Exciting Weekend

We have had a very busy weekend!

Friday: We Voted! and slept over in midway at the Hoovers where went to "Cowboy Poetry" where we looked at all the booths and then watched the movie Fat Albert!

Saturday:  Our niece Gwen had a baptism! It was beautiful! Her dad Bryant held her under all the way to the ground to make sure and then she sprung out of the water.
afterwards we went to the Robertsons and had lunch and visited.

Then we drove home to provo and Andy, Dad and Mom Dickinson were in town. They all came over as well as Luke and Cathleen Sickles. We visited, played Dr. Mario, ate cookies, and dad fixed our electrical outlet! Thank you dad.

Then Mom and Dad Left and we played more Dr. Mario and Mario Kart and ate a big spagetti dinner. We then finished the night with Disco roller skating and arcade.

Sunday: 
We attended Paul and Kari's little Austin's Baby Blessing! It was a beautiful blessing. the testimony meeting was really neat  - the children dominated the speakers. Blake also bore his testimony. After church we went over to Kari's parents house and ate a lunch and visited with family!

Monday:
We found out that we are new aunt and uncles! David and Melissa had their new baby boy Heber!

Halloween

This Halloween we dressed up as Sleeping Beauty, Prince Phillip, and Flora, one of the Good Fairies (the Pink one).
I was able to make part of the costumes and it was fun. :)

Halloween night:

We went to one of our neighbors for homemade root beer and chilli dogs.
We went trick or treating in our neighborhood.

We attended the BYU Volleyball game where we were in the costume contest.
Lastly We came home and watch our characters in sleeping beauty the movie.

Our Rewards

we spotted our friends: Katellin and Joseph

cool costumes in the stands

the Volleyball Game

Prince Phillip and Flora at the game

She would cheer for the game

Fairy Flora

Announcing Elli in the costume contest

in the costume contest

We attended a Hoover Halloween party (The Saturday before):

Lucy came too!!

We carved pumpkins
played all sorts of halloween games:
-"mummy run"
-ghosts
-monster walk
We ate chilli and vampire blood

from Left to right: Heidi's, Elli's, Lucy's, Blake's

(In school Blake made a Electronic Pumpkin Light - so it was fun to watch his pumpkin blink green and red inside. )

We also did a few decorations around the house:

 

Starting New

Alot has been happening here with the Hoovers...

First of all last Friday we moved into our new home! (Our previous home turned into a all single girl home so it was time for us to move.) We know live north of campus near the temple on Timp view drive. We live in the basement of a house that is on a full acre of land (which includes apple orchard, peach trees, plum trees, hens, and occasionally horses. We got a good deal on the price and are able to work for money by mowing the lawns. Our basement is bigger than we've ever lived as it is more spacious and open.We have been unpacking all week and are almost done getting settled in - pictures to come!

This last Saturday Lisa came in town. Lisa/Abby, Paul/Kari/Austin, and Blake/Elli/ and I all got together for a visit and dinner. It was so fun because the cousins are so close in age and we are all in the same spot...first time parents!

Elli, Austin, Abby

We attended our new ward on Sunday and I really feel good about it. It was neat because in sacrament they are concentrating on teaching the scriptures and i have really been trying to master my scriptures more. This ward is very much a family ward, not as many young couples in it. We have a lot of BYU professors in the ward tho, so our teachers are top notch. I even saw that one of my students from when I taught sewing is in the ward - yay i know someone.

Sunday night My mom (Grandma Dickinson) and Luke drove into provo and spent the night at my house. It was awesome because I got to see Luke for the first time since he returned from his mission serving in the Philippians. Since they arrived I was able to Visit with mom, help Luke move in, and eat lunch with Luke.

Blake:

Blake and Elli at a Hoover Party

Monday was Blakes first day of School at BYU and first day at his 2 new jobs as a Teacher assistant for two professors! Way to go Blake. Its nice that his work is at school because he can do it all as one time - it just feels like a very full schedule. This week one of the professors he is a TA for is out of town so Blake has taken over the class and is teaching. He has taught the class to take apart and put a computer back together.
Blake's schedule is a balance of hard and fun. He is taking: Gymnastics, Electronics, Book of Mormon, World Dance, Computer Aid Drafting, Multicultural Education, Food preparation, and flexibility. In his flexibility class he gets to take a nap in half of it - pretty sweet.

Heidi:

Heidi and Elli in Sun Hats as Hoover party

It is crazy to me that I am staying home and not going to school...I am officially a Stay-at-home Mom! Whoo hoo dream accomplished!...well working on it :) This week has been unpacking, playing with Elli and planning for me. I really want to take this opportunity while I have more time to make things right for our home. I have been brainstorming on the things that are most important that I should be doing to set the right habits and environment of our home, a few of the things I have been scheduling and planning are: the basics: personal scripture study, family scripture study, personal and family prayer, and Family Home Evening - and making sure we don't miss or slack on them. Also planning fun things, dates, reading to Elli, Adding music to the home (guitar time, learn the piano, singing.), Education: learning new skills, I plan to still keep learning as I research subjects I want to learn, including: photography, parenting/ child development, budgeting, and pattern making for sewing.  I am setting up daily and weekly chores for myself to keep our home clean: such as make the bed, dishes, etc. I want to make sure I am studying for church too - for sunday school and R.S. I want to get an hour of genealogy in, work out, getting out of the house time, help and play with Elli, write in my journal/ blog etc. The lists goes on and I am still trying to figure out how to do everything as I am slowing adding in new things each day to my routine. I am really excited for this year and to tackle my goals.

Elli:

Elli 4.5 Months - Tummy Time

Elli is growing like crazy! I can't believe she is 4.5 months. She is such a great baby. I can really see her personality shine through. She is very smiley and people friendly. She definitely knows who mom and dad is though. This morning Elli got her 4 month shots and when she got the double shots in her legs she barely made a sound - the nurses were really impressed with her. It takes a while before Elli cries she usually tries to communicate to us through taking or face expression before she cries. I think she has a lot of trust in us and I am glad. She has been working on her tummy time - she has never really liked it but it getting better at it. As for rolling she has no interest in it - its a work in process. She does however LOVE to stand! She is always trying to sit up or stand up. She definitely has water skiing legs! She has also been starting to enjoy toys more as she is using her hands a lot more. She also likes to put things in her mouth - especially her hand - which were trying to teach her not to do. She is so patient and happy - That just defines Elli. She is going to be a great example to others. She has also really started to "talk" so will just gab and gab all day. it is so fun to watch her face expressions. She has been letting me cuddle with her and I just love that too - its so special that she loves being held by me and Blake. Everyone is constantly telling us that we don't know how good we have got it. Elli is such a cutie and we are so blessed to have her in our family.

Cousins

Baby Abby (4 months) and Baby Elli (3.5 months)

These girls were so fun to bring together! They are so close in age and going through the same things. I can't believe there is another cousin (Daniel) in between these two in age. It was really fun to see the similarities and differences. Some things that stood out was that they hold themselves with completely different muscles and sound so different. Abby is really high pitch and Elli is more low and regular. Abigale is rolling around and Elli is standing.

It was fun to see them interact as they stared each other down.

Elli is so lucky to have so many close cousins!

Blakes In the Dominican Republic!

Time Gone: a little over a week (10 days)........ Time Left: 4 Weeks to go! (26 days)

Well this isn't Blakes words, but its mine from what I have heard from him.

Blake left June 29 late Friday night. Elli and I saw him off at BYU as he joined a group of 13 (or so) other students. He is doing a study abroad in the Dominican Republic through BYU studying teaching. There he teaches every day Engineering to 6th and 7th graders. (more specifically pulleys and levers.)

This is really fun for Blake because he gets to not only teach but use his Spanish that he learned from the mission. Blake has only been out of the country once before this trip (to Mexico for our honeymoon) so its a pretty awesome experience for him to jump right in and experience another culture and country.Blake teaches a few hours each day in the schools. He says the students are all eager to learn which makes teaching that much better. He also says that the school seems like an old military base, as it is small and basically just a cement building with chairs and tables in it. He also gets to take the class outside to teach because their is more room.

Because Blake only teaches a few hours each day his group has been touring around the Dominican Republic a lot. somethings he has done includes:
-exercising with his roommates
-spending all day at the beach - body surfing ( every one came back really sun burnt)
-attended the temple
-drove around and toured the city
-checked out an old movie theater
-celebrated fourth of July by watching the fireworks on TV
-attends church - where he gets to translate
-plays the game "Bang" with his group
-videoing: Blake is in charge of making a documentary of the trip for his group so he is doing a lot of filming trying to capture the trip

 (Here they made a cake for a friends Birthday)

(Pretty Awesome! -Climbing up a coconut tree!)

some other interesting things:
-only half of the group that went speaks Spanish, so Blake is one of the dominate speakers. His teaching partner has taken Spanish one in school but that's it.
-He needs to be taking malaria pills to not get sick but its causing him to get a lot more sun burnt then he usually would (everyone is glad he brought the Aloe Vera)
-Its really hot and humid there
- he has had some awesome rain storms that don't last very long but are a huge down pour - pretty cool.
- we get to Skype every night

When I talk to Blake he just seems to be loving it! I'm so glad he is getting this awesome experience!

sewing

 This last week I got the opportunity to sew a lot more. I hemmed pants, turned pants in to shorts, altered clothes and made this skirt for Lucy :) I think it turned out great!

Elli's Baby Blessing - June 3th, 2012

The Blessing from Heavenly Father and Dad was very Beautiful. The spirit was very strong. She slept all the way until it was time for the blessing and was awake for the whole thing and then fell back to sleep once they returned back to their seat. The Uncles said that she really looked like she was enjoying the bouncing from the circle. 

Elli wore a Shawl made by Great Grandma Doris, a Blessing Dress made by mom (Heidi), a headband from Grandma Dickinson and a Bracelet from  Aunt Nicki and the Girls. She looked BEAUTIFUL!

The seats filled up with a lot of supporting family including great grandpa and grandma Hansen, Both sets of grandparents -Hoover and Dickinson. lots of uncles, aunts and cousins including: Paul and Kari, Nicki and Brad- Dominic, Jaron, Hudson, Megan, Laurena, Sonja, Heidi and Bryant -Gwen, Adel, Siena, Indi, Kody and Jenni - Ashton, Aden, Bryce and Stephanie- Brundal, Britten, Jersey, Wade, Kristi, Kayla, Jodie, 2nd cousin -Breanne, friends Anna and Katelyn. and of course mom and dad were there too. ELLI YOU ARE LOVED!!

After Grandpa finished running in the starlight parade Saturday night- Grandpa and Grandma Dickinson took off late into night and drove the long drive to get to Provo arriving an hour before the church started and did the long drive back as soon as the picnic was over just so they could attend her blessing! How awesome!

after church we had a picnic at the local park with the family. Lots of great food and fun. everyone wanted to hold Elli. The cousins enjoyed playing on the play structure, playing karate, and doing a dance show for the adults.