Happy 24th Birthday to my wife!!

Today is a very special day!! It is the day in which we celebrate the 24th birthday of the most BEAUTIFUL person ever born! Of course you all know that I am talking about my amazing wife Candice. I am writing here on her blog to let her know how much she means to me and to wish her a very happy birthday!

Candice and I met five and a half years ago in Provo, UT at a party. Now normally I would have been too shy to approach such an incredibly gorgeous girl but I saw her checking me out across the crowd so it gave me the confidence I needed to go up and talk to her…and I’m sure glad I did! Fast-forward to today and we have been happily married for over four years and have the cutest 7 month old daughter. We truly have the picture perfect relationship! I couldn’t even imagine life or marriage being any better than it is right now for us. We are each other’s best and closest friends, we LOVE to be with each other. Most people I know would need a break from their spouse or get on each others nerves after spending as much time together as Candice and I do. Now that I’m graduated and haven’t been working for the past two months we have spent every waking moment together….and love it! She is the greatest person alive!!

She is also one of the funniest people! We have so much fun together. We always say to each other that we cannot imagine any other couples being as crazy, goofy, and ridiculous together as we are. That is another thing that I love so much about Candice, I am able to be completely open and carefree with her. As everyone knows I am somewhat shy and usually very reserved around most people, I have been my whole life. That is until I met Candice and have really been able to be myself. I love that I can act crazy and weird around her and feel absolutely no embarrassment…mostly because she’s just as crazy as and often weirder than me!!

Another huge reason why I am so thankful and lucky to have Candice in my life has become apparent just recently. I always figured that Candice would be an incredible mother but I am totally blown away at just how incredible she is! She works so hard and does so much for me and Lyla. She takes such good care of her and is so loving, kind, and patient. I have to work so hard just to try and keep up with her amazing parenting. I and our future children are so blessed to have her as our wife and mother and will be blessed for eternity to have her be ours.

Candice, I love you sooo much! You are my rock and the love of my life. I work so hard to try and make you happy and to show you how much I love you because you mean so much to me and to show how grateful I am to have you as my wife. I don’t think I did anything to deserve such a beautiful and amazing companion but that you were given to me to push me to be a better person so that I could somehow be worthy of your love and closeness. I love you with all my heart and my love grows deeper every day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Swing

March 1st we put up her swing, she loves it. After I swing her we always sit on the grass. She just sits there and feels the grass and watches the birds. She is just so fun! I love her!

play date

On March 4th I went out with my friend Celeste and her cute little boy! I think Lyla likes him. There are only a couple weeks apart. Look at her eyeing him

Almost crawling

Lyla will get on her hands and knees and move back and forth, its so funny! She mostly does it when shes in her crip and will head but her head on the side of the crip. Sometimes she does it where she seriously jumps and hits the ground.

I need to start taking pictures of her all dressed up for sundays, She looks so cute!

Sitting up

About a week ago she really started to sit up for a long period of time without falling. I think its so cute! She is getting so big and so much fun!!!

yummy

She seriously loves her food!!! 2/23/10

A day at the park

We went to the park today and had a picnic. It was nice to get out of the house and have some fresh air. Me and Troy had a yummy lunch we made, then we laid a blanket down and watched all the birds that were near us.

Lyla liked watching all the birds, I think she had a good time at the park :)

We didnt have bread to feed the birds so Troy got our left over potatoe salad and threw it to the birds. They came swarming over by us...i hope they dont die from the potatoe salad!

playdate

Here is Lyla with her friend Rowen. Her first playdate, although that was as close as they got to each other it was more for me and Tarah to hang out haha. I thought this picture was funny, thats how she was laying when watching seasame street.

6 months

Man how time flies, she is already 6 months old!!!!! she is such a joy to be around, always happy and smiling. We just love her so much. We always find ourselves when she goes to bed, just looking at pictures and videos of her. We just cant get enough of her!

sitting up

she weighs 16 lbs

27 in

She is sitting up pretty good, but needs help from not falling

loves her baby einstein while in her excersaucer

likes to talk, babble, squeal, growl

still loves her binky for when she goes to bed

loves loves loves her baby food

becoming alot better eater now

for the most part sleeping through the night, she will still wake up and needs to find her binky or i sometimes have to go in and rock for a min and put her back and she will go to sleep

sleep from 8pm-7ish, takes 2-3 naps a day

observes everything

starting to sometimes get sad when i leave the room ( i secretly like it cause i feel loved)

she likes to have alot of attention

very active!

only cuddles when she is asleep or falling asleep

we just love her!!!!

Valentines Day!

We celebrated v-day a week late but it was worth the wait. We had Troy's parents watch Lyla while we went out to eat at the Keg (its a steak place) It was soooo yummy and so nice to be able to get out just the two of us. I love Troy he is seriously the best ever, every year truly gets better and better. I love you Troy!!!

Pheonix zoo

We went to the zoo on Feb. 18th. It was alot of fun, of course it was more for me and Troy but we are making it a goal to do some kind of outing with the fam once a week. I really have been enjoying Troy so much, even though we need money (hes been working very hard searching for a job) I just love having him around and his help. Its been so much fun being able to have time to do this kind of stuff. Love the monkey haha

she looked so cute in her little hat!

she feel asleep for like 15 min until a dumb loud bird woke her up

We had so much fun that day. It was a good workout, we walked the whole park instead of going on the train.

FHE

Me and Troy used to do family home evening every sunday with a few couples and it was so fun. But unfortunatley when we moved to az we stopped, or did it rarely because its weird doing it just the two of us ( i know we should do it regardless) but today is a new day. I did fhe and the "lesson" was we wrote down all of our goals, family goals, couple goals and indivdual goals. Do include Lyla we sang some songs first. Then when we were finished i made a yummy carmel dip for apples. That is one of our goals is to do fhe every monday. Next monday its Troy's turn to do lesson.

sleep

yes she finally did it! She slept through the night without waking up!!!! I've been working very hard at this. I definetley didnt do it the way other people do it by just letting them cry is out, that is just torture for me and her. Yes i did it the longer way but thats the only way i can do it. Probably a couple weeks ago i started putting her in her crib and letting her try and fall asleep on her own for her naps. Sometimes she would play, fuss a little and then go to sleep. Sometimes not and i would get her out wait a little bit and put her back in. Sometimes i would do that three times. But eventually she would go down. Sometimes were easy others not but it got her somewhat used to doing it by herself. Then when i would give her a bottle at night to go to bed and if she didnt fall asleep doing that i would burp her and lay her in her crip and she would usually go right down. Then about 4 nights ago i stopped giving her a bottle during the night. I woudnt give her a bottle after 4pm and give her baby food around 6pm and then that way she would have a 7 to 8 oz bottle before she went to bed so i knew she wouldnt be hungry. she did wake up crying really hard between 3:30 and 5:30. I would let her cry and help her out by giving her her pacifire. I eventually after a little bit of her crying (i didnt want to get her too soon) i would rock her and let her calm down and then put her back in her crib and she would go to sleep. That happened for 3 nights and then by the 4th she didnt wake up at all!!! Also one thing that helped sooooo much is she is able to find her binky and put it back in her mouth. Anyway thats how i went about it and im so glad she caught on.

Baby food

On Feb. 19th we fed Lyla some real baby food (carrots) she seriously loves it! Tonight when i fed her she just had her mouth wide open waiting for me to give it to her. I think the oatmeal was getting a little too bland for her and she was so excited to get some flavor in her meals. Whats funny is i was totally thinking she was going to make some funny faces, but surprisingly she didnt really. I guess she was just waiting for the good stuff so long.

scroll down, theres lots of new posts. Also at the bottom a video of lyla growling.

Update.....

Well since we got home from cali (which was a couple weeks ago) I have been pretty busy with hair and trying to get back to our normal schedule. Troy has been searching for jobs and he actually got a 2nd interview for one of them. Hopefully it goes well. Its been so nice having him home and being able to spend so much time with him. Its also been so nice that hes been sooo much help with Lyla. We acutally have a routine where one night he gets up with her during the night and morning and i get to sleep in and then the next night I do it. Seriously I think i've actually gotten caught up from my lack of sleep from when she was born. Im going to miss this when he goes to work! I am just cherishing this time that we're together because starting aug. i wont see him for the next 8 years! (medical school)

Lyla has been getting a little better at her sleeping. Just last week she has been putting herself to sleep for her naps and when i put her down at night. Sometimes she fusses and then she will find her binky and go back to bed. Other times she cries so hard and of course i get sad so i get her up and help her to sleep. And then the past few nights she has only gotten up once for a feeding and the rest of the time she wakes up we dont have to give her her binky she will find it now! yippy. Tonight actually is the first night i wont be giving her a bottle. But it is also the first night she drank her whole bottle before going to bed so she shouldnt be hungry.....wish me luck!

California

We went to cali a few days after christmas because troy was going to work for our bro in law doing demolition. He usually does this every summer. But since he graduated we decided to go then. We stayed for about a month and a half. It was nice because almost every morning my mom would take lyla for an hour and let me sleep, she would also babysit her while we went out with friends. It was soooo nice!
She loves her dad, taken 1/18/10

She also lover her grandpa

loves watching baby einstein

2/6/10 She watches her baby einstein every morning and loves it. She smiles, babbles, and talks to the tv. she just loves it

Museum

On Feb. 12th we went to the Pheonix Art Museum. It was nice to get out and do something different. Lyla was as perfect as can be. These pictures were taken right outside. It was such a pretty day that day. Lyla staring at the little waterfall

cutest headband ever. My friend sara makes them.

I love spending time together as a family....love them!

Lyla's growls