HENDRICKS REUNION

Quad riding with Uncle Justin

Ellie, Ethan, Bella & Isaac

This was the cabin we stayed in (7 bedroom, 7 bath) It was so nice!

Talent Night, Ellie's talent was dancing. Here she is busting a move. You go girl!

Grandma and Bella

Ellie and cousin Ethan were put on dishes duty one night:) What big helpers they are.

Jared, Joel and Sam

This could be scary:)

Jared, Brande and their beautiful family

Cousin Carter and El enjoying a nice stroll along the trail

This was our backyard of the cabin. Isn't it beautiful?

The end of June we were able to visit Joel's side of the family in Idaho for our yearly Hendricks family reunion. We rented a cabin for a few days in a place called Island Park and had such a blast. The scenery was beautiful and ended up being the perfect getaway. I liked that we were all so called "trapped" in the cabin and able to spend some quality time together. Ellie was so excited to be with her cousins and enjoy the outdoors. This is a family tradition I definitely hope to do again. Thanks to Joel's parents, Sam and Joelene for this great reunion. We love you guys!

OUR LITTLE FISH

So far this summer we have spent many days in the swimming pool, we cant seem to get enough. Ellie is quite the fish and could spend days on end swimming if I would let her. I will have to say she tends to be a little over confident when it comes to swimming on her own, which scares me to death. But she's getting better! She wants to be like the big kids sooo bad. Every once in a while I have to stop her and make her take a break just so I know shes getting enough air, ha! What a determined little girl she is.

FIVE MONTHS AND COUNTING...

Finally there's a little bump showing through. I love it when I actually feel prego rather than that beginning stage where I just feel fat. Nothing fits, yet I'm not big enough to actually fit into maternity clothes.
No more nausea... so I'm doing great.
I'm feeling this little guy move all the time and Joel got to feel him for the first time the other night.
The other day my stomach growled pretty loud and El asked if baby brother was alright? It was the cutest thing ever, even though I'm not sure she even knows what a "brother" is.

I'll count it though!:)

ARIZONA SCIENCE CENTER

Ellie climbing a wall that was suppose to weigh you as if you were standing at a diagonal. Climbing sounded like a lot more fun!

Joel got a little sick on this one

This was a mind game where you had to relax your mind and it would make a ball move.
On the outside El looked as if she was relaxed, but watching the ball told a whole other story. Apparently her mind was racing, imagine that!:)

Shooting B-ball with a magnified glass that altered your shot. It was a lot harder than it looks.

DRUMROLL....

Its a BOY! Went to the doctor on Wednesday and it was confirmed, we're having a baby boy. To be honest I haven't put much thought into what we might have because Joel and I just assumed it was going to be a girl. For some reason, we've been convinced that we'd only ever have girls. So when the doc told us it was a boy, you could imagine we were both a lil shocked. I had to ask "really"? He said "yep, I'm 100%sure"! So much for mothers intuition, Ha! I'm so very excited for this little guy to come into our lives. The baby looks healthy and is doing great. We feel so blessed. So much for taking the easy route with already having everything for a girl. Now I get to do it all over again, yay! :)

FUN AT THE FARM

There is always something new going on at my parent's house. We call it "the farm" because at times it feels like one with all the animals and how crazy it can get. Here are a few of our new friends we've met...

My mom was cleaning out our boat the other day to get it ready for the summer. She lifted up one of the cushions and found these 3 little kittens tucked under the life vests. They were pretty dehydrated and looked liked they had been abandoned. So my mom took them in. She hates cats but couldn't bare letting them die. She's been nursing them back to health and Ellie couldn't be happier to help. She gets to feed them with a bottle and everything! She's quite the little mommy. What more could a little girl want? They're doing a lot better, so if anyone wants a kitten, give us a call:)
Our friend Mr. Toad was found hopping around the chicken coop one night. He scared Joel half to death, which was pretty funny. Joel couldn't even pick him up because apparently he's afraid of frogs, so who do you think picked it up? Me! ;) Of course! Ellie could have played with him all night and was very reluctant to let him go. Lets just hope she doesn't get any warts! Ha!

SWIMLESSONS

Swim season is here and Ellie is quite the little fish. She loves the water and can't get enough of it. My mom, Tarryn and I are all teaching and Ellie gets to swim with all of us. She's very social and especially loves all the fun little friends she gets to meet. She does the worst with me as far as following directions, but I love teaching her. She always comes up smiling. Were looking forward to a fun-filled summer with a lot of swimming.

DADDYS GIRL

El is quite the daddy's girl. Oh how she loves him. When he's home she follows him around everywhere and wants to do everything he's doing. She will always ask, "Dad, what you doing?" It's too cute. The other day I caught them taking a nap together and it was the sweetest thing ever, even though my husband tends to sleeps with his mouth open and snore.;)

EXTRA PROTECTION

We were cleaning the garage the other weekend and Ellie found some fun things to play with. You never know when you might need a little extra protection.

POTTY TRAINED! YAY!

Its been a while since we've updated our blog, so here's a little catching up on what we've been up to lately. Ellie is offically potty trained. Shes been trained for about a 2 months now, but I just had to share this pic. This was Easter weekend and we were heading up to Joseph City to visit Joel's oldest brother and his family. We bought a potty seat and El thought it was the coolest thing that she got to use it outside. Sometimes I think she would say she had to go just to be outside and use it, but really didn't need to.