Christmas 2007

Ellie was soooo excited to be Mary this year in our annual Christmas Nativity.
Mike was Joseph, and little Aiden got be our baby Jesus. He was even wrapped in swaddling clothes. This is a Packer tradition, and everyone gets to participate. It is really fun, and helps us remember the meaning of Christmas!


Here Ellie is with her cousins Abby, & Hannah at the Runolfson Christmas Party.
They all got new pj's from Grandma Great.
It is fun to have cousins the same age!

Ellie got to see Santa 3 times this year.
Here she is with him at our ward Christmas party.She always told Santa that she wanted a Pet Shop Dr.

Ellie loved opening presents! She even helped me with mine!
She was very thankful for everything she got.
She would thank us over and over and tell us how much she loved every gift she got.

Here she is with her gifts from Santa.
She rushed past everything else and found her Pet Shop Dr.
She asked for it almost every day for three months.
It's a good thing Santa found one, or Ellie would have been upset.

I have noticed that there are only photos of Ellie on this blog.
Really, I am always the one taking the pictures, so you never see me.
I will try to remedy that and get some photos of all of us posted.

Happy Birthday Aiden!

Aiden Michael Barneck has joined the family!
He came December 3, 2007 at 10:47 pm.
He is 7 lbs 2 ozs and 18.5 inches long.
Here is Michelle, the proud mother.

Grandma is so thrilled to have another grandbaby!

Papa loves to have another boy in the family!

Aunt Jenni and Ellie are the most excited of all!
Ellie can't stop telling us how cute Aiden is.
She is thrilled to have a cousin and thinks he is perfect!

Lots to Be Thankful For

Ellie had to go to see the pediatric cardiologist for her heart murmur. She got a little wrried during the EKG, but was very brave! The dr said she has an innocent murmur and it is nothing to worry about. We went to see him the day before Thanksgiving and that gave us something great to be thankful for!

Here is Ellie in her recent visit to Santa! I'd say it was much more successful than in years past when she decided she didn't really like Santa that much. This year she is determined to get herself a Pet Shop Dr. She asks everyday if Santa is watching her.

Ellie went with her friends to see Santa at the mall. Here are the kids with their antlers.


Ellie got all dressed up for a friend's birthday party and she looked so cute!
She wanted to be Snow White with a red headband with a bow on the top with her hair down and curly at the bottom. She was very specific!

I thought this was a cute photo! Every night when dad tucks Ellie in to bed they have make-up stories. They both were their crowns and she is Princess Ellie and he is King Jud. She LOVES his stories!

More Halloween

I got a few more photos of Ellie on halloween from someone at Daddy's work.

She looks so cute, I had to post them!

In action...hopping around the office!

I got a few more photos of Ellie on halloween from someone at Daddy's work.
She looks so cute, I had to post them!

Halloween!!!

We had a great Halloween! I love that Ellie does not want to be in the popular costume of the year. She did not want to be a Disney Princess like every other 3 year old girl. Oh no! She went for the originality award. She was a kangaroo! Not easy to find the costume, but very cute! She wore it to our ward trunk-or-treat and was soooo cute! The only problem...all covered up, some peole thought she was a boy. I couldn't have that, so I added a little something extra to her costume...a big, pink, girly bow! Then she was sure to tell everyone we met that she had a bow on so people wouldn't think she was a boy.
She had a great time at Daddy's work trick-or-treating. She got to see Dad, Amy and Lisa all in one shot. She also loaded up on candy! She was sure to ask everyone if they had any candy at their desk. She was working it though. She would say trick-or-treat and hop around like a kangaroo saying, "boing, boing, boing". She was the hit of the office!

We spent the evening with family at my brother, Josh's house. Ellie loves to trick-or-treat with her cousins! They have a great time together. Here is the proof...

Even Grandma & Papa got dressed up for the occasion!

Ellie & Alysa! Ellie adores Alysa and loves to do anything with her!
(Notice the bandaid on Ellie's forehead...no injury, she's just back into the whole bandaid thing.)

Here they are after a bath with matching jammies!

Here are all the cousins together. Caleb as Obi-wan (yes, I did have to look up how to spell that), Mike as Dr. Black ( or some other unnamed scary guy who dresses in black and paints his face), Alysa as a beautiful princess, and Ellie as a girl kangaroo. What a group!

Fun Fall

We have had so much fun in the last few weeks. We have way too many photos to post, and I forgot to take my camera with me to half of the fun things we did. Here is our latest update!

We went to the pumpkin patch with Beth, Adam, Aubrey, & Jacob. The girls had a great time.

They picked out pumpkins...

They got to ride horses...Ellie's horse was Twister and Aubrey's was Fred...They went around a few times and loved it!They ran through the hay maze about 8 times. It was a very fun day.

We went to the Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point with Deb & Ashly. They had all kinds of carnival games to play. My daughter, the pitcher...

What goes up...

Must come down!And, another pony ride! This time on Elvis.

We had a fun trip to the park with Ellie's friend McKenna!
We all got sunburned because Mom didn't think to put any sunscreen on.

General Conference weekend we spent at Grandma & Papa's. We took a trip up the canyon to see the leaves and take photos. Ellie and Jud crossed the creek and I thought it was a perfect photo op!

My little sis, Lisa, got engaged! She is getting married in Feb to Ryan. We think he is all right...just kidding! We think he is great! Here they are!

Dad ran his marathon up in Logan on September 18. He finished in under 5 hrs, which was his goal for his first marathon! Here he is at the finish line with Ellie, she was sooo proud!

She even helped him stretch out his muscles after his long run.

Here is the crew! Jud, brother-in-law Nathan, sister Kristen, & brother Jason.
They all ran...I took the photos!

We went to the State Fair! Ellie's favorite thing there is "Little Hands on the Farm". She has asked multiple times to go back, but we will have to wait until next year.
She picked some apples...

Gassed up her tractor...

Mom & Ellie are FFA...

She milked a cow...
(which is on my 101 Things to Do Before I Die List, but I want a real cow!)

We celebrated Peach Days in Brigham with our family. Dad, Amy, & Bob ran the 5K.

It was Dad's warmup for the marathon.

Ellie crossed the finish line with Dad!She also got to ride the fire truck in the Kid Parade!We have had so much fun this fall already, and there is a lot more to come. We have Halloween and parties and all kinds of fun things coming our way.

We had our Packer family reunion up in Huntsville and spent a couple of days at Pineview Resevoir. It was great fun! Besides a bad case of the flu being passed around we all managed to enjoy ourselves. Here are Ellie, Alysa, and I getting ready to be pulled behind the boat. Alysa wanted slower and Ellie wanted faster, but neither of them like the big waves.As part of our reunion we got to go see my little sister, Lisa, in her ballroom concert. Ellie was the hit of the show. During the really quiet part of Lisa's foxtrot, she yelled "HI Lisa!" The entire audience started laughing. Now Ellie is determined to be a ballroom dancer. She has her partner picked out too. Whitney, better buy Rocco some self tanner and some dancin' shoes!

We took a relly fun trip to the zoo! It was the perfect weather, & Ellie had some of her favorite people with her! Here is Aunt Michelle with her namesake, Ellie Michelle, standing by the cute brown bear.Ellie & Rocco are using the unbrellas to guard themselves from the sprinkles we got. It was great, they cooled it off enough that we weren't toasting and the animals were pretty active.
Ellie got to play with cousin Dalton from Maryland. he was here for almost a month. They seem to have a love/hate relationship, or maybe like brother and sister. She is always excited to have him around!
All of Ellie's cousins were together, which doesn't happen very often. They were very good to act like birds when I asked them to. Caleb is some weird kind of bird!
We had a great time! We miss Ang, Matt, Kirsten, & Dalton now that they have returned home to Maryland. It is one of the highlights of our year when they get to come visit! We love you guys!

Ellie's friend, Aubrey got some new kittens (Cinderella & Belle). Ellie just loves to play with them. Thanks Beth...now we don't have to get Ellie a pet!Surpirse!!!! Adam & Jud are kitty lovers too!