Please tell me I am not the only one

who has a recipe cupboard that looks like this:

And when taken out, my stack of recipes looks like this:

I love that the Internet is a perfect source for yummy recipes, but I hate that when I print them out, I accumulate a pile of papers that need to be shuffled through. 

Let's just say it's driving Dan and I crazy.

Crazy enough that one of my New Year's resolutions is to get all these bad boys copied onto recipe cards. 

Wish me luck.

I've got a little helper

And I am putting her to work.

Just look at how good she is at folding the towels.

Now if I could just get to her to fold the rest of the laundry, then we'd be in business.

Baby steps, people.  Baby steps.

Only when living in Arizona.....

Can you use the money your parents give you for a summer gift as a winter gift instead. 

Winter or summer, Alayna still loves it!

Can you say cheese?

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa L.  Layna loves her sandbox!

I have to tell you a few things

....about this little girl.

She seriously is at the funnest age right now.  I really am loving three for so many reasons. Don't get me wrong,  I am not liking three as well.  In fact, I think it's more the terrible threes than the terrible twos, but I still want to go on the record and say that I like it more (way more) than I dislike it. 

And since this is such a fun age, I have been trying to write down a few things about Miss Layna as of late.

*As mentioned in this post.  She LOVES her "Crispers".  She is really into reading them, and carrying them around.  After she got her miniature Book of Mormon in the mail, I realized that I had a bag that may be perfect for them.  (It just so happened that I had one left over from when I taught Sunbeams like 7 years ago.)  When I found the bag and gave it to her, she tried to put her scriptures in and was ecstatic when they fit and said, "It's perfect!  Thanks, Mom!" 

I think that's the first time she has declared that something was perfect.  Too cute.

*I think one of the main reasons I am so in love with this age is due to the fact that we are involved in imaginary play almost 24/7.  I just love that she will say, "Mommy, will you play with me?"  And then she will take me on some imaginary trip.  We fly in airplanes to see our Grandmas and Grandpas a lot, and we also drive in the car to play at friends' houses.  But no matter what we do, I love that she wants to play pretend.

*Often while we are pretending, she will declare, "You are the Princess.  I am the Prince."  I don't know why, but not once has she wanted to be the princess.  Always the prince.  And if we are playing as mommy and daddy, guess who has to be the daddy?  Yep.  She does.  It's really no wonder, considering she is about the biggest daddy's girl there is.

*Her friends.  Oh, how she loves her friends!  Only, she doesn't always call them her friends.  They are "her people".  Whenever I tell her we are going to be somewhere where some of her friends are and I list off their names, she'll respond by saying, "All my people!"  Guess they're her peeps.  :)

*Alayna is quite the little dancing queen.  She loves to dance in front of our sliding glass door at night so she can watch herself.  She comes up with quite the moves and really impresses us at times with some of the moves she does.  The other night she even busted some moves in between tables at Burger King.   And was not shy about it.  If there is a good enough song on the radio, it will get her up and moving. 

*I love that she can communicate so well at this age, but I love even more the fact that not everything is entirely correct.  For a few different sounds at the beginning of words, such as j's and ch's she says the sh sound.  So, she says shammies (jammies) and shocolate (chocolate).  I.Love.it.

*One thing I do NOT love is the fact that she has started talking baby talk at times.  I can't stand it.  It is driving me batty!  Where do kids learn that?  We don't have a baby that we talk baby talk to....yet.  And Dan and I do NOT talk baby talk to her or each other.  Although, the last couple of days she hasn't done it as much.  Let's hope it stays that way.

*For a long time now when there is a fly, Alayna will say, "Shoo fly, don't bother me!"  And over time she started saying it to other animals as well.  "Shoo, bird!  Shoo!"  Well, the other day she said, "Shoo, Mommy!  Shoo!"  (I was in her way, and apparently that was the best way to get her point across.)

*And for the last bit of info.  Alayna got her hair cut for the second time ever.  She got her first hair cut over a year ago and she was definitely past due for a trim.  She got a few inches cut off, and I can tell her hair is much healthier.  There were only a few tears for the first couple of minutes, but then she did great.  The girl won her over because when she was all done, she put Alayna's hair in pigtails.  (Alayna's favorite.) 

A before.

And after.

Get a load of that belt.  Classy.

A Sunbeep, A Sunbeep

Can you believe this little girl is a SUNBEAM!?! 

Or a Sunbeep, as she used to say a couple months ago.

Our primary waited until the second week of January to change to new classes so yesterday was Alayna's first Sunday as a Sunbeam.  She was SO excited to go to "Mommy's class" (since I am a counselor in Primary and she sees me for sharing and singing time).

But the main reason she was so excited about Sunbeams was because she got to carry her bag that holds....

Her very own miniature Book of Mormon.  Complete with her name inscribed on it.  And let me tell you, she LOVES her "Crispers" (Scriptures).  She got them in the mail the day before and COULD.NOT.PUT.THEM.DOWN.  She even carried them around the store when we ran errands. 

She loved her Sunbeam class and her Sunbeam teacher, "Gwenna's Mommy".  In fact, I don't know if I have seen her so friendly and chatty church.....which may be good, and then again, it may not.  :)

Here she is after church with her very own "I am a Sunbeam sticker!"  (She was SO done with getting her picture taken, but I told her we had to get a picture of her sticker....and then she was somewhat okay with it.)

7 Years

7 years of being married to the most amazing man.

{Sigh.}

I truly love this man with all my heart.

And as the card my parents sent us said:


"A lifetime of love with the love of your life.
 It doesn't get much better than that."


Seriously, it doesn't get much better than that....except for the fact that I get to spend eternity with the love of my life!   What more can a girl ask for?

Crispers

Sometimes, as a parent, there are moments that melt your heart.  And you think, "Maybe I am doing something right." 

The other night, we had one of those moments.

With all the excitement and busy-ness of the holidays, Alayna's bedtime routine has been a little off.  She has fallen asleep in the car more than once over the past few days, and couple of the other nights, she has been so exhausted that we are doing good to just get her in her jammies. 

Anyway, the other night Dan was woken up to Alayna poking his arm at 4 in the morning.  He looked at the clock and said, "What's the matter?"  To which, Alayna responded, "Crispers, my crispers."  By now I had woken up and was trying to figure out what was not going on.  Dan said, "Your slippers?"  (Alayna got some new slippers for Christmas.)  She quickly responded, "No!" and grabbed Dan's hand and led him to her room where she kept saying the same thing, "Crispers!" all while searching around her room.

Dan was at a loss for what she wanted.  And after a couple minutes, Alayna just started bawling.  She was beside herself about something and, Dan just couldn't understand what she was saying.  Over and over again he tried to figure it out, but to no avail.  Finally after a few minutes of crying, she settled down and went back to sleep.

Dan came back into our room and told me all that happened and we went back to bed. 

The next morning at breakfast, I asked Alayna why she came into our room the night before and why she was crying.  She told me she started crying because we "Borgot crispers".  I said, "You forgot your slippers?"   

"No!" she said, "Crispers!" 

And then it dawned on me.  SCRIPTURES! 

"Scriptures?  We forgot to read our scriptures?"

"YEAH!"  she exclaimed.

Bless her heart.  We forgot to read scriptures the night before and she came to tell us.  When we didn't know what she was talking about, she went to show Dan, but searched and couldn't find them in her room. (They were left in our room from the previous day.)  And that's when she started crying....

Boy, did we feel bad.  But completely proud at the same time.  What a sweet little girl we have that just wants to do what is right and read her "Crispers".  :)