the park and then came back home for our favorite treat...ice cream!! Ana Elisa was excited that I let her eat somewhere other than her high chair.



Ana Elisa has been wanting to eat at the table with us for some time now. Lately she's been climbing up on the chairs with her books to read at the table. So, we finally bought her a booster seat and are retiring her high chair. In honor of her milestone, we made homemade strawberry waffles and had a nice Saturday morning breakfast together. She loves her new booster--she feels so grown up in it :)





Ana Elisa decided that the pots and pans, her books, and anything else she could find should all go for a ride in her stroller.





She knows how to mess up the house, but she also knows how to clean it up! She's always helping me out around the house. I don't know what I would do without my little helper.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

This picture is of Ana Elisa on Valentine's Day last year.

We had our ward Valentine's Day party tonight. It was so much fun, they played games that kept us laughing the whole evening. Unfortunately, we didn't take our camera, so we didn't get to take pictures. They played the newlywed game, and even though we didn't get called up to play in front of everyone, we whispered our answers to each other. We would have done really well if we'd played for real! It's so nice to have someone know you so well that sometimes you wonder if they know you better than you know yourself! Marriage is so wonderful!!

Here is a picture of Ana Elisa this Valentine's Day. She got some new Dora slippers (that are about five sizes too big. She has to walk around like she has skis on, but she loves them!!)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

Lemons

It's lemon season here in Arizona, and anyone who really knows me knows that I love lemons and limes. So, thanks to a fantastic neighbor here, we have had an abundance of lemons. On Thursday, Brooke, a sister in our ward that I visit teach, invited us to her parent's house to pick lemons, oranges, and grapefruit. She told us to get as much as we wanted. It was heaven on earth! They had so many lemons!

Ana Elisa helped pick the lemons and the oranges. She loves helping out and felt like a big girl out there picking fruit with mommy.



She did make sure to get some play time in while we were there.



And to eat an orange...



She spent a good amount of time playing near the fence that surrounds the swimming pool. They had the sprinklers on in there and she thought it was funny to wait for the water to come around and splash her. (It was 81 degrees that day, so I didn't worry too much about her getting a little wet). I wish I'd had my camera out the first time that water hit her, the face she made as she turned around and ran was priceless!


The past few nights we've made lemonade from the lemons we picked. Ana Elisa has become a pro at making it. Last night I said to Emerson, "Look, daddy, Ana Elisa is helping mommy make lemonade." Emerson laughed and said, "It looks more like mommy is helping Ana Elisa make lemonade!"



She was so proud of her lemonade! She drank a lot, and kept telling us to drink more. I have to say, it was really delicious! We have ourselves a chef in the making here!!

Superbowl Party

Apparently, since we now live in Arizona, we are officially Cardinals fans.

So, in honor of our new team, we went all out and had a Superbowl party. We had three other families over to watch the game at our house. We grilled some hot dogs and everyone else pitched in with the chips, dips, salsa, desserts, etc. We even had Superbowl plates, napkins, and tablecloths. It was great...except for the fact that our team lost :(
It's a toss up, though, to know who had more fun--the adults, or the kids. Our friends have a jumping house (or whatever those things are called) that they brought over for the kids to play on--needless to say it was a hit. Ana Elisa was a bit scared at first, (especially since the front of it has a huge Winnie the Pooh head looking down at you as you climb in) but after about 15 minutes, she finally got brave and climbed in.

After that, it was almost impossible to get her out. Other than taking a break to eat and play with a few of her toys and mini-swing set, Ana Elisa spent almost the entire Superbowl bouncing around in that thing. She fell asleep sometime during the 4th quarter (you know, around the time that the screaming and excitement of the game got pretty intense), and she slept through the whole thing. I think we need to get ourselves one of those bounce things, maybe she'd sleep through the night more often!! :P

I think we can all agree that our Superbowl Sunday this year beats last year's. We had just moved to Phoenix a month before and had finished our corporate housing time limit. We hadn't found a house (partly because we still hadn't sold our house in Salt Lake) and there were no hotels available because the Superbowl was being held here in Phoenix. We had no family or friends here, so staying with someone wasn't an option, either. We were lucky enough to have a cousin let us borrow her empty house for the month (thank you again, Jamie!!!). We moved in on Saturday with our rented futon and refrigerator and were camping out with no internet and no TV. While the Superbowl was going on, we took advantage of the fact that there was no traffic out and we drove around neighborhoods looking for a house. We've come a long way since last February!!