Lyla Lately

Some things about Lyla the last few months:

For a while, Lyla wasn't very interested in her stuffed animals. Now she LOVES them. She sleeps with three of them--Eeyore, Puppy, and Bristow. She puts them all in her arms and wraps them in a big bear hug. They mostly stay in her crib, but once in a while when she wakes up, she insists on carrying them all out of the crib in her little arms.

She calls her paci her "papees". And is far too obsessed with that thing. I am really dreading having to take it away from her, but the more she asks/begs for it, the more I think the time needs to be sooner rather than later.

She used to hate nursery, but it has improved a ton the last few weeks! She has really taken to one of the male nursery workers. One week when we picked her up and I asked the leaders how she did, the leaders told me the following story: They were talking about smiley faces and frowns during the lesson and the person teaching was having them make smiley faces and then frowny faces. They said that Lyla was fine during the smiley faces, but once they started making frowny faces, she burst into tears. haha. We thought it was so funny.

Loves keys. One morning she sat in the driver's seat of my car and demanded "keys!".

Loves Tiger Lily, the kitty next door. When we pull up in the car she will say "llleeellly" (she says her "L's" really well, and it really sounds like their are extra when she says it) or "meow, meow" to go see the cats.

Probably 2 months ago I was counting something in my head out loud and I was saying "one, one, etc" to myself. Then I hear Lyla who I didn't know was listening say "dtwoo". I was so surprised because I had no idea that she would know anything about counting! Now she knows a lot more numbers, and varies in which ones she likes best. For a while two was her favorite and it was the only one she would say. Now she always skips one and two, but I often hear her saying "three, four, five, yay!" to herself. Seven is probably her new favorite number, and sometimes she will count 3,4,5, and then every other with me to 10. When we get to 10 she usually says "yay!" and claps. It is pretty fun to watch her learn.

This girl loves to dance now. A few months ago, she would do absolutely nothing when a good beat would come on, but now she loves to dance and jumping is her favorite. She just recently has started to get some air when she jumps. When she's in her carseat and a song she likes comes on, she will start nodding her head to the beat. We get a kick out of the head banging.

One of her very favorite things is the phone. She loves to talk to Daddy and Grandma, and she also loves to pretend that other objects are phones. This week she used both a pretzel, and a wet, crumpled paper towel as a phone. When she held the paper towel up to her ear I heard her say, "Hi...mmhmm...oquay...byebye".

I'm so sad that this picture is blurry because otherwise it might be my favorite picture of all time

A Snippet of Mischief

Lyla is a busy little girl. She is a ton of fun, but she is definitely not a "chill" child. She keeps us on our toes, that's for sure! Here's a little sample of some of  the trouble she's gotten into over the last few months:

Sticking green beans up her nose

Ran downstairs for just a sec, and came back to her taking a foot bath and brushing her teeth. Can't even tell you how close this was to overflowing when I showed up.

And one more

Climbed up the dresser (using the drawers as stairs), found some mascara, and worked her magic

And sometimes she likes to remove her diaper in random places. Like the dinner table.

Or the couch. Yes that wet spot is what you think it is.

And sometimes you strip her down for a bath, just to find a random tattoo that she's given herself.

Summer Birthdays 2014

We celebrated Todd's 30th this summer! About a week before the big day, I realized that his birthday had totally snuck up on me. And then I remembered that he was turning 30. Since the beginning of the year, I had been planning on doing something special for his 30th, but it had just slipped my mind the closer it got. I was suddenly feeling a little panicked--I toyed with a surprise party, big family party, etc., but I decided they weren't quite Todd's style. That's when I thought of doing a surprise overnight staycation with just the two of us!

Thanks to some help from Todd's best friend Bryce, I booked a room at Little American (Bryce works for the Grand) for the Friday before Todd's birthday.Todd's parents were so nice to agree to watch Lyla for us. The transmission on Todd's car had recently gone out, so Todd had been taking trax home from work. This worked into my plan perfectly because I told Todd that I had to run some errands at Fashion Place and could just pick him up after work that day.

When I pulled up to Epic to get Todd, I was trying not to let him see my big grin, but I was so excited to finally be able to pull the surprise--I had been dying to tell him all week! He noticed that Lyla was not in the back and asked if I had left her with my sister so that I could do some shopping by myself. I told him that she was with his parents and he was pretty confused. Then I told him that I had his bag packed and we were going away for the evening! He was so completely surprised and I loved it because he's not a big one for surprises. I loved that moment just watching him process it all and he was so excited and so was I!

We went to Red Rock for dinner and sat on the patio. It was such a great evening and we loved the food, and it was just so nice. That was our favorite part of the night. Later we checked into our hotel and then walked down to city creek to pick up some cheesecake to go. We caught a little water fountain/music show and it was a nice little time. We slept in in the morning and had breakfast at the coffee shop and then went to Farmington to pick up our girl. It was a great little getaway and I'm so glad that Andy and Julie made it happen! It was a blast doing something a little special for Todd's 30th and I'm glad that he seemed to enjoy his birthday.

The two of us at Red Rock

Lyla helping Daddy open his present on Todd's actual birthday

Lyla and Daddy on Todd's 30th birthday

We also celebrated my 26th birthday last month. We had a nice lowkey evening with dinner at the Cheesecake factory, followed by shopping for my birthday present. It was fun to celebrate and I officially feel old--how can it really be that I've been dating and driving for 10 years?

Before my birthday date

Really not sure what's going on here

My delicious cheesecake