5 Years Old!

Layla turned 5! It's weird to think that we now have a "kid" as opposed to a toddler or a preschooler.  It was so fun to spoil her all weekend and see her face light up with each surprise! She is such a sweet girl (with a side dose of sassy/moody), and we love her more than we can say.

On her birthday she woke up to 15 pink balloons in her bedroom. Mitch and I almost passed out the night before blowing them up since we were still getting over some nasty sinus infections! That day she took cookies to her preschool class and they sang to her. She got phone calls from grandparents and aunt and uncles all day long. That evening Mitch came home and we went to the mall where we waited to get her ears pierced. There was a girl who was getting hers pierced before us, and she had to be at least 12 years old, and she took a solid 20 minutes of crying, "I can't do it," before they finally did it, at which point she cried, "It hurts! It hurts" while I tried desperately to distract Layla so she wouldn't chicken out. I was pretty annoyed by this point because we had been waiting so long and Layla was getting less excited by the moment. (We had already gone to the mall earlier that week to show Layla where she would get her ears done, etc. since she was nervous. So this was not at all what we needed.)

Then it was Layla's turn and she willingly climbed in the chair, but I could tell she was fighting back the tears. I promised to buy her a giant sucker when it was over, and that seemed to do the trick. She did cry right after they did it and said it hurt, but she only cried for less than 2 minutes. She got her sucker, chose to eat dinner at the food court (Hot Dog on a Stick, a kid's dream), and played at the play place. Kinda ghetto, but hey, you're only five once, right?

On the car ride home she started whining, saying her ears hurt. I took her in the bathroom to clean them, and when she caught sight of herself in the mirror she immediately stopped crying and said, in a very dramatic voice, "Oh, I look soooo pretty, Mom!" Ha, ha! So I guess it was all worth it! She hasn't complained about her ears since that first night, and she does look so pretty. ;) Mitch had a hard time with it because it made him realize how much his little girl is growing up, getting her ears pierced and all. He's a sweet Daddy.

The next day was Layla's party with her friends. She invited nine total: seven girls and two boys.She wanted to invite several more, but I had to draw the line somewhere! I thought it would be complete chaos, but they were actually very well behaved. We colored a picture, played duck,duck,goose, and pin the candle on the birthday cake. Then Cinderella came! ;) She was legit. Her costume was perfect and the real deal. She did a couple silly magic tricks, read a story, and sang a song. My favorite part was seeing Layla's face when she answered the door and Cinderella was standing there. She couldn't even talk and her mouth just hung open for several seconds. It was awesome. She told me later that when the doorbell rang, she couldn't figure out who it could be because everyone she had invited was already there. Lol. Layla has some great friends and I hope she continues to have great friends as she grows up. She had a great time and the party was a success. Oh, and the little boy next to Layla, dressed as Batman, is her "boyfriend" from preschool. His name is Logan. When he walked in for the party Layla yelled, "Look! My boyfriend's here!" as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Mitch and I definitely shared a look across the room. It was one of those weird moments where you can totally see the future. Ha, ha!

Top Row: Rylee Hagberg, Lily Leasure, Elsie Edwards, Amelia Lifferth.
Bottom Row: Landon Packard, Cambria Vickers, Oakley Cragun, Layla Bott, Logan Wykstra.

That night she had a sleepover at my mom's to celebrate her birthday and she had a blast, as always. They also went and visited Baby Evelyn. Layla loves her so much! When she got home she told me repeatedly how cute Evie looked and how she loves to hold her. So sweet.


We had our families over Sunday night for Layla's birthday. They spoil her and she is lucky to have such a great family! So, we officially started the Barbie phase. Not my idea. I'm kind of against Barbies; I don't like how they make young girls focus on unattainable physical beauty, appearance, material possessions, etc. But, she loves them, and I can help her understand what is and isn't important in life, so whatever. She got some other great gifts too. Most importantly, she felt so loved by so many.

After all that, I was tired! Whew! It takes a lot of work to pull of a birthday weekend like that. And it was so worth it. I love my little buggy, and I am so proud of the person she is becoming!

Other news: Layla was accepted into the Chinese immersion program! Yay! She'll start in Kindergarten, so she'll go for five hours a day instead of three. The program goes through high school and we're super excited about it.

Layla is also starting Suzuki piano lessons this week! This is something that I've felt strongly about and want her to do. Mitch and I talked a lot, a lot, a lot about this and decided that this is something that Layla will do as she grows up (as in through junior high school) and there will be no if's, and's, or but's about it. It will just be something she has to do, and hopefully she will love it. But it is a skill that she can use frequently, and it is something that is so beneficial for her growing brain and confidence. I'm excited for her! I'm nervous for me. Suzuki method requires a lot of work on the parent that is the coach, which is me, but I'm up for the challenge!

Marcus. Oh, that boy. I love his guts! He is attached to one of Layla's baby dolls lately. Sleeps with it every night. So cute. He loves to help me with the laundry and will push or help me carry the laundry basket around. He likes to put the clothes in the washer too. Such a little helper and sweet boy. He told his first knock, knock joke! It went like this:
Marcus: noh, noh.
Me: Who's there?
Marcus: Nana (banana)
Me: Banana who?
Marcus: Poo poo!
Okay, so it included some potty language, but it was hilarious! "Nana poo poo" is a phrase that Layla says a lot, because she thinks it's hilarious, so I thought it smart that he used it as his joke. He seriously cracks me up every day.

He is getting better at talking lately. He can definitely communicate, and he is definitely a funny person. He has a great sense of humor! He is also telling me when he needs to go #2, and he has sat on the toilet for the last three days in a row, but hasn't had any luck actually going on the toilet yet. But, hey, it's a start!

Mitch is traveling again and we miss him when he's gone! But he is loving his work, he's almost done with his last class EVER, and I am just so proud of him and his hard work. We are very blessed!

I've loved meeting and holding my new niece, Evelyn! She is so beautiful and perfect and I am excited to watch her grow up!

 Layla's first time meeting her cousin.

 Easter!

Oh, and it snowed today. April 15th. Not too weird for Utah, but good because we needed it this year!

March: Births and Birthdays

I am way too lazy to fix the spacing and design on this blog post. Deal with it. ;)

Our second niece, Evelyn, will be born this month! I cannot wait to meet her and kiss her soft, fluffy cheeks! For a little bit we thought she might be born on Mitch's birthday. Natalie joked that they'd have to name her Michelle after Mitch, but no such luck, his birthday came and went without her. That's okay; they can still share a birthday month!

Layla and our first niece, Tennesey.

Mitch had a great birthday! He was spoiled by both our families with a tactical pen (it has a rape whistle and a fire starter! Ha ha!), a bench grinder, and money and gift cards. The kids and I spoiled him too: Layla gave him new jammies, Marcus gave him two sets of matching father and son neck ties for church, I gave him a new jacket, and we all gave him a remote control airplane. He loved all of his gifts, but the airplane trumps all. He really won't stop playing with it. In the house. It makes the kids run around and scream out of excitement. But no regrets, I'm glad he loves it. I'll have to buy him a nicer one soon since this one is just a beginner one.

Family pic before church with the self timer = not the best pic ever.

Back to February: my grandma Ruth had us over for a Valentine's dinner and announced that she is taking us all on an Alaskan cruise next year! Wahoo! It will be a trip to remember! So nice of her to do that and we're really looking forward to it!

He must need a brother because he was more
than happy to wear this princess dress.

Marcus learned to ride the balance bike all by himself! He just walks with it for now, but man, it's crazy how little boys pick up on stuff like that faster than little girls (at least that's true for my kids). I'm glad he loves it. I took pics of him riding it, but I'm sad that they must have somehow been deleted. I will have to take some more.

These two get in a lot of trouble together...

Actually, he just gets in trouble in general.
But we love his guts!

Layla is doing great at preschool. Her teacher approached me recently and said, "Now I don't want you to be surprised when they ask you about having Layla skip to first grade." Made me so proud! She is a little smarty pants. We should find out if she got into Chinese Immersion this week or the beginning of next.

Layla made this play-doh bowl of fruit.
She was very proud of it.

We had our lawn aerated recently so there were those little bits of grass and dirt clods all over the lawn. The kids, the cat, and I were all outside and after about twenty minutes of being out there Layla said, "Man, Harvey! You pooped EVERYwhere!!!" Ha, ha, HA! I died laughing. In Layla's defense, they really do look like animal poop, but it was just the way she said it. I love her.





















Marcus learned a new word this week. He woke up from his nap one day saying, "Ernie" over and over again. It felt like a repeat of when Layla learned to say that word, only not quite as persistent. It amazes me how kids go to sleep and wake up doing a new skill. It's pretty cool if you think about it!

Crawling around, panting like a dog.

Chillaxin' at mammey and bopa's house.

Short update, but we are going to go play outside. I can't get enough of this fabulous spring weather we're having so early in the year! (Though it does make me nervous for this summer ... ) Also, have I mentioned how much I love that my kids are friends and (for the most part) get along with each other?!? I love them!!!

 

I often find them laying side by side, reading together. It melts my heart!!!

 

 The one true snow day we had this winter.

  

 

February 2015

It was 60 degrees again today!  I love it! Just wanted to jot down a few random things:

-First, my phone takes really crappy pictures, so sorry about that. I need to stop being lazy and get my nice camera out!

-Marcus made a sandwich with his PB&J and his head. It was messy. He was pretending like the bread was a phone and kept saying, "Hi!" over and over. This was immediately followed by a bath.


-Layla took Marcus to preschool for show and tell the other week! She had to bring something that starts with the letter M, and she insisted on bringing him, so we did it. He was his hilarious little self, of course, and the class sang "Patty Cake" with him while he grinned from ear to ear. I love my two kids and the relationship they have with each other! I sure hope they'll always be good friends!

-Marcus is a monkey and eats a minimum of two (large) bananas a day! When we buy bananas at the store he yells, "Nana!!!" very loudly throughout the entire store.

Putting them to work! :)

His hair got really long. And he likes to
sit and play with his belly button, especially
when he's tired.

-After church we asked Layla what she learned about. She said, "that when we have a question we can pray to Heavenly Father and ask him the answer." I told her yes, like when I prayed to know if I should marry Daddy or not, and Heavenly Father answered my prayer and told me that I should most definitely marry Daddy. :) To which Layla replied, "Well see, that's tricky 'cause I have two people I want to marry: Logan and Marcus. Did you marry your boyfriend?" I told her that yes, Daddy was my boyfriend before I married him, so yes, I married my boyfriend. Then she said, "Well, then I guess I'll marry Logan because he's my boyfriend and Marcus is just my friend." (We still don't have the heart to tell her that she can't marry her brother.)

-Marcus LOVES to color and draw lately and will sit and "daw" for up to an hour at a time! So cute! He throws tantrums when it's time to stop. Not so cute.

-We finally got our solar panels on our house! Good thing we're planning to live here for a long time because they'll take a little while to pay off, but it will be worth it in the long run! All of the panels are on the back of the house (south west side) where we get the most sun. I also love that they're not visible from the front.

-Layla was playing with our neighbor, Lily, at our house. I heard Lily say, "I have THREE boyfriends!" in a bragging tone. Layla whispered, "Well I only have one," and then said in a voice loud enough for me to hear, "But my mom says I have to wait TWENTY YEARS to have a boyfriend!"

Marcus and Dexter

-Mitch and I had such a fun weekend! We dropped the kids off at my parents and headed down to St. George with Kevin and Nicole! Kid-free for a whole weekend! I have to say, this was the first time that my heart didn't ache when we left the kids; I was just so excited to have a whole weekend to ourselves! (Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my kids, just needed a little break.) We got there Friday evening and went to dinner and a movie. Ahhh, so fun. Saturday morning we ate a yummy breakfast, toured some beautiful homes, ate a donut at this shop where you pick your glaze and toppings (so rich!), visited my grandpa in his new home for a few minutes, went shopping, went to dinner, went bowling, then crashed for the night before we could make it to the hot tub like we had planned (apparently having fun is exhausting!). Sunday we ate another yummy breakfast at The Waffle House and then headed home. I loved spending time with my husband and our good friends. We laughed a lot and had a great time! We really need to do that more often!


-One of my favorite things in life is dressing the kids up for church on Sundays. They just look so dapper in their Sunday best! I bought Marcus some dress pants and a black belt and he looked like a little business man! My mom asked if he had a business meeting with Heavenly Father. Ha, ha! I usually try to make the kids' outfits at least coordinate with each other and sometimes Mitch and I too. Cheesy, I know, but I love it. The theme for church last Sunday was "Homecoming Dance" as pictured below, ha ha!

 
 


-A friend in our neighborhood put together a little Valentine's party for the kids. They made a craft and decorated a bag to hold their valentine's in, played a game, and decorated (and ate) a sugar cookie. Fun times! We are so blessed to live in this area with wonderful neighbors and friends!

-And this last pic that my mom took a few months ago when she took the kids to Jungle Jim's. His facial expression is hilarious mostly because it doesn't fit his normal personality ... at all! It makes Mitch and I laugh every time we look at it.