My Right Hand Girl

Ellie is one busy girl these days. She is my right hand girl! Everywhere I go, she goes. If i'm in the kitchen cooking, she's cooking. If i'm pulling clothes out of a drawer, she's pulling ALL the clothes out of the drawers. Finally, as you can see below, if i'm putting on make-up, she's usually pretending to put on make up, except somehow she snuck out my mascara and went to work. Except the second I finished scrubbing it off her face, I went over the sink to rinse my hands and before I knew it she was 'swirling' hers in the toilet. I know, nasty. But looking back now all I can do is laugh. I love my little girl.

The mark on her forehead happened earlier in the day when she was riding a little bike at Grandma Sherrills and ended up falling onto Lava Rock. Crazy Ellie.

Victorious, Mitch Dorius!

I have to give a shout out to my awesome husband! Mitch's company had a contest last month. The Top inside sells rep for the month of April would win an IPad! Mitch buckled down and went to work! Needless to say, he did it! We are the proud owners of the newest IPad! Great Job Mitchell!

Day 2- IRONMAN

It does not take much to get me to a big racing event. I LOVE racing day. It's even better if all I have to do is cheer and enjoy the competitive atmosphere. The vendors, the people watching, and of coarse the athletes! Ali is one tough cookie for completing the Ironman. You really can't help but tear up when you see these guys finishing this thing. She started the race at 7 in the morning and finished at 8:01 at night. For those who don't know an Ironman consists of 2.6 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and a full Marathon 26.2 miles. In other words....Insane. While we were waiting for Ali to come transistion from the bike to the run we spent our time hanging out at the city square. Naturally, Ellie had a great time playing in the water.

Way to go Ali!

St. George Trip Part 1

Mitch and I took a much needed vacation to St. George last weekend. Our reason for vacation for getting away was two fold, 1)Go to the pool and get some rays and 2) Watch my former track teammate Ali T. complete an IRONMAN. Everday was 88 degrees so we spent our time in the pools, rivers, streams or fountains!

The first day we were there we went on an awesome hike up Red Cliffs Canyon. As you can see everywhere we went Ellie did too! She was a trooper!
The red cliffs hike was such a blast. Mitch could waid through most of it with his super long legs, but it was a little too deep for my legs, so I took the dry route! At the top we put my swimsuit top on Ellie and she splashed her way through the water! What a trooper!

After dinner that night Mitch took Ellie on a hike that overlooks St. George, he called itt he buttcrack because of this thin crack you are supposed to squeeze through. Needless to say, I didn't attempt it! But the view was beautiful!

Little Ears

El has had a tough start of the year in regards to her little ears. Since January she has had 5 ear infections with about half of them being double ear infections. So after her last dose of ear infections our pediatrician referred us to an ENT to check it out. After our appt. we walked upstairs to see if the ENT could slip us into his schedule. Luckily, they could and he said he wanted tubes in her ears by the following week! So in we went on Friday for surgery!

Poor Ellie had no idea what she was signed up for. She was a wild woman! She thought the giant metal crib was just about the coolest trampoline she had ever been on. Thus, the fuzzy picture because we could not get her to stop running and jumping in the crib.

Here's Ellie after surgery. She was not doing much jumping around at this point. But after about 2 hours and some food, she was right back to her same crazy self! Now we just have to figure out how to keep water out of her ears!

Should I be worried? Absolutely!

Ellie's little personality seems to be coming out more and more each day. In the last week or so her vocabulary has completely exploded thus, she can communicate MORE of her personality! Her word of the month is "No!". And yes she knows what it means. Last week I found her sitting against the door (her 'hiding' place') eating a bag of Skittles. Where she got them from, I have no idea. She had Skittle slobber all down her chin, as well as her clothes. When I walked over to her she looked up at me, furrowed her brow, pointed her finger at my face and said, "No, No!". Looks like I need to change my parenting. Instead of proving her right and taking the skittles away, I sat down next to her and said, "Can I please have one?" She smiled and gave me a handful of wet Skittles. Awesome kid. Awesome.

She also lets us know how ridiculous we are by copying everything we do. The other day I caught her doing one of my best kitchen dance moves. It consisted of a swing of the arms with a bounce at the knees. Really, do I look like that to you? I thought. Probably El, Probably.

Just for recording purposes these are all the words she can say right now: "No", More, please, Thank you, here you go, mommy, daddy, Ellie, Indy, Grandma. Pretty good El. Your already getting a little to mouthy and your only 16 months (speaking of which, I've thought for the past month that Ellie was going to be 18 m. in may. I've been counting down the days to nursery (literally), until on Sunday Mitch informed me that I was bad at math and that she was really 16.5 months. It was a bad Sunday for me.)

P.S. A quick note. One of my neighbors that I grew up is going through a rough spell right now. Her name is Stacey Love, Her little girl was just diagnosed with Leukemia. If you can, keep her family in her prayers. They have a tough road ahead. Here is a link to her blog. Fayesfight.blogspot.com.

Family Pictures!

The Dorius' family took pictures again. :) (I have taken more family pictures in the past 4 years i've been married then I have EVER taken of the Lifferth group!). We had the amazing Ryan Thompson take the pictures for us and they turned out great! Have a look! I'm taking a poll for which family picture to print. So Vote!

How he made 14 Grandkids under the age of 11 look at the same time is beyond me!

Vote #1 (above)

Vote #2

Vote #3

Vote #4