Day 2

Look at this cute face! Love this girl! Lyla wasn't feeling very good today (cough and runny nose) so we had a low key day.  We worked on crafts for the Ward and Lindstrom Grandparents. She has so much fun being creative. I think she liked having Daddy home helping her with her coloring, gluing and painting.




















The envelop said she could pick a movie from Redbox. We wanted to get Brave (which she has already seen) but they didn't have it. So we got Ice Age. She loved it!

She also likes holding my hand while we watch movies.














The envelop also said we were making pizza for dinner.
She loves to eat the pepperoni. It was a great day!

 The 14 days of Valentine's!

I have been getting in a little rut with activities and such with Lyla so 

I decided to do a count down to Valentine's day.

 Everyday we are going to open an envelop and either do whatever is inside or

 open a present.

I got everything ready and put together about 3 weeks ago....so I don't really know what we are doing everyday.  I just know that I have it all ready in a box in my craft room. :-)

Day 1

We made Valentine's Day cards and a little present for Great-Grandpa Zobell, the Lindstrom Great-Grandparents and my Boompa. (which we will mail out later next week)

I LOVE THIS FACE!!!

Lyla gets very serious and concentrates whenever she is doing crafts.

The song 'You've Got A Friend In Me' from Toy Story came on and Lyla jumped up

 and started dancing and singing.

I love this girl!

I am excited for the next 13 days of fun.

Snow Days!

It has been snowing like crazy! Now that is has stopped it is super super cold. 

Let's just say...Lyla loves the snow, but her parents are ready for spring!

Too bad it's only January.  Just glad we have a big house to stay warm in. :-)

Lyla begs to go outside a couple of times a day.

When it's below zero we don't go out, but when it's a little warmer we get all bundled

and head out into the cold.

Lyla loves her snow pants and her princess hat.

Lyla likes to run around in the backyard, but this day the snow was frozen so every time

she took a step she would sink in a little.

She kept falling down, but she loved it.

Lyla loves to sit in the snow and dig.  This girl loves to dig! 

She will spend forever just moving snow from one place to the next.

She also likes to eat the soft, fluffy snow!

She gets a shovel full and then says, 'Yumm...taste!"

(Which is what she says when she likes how something taste)

I try to get her to just eat the snow that no one has stepped on or driven over. 

Lyla likes to help her Dad even though she really just gets in his way.

Our driveway and side walk is HUGE!!! 

I have gone out a couple of times to shovel (when Scott is at work and wont be home until late) and it takes FOREVER!!!  It's really good exercise, but a lot of hard work.

We are ready for it to stop snowing. For some reason Burley City doesn't scrape the roads

 I think it must cost too much, but it makes it really hard for us city folk without huge trucks get around town.

Lyla and I have been doing lots of crafts to keep us busy.

She loves to paint. I love having my craft room. (I can't make all the mess I want!!) ;-)

 She really loves to show her Daddy her crafts when he gets home from work.

I have been working hard on making the house feel like ours.

It is taking a bit, but I couldn't wait to paint Lyla's room!

I have been waiting to paint her room for 3 years! :-)

It was so much work, but so much fun!

Lyla loves it and says "Butterfly" every time she goes into her room.

Lyla's toy corner before and after. I love the little cut out in the wall. The top shelf has a doll from her Great-Grandma Lindstrom, Great-Grandma Duckworth,  Grandma Ward (my mom) and Grandma Lindstrom (Scott's mom). In the other corner she has a windmill my Grandma Ward made me. All we need is something from her Great-Grandma Zobell.

Here is Lyla's closet and window before and after.

I love her Lyla letters and the flower by the window!

Over by Lyla's bed before and after.

Lyla loves her butterflies!

I was worried when I started painting that the pink would be so light it wouldn't show up, but now that it is all finished I think it is the perfect color.

This room screams LYLA to me!

It's all girly and fun.

Lyla has started doing some really fun things I wanted to share.  She is nodding her head to say yes. When she leaves something in her room she tells it to stay there and then when she comes back she tells it that she missed it. :-) 

She kisses everything!!!

Life is WONDERFUL!!!
I LOVE MY LYLA!!!

New House

We bought and moved into our new house in Burley, ID two weeks before Christmas.

We are loving it!  There is so much space and it's so fun to decorate.

We started with taking down the ugly, fuzzy (yep I said fuzzy) stripped wall paper in the kitchen.

Scott is in the process of taking carpet out (of laundry rooms and bathrooms) and replacing it with tile. 

This next week we I am going to paint Lyla's room pink! It's going to be amazing!

Lyla is liking the fact that she can run around.  

I like the fact that when she makes a mess it's just in one room and not the whole house. :-)

More pictures to come as we finish projects!

Lyla loves her huge backyard.

I can't wait until spring/summer when we can really enjoy our yard.

Our first Christmas in our new house!

On Christmas Eve we let Lyla open her pj's.

As soon as she got them open she jumped up and gave me a hug and thanked me.

She is so sweet.

Christmas morning!  Lyla was so excited when she looked down the stairs and saw all the presents!

(Oh and Lyla picked out my pj's) ;-)

Watching Lyla open presents is the best part.  She was so excited about every thing. When she opened presents I would tell her who they were from and she would thank them (even though they weren't there).  She wanted to open everything and play with everything all at once.

No we did not get Lyla a cat.  We talked about it, but I think we will wait until her birthday in July.  

This is one of the many stray cats that hang out in our backyard.  

Whenever we go out to play with them they run away. 

 They seem to like us as long as we are inside and they are outside. 

 Lyla loves them and calls all kitties Miss (That is my mom's cat's name). 

Lyla loves the snow...until her hands get cold and then she melts down and we have to get inside as fast as possible.  She loves to use brooms and dust pans to move the snow.  I wish it wasn't so cold.  

We are loving our new house.

We are excited for the New Year and all the new adventures that will come our way.

We got our family an elf.  Scott named him Melvin.  

It's really a girl, but Scott decided that it should be a boy. 

Lyla really likes to find him when she wakes up.

The 1st day Melvin was eating Lyla's breakfast.

The 2nd day Melvin built a house for himself.

Building houses for her toys is one of Lyla's favorite things

to do with her toys.

Lyla's favorite Christmas song is "Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer." 

She has me sing it all day long, but now she is helping and singing some of the words to the song.

We are signing on our house tonight. Can't wait! 

It's going to be great! I want to get my Christmas decorations up!   

We went to Utah this last weekend and Lyla finally saw her first snow of the season.

She had so much fun playing in the snow with Bella.

She also likes to help clean the snow off of the cars.

Someday we might get snow at our house...I am okay if we don't. ;-)

Making cookies!

Lyla loves to help me bake. She likes to climb up on her 'stairs' and pour everything in.

After each time she poured something in she'd look at me and said, 'Taste?'

 'COOKIES!'

'TASTE?'

Rolling out the dough.

She loves to frost and put sprinkles on.

Making cookies with Lyla is so much fun.

We are so excited for Christmas!

We can't wait to move into our NEW HOUSE in 2 weeks (hopefully sooner) 

and put all of our Christmas decorations up!

A fun fall morning!

This morning Lyla and I went to the park by our place in Heyburn.  It's not very big, but they have bears carved out of wood that Lyla likes to say hi to them.  We also played on the slides and dug in the dirt.  

Lyla liked having the park all to herself.  

She was running around screaming and having fun.

On our way back to the car she had to say bye to the bears and give them a kiss.

When we got home we had some hot chocolate, listen to Christmas music 

and decorated a turkey with beans and noodles. 

Lyla loved her hot chocolate and kept saying, "Humm...hot chocolate" over and over.

She noticed Santa on her mug and now she will tell you what Santa says if you ask her.

The morning was so much fun. She was laughing and talking a ton. I love getting to spend lots of time with my Lyla.  We are getting so excited for Thanksgiving next week.  We can't wait to see Scott's parents and two of his brothers.  Lyla and I got to have an early Thanksgiving with my family last week.  I love the holiday season.