Spring 2017

March was an exciting month for Mitch! It was his birthday, the big 36! We celebrated with dinner at Benihana with Kevin and Nicole- always a good time. Layla was SO excited to give Mitch his gift from the kids that she thought of all by herself: a hug box. Basically the kids decorated a giant cardboard box with glitter (what was I thinking?! Glitter was everywhere!) and then hid inside the box. Mitch opened it and they popped out and gave him hugs. It was adorable and Layla was so proud of herself. :) I was touched by her sweet thoughtfulness; she is a sweet girl. We gave Mitch a new drill and celebrated with both of our families. I think he felt special and loved, as he certainly is!



Then came a super proud wife moment! In March Mitch was awarded an award through his work with a team of people that he managed. This team created new software for a missile system, in more or less words, and they have been traveling to other companies to present their system. The best part was that they had an award ceremony in LA and paid for me to fly out there and attend. It was great that I could be there to support him. They had a nice dinner and presented the awards to each team. While I don't fully understand everything Mitch does at work, and most of it is classified anyways, I know enough to know that I am very proud of him and his accomplishments!

He even got a professional photo taken for the award. So handsome!

I was gone for less than 24 hours, and my dad had just had hip replacement surgery, so I asked my friend, Liz, to watch my kids while we were gone since my parents couldn't. My kids have never slept over at another person's house besides their grandparents, so this was new for them. I knew they'd be fine at the Whitesides house, and that they'd have fun with their kids, but Layla missed me so much and cried a lot! It really surprised me! But it made me feel good because she does love me. :) I gave her a picture frame from off of my nighstand (as we were leaving to drop them off at Liz's she started crying and said she wanted to take a picture of me). On one side is a picture of the kids when Marcus was an infant, and on the other side is one of mine and Mitch's engagement pictures. She took it with her and slept with it, then set it on her desk at school the next day! That's how much she missed me, poor thing! But they were very well taken care of and had lots of fun.


St Patrick's Day happened. There is no leprechaun at our house, but we all wore green and had green pancakes and green milk for breakfast. Marcus wouldn't eat the green pancakes so he had cereal. Maybe next year.

We also celebrated sweet Evelyn's second birthday. She's the cutest little thing with a spunky personality. It's fun to watch her grow up!

Out to dinner and dessert with our friends, the Whitesides and the Irelands.

Layla had another piano recital. She played Minuet 1 and did great! I think she knew afterwards that she could have played even better and was a little disappointed, but overall she was happy with herself. I was proud of her and her hard work!

With her piano teacher, Tami Baker.

April Fool's Day was during General Conference this year. While we were watching the Saturday morning session, I pretended I was baking something. I cut capital letter Es out of brown paper, put them in a cake pan, covered it with tin foil and put it in the oven, all without anyone noticing. Then I set the time for 1 minute. When it beeped I told the kids to come have a brownie. Get it? They were so excited! I had already bought lots of candy for a game we were playing during General Conference so Layla said, "Geez Mom, you're really spoiling us during General Conference with candy and brownies!" Ha! I pulled the pan out of the oven and told them to take off the tin foil. Their faces and reactions were priceless when they saw brown Es and were disappointed! Mitch and I laughed so hard. Marcus just kept saying, "Those aren't brownies, Mom! It's just paper!" It was awesome.

Brown Es.

Layla has amazing primary teachers,
one of whom is my good friend, Kellee Mudrow.
They made the kids in their classes these notebooks
for conference.

For the afternoon session on Saturday we drove out to Promontory Point to see the place where the two railroads met and the Golden Spike was driven in the ground. It was fun and we learned a lot about railroads and trains. We also stopped at the rocket farm, aka Mitch's other love, at ATK and checked out the rockets. Always interesting because Mitch knows so much about it.



After that we had dinner with Mitch's parents, which was nice. On the drive home we were stopped at a red light, waiting to get on the freeway. Mitch said, "I can't see the light to see when it turns green because of the sun." I told him I could see it and would let him know. Then BOOM! a loud sound and all of our heads hit the back of the car seats. Some lady in a giant truck had rear ended us! It shook me up a little to think of how badly we could have been hurt. This was also the same week when I learned that I have a precancerous mole! Whew, life is crazy! But I'm so glad we are all okay and the car got fixed and all is well, There is less than a two percent chance that my mole will develop into anything, so for now I'll just get it checked every 6 months.

Every Friday I get together with Liz and we do something fun.
The week of St Patrick's Day we made rice Krispie treats that
didn't quite turn out because we were too busy gabbing. 

After all that craziness it was spring break for Layla! She had an entire week off of school. We didn't really make any plans because Mitch's work was busy, but we ended up getting a spring break deal on a hotel room at the Zermatt resort in Midway, so we took the kids there for a night. It was fun! They have a carousel and swimming pool. Layla is our little fish and didn't even mind the frigid cold water. She would swim from the indoor pool, under the opening to the outdoor pool and she reminded me of a polar bear, ha! Marcus was hilarious because he wanted to "ride the bench" on the carousel. He cracks me up.

Marcus mini golfs sitting down.

The next day we picked Oakley up and she slept over! Layla chose to have Oakley sleep over instead of a friend birthday party, and I was so happy with that! We had pizza, cupcakes, and ice cream that night and watched Moana. The girls and Marcus slept in sleeping bags in a fort in Layla's room that night. The next morning we went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel and then I took the girls mini golfing. It was a fun time and Layla had fun, which was the whole point.



The next day we went to church, then Layla asked us every 5 minutes when our families were coming over so she could open her presents. They did finally come over and she got wonderful gifts. We gave her a pair of rollerblades and I am loving watching her learn to rollerblade. She is improving and getting the hang of it. Another proud mom moment watching her learn something new. I was also proud when she was opening gifts and let Marcus help her open all her presents. He even used his toy saw to cut the ribbons, lol. They are such great friends!


I still can't believe Layla is 7! She amazed me every day. She frustrates me sometimes, but I am always in awe of her intelligence, love for learning, sweetness, thoughtfulness, and sense of humor. I love her and loved celebrating her all weekend long. She teaches me so much and I am proud to be her mom!

Wearing the skirt and shirt my mom made
her for her birthday.

The next week was Easter. We had a fun time and the kids had four Easter egg hunts in two days! Now we have an insane amount of candy in our house! On Saturday we went with several of our neighbors and had a hunt with eggs that we all pitched in. That was my favorite one of the four because there were lots of kids, but not too many like the city egg hunts. Saturday night we celebrated with my family. The food was divine and we had our traditional bunny cake, of course. Sunday we had a peaceful day at church (once we got there, that is. It's always a struggle getting there by 9 am). But church really was special on Easter Sunday with beautiful music and inspired talks. Sunday school is always hilarious because we have some jokesters in there, but I learn a lot too. Then we headed to Mitch's grandma's house for another fun egg hunt and lunch. It was nice to see that side of the family again- it's been a long time. The rest of the day was relaxing and playing at home and it ended so nice!

Remember those candy eggs that turn your lips colors?
We taught our kids all about them.

Sleepy, drooly Easter bunny.

Two days after Easter and WAY too much candy, the kids and I all had dentist appointments! No cavities at least and the kids did great! Layla had sealant put on her 6 year old molars and it took about 20 minutes and she was so patient. Marcus did great for his second cleaning and was well-behaved while waiting for everyone else. The dentist said that Layla's two front teeth are almost in, which was reassuring because the baby ones fell out over 3 months ago! I've been waiting to see those new teeth, but I'll enjoy her toothless grin a little longer. :)


Marcus is always a laugh a minute, but the other night he said some things that I hope I never forget. So the back story is that Mitch plays Xbox with his friends sometimes and they currently play a game called Destiny. The kids love to play it too because they can make the guy do funny dance moves. Also, I keep telling Marcus that he should grow up and be "a doctor who takes care of sick babies" because he loves babies and kids and then he could help them (and I don't think he'll remember the word "pediatrician" quite yet). A couple of nights ago he was mad because we were making him get ready for bed. This happens every night. He was crying and carrying on when he said, in a dead serious voice, "I want to be a dad so I can stay up early and play Destiny! I don't want to be a doctor who takes care of sick babies! I want to be a dad and stay up early!" Oh my, I laughed so hard! First of all, he can't say his r's, l's, or th's properly, so pretty much everything he says is hilarious and cute. And then he wants to "stay up early" and his whole concept of dads just kills me! We told him that his dad is an engineer and goes to work every day to pay for  his Destiny game, and not to mention our house and food.We suggested that he be a doctor who takes care of sick babies so can buy his Destiny game and pay for his house. I'm hoping he'll take our suggestion. :)

It's raining today. Just another typical spring day in Utah. We try to go outside every chance we get before it gets too hot. I'm just waiting for Layla to be done with school! I'm excited for this summer and all the fun we'll have!

Loved watching my kids walk down the street
together with their umbrellas.

Date with Mama!

Marcus had a preschool field trip to Chic Fil A. It was fun to be the only ones there and to see how they make everything. Yum!

We still love babysitting Cousin Vivian, or "Little Cutie" as Marcus calls her. I left her on the bed one morning while I did Layla's hair and came back to find Marcus reading to her. The sweetest!

 We let Layla have a "late over." Instead of a sleep over, friends come over and stay late, in this case 9:00 pm. We ate pizza and watched Moana. It was insane. She invited 5 girls from school and they were SO very loud and hyper. They had fun and we had headaches! Ha, ha! Probably won't do that again for a while ... someone else's turn to host!

 Finally got a shot of Marcus peeing standing up. Why does this make me laugh so hard? I think it's because he looks like a little man.

 Hit up the dinosaur park with the fam.

 My sweet grandma Miles turned 89!

 Marcus took a nap the other day! This NEVER happens any more. Somehow I convinced him to lay in my bed with me, and after about 10 minutes of wiggles, he fell asleep, all snuggled up to me. It made my whole day. He is the best snuggler and he still looks like my baby boy when he's alseep.

 Layla got several Lego sets for her birthday and Harvey won't leave her alone when she's working on them. He can be so obnoxious, but it's pretty funny. Sometimes. Layla is a good sport about it.

 Nothing like free samples at the grocery store to make Marcus's day!