MY SISTER IS ENGAGED!!!!

Yes, you read that right! My sister, Marion is engaged!!!!!

Her and her boyfriend Monty have been together for 5 years. They are finally tying the knot!

Here is a close up of the bling, bling, ring! Isn't it just beautiful?

I love how Marion let's me take pictures of her in poses I ask her to do!

We have been so busy planning the wedding. It is going to be August 27!

So far this is what we have done.....

*She got a dress! It is beautiful but I am not showing it on the blog until after the wedding.*

*We have picked the place to have it.*

*She has a photographer.*

*I of course am making the cake.*

*We have picked out flowers.*

*We have picked out linens and her colors. We are meeting with a women on Saturday.*

*We have picked out the flower girl baskets and ring pillow. We are renting them.*

*We know what food we will be serving but of course we haven't bought it yet.*

*We have almost all the decor figured out. Now, we just have to put our craft skills together and make things. I have gotten some great ideas from other people.*

We got a great deal on these shutters. We found them on KSL for $25. It was a steal. We had to go to Hyrum Utah to get them but they are worth it! They are so pretty and they are going to add so much to our decor for the wedding! We are so excited! This is all you get of the decor because you will just have to wait to see it after the wedding!

What we still need to do....

*Engagement pictures*

*Bridles to get done.*

*Have to make invitations.*

* Execute all the decorations.*

*Find dresses for bride's maids and flower girls (Ayla is one of them of course).*

*Pick out tuxes for the guys.*

*Some one to marry them. (That one is important.)*

I am sure there is a ton of other things that I can't think of right now but I feel we have a great start!

I am so so excited for my sister!!! I love you, Marion! Congratulations!

Fun with Ayla! #3 (The North Pole Express)

So one Friday afternoon, in December my Mother-in-law called me and asked me if I wanted to take Ayla on, "The North Pole Express" in Heber. She told me that our good friend Susan and her family had extra tickets and invited us to come along. I was so excited to see Susan, I became really close to her through visiting teaching. I was her visiting teacher. She has been such a blessing in my life!

Here she is with me!
Notice I am dressed like I am going skiing? Ya, last time I went on this train ride it was freezing! And last time they called it, "The Polar Express." I don't know why the decided to change it to "The North Pole Express." Maybe to be on the safe side, so they don't get in trouble for using the name.

Here is a picture of the group of us!
Morganne, my Mother-in-law, Ayla and me.

We had a great time riding the train to the North Pole!!!

A cute one of Morganne!

Ayla looking out the window!

The two of them looking out the window!
They rode like this most of the time. They wanted to be able to see the North Pole when we got there.

The train was all deck out in holiday decor!

They gave out cookies and hot chocolate!

Ayla with her hands in the air!

She was treating the train ride like it was a roller coaster. She loves rides and loves to put her hands up. She is a lot like her mommy! Don't you love the chocolate face she has?

They passed out bells while we all sang "Jingle Bells."
We didn't get to keep them but Grandma bought all the grand kids bells from the gift shop. They were a lot bigger than the bells they let us barrow.

When we finally reached the North Pole....

Mrs. Clause came on the train first to greet all of us!
Ayla and Morganne loved meeting her!

And then Santa came!
Ayla and Morganne were so excited to see him they could hardly wait!

Santa visited with Ayla and Morganne, asked them what they wanted for Christmas and then gave them each a little toy top. The look on Morganne's face says it all!

We had a wonderful trip to "The North Pole!"

A special thanks to Susan and her family for letting us come!

My Dad's birthday!

Last Wednesday, was my Daddy's birthday! We celebrated it on Thursday.

We started with presents!

Kurt, Ayla and I got Dad, "How to Train Your Dragon!"
It is one of our favorite movies.

Marion and Monty got Dad this jacket!

He looks so nice in it!

I made the dinner. I made those Easy Beef Enchilada's that I made for Christmas. They are super yummy! The recipe can be found on my , "3 Days of Christmas post." You can find it towards the bottom of the post.

And of course I made the cake!

Cute picture of Lane Brain!

And one of my Dad and his girls! I loved this picture! I love the smile on my Daddy's face!

Like my hair cut? My friend Melissa game over that morning and cut my hair. I love having a new hair cut! Thanks Meliss!

We had a great time celebrating my Dad's birthday! I love my family!

Fun with Ayla! #2 (The Valley Fair Mall)

I have a lot of Christmas posts I have to catch up on, so bare with me. I will do them in between posts and I am going to try and keep them short.

This post is the second post in the the Fun with Ayla series. Remember the first one? Well, in the first one we went to "Yo Gabba Gabba Live", I took Ayla to the movies for her first time in a theater to see "Tangled" and then after the movie we took Ayla to see Santa. After that day, Ayla kept asking to see Santa so I took her the next week to see him but this time we went with my nephew, Lane and my mom. We always go with Lane and my mom every year to see Santa as a tradition.

They had this large, beautiful, Christmas tree out in the front of Valley Fair Mall. I loved it!
I love how off centered the tree is in this picture. I actually had a lot of pictures that were off centered. I don't know what I was doing that night with my camera.

The tree would change different colors.

Here they are with Santa.
Look, Ayla is actually sitting on his lap! Last time she just stood by him. I guess she started to warm up to him since she had already saw him once.


I was really impressed at how they have fixed up this mall. I loved that they had this small carousel. Ayla loves carousels.
Don't you love the off centered picture?


Ayla!


Lane got on too.
He is eating the candy cane he got from Santa. I thought it was cool Santa gave those out.


They also had a little train there during the holiday. I loved it!


Ayla waiting to ride the train with her candy cane face!


Ayla and Lane with their candy cane faces!


Ayla on the train.


Me, Lane and Ayla!


It took you around the mall and it even took you outside.


Got one of just Ayla in the train.


Here Lane is rocking out to the Trans Siberian Orchestra. LOL!!!32 They had the tree synchronized to the music.


It was awesome!


After all that fun we went to eat at "NYPD PIZZA." This was also at the mall. They have added a lot of business outside the mall so it is an indoor and outside mall.


Ayla and Lane coloring.


I love to see her drink from a straw! She is so cute!


I love the picture of Lane showing off his coloring job!


And of course we had pizza. It is funny to me that Ayla loves pizza even though I have to take off all the good stuff, like cheese because she has a milk allergy. I guess the crust and the sauce are good enough.

What a fun night! I love Christmas traditions!

I have been potty training Ayla!

I don't know if you remember that I documented on my blog a while ago that Ayla used the potty for her first time. Well she went that once and that was the end of it until now.

I am happy to report that Ayla is almost completely potty trained! I say almost because we are still doing the reward system. She has a sticker chart, she has a jar that we fill up with marble rocks and when it is full she gets to go to the dollar store and pick out a toy. We also have been giving her marshmallows.

I started training her not this past week but the week before. I stayed home with her for a week and she did very well! We had our accidents of course! I actually did the bottomless thing for three days and after she got the concept we put her in loses fitting bottom clothing like, PJ bottoms. She has no undies yet but she will get them once we are sure she will not go in them. She is getting close to that! She only wears pull-ups at night and during naps.

On Monday I took Ayla to get a hearing test, which she passed! After the hearing test I took her to the zoo. I was very nerves to see how she would do on our first official outing! Not to mention how she would do on a public toilet. She did great! I now know where every bathroom is at the zoo! She also had no accidents when we went sledding on Tuesday.

I have been so proud of her this week because she has only had one accident and that was on her way to the bathroom while she was screaming that she had to go.

As of today, she has gotten really good at it. She even has gotten to the point that she doesn't want any help. She has even gotten good at washing her hands. She has even been waking up in the night to go. She has had dry pull-ups, except for one time this week. I am so proud of her!

I trained her on her potty chair but she is going on the main toilet now and I love it! She tells me when she needs to go. Although sometimes she says she has to go when she doesn't, like today in sacrament meeting, 3 different times! It has become a little game sometimes to her. She knows that if she says she has to go that we will drop what we are doing and take her, smart kid!

It wasn't easy and I had my doubts that she wasn't ready but I did it because she recently became allergic to the sensitive wipes I had been using on her since she was an infant. She was sad for a while with having to take her diaper off but she is now over that. It also was trying because during the week that I was potty training her she would hold her #2 in and then the next couple of days after that she had a sour stomach and was sick and we had #2 issues. I am glad to say she is over that!

She is doing so well! I am so proud of her!

A special thanks to my friend, Leah for the many phone calls I have given her over the past couple of weeks. I am also thankful to my friend, Ann who gave me some pointers. I am also thankful to my friend, Monica for her pointers from the first post I posted about potty training earlier last year. I am thankful for the support I have had on Facebook and for the wipe recipes people gave me.

Thank you!

We took Ayla sledding for her first time!

Kurt took the day off yesterday and we took Ayla sledding for her first time! We had a blast!

Kurt pulled her up the hill this way.

Ayla and her Daddy!

I used the tube we got most of the time.

Ayla and Daddy going up the hill!

The sled was definitely faster than the tube!

And one of Ayla and me!
This was taken right before we left. Ayla wasn't very happy by this point, she was cold and wanted to go home. :(

This was her after we got home! :)

Enjoy the videos below.
They are very short.

This was Ayla's very first time down the hill!

This was her first time down the hill with her mommy.

I love this one!!!!!

This was Ayla's last time down the hill by herself!

We had so much fun! I hope we go again very soon!