18 months with miss Lila

A little update on my Lila girl. She is such a doll! I don't know how it's possible but she just keeps getting cuter, funner, more darling, and I love her more and more every single day!

She loves: shredded cheese, "cookies" (aka crackers such as gold fish crackers, pub mix, or real cookies like the organic Annie's graham bunnies), her "baba" first thing in the morning and right before bed every night (she drinks about 8 oz and is warmed for 45 seconds), string cheese, gogurt or any type of yogurt (she's a yogurt monster!), any type of fruit but specifically blueberries, strawberries, pears, apples, applesauce packets, (especially the ones that include spinach or kale), sometimes bananas, watermelon, any type of "nandy" candy (ugh! haha.. she has such a sweet tooth!), mandarin oranges, peanuts, and she loves to drink water. 

She hates: almost all vegetables (ugh), and hardly eats her food. She's definitely a grazer and is more likely to eat when she's not sitting in a high chair.

Her favorite toys are: her little stuffed animals "pup pup, woof woof, eep, and bok bok," her baby doll, play dough, stickers, playing catch with any type of ball, using sidewalk chalk outside, and 

She says: mom, mommy, mama, dad, daddy, dada, dew (drew), baby, nonnie (nollie), eat, wawa or water just depends, num num, nummy, apple, nana (banana), nandy (candy), cookie (cookie or cracker), cheese, all done or sometimes ah eee, ee you (love you), bye, hi, hello, see ya, pleash (please), day tu (thank you), here you go, look at dis (look at this), bubble, all animal noises including cow, horse, cat, dog, owl, snake, sloth, sheep, chicken, duck, gorilla or monkey, (can't really think of any other animals right now but she knows A LOT!), bug, ew, spida (spider), amen, poop, pee, pee-you, yucky and yuck, sssshhh, Lila, gamma, gampa, gunna (konner), nam (kam), ty, and she makes up names for Kinsley, Katie, Shay, and will mimic most anything we ask her to say. She's the cutest!

She wakes up around 8 am and goes to bed around 9 pm. She loves bubble baths, just recently started showing interest in laying on her tummy in the bath tub, and she eats a yogurt and sometimes a spoonful of peanut butter every night in the tub before bed too! Ha! And she loves looking at herself in the mirror. Sometimes I catch her dancing in the mirror too haha!

She absolutely loves to draw or paint, really likes stickers right now, enjoys watching youtube kids, loves to swim at our pool, likes to play at the splash pad and at the park, and loves all types of animals! 

Her favorite shows are: The Wiggles, Moana, Secret Life of Pets, Trolls, and sometimes other Disney animated movies like Finding Dory or Monsters Inc.

She'll sit on the counter with me when I get ready for the day and loves to brush her hair, and pretend to put makeup on. She also loves getting her nails and toenails painted and surprisingly sits still long enough for me to do them! She is a big help around the house (haha) and knows how to put clothes in the laundry basket, likes to dust or wipe things off, and also likes to watch me cook. She knows that pots and pans are "hot!" and also likes to pull toilet paper off the roll... but we're working on that. ;) She seems to have some social anxiety around big crowds but doesn't think a second about running away from me in Walmart so who knows!? She is definitely a mommy's girl and is very very VERY attached to my hip. I love it! But it is also tiring sometimes :)

She is so bright, brilliant, smart, intelligent, cute, funny, and lovely! We lucked out big time with this girl!!

Love you Lila Jane!

Love,

Kate

July & August.. Summer's flyin!

Life has been so busy! This blog post may not be very detailed but I want to write down as much as I can remember before too much time passes!

JULY 

We went up to Richfield the first weekend of July not only for the 4th of July but also to get Kambry's bridal photos taken up at Fishlake and for Kambry's bridal shower! It was a really busy weekend to say the least, but it turned out great! 

Fishlake was beautiful. It was perfect weather and so much fun! We spent the day at the cabin with our family + Parker and Lindsey. We ate pizza (Papa Murphy's -- thanks Kinsley for your custom creations!!) for dinner and then got Kambry all ready for her pictures. We drove up towards the look out point over the lake and stopped for their "first look" photos in a beautiful grove of aspen trees. I spent the evening attempting to video (HAHA) and we ended up getting some really good shots! I fell a couple times and my video skills are definitely needing some practice but I came out happy with the footage I received and I also just died at all the shots Lindsey got of them!! It was such a gorgeous night and a gorgeous photoshoot!

We stayed the night at the Hansen cabin with just us kids while my parents took Lila back down to Richfield. We got up and ate breakfast at Bowery on Sunday morning and then made our way back home to Richfield. The next day was Kambry's bridal shower at my grandma Micki's house. It was a fun afternoon with lots of yummy food and good company! We got Kambry a really cute bed set, pillows, a throw, sheets, and I drew her a funny picture of a llama to put on her bedroom wall. It was cute and she really liked it!

Later that night (because it was the 3rd of July) we went to the city park and registered Lila for the diaper derby! Because she wasn't quite 18 months she was able to race in the "walking" portion instead of the toy pull. She got to race against Alyssa and Barry's daughter Hayden and they both did so good-- they both ALMOST could have won! But Hayden ended up turning around and running back and Lila stopped right before the line where I could have grabbed her. Dangit! Ha ha it sure made us all laugh really hard though! It was so fun to have them race together!

The next morning/day was the 4th of July. We sat outside of my dad's work to watch the parade. Lila loved all the candy that was thrown at us. We didn't stay very long at the park because it was getting warm and we wanted to make sure we made it to Grandma Carol's before Lila and Hayden needed a nap. We ate lunch up at Grandma's and let the girls play in a pool they had set up in the backyard. It was a fun simple afternoon!

Later that evening we went to a BBQ at Ariane and Dion's house. Then we went back to Grandma Carol's for the fireworks. We had homemade icecream and Lila LOVED the fireworks! But oddly enough she fell asleep during them and even slept through the finale!? It was crazy!! Ha silly girl!

July 22 Kambry received her endowment in the Payson Temple. We drove a rental car all the way to Payson that morning because our Saturn Vue was in the shop getting the transmission fixed (long story, and $4,000 later it's finally fixed). The temple was absolutely beautiful. I loved being there surrounded by so many family members. It just feels right! It's the place to be!! Oh and we left Lila in St. George with Bill and Linda for the weekend! We are grateful for their help and support but we sure missed Lila!

July 25 was Kambry's bridal shower in St. George. My family came down for it and my aunt Christy threw the shower for Kam. It turned out to be a fun evening, but definitely a fast trip for my family!

The next weekend however, we went back up to spend the weekend in Richfield with the fam! We had looked forwared to this weekend all summer as it would be our only "stress free vacation" haha! (With really nothing to do except enjoy ourselves). It was an awesome weekend. We looked for deer one evening and we all crammed into my dad's truck. It was hilarious! We were bumpin and jumpin all around inside the truck and Lila loved it!

Drew, my dad, and Konner went to Lake Louise to fish one morning and so my mom and I and kinsley and Lila spent some time at the lake. We found some trees to hang up a hammock and did that for a little while. Lila loved throwing rocks in the lake and enjoyed being outside! Later we took Lila on a fourwheeler ride around the "donut" (just around our little cabin's neighborhood circle) and she was so happy!!! She absolutely loved that too. She is just in the funnest stage right now! Everything is fun and funny with her! She makes life so good!!

And that concludes July! Such a busy month and super stressful with car problems (and money because hello -$4,000) but it's over and we are past it.

(Long story about our Saturn Vue: the transmission went out, we got a quote from a place here in St. George for about $3,500 to $4,000 to get it fixed so we decided to take it up to a place Drew's buddy recommended to us in Cedar. They had it in their shop for FIVE weeks!!!!!!! But apparently fixed the transmission for about $2,800. Well we picked up the car and headed to Fishlake for the weekend and noticed our AC wasn't working...??? So we were feeling like things were fishy and wondered why it went out after not having it for 5 weeks... so we took it back to the shop in Cedar after Fishlake [ps. Lila ended up throwing up on the way home from Fishlake because of how hot she was! Poor girl!!!] The shop said the AC wasn't their fault and fixed it for $300 something later. DUMB DUMB. Well then we get our car back to St. George eventually. A few days later on a Sunday we went to go to church and the car wouldn't start!!?!?!?!? WHAT!!! So we jumped in the prism, went to church, and afterwards tried to jump it.. hoping it was just the battery. Didn't work. So eventually Drew took the battery in to Autozone to have it checked. It was completely bad. So we got a new battery with the warranty we had [thank goodness] and tried that! We were really hopeful that was the answer! Nope. Still nothing. So because we had Kambry's wedding in a couple days and we needed our car to travel we decided to call my cousin Jordan to see if he could help us out. After about 3 hours later looking at our car and stuff still nothing worked. He even pulled the starter out, he and Drew took it to Autozone to be checked too, it was bad, so $180 later they bought a new one. Jordan installed it and it didn't work. Jordan felt really bad he couldn't fix the problem but it was such a mystery?! Why wasn't our car working!?!?!? Our last resort was to call a Tow in the morning and take it to Big O. So we did just that. 5 hours later of trying to diagnose the problem and another $300 later Big O somehow fixed the problem and said it was an incorrect connection of a wire that happened when the transmission was being fixed. They gave us a receipt to take back to the shop in Cedar to see if the shop would reimburse us for their "mistake." We went back up to Cedar and tried talking to them but they just shut us down. It was such a stressful month emotionally and financially. We're sick of dealing with it so we have decided to just put it behind us and move forward hoping that now everything works and will work for a while. But trust us, we will definitely be selling and buying a new vehicle maybe/hopefully next year!)

So now it's August, the heat is not as bad as it has been (thank goodness), and I've been busy working on some big art orders. Kambry's wedding was August 12 and so Lila and I went up a week early with her and Tyler to spend time in Richfield doing last minute preparation. We ate at Munchies one of the days, hung up yard lights, did some last minute artwork for decor, and was blessed with people bringing us or providing dinner for us all week! It was awesome! We ate dinner at grandma Carol's one night, Staci and Summer brought dinner one night, we ate dinner at the fair for free one night, and grandma Micki brought over breakfast for everyone for the morning of the reception/wedding! The reception was on Friday and the wedding on Saturday. The day turned out to be cloudy and kind of stormy... we were so stressed out! We didn't have any type of backup plan! We just prayed REALLY hard that the weather would work with us and spoiler-- it did!!!! It turned out to be a beautiful night. Perfect weather, great temperature, and just beautiful all around! The decor was awesome, the treats were fun and yummy, and I loved being surrounded by all our family! It was a fun night.

The next morning we got ready to go to the temple. Turns out there were a billion other weddings that day so there were people everywhere on the temple grounds! Which wasn't the best for pictures, but they made it work somewhat. The sealing was at 1 pm and Lila stayed with Kinsley and Konner in the waiting room inside the temple. The sealing room was gorgeous and the sealing it's self was beautiful. Afterwards however was kind of stressful again haha.. it was SO HOT outside and just waiting for them to exit the temple seemed like forever and we were all dying. There wasn't any shade and we were all hungry and thirsty and Lila especially was miserable, but it all worked out. We only got a couple pictures because we had to wait around for all the other wedding parties and plus it was just too miserable to be outside in the sun. So we went straight to the luncheon place and enjoyed a delicious lunch!! 

It was awesome to be able to enjoy our food at the luncheon without worrying about getting back to prep for a reception. I loved having the reception before the wedding! We sent Kam and Ty on their way and then made our way back home to Richfield. 

A week later my family came down and we had the open house reception for Kam and Ty here in St. George! Although my family stayed for literally 24 hours, it was fun to be with them and the reception here was really enjoyable too! They had Kilo's cater and it was soooo yummy!

Today (August 21st) was a pretty cool day in history. There was a complete solar eclipse! Lila and I sat outside and waited until it happened (around 11:30 am), and it didn't really get very dark here in St. George. It was a strange lighting outside but not as dark as I expected and trust me-- I made sure to not look at the sun at all because I had read so many things about how dangerous it is to your eyes!! But we obviously survived the eclipse (haha) and although it wasn't really cool here in St. George, I have really enjoyed watching other peoples' videos and seeing their photos from their experiences! Mainly people who were in places like Idaho, or Oregon who actually reached "totality" where the moon completely covered the sun. It looked like it was 9 pm ish!! It looked so cool!

And that pretty much wraps up August too. Although the month isn't over quite yet that is where we are at. I have 16 orders to do from my Christmas in July Sale that I'll begin once September hits. And I'm also working on selling my booth for Pinner's Conference. It is scheduled for November 3rd and 4th but I'll be 9 months pregnant by then and to relieve stress I've chosen not to go through with it... so cross your fingers I can sell it! Plus the money will help with paying off some of our car problems.

Until next time,

Kate