I keep doing this...

Full of good intentions, but failing to make good of them. I keep falling behind on the ol' blog, and then pictures pile up, and the things I wanted to say fade away, and I'm left dreading having to make an update. So alas, this will be an update of a few of the things that have happened over the past couple of weeks.

Weekends have been busy with fun in the sun as of late, and the past few weeks I have had success with being able to take Friday's off. A couple of Friday's ago I didn’t break out my camera until Lailah was ready for bed, and she was being cute, so I took a couple of pictures of her. But most of the day was spent not doing too much, mostly getting everything together for Father’s Day.

Ha Ha, she was in the middle of singing and being a little bit crazy right here.

 Hammertime.

 My precious little girl.

For Father’s Day Sunday, Lailah, Andy and I took a trip to the Zoo to see the new exhibits, and Lailah flipped over the Otters. She loves otters so much and couldn’t get enough of them. Once she saw them - all the other animals no longer existed. After that we stopped at Red Robin, Yum, for some lunch, and by the time we got home we were all exhausted.

It was a fun weekend.

She was pretty stoked about the train ride.

  

Otters!!!

 Aww, Lailah and her Daddy.

And a few other random pictures from the weekend.

Oh this is a mischievous face if I ever saw one.

 And this is the sweetest face if I ever saw one.

 Nothing better than fun in the sun.

And a few pics of some of the things sprouting up around the yard.

 

A Birthday Party and the Aftermath

It’s official. The party has been had, and I am now the Mother of a TWO year old. I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I really have no idea where the time has gone. It frightens me to think of another two years going by just as quickly, and another, and another, and before I know it, my hair will be gray and I will be the mother of a 20 year old. While I can’t wait to see what those years will bring, and the person she will become, I am saddened to think that before long she will no longer fit snug as a bug upon my lap. She’s getting so big, and learning so much, I wish for just a moment time could stand still and I could keep her the way she is. But alas, this is not possible, I know. So, for now, I will just be sure to enjoy every moment of it to the greatest extent.

So, the party. It was a hit. It was Minnie Mouse to the max. I’m glad we decided to keep the majority of it inside, once the wind started howling like a banshee the only thing we lost were a few balloons, which I am still a little sad about, but it is what it is. I should have just left them in the house to begin with. Does this happen to anyone else. I keep telling myself that loosing those balloons was/is no big deal, but then I keep saying to myself, I wish Lailah had gotten to see them, I wish I hadn’t bothered making a special trip for them the night before, oh why didn’t I just leave them in the house with everything else? Yea, apparently it’s a little bit bigger deal than I keep telling myself. I guess I just wanted everything to be perfect, and to her it was, so I guess that’s really all that matters.

She had fun performing for all the people that came to see her and she even made a couple of new friends, Chloe and Aspen. It was so funny to see her adapt to them and the way they acted even though they were much older than her.

It took her about half a day to open all her presents, most of which she opened after nearly everyone had already left. I love that about her, she really is pretty content with just one thing, she’s not one to rip through all her presents and wonder why there isn’t more. She took it all in, and mostly just wanted to play with her new friends. After they all left, I could tell it was going to be an interesting night, and knew that if we made it all the way through to morning without her waking up it would be a miracle. Sure enough about 4am she woke up crying, and when I went in to see what was the matter she wanted to talk about her party and her friends, and her toys. She has a hard time coming back down from exciting events. I hope that over time she isn’t so sensitive to such activities. I think her brain just works too hard on a relaxed day, add to that a special event and she gets on overload.

But all in all, Birthday Party was a success.

She loved everything she got. 

 She was so content after opening a present it took quite some time to get her to open another one.

 New Friends. Awww.

 Minnie Mouse everywhere.

 You can see how interested she was in opening her presents.

 Ha Ha, I have no idea what this look was all about.

Friday with Lailah – June 8th

The calm before the Party. This Friday with Lailah was spent relaxing the day away, most of which with a swimsuit on. (Not me, her, ha ha – Just wanted to be clear on that.) Earlier in the day I took her to Toy’s R Us to choose a toy with the Birthday money she got from her Great Grandma and Grandpa. And of course she wanted Dinosaurs. I couldn’t get her to change her mind come hell or high water. And don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that she likes Dinosaurs, but she seems to be obsessed and has plenty, I was hoping she would go for something else. But Dinosaurs it was. So when we got back from the store, she wanted to change into her swimsuit and take her new Dino’s outside to play in the water. And that is what we did, for a long, long time.

She was begging me to open the box and get her dinosaurs out, so this is the smile I got when I was taking her picture. ha ha

 She's a bit obsessed with her Dinosaurs. I think we may soon need an intervention.

 She surely has a lot of fun with them though.

 Aww, precious bean. This is her 'real' smile.

 Dinosaurs gets lots of hydration.

Rat Fink Reunion 2012

Let me just start this post by saying a vacation with a two year old...is not a vacation. The week prior to our adventure I had been telling Lailah we were going to be going on a trip, we called it 'camping'. We were staying in my parents trailer, so to call it camping seemed apropos, even though their trailer is far from actual 'camping'. Lailah was excited all throughout the week - I would ask her what we were going to go do, and she would gleefully respond with "goin' campin". She seemed genuinely stoked about it, until about 4 hours after we got there, and she started saying "go home now", and since that was getting her anywhere she started saying "mommy's house", as if to say, you dingbat Mommy are you not understanding that I am done with camping? I kept telling her we were camping for the weekend and that we wouldn't be going home for a few days. It would keep her satisfied for a minimal amount of time and then it was back to wanting to go home. all.weekend.long. Her sleeping schedule was completely out of whack, the sounds in the trailer were unfamiliar to her, it was unseasonably hot all weekend long, she didn't have her crib, it just wasn't familiar enough for her to enjoy it. Which meant not enjoying it much myself, which meant Andy not enjoying it much himself either. BUT, there were definitely memory worthy moments in there, and I am thankful for that. Lailah liked 'Rat Finks House' - particularly the Christmas room. Ilene has decorated a room in the museum completely with Christmas items. A tree is even adorned with ornaments that Andy pinstriped, and Lailah just thought it was the most awesome room. All weekend long she would say, "See Christmas", and "Rat Fink" and "Trixie". While I am sure she would have much preferred to have been home, she did find moments of enjoyment throughout the adventure, and so did I. 

When we first arrived, she was happy enough. 

 Naps consisted of me driving around while she slept in her car seat. She woke up when I was driving up the Manti-Lasal Mountain canyon so we stopped and played in the creek. Dinosaurs and water...she was quite alright with that.

 Not so sure the Dinosaurs were as excited about it. T-Rex looks to be in agony - Can't say I blame him, what the hell is up with his hands?

 I got lots of cheesy smiles throughout the weekend. The kind that say 'enough already mom, take the damn picture and get it over with.'

 Lailah and Daddy in front of the Rat Fink. It was interesting seeing her there with him, since 6 years ago Andy and I were having our picture taken in the exact spot. My how things have changed since then.

 Lailah was really diggin' the live music. She stopped playing with her dinosaurs and danced for a good 10 minutes. My face hurt from smiling so much. I love to watch her dance.

 And what could be better than a giant pile of rocks to play in. Daddy was kind enough to get in there with her and indulge in some rock hounding fun. They sat there for a good half hour bonding. Precious moments.

 Finally back at home I caught this Daddy/Daughter moment out the window. I looked up to catch Lailah helping Daddy do some weeding. More precious moments.

A kitten filled Memorial Weekend

As much as I am not happy about having kittens living in our backyard, they sure are cute. Memorial weekend we had a whole litter of them back there since our neighbors are irresponsible and don't take care of their pets, but I digress. Regardless of the beef I have with my neighbors it has been fun watching them roam around and romp in our raspberry bushes. If a kitten doesn't bring a smile to your face I'm pretty sure you got bad shit wrong with ya. I didn't get that Friday off due to work, but it was still a 3 day weekend so it wasn't too shabby. Lailah got oodles of outside time, and we had a lot of fun.