Catch Up

Mitch was in Chicago last week and he brought home some authentic Chicago pizzas. They are delicious and I am so glad he went through the trouble of shoving them in his suitcase. We missed him while he was gone! Layla and I spent one of the nights at my parents' house, just to break up our week.

Layla LOVES to go outside and my parents' house to see the dogs. It's funny, she'll drag you out there to see them, but she gets nervous when the dogs start jumping and act excited. (In her defense, I swear they could jump over the fence if they tried hard enough.) When she gets scared about the dogs she doesn't cry, she just pulls her arms in to her body and makes this face:

She had a blast and even learned to say "Jordan" and "Tenley" though I must say, I loved it when she called him "Dudin" since that's been his nick name for as long as I can remember. (I'm not sure why these pics are all appearing blurry, but if you click on them they will be clear.

I forced her to take a picture with me, even though she wanted to "run around!" as she constantly says lately.

It was fun and Mammy even watched Bug while I went to the Family History Library downtown. I'm trying to find information on any relatives on my maternal grandfather's side, past my great grandparents. It's a complicated story, but basically I am at a complete loss as to where to go next. I know I need to find Rosa Calder; she was born in Jamaica and was a servant to the Calder family, who were from Europe. She most likely worked in the Calder's kitchen on their plantation in Jamaica, and she took on the Calder's last name. The problem is that I can't find any concrete information. All I have are stories that my grandpa's cousin wrote, but unfortunately he doesn't know exact names or dates (though he did mention how tall Rosa was, especially for a woman. Maybe that's where the Earles get their tall genes from?)  I'm hoping some records for her will become available soon! If they do, I might get so excited I'll jump on the bed with Layla!

If they don't, I might get really mad and throw a tantrum like Layla does, by opening my mouth super wide and fake crying. Here's Layla's best example, and it might be worth clicking on this pic to make it bigger, so you can get the full effect of the terrible twos. She did this at the store yesterday. Not cute.

We had a Relief Society activity recently where we discussed dating ideas for married couples, with the idea that you need to continue "courting" your spouse, you know, to keep the marriage strong. It was a good lesson and I was reminded again of what a great marriage Mitch and I have and how lucky I am to be his wife. I think we do a good job of "dating during marriage" but it was nice to get some new ideas. They handed out a list of 50 date ideas — I think I'll have us go down the list and do each one. I threw this pic in just cuz I love her little smile:

Since Mitch has school tonight, Valentine's Day, we decided to celebrate early. Mitch surprised me with a little get away to Park City (and Layla slept and G&G B's). We were able to get a free room with Mitch's reward points (I guess him going out of town does have one perk), and we even had enough points to get an upgrade! Our room was awesome ... it had a full kitchen, a separate bedroom, and a fireplace. It was right on Main Street so the location was awesome. We treated ourselves to lots of food, a movie, ice cream, and shopping. Mitch got a new leather coat that looks great on him. It was kind of a splurge, but he totally deserves it. He never buys himself anything and rarely lets me buy him anything, plus, he's been wanting a leather coat for quite some time. I'm glad he loves it.

We had fun celebrating Valentine's early. When we went to pick Layla up afterwards we realized we had not taken one pic of the two of us during our get away. We decided to snap one at Mitch's parents house, but we didn't know the timer was set to take 6 pictures right in a row. So when the camera kept going off I started doing funny poses. Mitch just stood there and laughed. Here's one of the better ones:

The other day I found Layla praying. Sometimes we'll catch her with her arms folded, head bowed, mumbling under her breath. This time she mumbled, then said, "Mamma, Daddy, prayer, a-MEN!" It was awesome! It makes me so happy to see her learning how to pray, even if she does yell "amen" at the end. Too cute.