18 months and at the Zoo!

Ayla turned 18 months this past Tuesday. I can't believe it, she is a year and a half. Where is the time going? She weighs 20 lbs and is 31 1/2 inches long. According to my last record she lost 1 pound and shrunk just a tiny bit or I just don't measure her correctly and my scale is not as accurate as the doctor's office. I think it is the second reason. Oh well, moving on. 

Some of the things she accomplished are:

*She now makes a snake noise. SSSS.*

*She is learning what time out is.* 

*I started to do her hair for the first time and she looks adorable in a pony tail.*

*She really is becoming a girly girl. She loves feeding her dolls, loves her shoes and carries a purse around with her cell phone. She cracks me up.*

*She is really getting good at the things she learned the month before.*

She is so much fun!

On her 18 month birthday, we went to the Hogle Zoo with my mom and my friend, Melissa. We had a good time.

Ayla made many friends there. This was her first friend and this little girl was so cute. She would try and hug Ayla and hold her hand. She was so sweet. And the crazy thing was her name was Ayla. I couldn't believe it. Ayla is not a common name but I guess it is starting to be.

Ayla and I at the giant elephant statue.

Ayla really liked the elephant. 

There was only one out because the other one was inside bonding with its new baby.

So cute!

Had to get one with me and her and the elephant.

She loved being around the other kids there.

I loved this one. It looks like she is walking with her hand in her pocket.

At the gorilla cage they have a sign you can measure up to.

Ayla was a the size of a juvenile.

I had to get in on the action.

Ayla is standing in front of the male tiger cage. 

You can't really see the tiger but you might be able to if you click on the picture. I knew this was the male because the zoo worker informed us he was the daddy of 3 new tiger cubs. We did get to see one of the cubs but it was hard because all of the animals were sleeping.

Here we are with the giraffes. There was a baby giraffe.

Isn't the baby cute? He was a very small giraffe.

Here is a picture of my mom and Melissa. 

I didn't get very many pictures of them but this is one of them.

Ayla and I rode the new carousel they have there.

Ayla got to ride the zebra.

She was done half way through the ride.

Here is another one of the friends Ayla made there. I had a hard time with this little girl at first because she was mean to Ayla. She was looking at her and telling her "No" and then she pushed her. I said, "Hey, no pushing. Be nice." After that, the little girl started to be nice to Ayla. 

Ayla liked this little bunny.

She really enjoyed the baby meerkats. There were 8 of them. 

There are a lot of babies at the zoo right now. There was even a baby snow leopard and a baby orangatang. 

This was another one of the friends she made. Her name was Jordan and they were only a week apart in age.  She played with her the longest.

The last thing we did was ride the train. You can't go to the zoo and not ride the train.

Here is Ayla between me and Melissa.

I took this not sure if Ayla was centered. I just pointed the camera at her. I think it turned out adorable.

And Melissa took this one of us.

We had a great day at the zoo and, when it was over, we all were pretty tired. We were there for 4 hours. Ayla and I are supposed to go back to the zoo tomorrow but I'm not sure we will make it because Ayla had her 18 month shots yesterday and she is teething. She has two teeth coming in on the top. Between these two things, she has been cranky and has had fevers but only in the evenings. During the day she seems fine but I guess we will see. I really want to go. You see, my mother-in-law has a membership to the zoo and tomorrow they are having a special morning just for members. You have to be at the zoo at 7:30 a.m. and you get to see the animals eat and be more active. I think Ayla and I would enjoy that very much. Not to mention spending time with my mother-in-law, Krista, Morganne, baby Kurt and Brooke. It sounds like fun but I guess we will see.

I love the zoo! I am so glad they have improved it too. The animals have better living environments! 

I turned 30!

I can't believe I turned 30 this past Sunday. We celebrated it with my family and Kurt's family on Thursday the 20th, which was my uncle, Ernie's birthday. We had a combined party. We always have a combined party with my family. Only this time, Kurt's family was there. It was at our place.

There were a lot of people at our house. This was the best picture I could find to try and show how many were. I didn't want to post pictures of everyone who was here. It would have made this post super long. We all had a great time. 

Especially the kids. 

They loved playing with Ayla's tent princess castle and tunnel. 

When I looked down the tunnel this is what I saw. 
I thought this was such a cute picture of Morganne.

And of course I had to take a picture of little Kurt.

Ayla loves to play with little Kurt. He is starting to warm up to her. He isn't so afraid of her.

Ayla kept going to my dad that night. It was so cute and it made my dad feel special.

Here is my Bro, Robert finishing up the last burgers. Yes, we had a BBQ.

After dinner, we did presents for me and my uncle.

This is how Kurt wrapped my gifts, one in a changing pad cover and the other in my nursing bib. He cracks me up! LOL!

I couldn't believe it! It was a new camera. Yay!!!

I used that camera for the rest of the party.

Here is Ernie opening his gift he got from me and Kurt.

It was the movie "The Pagemaster." 

He loves movies. You can never go wrong getting him a movie.

Then it was time for dessert.

My uncle is a diabetic and so I made him this sugar free pie.

He liked it!

My mom baked us a cake and I wrote on it. I decided to put our ages on the cake. He turned 59 and I turned 30.

Here I am while they sang "Happy Birthday" to us.

It was a great party and we had a good time.

On Saturday, I went to my friend, Ann's house for a party for my friend Suzanne. She had turned 30 too, on Friday. It was a fun party. We ate dinner, watched her open presents, sang to her and watched her blow her candles out and we played a fun card game. I don't remember what the card game was called. It was"Crown" something? I will just have to ask Ann.

I made the cake for the party of course. 

I couldn't believe how cool 30 candles looked on a cake. This was taken while we were singing " Happy Birthday" to her.

After we were done singing. They relit the candles and sang to me. How awesome is that? Such sweet girls.

I blew them out but two relit for a moment. 

This is a picture of all the girls by the end of the night who came. It was a lot of fun!

And last but not least, I wanted to show what I got for my birthday. Ann gave me the beautiful cake stand, jar of pickles and the cute little kids book. My parents gave me the Michael Jackson DVD and they paid for my entrance to Lagoon when we went a couple of weeks ago. My friend, Melissa gave me the card and a Bath and Body Works gift card. And of course my sweet husband, Kurt gave me the camera plus a memory card. Kurt also watched Ayla on my birthday so I could go to the temple dedication. That was a great present too!

I had a wonderful birthday. And the best part was spending it with people I love. The gifts are great but I would have been just as great without them. 

Thanks to all my family and friends for making this such a special birthday. I love you!

Baby Kurt's Birthday Party!

Our cute little nephew, Kurt turned 1 on the 8th of this month. We celebrated his birthday this last Saturday at our new place. 

Baby Kurt's nickname is Tantor because he is such a big kid. Tantor is what the orginal Tarzan (not the Disney version) calls an elephant. So guess what kind of cake I made him? 

Yes, an elephant. 

I made him a small cake of his own too. You have to for their 1st birthday!

Side view. 

I liked how it turned out.

Back view.

I got the idea from a cake I did before that was a dinosaur. You can see it here.

The cute birthday boy!

Ayla loved having her cousins here!

She loves to be next to Kurt.

They played inside.

And outside.

Then Kurt was hungry so we decide to let him eat his small cake.

He was not so happy at first because we scared the poor little guy by singing "Happy birthday"to him.

He warmed up to it though.

Ayla kept steeling some of his cake! LOL!! 

Then he really got into it.

This made me so proud.

 I have never seen a kid distroy their 1st birthday cake like he did. It was well worth making.

Pretty much done.

Another picture of Ayla steeling cake. 

We try not to give Ayla too many sweets becaue that would be the only thing she would eat. She didn't want to take the chance of not getting any cake, I guess!

 

Caught red handed.

Kurt then had to have a bath and of course he was worn out.

My husband, Kurt grilled us up some yummy hot dogs.

Our niece Brooke enjoying the BBQ.

And our niece, Morganne too.

We all had cake next. I was sad to watch Kurt cut the cake.

How is it honey?

The kids enjoyed the cake.

Ayla even had some. 

Notice that there are hardly any crumbs?

Between all of us, the elephant was enough. There was a whole 9 inch round left.

After the cake, the kids had so much sugar they wanted to play, play, play.

I love this picture of Brooke.

Morganne and Brooke being silly.

Morganne and Ayla's turn to be silly.

They kept arching back and grunting and laughing. It was so cute.

They played for hours.

Ayla never even got a nap in.

She hit the hay early at 7:30 p.m. She usually goes to bed at 10:00 p.m.

Had to share this sweet picture of the birthday boy.

I was there too.

We had a great day spending time together. I love to celebrate birthdays with family. We will be celebrating mine this week with my family. Yay! More family time!

Below are some clips of that day of the kids dancing and playing. 

This one is of Ayla and Morganne dancing. So cute!

I have to laugh at myself in this one because you can see me in the background singing to it. It cracks me up!

This one is of Morganne and Baby Kurt playing. This one cracks me up because Morganne keeps saying "Look at me!" and how she does it is just too funny!