Trick or Treat

Halloween was extra fun this year because Layla understood what was happening. We carved pumpkins a few days before, which proved to be too early with the abnormally warm weather because they looked really sad by the time Halloween night rolled around. Oh well, it was still fun.

Layla thought the guts were "nasty" but kept pulling them out anyways. Mitch carved hers to look like Minnie Mouse. I have no idea why she is making this face, but I find it hilarious.

Mitch and I carved ours after Buggy went to bed. Mitch's is on the left and it's a crazy face that I think looks like a Hawaiian tattoo version of a pumpkin. Mine is on the right and since you can't tell, I will tell you that it says "Boo!" but the letter o's are supposed to be eyes. I know, I 'm not that great at carving pumpkins and I should just stick to the traditional triangle eyes/nose and a few teeth.

On Halloween day I took Layla to Aunt Natalie's work. There are literally hundreds of cubicles that you walk around in the building and everyone gives candy. It took us 1.5 hours to walk around the whole thing. Layla's pumpkin was FULL of candy by the time we left. At first she was only picking Whoppers and suckers, but I eventually taught her to pick the good stuff. Mitch and I ate practically all of her candy in a very short time period that I am too embarrassed to own up to. I made Mitch take the candy he likes to work so that it would not be at home to tempt me. We did give Layla some, too, and she loved it.

After Natalie's work we went to my mom's work where everyone (besides my mom) was super lame and didn't give out candy. Layla got a treat from my mom and then we went to lunch where my mom treated us again. It was fun.

That night Mitch and I took Layla trick or treating. We went to a total of 6 houses, including my parents. I thought we'd go to more, but honestly, Layla walked SO slow and just wanted to eat the sucker that she got at the second house we went to, so we went home after the 6th house. She had a blast though and it was so much fun to see her truly get into the Halloween festivities.

Straight Hair

I straightened Layla's hair Sunday morning before church. She insisted on hanging out in the bathroom with me while I got ready, so I decided to run the straightener through her hair. The end result? A little girl who looks way older than she really is, with hair down to the middle of her back. Seriously, she looked SO different and so much older that it really made me sad. While I think she looks cute with straight hair, I won't be styling it that way again any time soon ... I prefer my curly-haired baby girl. Even if her hair does get crazy and out of control at times...

When she saw herself in the mirror she said, "Oh, look at my hair! I look just like Oakley!" (Last time we saw Oakley, her mom had straightened her normally curly hair.) Mitch said, "Your hair looks just like Mamma's too." So Layla came running into the room to find me and said, "My hair looks just like yours, Mamma? Oh, it does!" Well, other than the color I guess. I'm sure hers will get darker over time; mine was as light as, if not lighter than, hers when I was younger and look at it now.
But I digress.

When she woke up from her nap her hair was pretty much all curly again. Sometimes I can't believe how curly it is. People ask me what I do to make it so curly, but honestly I just wet it with a squirt bottle, comb it straight with a comb, and it curls up all by itself. Super easy. I love it.

On Sunday Mitch's parents also had a Halloween party, and it was really fun. We dressed Layla up and I didn't realize that I had never shown her the black nose and whiskers I drew on her face with eye liner. Well, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and said, "Oh my goodness! There's a spider on my nose!" Ha, ha. She had a great time at the party, the food was delicious, and the company even better.

Last weekend Mitch and I were able to go to the temple together. Such a nice, peaceful way to spend our time. Layla was napping when we left and when she woke my mom told her that we had gone to the temple. Well, Layla was not happy that we weren't there and kept telling my mom, "I need to go to the temple!" Ha, ha. I love it.

I'll post about today's Halloween activities later. Let's just say we've been brushing our teeth a lot today thanks to all the sugar we've inhaled.

Fall Festivities

I've been so busy/lazy/having too much fun that I haven't updated the blog as much as I would like. I am not going to reread or edit this post because I'm in a hurry, so sorry if there are mistakes. Here is a brief summary of our latest activties:

• We went with our friends Shelly and Parker to the petting zoo and pony ride. The little girlies had a blast together. Layla got to sit on an alpaca, feed a baby cow milk from a bottle, pet a bunny rabbit, and ride a pony. I'm slowly training her to be my little cowgirl and help me convince Daddy to buy us a horse of our own. (And thanks to Shelly for taking the pics at the petting zoo!)               
• Over General Conference weekend we went to Scheels, a new local sporting goods store, with Daddy. We didn't have time that day to ride the ferris wheel (seriously, the store is HUGE!), so we went back last week with my mom for lunch. The little restaurant was good, the fudge was even better, and the ferris wheel was a huge hit with Layla.        
• My dad and brothers have been hunting. They didn't get any elk, but got two deer. They had a blast.
• Last weekend we went to the pumpkin patch with our friends Nicole, Oakley, and Dexter. Took a few pics of the kiddos. Picked out a few pumpkins. Can't wait to carve them this weekend.



Of course she smiles great for the camera when someone else is taking the picture! (Thanks, Shelly!)

• Layla and I went to the children's museum a couple of times over the last week. She LOVES it and I love that it's educational, social, and fun all at the same time. 
• Tonight my mom and I took Layla to the Halloween party at the church (Mitch is out of town until tomorrow). Layla loves her Minnie Mouse costume and she had a really fun time. Her favorite game was the "pin the wart on the witch" and she kept asking to play it again and again (but we didn't blindfold her). They also had pumpkin bowling, mini golf, donut eating contest, face painting, etc. It was cute. Buggy also liked walking in the parade with all the other kids. She freaked out over one little boy's tiger costume; she thought it was awesome. I was a little disappointed that she chose gross candy and no chocolate. Apparently I haven't trained her well enough...
• We're excited for Halloween next week and I am counting down the days until we get to take her trick-or-treating! 
• I'm counting this as a "fall festivity" because we should be moving into our new house during the fall. It's shaping up well and we couldn't be more excited!   



Still need to paint the hardie on the exterior ...



... and finish the cabinets.   



But we're getting there!

Funny Layla

At Layla's 2.5 year old check up this week her stats were 95th percentile for height and 80th percentile for weight. The doctor said, "she's all legs" and seems to think that as a young child she will be taller than all the girls and 70% of the boys her age. You never know what will happen once she goes through puberty, but I hope she likes being tall when she's older because that will most likely be the case. I've always wanted to be taller (I'm the shorty in my family of tall people), so hopefully she will like her height. And at least I know she got one gene from me: the height gene. Every.other.single.gene in her little body must be from Mitch because she is basically his mini-me in girl form. Wait, I take that back. Layla and I have the same sense of humor. Sometimes we both just bust out in giggles at the same time. I love it.

 Some funny things Layla has said or done lately so I don't forget:

• Awhile ago we had a package of Double-Stuf Oreos. While eating them, I would open up an Oreo, give Layla the side without creme, and put the side with creme together with another side with creme, and make myself a quadruple stuffed Oreo. (If you've never tried it, please do! Amazing!) Anyways, I was happy eating my huge Oreos, and Layla was happy eating her side with no creme, because let's face it, I don't give her junk food very often, so even Oreos with no creme are a treat to her. Well, the next day she found the package of Oreos when I wasn't looking and brought me half of an Oreo ... with no creme on it. Serves me right.
• The other day she kept telling me ALL morning that she wanted to go to Oakley's house to play.  Unfortunately, we live kind of far away from Oakley's house right now or else I would have taken her just so she'd stop asking me about it. Anyways, I asked her to say the prayer to bless the food at lunch and this is what she said: "Dear Heavewy Fadder, Fank you that I can go to Oakley's house today ... "  and then she opened her eyes and looked right at me! Of course I was peeking at her as she was praying because I think it's super cute to see her sit with her arms folded and eyes squeezed shut, so when I heard her say that and saw her look right at me, I about lost it and had to hold in the laughter while she eventually finished her prayer. Oh.my.goodness. She's only 2 and she's already learned that trick.
• Mitch thought that perhaps that prayer trick was just a fluke, but it wasn't because it happened again, two nights ago during bedtime prayer. She has a pink stool in her room that she loves to stand on, so this time she said, "Dear Heavewy Fadder, Fank you that I can stand on my pink stool ..." And then she looked at me as if to prove her point. So you see, she really has mastered that one. Serves me right for teaching her that if she prays in faith Heavenly Father will answer her prayers. She's really taking it to the extreme. And it's quite funny.
• I am addicted to Sudoku on the Ipad. Sometimes I play a game here or there while Layla and I are hanging out. Then she always wants to play it too, of course. Today she was trying to play it and I walked over and pushed a number on her game, to which she immediately responded, "Hey, I worked really hard on that!" Made me laugh, until I realized that's exactly what I tell her every time she messes up my Sudoku score.
• I think she's starting to like to play with dolls a little more. She has a Cabbage Patch doll with curly blond hair that my mom got her and she seems to really like her lately. The other night she had to take her doll to bed with her. It was cute. My parents bought her a doll crib and stroller for Christmas, so that should be fun.
• She's started telling us that she "needs" everything. She "needs" juice and she "needs" a sucker. I've tried explaining the difference between need and want, but it hasn't sunk in yet.
• She loves watching Tom and Jerry and Chip and Dale cartoons on the Ipad. I told her that when I was little I used to love watching those cartoons on the TV. She got really upset with me and told me that, "They not on the TV! They only on the Ipad, Mom!" Boy has technology changed.
• This morning my mom caught Layla picking her nose so she gave her a stern look and Layla said, "I'm going to leave my stuff in my nose." Stuff? I guess that's better than calling them boogers. Less gross, anyways.
• For some reason, she thinks my dad, "Grandpa," is going to take everything from her all the time. It's to the point where if she hears him walk in the room, she'll gather up everything around her and hold it in her arms and say, "Grandpa won't take my (fill-in-the-blank)!" Poor Grandpa. He never just takes it from her, so I'm not sure where she got this idea from. Sometimes he'll ask if she'll share and she will, she even thinks its fun to feed him her food or let him play with her toys. But it's backfired and now she accuses him of taking her things/food/whatever all the time. I've told her several times how nice Grandpa is and how it's fun to share with him and that he wouldn't take her stuff, but she still worries about it. The other night we used it to our advantage though and told her she better come eat her dinner or else Grandpa will come eat it. It totally worked. Ha, ha. Sorry, Dad!

2.5

Layla is two and a half now. They say you can double a kid's height at two and a half and that's how tall he or she will be as an adult. If that's true, Layla will be over 6 feet tall! Who knows if that will really happen. She's still hilarious. The other night she made up a song in the bathtub. The words are: "I swim like a dolphin and I go down the slide. I bonk my head and I cry, cry, cry." She says it's called, "My Own Song" and she sings it on demand now. It's so cute. Maybe she'll grow up to be a little Taylor Swift. She's also getting sassy and now says things like, "Ummm, no." Or when we give her something to eat she'll say, "Mamma! That's too much!" What?!? Or the other day she had gone poop in her diaper, which she gets really embarrassed about, so she went in our room and shut the door. Mitch went in and she yelled, "No, Daddy! Stay away from me!" Of course we both just busted out laughing. She's awesome and keeps me on my toes.

The other night we were able to have some of Mitch's friends from Cambodia over for dinner. When Mitch was on his mission in Cambodia he baptized a family who ran an orphanage. The mother and daughter have stayed active in the church, and the daughter attended BYU-Hawaii where she earned her Bachelor's, and went on to earn her Master's in Hawaii as well. She is now here in Utah looking for an internship before heading back to Cambodia. The mother came to Utah to visit and to go through the LDS temple for the first time (the daughter went through the temple a year ago or so). Mitch was so sad that he was not able to attend the temple with them due to work related conflicts, but we did have them over for dinner.

Visiting Sophaneth in Hawaii earlier this year.

with her mom at the Cambodian orphanage in 2008.

Earlier this week. Left to right: me, Layla, Mitch, Sophaneth's mother (whose name I cannot spell, sorry!),  Botevy who also helps run the orphanage, and Sophaneth.

It was so great to visit with them and hear about the work they're doing in the orphanage. Mitch told them that it makes his heart happy to know that they have gone through the temple and that they are still active and faithful in the LDS church. I hope we can take our children to Cambodia someday to meet these kind, humble, loving people and show our kids how blessed we are as American citizens. For example, the orphanage these women run is special because it has a water well. They don't have faucets with running water, they have a well. And they have the well because some elders that Mitch served with came home after their missions and raised enough money to go back and dig the well for these good people. And here we are in our fancy houses griping about whatever is happening in our lives, when other people have so little, and yet are so much happier than we are. They inspire me to be a better person. To be more like them. Seriously such good people. I'm so glad that we could visit with them and hope that we will see them again soon.

Conference Weekend

Every 6 months (April and October) our church holds what we call "General Conference." It is a time where the prophet, apostles, and other church leaders give talks that are broadcast to church members throughout the world. It is a time I look forward to because it always leaves me feeling inspired and uplifted.

Besides the regular four sessions we have of conference (two on Saturday and two on Sunday), the men age 18 and older also attend a Priesthood session on Saturday nights. (And lest you think the women are left out,  we have our own session one week before General Conference, so I already attended ours last week.)

Well, this morning, the morning after Mitch attended the Priesthood session, he gave me a hug and said, "You're beautiful. You know that right?" Awww, melt my heart. He's such a sweetie. He tells me he thinks I'm beautiful quite often, but this time it felt a little different.

A couple hours later I was checking Facebook and came across a picture of our prophet, President Monson, and a quote from his talk the night before at Priesthood session where he said, "Every woman deserves to be told that she is beautiful."

 While it makes me happy when Mitch compliments me, it makes me even more happy to know that he listens to and follows the words of our prophet, no matter how simple the instruction may be. I know that following the prophet brings only happiness to our lives, just as Mitch's sweet words made me happy today. Such a sweet man, my husband.