Party Party Party!!!

Rather than having a big birthday party with a lot of our friends, for Layton’s first birthday we decided to just have a small family birthday party. Nana, Grandpa, Grandma, Papa, Maren, and Chloe came over to party with us.

I fixed dinner. Roast chicken, yeast rolls, garlic mashed potatoes, green beans, and what seemed to be the hit of the dinner a fresh veggie salad.

It was the simplest dish I fixed but also the tastiest. Just throw a bunch of chopped fresh veggies in a bowl ( I used broccoli, green onions, red pepper, carrots, and cucumber) and then coat it with a vinaigrette dressing (I used Kraft Sundried Tomato Vinaigrette). Simple but delicious.

After dinner Layton opened his presents. Well, he opened his presents when Dallin would allow him to. I think Dallin was more into the party than Layton was. We had to force Dallin to stop opening the presents and let Layton do some of the ripping.

Layton (or maybe it was me:)) was so happy about all of the clothes that he received. It was great!

Layton actually climbed on top of present from us to open it. That’s Layton for ya!

Then of course there was the cake. Please don’t make fun of the awful lettering. I’ve never been good at that. Just know that it was delicious! I’ll be posting the recipe tomorrow.

All in all, Layton had a wonderful birthday. We love him so very much. And if you are wondering why he is wearing his pjs at his birthday party, he got a little carried away with the cake so we had to dunk him in the bathtub before he could play with his new toys.

Irreverent

For those of you that have little kids or have ever worked in Primary, you know how difficult it can be to make prayer time reverent. Dallin and Mandy have a hard enough time as it is staying focused and not picking at and playing with each other during prayer. But then add in an inquisitive 1 year old who thinks he needs to participate with everything his big bother and sister do, and we’ve pretty much lost all hope of reverence. That’s ok though, he is so cute that we always forgive him for stepping over our legs, for pulling our hair, for throwing toys at us, for squealing loudly, for slapping our heads, and for making us laugh during prayer. We’ll keep working on reverence, but I think it may be a while before we really achieve it.

Let’s go fly a kite

Up to the highest height

Let’s go fly a kite

And send it soaring

Up through the atmosphere

Up where the air is clear

Oh, let’s go fly a kite!

I know, I know, yet another reference to Mary Poppins. I can’t help it. I love that movie. It really is practically perfect in every way. And if you don’t love it, please don’t ever let me know. I would never be able to think highly of you again.

While on our camping trip, we let the kids fly their kites at the beach. Nathan is such a great dad. He does so much with the kids. That whole camping trip he pretty much did everything by himself. He set up camp. He packed it up. And he never complained. He even took the time to grab the camera and take a few pictures so that I would be in some too. All without being asked. Is it any wonder that the kids adore him? Who wouldn’t love a dad who would fly kites with you at the beach?

No Flash

This week’s I Heart Faces Photography category is “No Flash”. Since getting my new camera, and reading a few books about photography, I am beginning to understand the value of natural light and how much better it can make your pictures look. This picture of Layton is lit mostly by the big bay window at Mama Doris’ and a little by an overhead light bulb. I love how soft it makes his skin look. Doesn’t it make you want to reach out and caress his cheek?

I don’t normally do an adult entry, because I don’t normally take that many pictures of adults :) But I love this photo. Mainly because I love Mama Doris, but I also love that it was taken in her kitchen, which is her natural habitat. I love the bright morning sunlight shining through her windows. And I love the expression on her face. When I took this picture I told her to smile and she told me she didn’t smile in pictures. But just look at her eyes, don’t they look like they are smiling to you?

I bet our computer’s fan is bigger than yours…..

Our computer was on its last leg.  Honestly every time I turned it on, I had this sinking fear that it wouldn’t boot up or would crash in the middle of me working on some important document.  In short, we REALLY needed a new computer.  But to save some money and because Nathan is kind of into that sort of thing, he decided that he would build a computer himself.  Or rather, he would get his friend Cory to build a computer for him while he watched.

Now to that fan I was talking about.  I have never seen a computer fan this big.  Most of the time they are about half this size.  But this one is awesome.

Take a closer look.  It has it’s own little copper cooling wires. 

 

I know I’m nuts.  I should be rambling on about our new computer’s powerful giga-hertz or so much amount of ram or blah blah blah.  But the most impressive looking thing to me was the fan.  It is like having one of those cool cars with a blower on the top of the engine.   So as you think of me typing away on my computer writing my next blog, just know that my computer is super cool….literally :)

Happy Birthday Layton Sugars

Our little Layton Sugars will be one year old at 1:30 this afternoon. If you are wondering about the nickname, just take one good look at him. Don’t you want to get some sugar from him? It really is kind of funny that we call him that because my Uncle Jon used to call me “sugar muffin” and my Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Pete used to still call me “sweet doll”. Although I think that my nicknames stemmed not so much from ME being sweet, but that I have an undying love for eating things that are sweet. Which probably explains why I am totally addicted to Layton’s syrupy sweetness and just want to gobble him up.

We are so happy to have Layton in our family. We would miss out on a lot of good laughs and sweet kisses and smiling faces without him. Our family just wouldn’t be a family minus Layton.

1 Day Old

One month

Two months

Three months

Four months

Five months

Six months

Seven months

Eight months

Nine months

Ten months

Eleven months

One Year Old!!!!!!!!!!!

We love you Layton Sugars!

Here’s to wishing Layton a very happy birthday and to wishing me some sweet baby cheek kissing!

A Friendly Campout

Last Friday night we decided to be adventurous and take our kids on a camping trip to Hanna Park with few of our friends. Hanna Park is one our favorite parks to visit because it is right on the beach and they have several playgrounds, a lake for paddle boating, and lots of biking trails. Nathan of course brought his new mountain bike and took it on a few of the trails. He said they were pretty tough and I’ll have to say he was breathing pretty darn hard when he got back off of one of them. I think he might be a little out of shape. But then, so am I. No that’s not true. I am a whole lot more than just a “little” out of shape.

The camp sites were small, but nice. Well, nice except for the dirt. It was this black dirt covered with leaves, but NO GRASS. So Nathan and I actually held Layton (whether he liked it or not) almost the whole time and only let him crawl around inside the tent. He loved that though. He thought the bouncy blow up beds were awesome to play on.

We arrived fairly early Friday afternoon and set up camp. Dallin loves being a helper and he helped Nathan do all the work while I held Layton. Mandy was so excited for her “girls” to get there. I told her that Julia was coming and she clasped her hands together and said in her breathy excited overly dramatic voice “Oh, I SOOOO love Julia.” Then I told her that Maizie was coming and she again dramatized saying “Oh, I SOOOO love Maizie.” Then I told her that Millie was coming and I swear the drama was just dripping from her as her eyes rolled back in her head and she exclaimed, “Oh, I SOOOOOOOOOOOO love Millie.” She is going to be an actress when she grows up.

After everyone arrived and the kids played a couple of rounds of keep-away, we took a little walk down to the beach. The weather was so odd Friday evening and Saturday morning. It was foggy and so thick that the moisture would collect on the leaves in the trees overhead and when the wind would blow big droplets would fall down, as though it was raining. It wasn’t cold exactly, just a little chilly. It made the campfires very enjoyable and made us happy to have warm sleeping bags to sleep in.

The s’mores cupcakes were a big hit. But really, can you go wrong with chocolate and roasted marshmallows? Roasted marshmallows could make dirt taste good.

We really had a wonderful time. Especially the kids. They loved being able to wonder between the four campsites and constantly have friends around them to play with. The only downside to the whole trip for me was at about 4:00 in the morning Layton woke up and I couldn’t get him to go back to sleep in his pack-n-play. So I had to let him sleep with me. And lets just say that Layton is not exactly an easy child to sleep with. He was constantly moving all over me, so I ended up not getting all that much sleep, but that’s ok. It could have been worse, right? He could have woken up even earlier than that and I could have gotten even less sleep.

By the time we made it home, Nathan and I were exhausted. It is a lot of work to go camping. And extremely dirty. This is the very first activity that went on at our house immediately upon arrival:

You know you don’t really appreciate how wonderful baths are until you have to go without one for a little while. I think we were all really happy to be clean again!!