Ayla said some new words!

Ayla is starting to say "Mama." She has said it before in the past but I think that was by accident. Well yesterday I went out of her site and she yelled "Mama." It was like she was saying "Get back here Mama." I came back because I was shocked and I asked her "Did you just say Mama?" Then I left her site again and she yelled it again. I was so happy because I realized she was saying it. The only thing was she was being demanding with it.

Then today, I put her down for a nap and she didn't want to lie down, so when I left the room, I started to hear "Mama, Mama" but this time it was her just calling me. I couldn't help but go in and pick her up and kiss her. She is so cute. 

Also yesterday, when we were out visiting my family, we were at my sister's house and Ayla was shaking again with excitement over Marion's dog, Buckle. Marion started to ask, "Is that a dog?" and then Marion pointed to "Buckle" and started to say "dog" over and over. Ayla then said "dog." Me and Marion looked at each other amazed. 

I also wanted to document that Ayla used a sippy cup for her first time. She seamed to like it. I need to try her with the one I got yesterday from Trisha. It is a nice one. It is kind of between a bottle and a sippy cup. I bet she will like that one more. Thank you Trisha for the awesome sippy cup.

Ayla's pretty dress!

Yesterday, we had our Young Women in Excellence. For those who don't know what this is, it is where the Young Women get to share things they have a accomplished during the year. You dress up for the occasion, have dinner, look at the projects they have made and listen to some of the Young Women give talks about what they did. It is to honor the Young Women of the church. Like I said in earlier posts, I love the Young Women's program. It helps the youth learn about their great worth. 

It was a fun evening and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am proud of our girls and love them all so much. 

I wanted to share some of the pictures of Ayla in the dress she wore last night. It is a dress that Grandma Perry got for her. I think she looks so cute in it but I think she looks so cute in everything!

In this picture, you can get a sneak peak of what Ayla's doggy costume looks like. It is in the background.

After I took her dress off, she started to play with her socks. I thought it was so cute, so I got the camera out.

She turned for a moment and found something better to play with. :)

Yay! A hanger!

I love you Ayla!

Yay! We carved our pumpkin!

Do you remember this pumpkin from an earlier post? We were supposed to carve it this last Friday at our FFHE but the cookies took up enough time. I was wondering when I would get to carving it this week by myself. :( Then a wonderful person named Brenda from our ward came up to me on Sunday and invited me over to carve pumpkins on Monday. I was happy that I didn't have to do the work all alone. :)

This is Brenda and her husband Dan. We carved pumpkins with them last year. They are such a sweet couple and have done a lot for Kurt and I. Dan invited us to FHE with other couples in the ward the very first Sunday we went to the ward. Yesterday was one of these FHEs and it was fun! Aren't their pumpkins cute? 

Brenda also made some banana bread with no nuts. I was hesitant because I have not had a banana in 6 years because they give me major heartburn. I thought I would give it a try to see what happens. I am glad to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the bread and didn't have any heartburn but I am not about to eat a banana. I know it would leave me in pain for 3 days like the last banana I had. 

This is Mike and Amanda. They were one of the couples over there too. Amanda was great with Ayla. She kept her entertained while I carved our pumpkin. Thanks Amanda!

This is Nate and Angie, another couple who came. They had already carved their pumpkins this year so they brought a  Halloween gingerbread house to make. I love how Angie is always glowing. She is pregnant and I think she is just beautiful. 

And this is how our pumpkin turned out. 

This is how it looks in our corner.

This is how it looks with the lights turned out. You might have to click on the picture to see it better. 

I am so glad I got it done and I think he turned out cute!

Ayla turned 8 months!

We didn't do a whole lot over the weekend but Ayla turned 8 months old. Where does the time go? She weighs 18lbs and is 27 1/2 inches long. So she gained 2 pounds and grew an inch from last month. 

In her 7th month she has accomplished many things. She has mastered how to move her walker backwards. She crawled a little bit the other day but most of the time she rocks back and forth on all fours. She also scoots backwards as she tries to crawl. She has 2 teeth on her bottom front. She has learned to say "Dada." She even occasionally says just "Dad." I got her to say "Mom" once but I think it was by accident. She will get it soon enough, I will just keep on working on that with her. 

Ayla has been such a blessing in our lives. I have never been so happy than I am now. I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful little girl. Somehow the love you have for your spouse increases when you have a child together. Ayla is so much fun! 

I love to take pictures of her on the couch! This was taken on Saturday, her 8th month Birthday! 

Mommy loves you, you sweet little peanut!

What a fun FFHE!

We had our Friday Family Home Evening tonight and it turned out well. We read from the Ensign for our lesson and then our activity was decorating Halloween sugar cookies.

We decided to do sugar cookies instead of cupcakes because I had found these cute cookie cutters at the dollar store a while back. We both thought they were more fun than cupcakes because you could do so much more with them. Plus I love these sugar cookies. They are a family recipe. I grew up eating these cookies.

It is always fun decorating with Kurt. I always look forward to what he can create and he gets pretty creative. Ayla was a good girl. She just chilled in her high-chair playing with a spoon between us while we decorated.

 

The next 4 pictures below are pictures of all the cookies. 

The next 3 pictures below are my 6 top favorite ones we made. I will also let you know who decorated what.

Frankenstein: I did this one

Squid right next to it: Kurt did this one

Kurt did both of these: an apple and a raven's head. Like I said, he got creative. :)

These two were my favorite ones. I did the Jack Skeleton and Kurt did Egore.

That was a lot of fun and worth all the work!

Marion's Birthday Party!

We had Marion's birthday party over at her house. Ayla and I went over there during the day before the party to hang out with Marion. Ayla was so cute with Marion's dog, Buckle. She was getting so excited every time Buckle would walk by. She was so excited she was shaking. It was so adorable.

I tried to capture her excitement.

Ayla loves her aunt Marion.

She feel asleep as Marion held her and rocked her in the picture above. Ayla doesn't fall asleep on just anyone. It usually has to be me but she fell asleep on her Aunt Marion. There are only two other people I know she has fallen asleep on and that is Clair and Julie B. They are two ladies in our ward.

This is Marion's cake. I wanted to do something Halloweenish like I have been doing on her birthday cakes but she wanted a confetti cake. That is what she got. It was an easy cake too.

The whole family was over and we ate KFC. My mother made the mashed potatoes though because we prefer the real deal.

My sister turned 31 yesterday. We didn't have 31 candles so we put 3 on one side of the cake and 1 on the other. Lane decided he wanted to make Marion 32 so he added a candle. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to her. Lane then blew out her candles before Marion could even try. We all cracked up! He did that to her last year too! LOL!

Here is what we gave Marion for her birthday. We don't have a lot of money and she loves the Eiffel Tower, so I drew it for her. She had asked me to draw it for her 5 years ago. I just haven't gotten around to it until now. It took me 3 hours to draw because there is so much detail in the tower. I did it all while Ayla was asleep.

Then I framed it for her.

This was her reaction to it. She loved it! She even let out a little scream when she opened it.

It was worth the work. I love you Marion!

Happy Birthday Marion!

Today is my sister Marion's birthday. I just want her to know how much I love and appreciate her. Below are the 5 top reasons why I love her.

This was taken on Ayla'a blessing day!

#5-She always goes for what she wants. Right now she is going to school to be a nurse and I am so proud of her. She always said she wanted to be a nurse when we were younger. Now she is fulfilling that roll. She is in the nursing program up at the U. She works so hard at work and school.

#4-I love to hang out with her. We don't even need to be doing anything. We just love to be around each other. We love to do goofy stuff and laugh at each other. One of our favorite things to do is lounge by a pool in the summer.

#3-She is so beautiful inside and out. She would do anything for anyone. She has always spoiled me with this and I have kind of gotten used to it. Kurt always says " Your poor sister. She does a lot for us." She does too, almost weekly. I want her to know how much I appreciate her.

#2- I love all the memories I have with her, the good and the bad (meaning the bad trials we have been through). We both have been through some rough times and I know I can always rely on her for emotional support.

The #1 reason I love her, is that she loves me and loves being a second mother to Ayla. We have such a strong bond. I am so happy to have her as my sister!

I love you Marion and I hope you have a wonderful day!

Fall decor!

I wanted to share our fall decor. It is more Halloween decor. I love Halloween! We don't have a whole lot but the little we have, I will show you. I do have a few Halloween Beanie Babies but they are in storage and I didn't feel like getting them out. I will next year though. I know Ayla will have a lot of fun with them.

I bought this sign at the dollar store. I thought it was cute and I couldn't pass up the price, just $1. This hangs on our front door on the inside. I don't want it to get stolen, due to the neighborhood we live in. Kurt says, "Why do you care? It was only a dollar." but I like it and that is why I don't want it to get stolen.

This is our Halloween gourd. They sell these at the airport gift shops. One of my coworkers bought this one for Kurt and I for our 1st anniversary. I worked there for 8 years. The cute thing about these gourds is they all have names. This one is "Becky." Yes, she is a lady.

These are some fall pillows we got from our wedding. I don't remember who got them for us but I could go through all the thank you cards we filled out but never sent. OOPS!
Do you love my little Vanna White? She displays the pillows just perfect.

I usually use this black cauldron to put candy in but I got a couple of fall leaf vines from the dollar store and decided to display them like this. It is in the center of our coffee table.

These are our pumpkins this year. Ayla has her own. Can you guess which one is hers? You are right, the BIG one. Hee Hee. Just kidding the little one is hers. Isn't it so cute. We will be carving the large one this Friday at our, FFHE, Friday Family Home Evening. Kurt and I decided to do FHE on Fridays because he goes to school on Mondays. So we are going to start having it starting this Friday. Yeah, this is something we have been lacking in.

Sorry the picture is a little blurry but I wanted to show you cupcakes that Kurt and I had decorated last year. We have decided to do this for a family tradition, so we will be decorating cupcakes too on Friday. I also wanted to post this picture for Tierra she had asked for an idea for decorating cupcakes. All we did was use the star tip for the pumpkins to give them a texture and we just frosted the ghost ones with white frosting and then we just used the writing tip with black frosting to draw the faces. We also used some green for the stem. I will post the ones we do this Friday on Friday!

Exciting News!

Since my blog is my journal, this post is going to be another catch up post from the weekend.

Friday, I finally got to clean our apartment. I couldn't all week because of the cake. We then just chilled at home.

Aunt Marion came by to bring us our rugs she cleaned for us. Thank you Marion for always helping us. It will be nice when we finally have a washer and dryer.

Saturday morning I got to go to the Salt Lake Temple and do an endowement session. I went to the 7 am session. It was so nice to be there. There is such a peace there and it was a wonderful way to start my day. 

Ayla and I then went to breakfast with my dad. It has almost been a month since we did that because he has had to work a lot of Saturdays. I always love to go to breakfast with my dad and uncle Ernie.

We then spent the day at home. Ayla and I watched a few Halloween specials. We watched "Garfield's Halloween" and "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown." These are two of my favorite Halloween specials they remind me of when I was a little kid. Though I kind of think Charlie Brown is a little depressing. Who in the world would have such a cold heart to give a kid rocks instead of candy for trick or treat. Plus all the kids are so mean to Charlie Brown. I still love it though.

Kurt's sister, Suz, came by that night to bring us our laundry. Thanks Suzanne! She also came over for Kurt to help her with her Laptop. It was having some issues. Kurt was able to fix it. Yay Kurt.  So we visited with Suz that night. 

After Ayla went to bed that night, I watched "Corpse Bride," another movie with a great Halloween atmosphere. I seem to like that movie more and more every time I watch it. The music in it is not that great but the animation and the story are fun to watch. 

Sunday, Kurt took care of Ayla so I got some rest. Thanks honey! We went to church and I really enjoyed sacrament meeting. The speakers spoke on family history. I want to share one of the stories that was shared. I thought it was so cute. The speaker was talking about her husband's Grandmother and how she had goose eggs she needed to hatch. So she put a hen on them. When the eggs hatched, the little babies went for the river and the frantic mother hen freaked out about her babies being in the river. The speaker compared this to us women as mothers. Could you imagine being that poor little mother hen? I am sure I will definitely have experiences like that with my children. Sometimes I will have to let them learn on their own. 

After church I took a nap. It was a nice a restful weekend. 

ARE YOU READY FOR THE EXCITING NEWS?

Monday, which is today, Ayla started to crawl. I brought her into the kitchen with me and she got up on her hands and knees and moved a few inches. I was so excited I ran and got both cameras. I took a few pictures and video taped her a little. Then I tried to call people and share the good news.  I am so proud of her. Way to go, my little sweet baby Ayla!

Here is one of the photos. GOOD JOB AYLA!!

Amy's wedding and her cake!

Yesterday, my best friend Amy Isolampi got married to John 

Reed. Their wedding was beautiful. It was almost as beautiful as she looked. 

Amy coming down the stairs. Doesn't she look so beautiful?

I hope you can see. The lighting in the place was not good for my camera so I had to lighten up the first 3 pictures. 

Cute couple at the alter.

This picture is a little blurry but I wanted to share it. I love how John is holding onto Amy's arm and you can see how happy this day was for him. Soon after they started to walk down the aisle, they started to play the song "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and they started to dance down the aisle. John even twirled Amy around. It was so cute. I loved it.

The happy couple! 

John is a sweet guy and I am glad Amy found him. His parents were very nice and I am sure that is were he got it from. His mother is such a sweet woman. I enjoyed being around her.

We needed a picture of Ayla and I with the happy couple. Notice that Ayla is not very happy. She was tired and cranky that night. All she wanted was me. I think it had to do with the flu shot she got earlier that day. I also think that it was because she cut a tooth that day. Yes, Ayla cut her first tooth. I felt it yesterday but I thought I was imagining things but then I felt again today and,  yep, there is a tooth. She did great at the wedding though. Better than I thought she would have, if I would have known about the tooth. Wow, what a great baby she is. I love her.

Marion came with us. She is good friends with Amy too. This was taken up in the bride's room. It was cold up in that room. It was colder than downstairs. That is why Ayla has her jacket on.

And here is the cake.  I think it turned out alright. I think the daisy made the cake. I don't think I am going to make the fondant ever again. Homemade fondant doesn't sit well over night. It starts to smash the cake because it is too heavy. I even rolled it out as thin as I could too. It starts to ruin all my work. I think next time I will make it with real fondant. I think it will turn out a lot smoother. All in all, I think the cake turned out okay. 

I do love the picture of Amy next to the cake. She looks so beautiful.

Getting ready to cut the cake. Yay!

"Slice!"

Amy first! LOL!

John second! LOL! He got it worse than she did of course.

The cut in the cake. 

They then served it and it tasted pretty good but the fondant was still weird. It did taste better than regular fondant but I don't want to make it ever again. It takes too long. It took me 3 hours to make.

This is what went into the cake. Add a couple of cake mixes though and a couple of frostings to that and you got the cake. I made the fondant out of marshmallows and powdered sugar. The cake took me a total of 15 and a half hours to make and set up. I don't want to do another fondant cake until my kids are in school which won't be for a while. It was hard to make, having my little one there. I can do a lot more with butter cream anyways. I just hope Melissa and my friend Amy Savage don't want fondant cakes when they get married. I would do it though if they really wanted one. They would be my only exception because they have been life long friends. I don't have to worry about my sister though she wants butter cream! :) 

I do have to say, I am glad I could make the cake for the happy couple and I would do it again!

I love you Amy!