Easter Part 1

We had a jam packed, fun filled Easter Weekend! I'm just barely recovering from it. (As is my house) I thought I would show some of our Easter Festivities in Sections, as I felt like it. What can I say, sometimes I'm lazy. Here is Shay's first Easter Egg hunt through pictures.

We started by riding the horse together. It may look like they are each unwilling participants, and Kate may be giving me the glare of death, but this was actually their idea. Those two sillies.

And the hunt Begins!! Shay was rather angry with me that I would have her go look for eggs when she wanted to swing. So she insisted that Jon help her on the hunt. This girl has attitude, with a capital A. (She may or may not get it from me...)

What goodies did Kate find? Apparently it was worth stopping and eating right then! Kate really caught on to the whole Egg hunt and pretty soon her basket was about to over flow. Even with these yummy little pit stops she made.

Cute Grant. I may or may not be campaigning for Shayla to date you when you're both 16. He is a cute kid and really enjoyed the hunt as well. His Mom won the prize with best egg filler, she brought Bubbles!!

Stopping to smell the dandelions. I'm just glad we're past the stage where she tries to eat them...

Oh Kate, If only you knew the yummy goodness hidden inside that shiny gold wrapper. You would have been a little more insistent that we open it immediately.

Shayla checking out Kate's basket. Maybe Kate has something better in hers!

The kids came up with a different idea for filling the eggs. Sand! Why didn't I think of that?

Trying to gather all the kids together for a picture....

Shayla absolutely refused to cooperate so we resorted to this. four cute kids. Shayla, Grant, Easton and Kate.

The bunny ears... Don't you DARE put that on me. With Easton watching to see what Kate does.

We had a fun time with all of these cute kids and their parents. Hopefully next year they're all a little more excited for the eggs! It ended with the parents picking up the majority of the eggs, and even sharing with other little kids who came to the park to play.

Happy Hollow

For those of you not from California you may be asking what Happy Hollow is. Well, it's a petting zoo. It's pretty darn cute. It has play areas, and picnic areas, and animals you can feed and pet, and Shayla's favorite part, a carousel. Some of my good friends out here and I bought year memberships to this cute little place, so our kids will be having this activity A LOT.

This is Shayla on the carousel. Every time we saw it she would say, "This, More!" She loved it. She would giggle as the animal went up and down and would pet it as we went around.

When Mommy stopped complying she even resorted to trying to break in...

Kate had a different approach. Up and Over.

We waited in line for a ridiculous amount of time to ride a dragon train around (a mistake we won't be repeating any time soon) The kids thought it was great and so magical. The Mom's had trouble not making fun of how ridiculous of a ride it was. There were painted animals all along the track that the kids could look for! Oh boy!

There were these great blue benches that the girls insisted on sitting on. Here are a few of the gems from that experience.

Don't ask me what they are doing to Shay's pants.

And Kate's "Cheese" face. Love it.

Not pictured is their other bestie Easton. He will be such the Ladies man. He had no interest in breaking into Carousels or doing something girlie like sitting on a blue bench. I'm sad I didn't capture a photo of him this trip. He LOVED the goats, Shayla was scared so the camera didn't come out during that experience. I'm sure I'll get many more opportunities though!

What have the Laudies been up to?

You may be asking yourself what the Laudies have been up to, probably not, but you might be. Well we have been busy.

Shayla has been busy with play dates. This girl LOVES her friends. There are three that she is particularly fond of that she sees all the time. It's funny how she can be in the worst mood ever and all I have to say is,  "Should we go see Kate, or Lola, or Easton?" And I get a big smile and an enthusiastic "Yeah!!!" Suddenly all that is wrong in the world is righted.

Shayla has been a little slow when it comes to speech. But recently I realized she isn't as far behind as previously thought, she is just really quiet when she says it so you aren't sure if she actually said something or just jibberish. Her newest word is "Up" This word is used frequently throughout the day. She wants to be "up" in my arms, "up" the slide, "up" the stairs, "up" on the table.... that one she doesn't get away with. But you get the idea. The word up  can be used many times in one day. Until today though she would say "Pah!" and you had to know that she was saying "Up".

One of the funniest things she does is when we brush our teeth in the morning. She likes to brush with me, and spit with me. When I spit in the sink she leans forward and pretends to spit as well. If she were to spit it would end up all over our cupboards. She sure feels like a big girl though.

I've been exercising and watching my diet. In the last week I've lost 4 pounds! This is a pretty big accomplishment for me. In the next little while I anticipate being able to wear my "skinny" clothes again. I've gained a lot of muscle mass and have started really looking forward to my workout every day. I work out 5 days a week. Usually for about 40 minutes, but once a week my friend Sara and I do this hike called "the dish" It's almost 4 miles of sheer torture. It feels so great. It has these hills were we are practically pushing the strollers straight up vertically. By the end our calves are killing us but it feels so great. You really feel it working out muscles you never knew you had.

I keep telling Shayla that Mommies goal is to be tan and skinny. I'm half way there with both of those goals. Shayla and I have some pretty awesome farmers tans. My favorite is my feet. I have some really great flip flop tan lines, but they end half way up my foot because of where my pants hit. It almost looks like I didn't wash my feet very well.

Jon has been working like crazy. Nothing new there. I spend most nights home while the baby is sleeping and the Daddy is at work. He bought a new motorcycle that he finds any excuse to ride. There isn't really too much else to tell. He spends most of his time working or sleeping. Poor guy doesn't have much time for anything else. The weekends he devotes entirely to being a Dad. Shayla cries when he leaves.

All in all we are a happy little family. We are looking forward to later in life when Jon can spend more time at home. We have our eye on the prize!

FAIL!!

So Jon is really great at putting his foot in his mouth. It happens on almost a nightly basis. Now normally I just give him a quizzical look and laugh. But tonight was priceless...

We were having a discussion about his little sister who has a boy hot on her heels, trying to get her to marry him. (I guess the general conference talks sunk in a little too much for him) This discussion lead to our engagement and how we knew it was right. How easy it was. Now you have to realize that Jon and I decided to get married one night. We hadn't talked about it AT ALL before that night. But we had each prayed about it separately and received confirmation before this happened. So it just took one night of talking. We knew it was right that night. So me being the planner I am, I started planning our wedding. Now because of this Jon sometimes makes comments making it sound like he was shocked at how fast we started planning our wedding after that night. I guess he expected us to just talk about it for a few months. So sometimes he makes it sound like I cornered him and forced him into this whole marriage thing. (Not intentionally, this comes back to the whole foot in mouth thing)

During our engagement I was working full time, in college, and Relief Society President. So I planned whenever I had an opportunity. I was a busy bee!

Well tonight I called him out a little on it and as he was trying to suck up to me, with the most loving, honey dripping voice he could conjure, he said: "I was just really scared to propose to you because I was so out of your league..."

Well at that point I cut him off laughing and he back tracked as quickly as possible. Or at least he tried. So what did I do? I posted the comment on facebook for all to enjoy... immediately. Then I hugged him as I laughed and he tried to dig himself out of his hole.

Oh how I love that man! Good thing I didn't marry him for his smooth words, because that was a definite FAIL!!!

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Yesterday I took Shayla to a little farm around here with some of her besties and their Moms. We went as Moms because it is a 1.5 mile walk to get there and we like exercise. Plus the kids get to see all of the animals we teach them the noises of.

Shayla LOVED it. She loved seeing the cow and moo'd at it. She loved feeling the sheep wool. She loved watching the ducks and hens. She was one happy little girl to be wandering around that farm.

If there is one friend she loves to get into "trouble" with, it's Kate. Those two cute little girls kept walking around a corner of a barn while the Moms were sitting and chatting and then would come back laughing and giggling. We wondered what in the world was going on, but knew they couldn't get into any trouble so just let it pass and let them continue with their game. Then we heard it...

COCKADOODLE DOO!!!

Two little shrieks followed. Then we saw them running to save their lives, Shayla climbed on my lap and just about around my neck and continued to scream as this rooster came ambling around the corner. Kate wasn't quite as traumatized but we got a really good laugh out of it. He was with us for a bit and every time he made his call Shayla would look at him like he was crazy! By the end she would laugh every time she heard him. I guess it's a lot funnier when you're in Mama's arms.

I wish I had pictures of that particular moment! She sure keeps my life interesting and fun!

Pray Always...

Since Shayla has learned to fold her arms Jon and I have been working with her on prayer. Most times she folds her arms just until we close our eyes and then tries to go on with eating or whatever else she thinks she should be doing. The one exception is when she goes to bed. She will fold her little arms while we pray and then proudly shouts "Men!" at the end of the prayer.

Today in her bath She suddenly folded her arms and looked at me like, Mom it's time to pray. So we said a little prayer. followed by her customary "MEN". No sooner had she said this than she folded her arms again. I asked her if she wanted to pray again and with her big blue eyes looking up at me she said, "yeah". How can a Mother say no to that? So we prayed again. and again. and again. About the tenth prayer I finally said, "All done!" and distracted her with a ball.

How do you say no to your child when all she wants to do is pray. It melted my heart. I'm glad she likes to pray. I hope it's something we can continue to have her love as she grows. As I was saying my umpteenth prayer for her in the bath I was struck by the thought that we are supposed to teach our children to pray always. But I think this sweet little girl helped give me a lesson on prayer.

Is that a threat?

Recently my sister pointed out how often I blog/facebook/talk about the gorgeous weather here. She "threatened" that if I didn't cut it out she would be coming to visit us.

So this is for Laura:

It was gorgeous here today. It was 75 and sunny. I wore jeans and felt overdressed. It was definitely a day when my legs should have seen the sun. Also it is beautiful here now. There is something about spring and all the flowers blooming here. I can't even tell you how heavenly it is here.

What Laura failed to realize is that I would LOVE to have them come visit. So I think I will continue to discuss the wonderful, mild climate here until she decides to come and see me.

That's all. If anyone else needs more encouragement to make the trek out to California let me know. I'm more than happy to oblige!

Summer

I'm sitting on our back porch. Barefoot. In capris and a tshirt. This extra warm weather has made me really excited for summer. And the pool opening back up.

I was really excited yesterday when I packed Shayla up and we headed to the beach to get out of the heat a little. I love summer. I love the fruit. I love the warmth. I love going to the pool every day. I'm really looking forward to our first summer in California. Especially since the summer lasts through October.

Heaven.