Brian Regan

For Christmas, we, along with our siblings, gave our parents tickets to go see the comedian, Brian Regan. Then Mitch and I decided we didn't want to miss out, so we got two more tickets and called it "our gift to ourselves." We just couldn't pass up the opportunity!

What a great Christmas gift! We all laughed until we cried. I don't know about our parents, but Mitch and I were both complaining all night about how bad our faces hurt from laughing so much. Seriously.

If you don't know who Brian Regan is, then you are missing out! He is hilarious! I love that he doesn't have to use crude language or offensive topics to be a successful comedian. He is just genuinely funny. Here is one of my favorite Brian Regan bits ever:

Swimming, Yay!

Well, swimming lessons are over. Layla had a blast! In fact, the last time we went to swimming, we walked in the doors to the gym and she said, "Swimming, yay!!!" She was so very excited! She cried when we made her get out, and she talked to everyone in the locker room and said, "Hi! Swimming, baby, ya!" She is such a social butterfly and I love it!

We took the video camera for her first and last lessons and I put together a little video, which I'm sure only the grandparents will care to watch. (Especially since it's not that great. It was my first attempt, after all.) Mammy and Bopa Miles came to her last lesson and had fun watching. I was glad they were there to video tape since Mitch was at Scouts. The swim teacher gave us a picture of Layla underwater that she took with her water-proof camera, as well as a card showing everything Layla learned. I included both in this video.

Overall, I'd say the lessons were good. She got more exposure to the water, learned that it's okay to go underwater, and learned how to hold onto the edge of the pool all by herself. On the other hand, she hated the teacher, and cried every time we made her float on her back. Also, she will not jump into the pool, despite my best efforts to force her into it. Ha, ha. She usually sits down first and then slides in. That's no fun! Guess we need to work on a few things next time around.

After this experience, I'd say we will either start swim lessons earlier with our next kid, like when he's (hoping for a boy next) a baby, or wait until he's older, say 3 or 4, and can understand instructions better.

Run Away!

We are watching Oakley tonight. Layla has so much fun when she is over. I would say that they both have so much fun, but sadly I think L annoys O. For example, I asked O what color something was (it was red), but before O could answer, L said, "Yewwoh!" which was wrong, but it's the only color she knows. O was patient and even though she was rudely interrupted, she still gave me the correct answer.

I was showing O how to use one of our toys, and I said, "Pull hard!" which Layla immediately repeated and kept repeating the whole time O was playing with the toy. Just a little annoying for poor Oakley.

L keeps telling O what to do. "Oakey, sit!" or "Oakey, wun away!" or "Oakey, come on!"

(BTW, Layla's new thing is to yell, "Run away!" as loud as she can, while running away of course. It's hilarious, but so far she's only done it at home. It won't be so funny when we're out in public, I'm sure.)

Any toy that O tries to play with, L quickly snatches, at which point I return it to O and tell L that we need to share. O is so good at sharing, and quite frankly, I'm surprised she still bothers to share with L when it is not reciprocated. We're working on it, sweet Oakley!

Finally, O kept asking me, "Is Leela tired yet? Is Leela going to bed?" I'm sorry, Oakley, I totally feel for you! Layla's cute, but she's "full of spunk" as her dad put it, and she's kind of exhausting. We did put L to bed and O and I had fun playing — without having to give or hear a lecture about sharing every two minutes. We're glad O still wants to come over and play because we love having her!

In other news, Layla went poo poo in the potty for the first time today! TMI? Sorry, we are just so proud of her! Yesterday she told me she needed to go pee in the potty for the first time. It took about half an hour from the time she told me until she actually went, but it's progress! I think she's starting to really get it. Hopefully she'll be fully potty trained in the next month or so?

Also, I wanted to document a two things that happened this week that give some insight into Layla's personality, which I am slightly worried may be a little OCD ... the other day I took her sweater off so that she could take a nap without getting too hot. I laid the sweater out nicely over her chair so it wouldn't wrinkle, laid Layla in her crib, and left the room. Less than a minute later, Layla is bawling and saying, "Ado! Ado!" which means "clean up" (no idea where the phrase came from). So I go in there and she's pointing at her sweater, bawling, telling me to clean it up. I put it in her closet and she instantly stopped crying, laid down, and slept for 3 hours. What the heck?!? Just a little OCD, right?

The other day my mom-in-law came to watch Layla and she had on a coat very similar to one of mine. Layla must have thought it was my coat because she started crying, kept pointing at Kathy, and saying, "Mama's coat!" over and over again. I finally took my coat out of the closet and showed it to Layla, who then did a double take between my coat and Kathy's. It was pretty funny! She stopped crying after that.

Random Videos

I always have a list of things in my head that I need to get on video. This time it was Layla counting 1 through 10 and saying, "I love you," "surprise!," and "purse". The counting because she's finally got it down, and the words because she says them in such a cute a funny way — she opens her mouth so big when she says, "surprise," and "purse" sounds like "push." And of course, "I love you," because it melts my heart. She usually only says, "I love you" when you ask her to, and even if you ask her she might just say, "no," which is sad and funny at the same time, but the other day she ran up to me, hugged me, and said it out without being asked and without me saying it first. Totally on her own. Best mommy moment to date!

Be patient with the filming ... our video camera has a screen you can turn around and Layla LOVES to look at herself on the screen while I film her, which of course means I can't really see what I'm filming. It's always a guess as to whether her sweet little face is actually in the shot or not.

I'm so glad to have such a happy, funny little buddy to hang out with all day! She's becoming quite the little helper too! The other day she brought me our coats to hang up, she's always up for throwing stuff away if I ask her, and she likes to use her little pink vacuum while I vacuum the house. Prettty awesome. The other day after the snow storm, I noticed our neighbors kids out shoveling their driveway. Got me thinking: just a few more years and we'll have kids big enough to mow our lawn, rake the leaves, and do all the chores that I hate doing! Mwah-ha-ha!

BTW, Mitch used our snow blower to do our entire driveway, which is pretty big, and had just started on the sidewalks when it broke! He can fix it, but has to order a part. Of course it snowed the next day, so we woke up at 6 a.m. and shoveled the driveway by hand. I was so proud of myself for getting my butt out of bed and helping. It made me feel bad to think of poor Hubby out their breaking his back all by himself! Luckily there wasn't much snow and we finished pretty quick.

Ballet Blast

I went to a class last night with my friend called "Ballet Blast." Essentially, it's an aerobic exercise comprised of ballet moves with 2 lb weights. I LOVED it! You can read all about it here.

I thought I'd be really sore this morning, but I didn't feel it until about mile 2.5 of my what was supposed to be 4 mile run. I only ran 3 miles because my legs felt like jello. Apparently the ballet blast really blasted my butt and legs!

The first class is free, if anyone cares to join us next week!

Curly Sue

I love that Layla wakes up with beautiful hair. She has these perfect little blonde ringlets that I just die over. Unfortunately, it always looks the best right when she wakes up and then goes down hill from there. Ha, ha. I usually wet it and comb it, sometimes add gel, but no matter what I do, the car seat always messes it up! Drives me nuts! But she still looks adorable, even if her curls aren't perfect all the time. I really think the pictures don't do it justice, but you get the idea.


I also took some pics of this hilarious outfit, the poncho my parents gave her and the boots Aunt Katie gave her. So cute!

ABC

Layla loves the alphabet. For the past few months, she's been able to recognize and say each letter. (If they are capitalized. We are still working on the lower case ones.) She pronounces most of them correctly, but others are more difficult like, "W," which she pronounces as, "dub-dum." I love to watch her little mouth move as she concentrates to pronounce certain letters. So cute.

We're working on the ABC song. While she knows her letters, she still gets confused on what order they go in for the song. When she forgets what letter comes next, she says, "M,M,M,O."

Here we are singing the alphabet song. Layla fills in the blanks when we stop singing. I know it sounds like she's just making a random sound, but she really is saying the correct letter, even if it's not perfect. I think she did a great job!

We are also working on saying, "I love you," which she pronounces as "I yove you." Melts my heart!

Swimming lessons are going okay. Let's just say that she does not like the teacher. Can you blame her though? Every time I hand her over to that lady, she either pushes Layla under the water, with no warning, or splashes her in the face. Ha, ha. Surprisingly, it doesn't make her mad to be shoved under, she just doesn't want to be near the teacher. So I have to shove her under myself, which doesn't seem to bother her. Apparently it's okay for Mommy to be mean, but not the teacher? Either way, at least she has fun!

Today after her nap, we did the usual routine of Layla handing me one of her stuffed animals and naming which one it is (Kitty, Piglet, Dog, etc.) This time she handed me three of them at once and said, "Friends." Wow! Totally surprised me! She must be listening after all, when Mitch and I refer to her stuffed animals as her "friends." I guess I should be careful; she's always listening, even when it doesn't seem like it!

Sit Up Challenge

Mitch and I started a sit up challenge this week. The challenge is to work your way up to 500 sit ups and 50 push ups by doing both every day, for seven weeks. Here's the schedule:

Week 1:     100 sit ups, 10 push ups
Week 2:     200 sit ups, 20 push ups
Week 3:     300 sit ups, 30 push ups
Week 4:     350 sit ups, 35 push ups
Week 5:     400 sit ups, 40 push ups
Week 6:     450 sit ups, 45 push ups
Week 7:     500 sit ups, 50 push ups

The hardest part is taking the time every day to fit in some sit ups and push ups. Definitely a time commitment to our already busy schedules. And let me just tell you, I have to do girl push ups because I'm weak sauce. Sad, I know. But I'm hoping to be able to do regular push ups by the time our 7 weeks are up.

Inspirational

I find Martin Luther King, Jr. to be one of the most inspirational, intelligent, influential people to ever grace this Earth. I remember being in awe of him after hearing part of his "I Have a Dream" speech when I was in elementary school. Now that I'm older, I am even more in awe of his wisdom.

Today, on MLK day, I decided to read a few more of his speeches and came across this website, which I love. After the many speeches I have read by this man, I still have one, all-time favorite quote from him:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." -Martin Luther King, Jr.


To me, MLK is a very Christ-like person. He understood what it means to love unconditionally, regardless of race, sexuality, social status, etc. I look up to him and hope to love more like he did. I am glad our country sets aside time each year to honor MLK.

Random Thoughts

Guess who's gone pee pee in the potty, at least once, every single day this week?

This is Mitch's Scouts' poster that we store rolled up in a corner. Layla always looks at  us through it and says, "Hewwo!"

Yay! We are so very proud of her. (And so thankful that my mom is letting us borrow her Ipad. It works like a charm!) I think the next step will be to start asking her several times a day if she needs to go pee pee ... and hope that she eventually starts telling us when she needs to go. Slowly but surely.

I feel like things are going much better around here since I decided to stop focusing so much on editing. Not that things were going horrible by any means, just that I can sense a difference in my stress levels and most importantly, in my relationship with the little Princess. I think she can tell a difference too. Things are good. There are lots of hugs and kisses given around here. Even the cat gets some lovin'.

He is so good with her! She always pets him really soft and says, "Nice."

Mitch started a new semester and decided to switch majors. He's now doing something with engineer/computer model simulation, or something like that. I should know, but to be honest, it confuses me. Ha, ha. Anyways, the point is that he's really excited about it and seems to be enjoying his classes so far. He amazes me. We're waiting to see what to do about funding; his work recently informed us that due to changes within the company, they will not be paying for all of his school. Total bummer. We're looking into other options. Quitting is not one of them. Mitch is really set on finishing, which is a good thing. Moving to Alabama to receive in-state tuition is, and ironically, his company was just awarded a contract in the same city where he attends school. Switching companies, also requiring an out-of-state move, is another option. I guess we'll see.  Of course, we both prefer to stay here, but if finishing school means moving, then we'll do it.  It makes it harder when there's not a lot of options in the aerospace engineer field where we live; most are in bigger cities. Anyways, we figure lots of people move out of state for school ... we just never thought we'd be one of them. We still have some time to figure it all out though.

I tried taking a shot of Layla and Harvey through the tunnel. Too bad they're blurry. Need to keep practicing!

Just the last few weeks Layla's vocabulary has exploded. She speaks in little baby sentences like, "Oh no! Baby down." Translation: "Oh no! The Baby fell down!"

"Out! Mamma, out!!!"

BTW, she refers to herself as "Baby" all the time. She will tell you her name is "Yay-yuh" if you ask her, but otherwise she says "Baby." It's probably our fault — for some reason we unknowingly gave her that nick name. Also, she must be my daughter because she thinks it's so much fun and funny to scare people. (I taught her that. Mwah, ha, ha.) Most days ,when she hears Daddy come home, she grabs my hand and pulls me to our hiding spot and says, "Boo! Ahhhh!" which means she wants to scare Daddy when he comes around the corner. Then she counts to three and we pop around the corner. The funniest part is that instead of saying, "Boo!" to scare Mitch, she usually either screams really loud (like he would if we had actually scared him) or else she just starts laughing her loud, crazy laugh. It's pretty awesome.

My mom always buys Layla the cutest outfits ever. This one included a headband with leopard ears.

This leopard can jump, apparently. She finally learned how to get both feet off the ground when she jumps. It's still hilarious to see her squat first and then jump. 

But I digress. She is talking a lot and says words we had no idea she knew. She's starting to put an "s" on the end of words that she didn't before, like "toes"  as well as to show the possessive form such as, "Mama's shoes" which makes me incredibly proud (I'm a sucker for proper English). She can also correctly pronounce words she couldn't before like "couch" and "penguin" though she still doesn't say all words perfectly all the time. She answers "no" instead of just shaking her head like before, but she says it in the saddest voice possible. "Nooooo-oooh." It seriously sounds like Elmo died or something. So funny. Instead of saying "yes" she used to just make what we call "her approval noise" which is basically a little chuckle. Now she either gives her approval noise or says, "yesh" or "yeah." I'm really hoping she doesn't talk with a lisp like I did still kind of do. Ha, ha. (Though it's nothing like it used to be, and it was never really that bad.)

Oakley spent the evening with us recently. They sure did have fun! And I can totally see why people have their kids close together ... it would be convenient at times! Here they are eating their mac 'n cheese. 

 We're officially down to one nap a day, around 1 pm and she sleeps anywhere from 1.5 hours to 3 hours.  I'm really sad she doesn't take 2 naps anymore, but she's happy so I'm happy. Swimming lessons are going pretty well. She doesn't focus the entire time, normal for a toddler I'm sure, but she has a good time so I guess the exposure is worth it, if nothing else.

We had some friends over this week to make Valentine's garlands. I didn't like the way mine turned out, so I tweaked it and ended up with this. Since I only own one V-day decoration (see pic below), I guess this is good.

Our only other decoration: some window clings my mom gave me. Guess we need to start collecting Valentine's stuff ...

We recently  inherited this piece of art from Mitch's aunt Marcie, who was so kind to give it to us. I love it. It looks so great in our living room! Mitch thought I was weird for wanting it; he always saw it in his grandma's basement and didn't think it was anything special, but now he thinks it's pretty neat too. Guess he needed me to see the true beauty in the painting first.

I have no idea who James is, but I think he did a good job!

I think it matches so well and I love the modern/urban vibe it gives this room.

If I could afford it, I would have our whole house full of art: photography, paintings, and drawings. I would really love a nice copy of this someday:

Claude Monet's Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies, 1899. Though honestly, I love all of Monet's works, especially his later paintings, and would be a happy with any of them.

Potty Training

Layla went pee pee on the potty for the first time today! We clapped and cheered for her. The girl thrives on praise.

Let me just rewind a little and say that we haven't been consistent with potty training, but for the last few days we've been having her sit on her potty once a day and tell her to go pee pee and poo poo. Last week she got really upset at me for putting her on the potty. As a result, we made a new rule: she can only play on the Ipad while she's sitting on the potty. Works like a charm.

Yesterday she sat on the toilet for a good 20 minutes. Then I looked over and found her standing in the potty. So I left to go get a new diaper, figuring she was done with Ipad/potty time.

When I walked back in the room I found this:

She had put the potty seat around her head. She said, "Baby. Hat." I laughed my head off, then made her march upstairs to show Daddy, who laughed his head off.

We did Ipad/potty time for about half an hour this morning. We kept telling her to go pee pee and poo poo in the potty. She seemed too interested in the Ipad to pay any attention to us.

Finally we took her off the potty, figuring she'd get it eventually, and to our amazement she had gone pee pee! Yay!! We were so happy! Let's hope she keeps it up. I think it will still be a while before she tells us when she needs to go, but at least she'll do it if we put her on there first. Baby steps, right?


What a big girl she's becoming! She picks up new words and phrases on an hourly basis, she has her daddy's excellent memory, and she understands way more than we expect her to. They grow up way too fast I tell ya!


On a random side note, I have decided to change my New Year's resolution of editing x amount of articles per month. It's too much. Layla keeps me so very busy. And she and Mitch are my first priority. Instead my goal is to edit as much as I can after Layla is in bed for the night, or while she's napping if I have everything else done. The other goals will stay the same. I must say that the no sugar thing is going way better than I anticipated!

Dates

It's been so nice having some free time with Mitch during his break from school. He starts back tomorrow and he will be so very busy again. But it's for a good cause.

We managed to go on a few dates over the break.

And we're so very happy that the NBA season finally started again! We went to a Jazz game and had fun watching them win. We have 4 more games to go to this season. Go Jazz!!!

We went with some friends to see the lights at Temple Square the beginning of December. These friends just moved here from Massachusetts and had never heard of Temple Square as they are not of our faith. It was so neat to experience the beauty of it through their eyes ... they loved it and thought it was so neat. 

I always love going on dates with my hubby. While he will be so busy with school, I am very proud of him and amazed at his drive and motivation to succeed. The other day I was listening to my Ipod and a song came on that I haven't listened to in years. It's called "All the Way" by Lonestar. The words express my feelings for Mitch and our future together more perfectly than I ever could:

Hey, we're walkin' through this together
And I'm holdin' onto you
Nothin' can separate 
This little twist of fate
You're the one my heart belongs to
Nothin's quite as sweet as the journey
So let's go around the world
Takin' in everything no matter what life brings
We're gonna be chasin' forever

Chorus:
All the way
To the end
All my life
And back again
Every day
I'll be here
Loving you
All through the years
And it's true
There's so much freedom in knowin'
How sure we are that we're goin' 
All the way

People ask me "Think ya'll can make it?"
And I tell them honestly
This ain't no fleeting thing
We're not imagining
This is it, we know it's meant to be
'Cause I love you, love you completely
I've never felt like this
I don't want nothin' but 
Something that's passionate
'Cause the only way I know how to love is


Chorus

There's so much freedom in knowin'
How sure we are that we're goin'
All the way

Rare

Today is January 5th and Layla and I spent one hour outside playing.

But not in the snow ...

because there isn't any!

It's 48 degrees right now, the sun is shining, and the sky is blue.

So rare for this time of year.

Layla pretended to call Mammy and tell her all about it.

Practiced a few tricks with our new camera.

It's hard to practice when your subject NEVER holds still.

And is always feeding herself raisins.

At least she's cute!

And, obviously I still need some practice with the camera!

Swimming Lessons

Layla had her first swimming lesson last night. To say that she loved it would be an understatement. She had a blast and was the last one out of the water. Unfortunately our video camera battery was dying, so I only got little blurbs of videos.

I kindly volunteered Mitch to go in the water with Bug the first time. To be honest, I was nervous that she'd either get way excited or scared, and either way start freaking out and I wouldn't be able to hold on to her. But that didn't happen. She was excited, but pretty calm. I held her while Mitch put his swimming suit on, and when he came out of the bathroom, she refused to go to him. We think she doesn't like him without a shirt on. She kept touching his nipples. Ha, ha. It was really funny. But she got over the no shirt thing real fast once she figured out she had to go to him in order to get in the water.

Layla did as well as I thought she would for her first time. I did expect her to jump off the edge, but she either doesn't know how to jump off or she's too scared, we're not sure. Or maybe Mitch went too easy on her and didn't force her to jump like I will next time. :)  He's definitely the more safe parent, but sometimes you have to let go of her little hands so she can actually learn to jump off the edge ... I guess that part will be up to me, the more relaxed parent. Ha, ha.

Mitch said he would count, "One, Two, Three!" before having her "jump in" but she would either get excited and jump on "Two" or she would yell out random numbers and then get in. Notice how she would rather sit down than stand. Also, at the very beginning you can see the (half of) the little girl on the right totally jumping into the water. I want Layla to learn to do that with no fear. It might worry Mitch, but I'm not going to hold onto her hands and see if that will force her to actually jump in.

During the next four weeks, Layla will be learning how to kick, blow bubbles, float on her back, go under water, and jump off the edge and turn around and grab the edge. I am excited to see how much she'll progress over the course of 8 lessons. If nothing else, at least it's something fun to do. I'll be flying solo for our next lesson since Mitch will be at scouts. Wish us luck!

Alrighty!

Layla's first, three-syllable word is, "Alrighty." Pretty funny. She also recently started putting together phrases like, "Alright Daddy," "No, no Kitty," and "Bye, bye Mamma." It's really neat to see her putting things together and forming little sentences.

Yesterday at church she decided to do her "Happy Dance" (as we call it) in the middle of the aisle during sacrament meeting. Basically, she spun around in circles while saying, "Happy!" until she got so dizzy she started running into things and falling over, which she thinks is hilarious. And she has such a loud, contagious laugh. Then Mitch decided to take her out in the hall to release some energy. As they were leaving, she waved to me and said, "Bye, bye Mamma." So cute. She also tells me "Bye, bye Mamma" when Mitch puts her to bed at night. It makes me smile.

Family Pics

Last October we had family pics done. (I didn't post them until now because we gave some out as Christmas gifts and didn't want to spoil the surprise.) I wanted pics of Layla at 18 months and figured they might as well be of the three of us. My talented friend, Amy, took these pics at the Salt Lake library. I love them! She did a great job, especially considering that this day Layla was sick and really grumpy. Not to mention the fact that an 18 month old does not want to sit still or cooperate for pictures. All things considered, I think they turned out great! Thanks again, Amy!

Love those curls.

She posed like this all by herself. It was awesome.

At one point, we got desperate and let her have her baby doll in the pic with us ...

2012

When I was in junior high, one of my teachers was Clayton Brough, who was also a weatherman for Channel 4 news. He highly influenced my life and is one of the big reasons why I became an English major.
I remember him telling us that "in a few years from now" (which was probably 1998 or so) we would be able to buy a TV so thin you could hang it on your wall.

None of us believed him. That seemed absurd.

Now here I am recording TV programs and fast-forwarding through commercials on my super-thin TV. I download music onto my Ipod (even though the I-tunes platform drives me nuts! Come on, it's 2012, Apple! Can't you make it more advanced and user friendly?). My car has a back-up camera that pops out of my rear view mirror every time I put it in reverse.

Technology is awesome. So glad to be living in 2012 with all of our cool gadgets.

We spent New Year's at our friends house. Layla had fun running around and playing with tons of toys. We left at 9 so we could put the munchkin to bed, then Mitch and I stayed up watching The Office, Coldplay's New Year's Eve concert, and the Times Square ball drop. We were too lazy to light off our fireworks and went to bed at 12:30. Church is now at 11 so the next morning was great because we all three slept in!

I set some pretty high goals for this year. I thought if I wrote them down here, that people might actually hold me accountable for them. In no particular order:

• Give up sugar. I'm allowing two exceptions: Sunday dinner and frozen yogurt. Because let's be honest, I need to keep my sanity. Of course, I realize that nearly everything has sugar in it, but I'm just talking about candy, desserts, junk food, etc. I eat way too much of it.
• Edit at least 175 articles per month. That is a lot for me. This goal will force me to work hard and improve my editing and writing skills.
• Read the Book of Mormon again. I love reading it cover to cover.
• Learn how to use the manual settings on our new camera.

Mitch and I also set goals for Layla:

• Be potty trained by her 2nd birthday. (Perhaps this should really be a goal for her slacker parents, since we talked and talked about potty training her during Christmas break and failed to make even one attempt. I really think she'll catch on fast; it's just a matter of actually trying.)
• Learn her ABCs (she has part of it down).
• Count from 1-20 (she can count 1-5).

Here's to a New Year!