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.