Daddy's football buddy

Elli is ready for BYU football now. She likes to sit and watch the games with her daddy.






Thanks Keri for the darling BYU shirt. It is Wayne's favorite shirt now. I went out and picked up a blue headband and pink flower to go with it, and it is soooooo cute all together!!!!

For Kristy

Aunt Kristy has been spoiling Elli with some darling clothes. So here she is showing off her cute things from Aunt Kristy. We don't get to see Kristy's family as often as we'd like because they live about 4 hours away, but we sure do love them! This dress is the sweetest little feminine thing! Elli has now outgrown it which is a good thing, but a sad thing too. (She is only longer and leaner. We keep waiting for the chubb to come back.)

I love this outfit! Elli can still wear this one because she has such a skinny waist. I love the pink and brown combo that is so popular right now. This outfit even has a pink coat with brown fur around the hood. Sooooo cute!!! (The hippo Elli is playing with is one of her favorite toys. It was given to her by the NICU staff the day we brought her home.)

This is such a fun shirt! It looks so cute with jeans. I had Elli wear to church once with a really cute denim skirt that was given to us by my sister. The only problem with the denim skirt was that it was hard to pin around her tiny waist, so it kept falling down around her ankles. Kind of a problem. As cute as it was, I had to put that one away. But we still love the shirt, and it works fine with some of the jeans I've found for skinny beans like Elli.I could take so many more pictures of the sweetest little outfits that Elli has been given by family and friends. Elli and I have both been spoiled! I could say that in almost every picture I take Elli is wearing something that was a gift from our loved ones. We do have so many wonderful friends and family that take good care of us!!! Thanks Aunt Kristy for these fun things!!!

more birthday pics

Woo Hoo, I found my camera chord. So here are the rest of the birthday pictures. We are singing Happy Birthday in this one, you can tell that Ben (in yellow) and Bradley are saying, "you". Notice how safe we kept Elli from the candle flames. Yeah, she is about to grab Bradley's candle. Good job Tami!

They just finished singing and are about to blow out their candles.

Here is Wayne with his mission mom, Sister Margaret Costa. We were thrilled to have them join our party. They even read my mind with the gift they gave her. I had been looking for one of those pop up toys. You know, the ones that have 6 different nobs and then an animal will pop out. I couldn't find one, so I gave up. They saved the day for sure.
Here we have all the grandpas. My dad (Grandpa Svedin) is holding Elli in the middle. Sitting on the left is Great Grandpa Svedin, and then Great Grandpa Stocking on the right. I guess that I should have been in the picture instead of taking it so that we could have a 4 generation photo. I will have to get that next time.

She seemed a little puzzled at the whole thing. Still thinking.........Just taking it all in.
Here is Wayne with Both Elder and Sister Costa. This was the first time my family met the Costa's, and they fell in love with them. They really are some of the nicest people around. They had been living in Columbia for a while, so having them close again is truly a blessing. Here is Ian showing us that you really don't need to be fancy with babies. Just give them the wrapping paper or the box and they are happy. We really had a wonderful 1st birthday!!

Birthday photos

I got these photos of Elli's birthday from my sister's blog. I'm still looking for my chords so that I can download the photos I took, as soon as I do I will post them.


Elli was just a bit overwhelmed at the attention. This was just after each of the cousins blew out their one candle. They all thought it was fun to be able to blow out a candle. Noah even blew out Paige's candle while we were singing happy birthday. What a funny kid!

Here they are getting ready to light candles and sing. Starting on the left is Ben, Isaac, Bradley, Kristen, Josh, Aaron, Elise, Noah (already sampling the frosting), and Paige. I love that Elise is the only one aware of what we were trying to do. She has a great smile!

Here is cute Ian waiting for his cupcake. By the time he was done his face was chocolate from his chin to his ears.

Taylor is sharing his cup with Clara. I look forward to the time that Elli can get down and play with her cousins. Because of the cupcake messes, these 3 all took a bath together. It was so cute to have them all in the tub playing. Elli just isn't strong enough to sit up yet, so she missed out this time. Hopefully it won't be much longer before she can join in all the fun with them.

Sweet Reunion

Now that Elli is one I thought it would be fun to go visit all our friends at the hospital. The NICU staff played a fundamental role in Elli being as healthy as she is now, so we wanted to thank them. They couldn't believe how big she is. They all commented on how lovely her eyes are. (She really does have beautiful eyes.) We saw Chris and Amber, 2 of Elli's primary nurses. Don and Mark, 2 of our favorite respiratory therapists. Jenny was one of the neonatal nurse practitioners that did rounds on Elli a lot, plus several other nurses, doctors and therapists that we became close to during our 4 and 1/2 month stay. It really was fun to show them how far she has come.

The sweetest thing that happened was her reaction to Dr. Stoddard. We knew him before we ever knew we were going to have Elli. He was our Stake President in our last stake, and Wayne served for 2 years with him as a high counselor. So when we knew Elli was coming early, we told my OB that we wanted him to be called, and so he was. Dr. Stoddard was there with a team to do everything necessary to help Elli survive and thrive. We haven't seen Dr. Stoddard since January when we brought Elli home. He was in a bit of a hurry to get to a meeting with all the other doctors, but he stopped when he saw Wayne standing there holding Elli. Wayne had his back to Dr. Stoddard, so he had to turn around to say hello. Just as he did Elli smiled her biggest smile and opened her arms to him. He smiled back and leaned into her and she gave him a very slobbery kiss on the cheek. The thing is, Elli doesn't do that. Every once in a while she will do that to us, but not to people she doesn't really know. Her typical reaction is to stare people down for several minutes, then she might smile and coo at them (which she did to all the other NICU staff that she had seen up to that point), but she never reacts so warmly in an instant. It was so sweet and tender. I am so glad we saw him and that Elli was so happy to see him.

I have thought about her reaction since I came home and wondered about it. I know that even though her body is tiny, she has a spirit inside her that isn't so tiny. I wondered if her reaction yesterday was her grown up spirit recognizing the man that made her long awaited and anticipated life on earth possible. It seemed like her spirit just reached out and said, "thank you for making it possible for me to have my experience on earth." I don't know if that is even possible, but that is what the moment felt like to me and to Wayne. It will be a treasured moment for both of us.