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!