Ellie's Baby Blessing

Cassidy blessed Ellie at church on Sunday & a lot of our family was able to come and support us. I didn't get too many pictures on my camera (thank goodness for grandmas, so I know there's more pictures!) but here's some of the cute ones!

Great-Granddad Harry meeting Miss Ellie
(and Cass in an awkward photobomb!) 

 

 

Cousin Will tasting Ellie's Dress!

 

Great-Grandpa Johnson loving on his babies!

 

Cousins Walker & Caitlyn

 

Great-Grandma Carma, Grandpa Morrell, Ellie, me, & Cass

 

Auntie Jordyn can't get enough of Baby Ellie!

 

Proud Grandma and Grandpa! 

 

Jenn & Will, me & Ellie

 

Cassidy's Graduation

Cassidy graduated from SUU this past week and had three days of celebratory, ceremonious events! On Thursday the College of Humanities and Social Sciences had their award ceremony where Cass received his Certificate of International Relations. 

receiving his award &
being teased by a professor for turning in a paper late

showing off

Friday was the commencement ceremony for the whole university, and since it was just speakers, Cass attended by himself. That's also when they moved their tassels and became official graduates.

Chris, Pyper, and Nathan came down Friday night and Pyper loved having Cass play with her in the pool! I was just boring and sat on the edge though; it was so hot in there! Plus Ellie was sleeping in her carseat and I wanted to be able to hear her if she woke up. 

Saturday was individual college commencement. In the morning Cass got his AAS in Information Technology, and in the afternoon he got his BA in Political Science. Ellie was asleep for the ceremony, but she woke up as soon as it ended and wanted to eat, so she wasn't very pleasant for the pictures! 

 

receiving his diploma and shaking hands

 

Congrats on your graduation, honey! So proud of you and love you!

 

Easter

So I guess a lot of babies in Cedar get jaundice, so they tested Ellie twice for it in the hospital and wanted us to bring her back in on Saturday to get tested again. After we took her for her jaundice test, we ran to Wal-Mart real fast (yup, I'm that mom!) to get her socks and small blankets since we were a little unprepared for her birth. While we were there, we saw that they had the Easter Bunny out, so we had to get a picture!

Then on Sunday we went to church, just to sacrament, so I could lead the music. And I felt like I should really go to church since I had missed a ton because I was miserable at the end of my pregnancy! So here's some cute pictures of Ellie in her cute dress: 

We tried to take a picture after church, but Ellie was hungry so we gave up.

Happy Late Easter! 

St George Weekend

This past weekend, Jordyn had a dance competition down in St George, so I invited myself a long to play at watch Jord dance. Jordyn did a great job at her dances; she's getting better every time! It was fun to watch her dance and spend time with her and Mom, even though they wore me out! By the time we got back to the hotel Saturday night my feet and ankles were swollen and I felt like I could hardly move! Then I slept most of Sunday . . . 

Entertaining herself with lip gloss at Chilis

 

Jordyn in her "Hound Dog" costume

 

 

Making silly faces at Chuck-a-Rama

Our Life Lately

So I'm a slacker blogger lately, but life has been pretty chill. We had a super romantic date where we walked down to the Taco Bell for the new Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos. They weren't as good as we thought they were going to be though.

Then, last weekend, or two weekends ago, really, Cassidy, cousin Caitlyn, and I trekked up to Flowell for the farewell of the latest Elder Swallow. Joel was called to Manchester in England. He gave an awesome talk and will be an awesome missionary. And it was great to see the Swallow side of the family. We played "family rook" for hours. I'm not very good but it's fun! 

This past week was Cass's spring break, so he was able to catch up on some work, school work, and rest. Now he's gotten his mo-jo back and is ready to finish this semester and graduate! Speaking of finishing the semester, we have lots of options now for post-SUU life. Cass has been accepted into the Masters of Education Administration program at the U and University of Nebraska, as well as the Masters of Public Administration program at the U and BYU. He even got a scholarship to BYU! We're just waiting to hear back from the U for a few things, and then we can make our decision! 

So that's life for us right now. Pretty routine for the next few weeks til Baby Girl gets here! 

Pinterest Success!

Lately, I have been trying to make new things for dinner. I get bored of what I always make & I had a lot of recipes on my "Recipes to Try" board on pinterest that I just hadn't tried yet. And every time I asked Cassidy what he wanted for dinner, he said he was good with anything. So I finally made him pick some things from my pinterest that looked good and today we ate Slow Cooker Apricot Chicken from www.sixsistersstuff.com. 

Guys! It was soooo good! I used chicken tenders instead of breasts, so I just kind of made up the number of how many I put in. 8 tenders equals 6 breasts, right? And instead of pre-mixing the sauce, I just layered in on the chicken. Nor did I cook on high for one hour and then put it on low. I just cooked it on low the whole time. And ya know what? It was great. We loved it. I think next time I'll add more Apricot Preserves or brown sugar; the primary taste was more onion-y and we wouldn't have identified it as "Apricot Chicken" without the recipe title, but it was tasty! Both Cass and I liked it and it's definitely a repeat dinner! It was easy and yummy. We'll be making this again sometime! 

Happy Valentine's Day!

So here I am, 10:30 at night, sitting alone on my couch watching Pretty Little Liars, texting my husband. But it's okay, we had our Valentine's date yesterday, you know, before and after his work :)  You see, this morning I drove Cass to the Cedar airport so he could be flown out to the U. He's been accepted into their Masters of Education program and they flew him out to get a tour of Salt Lake and for interviews for an assistantship. It's super nice that they flew him out, all the way to SLC!! So last night we went to Ninja for dinner. We had a super yummy shrimp sushi roll with a sweet chili sauce and then I had the beef yakisoba. It was delicious. Like, so freaking good!! Also, I got Cass the cutest Buzz and Woody card, since we're best friends. It was a pretty good make-shift Valentine's day. Hope you all had a great one too!