Bethology

I haven't felt the greatest for the last month so I've slacked off on this blog, but I got tagged to do this post, so maybe it will get me back into the swing of things.

1. I love my family
2. I miss the mountains and the snow
3. I would scrapbook, bead, and sew all day if I could.
4. I hate being the center of attention
5. I am still a little bit afraid of the dark and I sleep with my cell phone under my pillow when Kyle's gone
6. I have the best husband! Since I've been so sick with this pregnancy he's taken over cooking, cleaning, laundry, and diapers when he's not at work!
7. Finding a good deal is exciting for me and I usually won't buy anything unless it's on sale or I have a good coupon for it
8. I love to cook (when I'm not pregnant)
9. A Symphony bar and a Coke are the perfect remedy for a bad day.
10. I love the gospel!
FOODOLOGY
What is your salad dressing of choice? Ranch or Thousand Island
What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? Depends on what I'm in the mood for...but I've never been disappointed by Olive Garden or Macaroni Grill.....I've also been missing Los Hermanos lately.
What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? Brownies and Peanut Butter Cups
What are your pizza toppings of choice? Sausage & Onions or Papa Johns Hawaiian BBQ Chicken Pizza - YUMMM!
What do you like to put on your toast? Butter and homemade Strawberry-Raspberry jam
TECHNOLOGY
How many televisions are in your house? 2
What color is your cell phone? Blue and Sliver
Are you computer savvy? not so much
BIOLOGY
Are you right-handed or left-handed? Right
Do you have any children that are left – handed? Not so far.
Have you ever had anything removed from your body? Moles and Two children ( I think they took part of my brain with the 2 kids too.)
What was the last heavy item you lifted? Does Kyler count? If not, it was the box of food storage that we keep on top of the cabinets.
Have you ever been knocked unconscious? Possibly when I was like 5 years old....I don't really remember exactly what happened.
BULLCRAPOLOGY
If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? Probably not
If you could change your name, what would you change it to? Maybe just Beth, it would make legal documents so much easier since I don't think of myself as Mary. But I really like my full name so I'd probably just keep it anyway. I think Mary Elizabeth is pretty.
Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000? Yes. There's a lot of things I would do for $1000.
DUMBOLOGY
How many pairs of flip flops do you own? um... lots - 6 that I can find right now, and that's after I recently had to retire 2 pairs.
Last person you talked to? Layla
Last person you hugged? Kyler right before I put him down for his nap.
FAVORITOLOGY
Season? In Florida: Spring. Anywhere else: Fall
Holiday? Christmas
Day of the week? Sunday, so nice and no work :)
Month? um. none
CURRENTOLOGY
Mood? Tired, unmotivated
What are you listening to? Layla entertaining herself in the other room.
What should you be doing right now? Dishes and Laundry
Current favorite TV Show: 24
Worrying about? Money, whether we can afford a bigger house when the baby comes, figuring out what we can get rid of so our house doesn't feel so cluttered
RANDOMOLOGY
First place you went this morning? the bathroom and then the kitchen
What’s the last movie you saw? Return to Me
Do you smile often? Usually
Sleeping Alone Tonight? No
OTHEROLOGY
Do you always answer your phone? No, I rarely make it to it in time.
It’s after ten o’clock in the evening and the phone rings. Who will it be? Don't usually get calls that late unless Kyle's working and it's him calling to let me know when he'll be home.
If you could change your eye color what would it be? I'm happy with my eye color
If you could have a body part altered, sucked or botoxed, which part would it be? So many to chose from...definitely my tummy, hips, and, thighs - they haven't been the same since I was pregnant with Layla
Do you own a digital camera? Yes
Do you have a pet? yes, a cat
Favorite Christmas song(s)? Jewel's O Holy Night
What’s on your wish list for your birthday? um.. that is really far away..... but I am in search of some cute yellow heels!
Can you do push ups? a few
What are you looking forward to? This weekend. Kyle has Friday off and it's General Conference, doesn't get much better than that!
Does the future make you more nervous or excited? Depends on the day, but probably more nervous.
Do you have an accent? Depends who you ask.
Do you cry easily? Not usually, but pregnancy hormones do me in.
Plans tomorrow? Change diapers, do laundry, do dishes, the usual.
Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom? Yes, but thank goodness for prayer, great family, and our Savior.
Name 3 things you bought today: I didn’t buy anything today, but yesterday I had Kyle pick up some bread, milk, and french bread on his way home from work.
Have you ever been given roses? Yes.
Current worry? Getting through this pregnancy without losing complete control of the house to the kids.
So, now I’m supposed to pass this award on to 7 people, but I'll just let anyone who would like to do it.

Happy Birthday Layla!

So, I may be a little late getting this post up, but we did celebrate her birthday on time.
And, boy did we ever celebrate!
I asked Layla what she wanted for her birthday dinner and after lots of "discussing" I finally convinced her that we could not have cake and ice cream for dinner. So, she chose to cook hot dogs outside.

 

So, we gathered dried up pine needles from the backyard (we've already gotten rid of at least 10 trash cans full of the things and we still have an abundant supply! I guess that's what happens when you have 7 pine trees in your backyard - but the shade in the summer is so worth it!) and Kyle filled the wagon with dead branches and wood from an empty lot near our house.

Layla wouldn't let me get a decent picture of her, but she LOVED cooking and eating dinner outside!

And Kyler loved the roasted marshmallow Kyle gave him (although I don't think he actually got any of it in his mouth!)

Earlier in the day, we took Layla to get a kitten for her birthday. (The real reason for the cat is for rodent patrol, but it worked out that we got him on Layla's birthday) She loves her little Mo-Mo and can be heard scolding him throughout the day telling him he "knows better than to" do whatever she has caught him doing.

Layla loved opening her presents! As she would get close to having each one unwrapped she would say over and over again, "I wonder what it is! I wonder what it is!"

Kyler also enjoyed helping with the present unwrapping, and surprisingly, Layla didn't mind!

  

After all the presents were opened, Layla was checking out the alphabet flashcards she had gotten and Kyler took the opportunity to play with the kitten.

 

I can't believe how much he loves that thing!

 

After Layla played with her toys for a little bit we sang to her and she blew out the candles on her pink pony cake.

It only took 6 blows to get the 4 candles blown out!

Happy 4th Birthday Layla! We love you!

Kyler and the Cake

Okay, so I just have a quick story to share! A few days ago I was on the computer checking my email and paying bills when Kyler walked into the room holding a plastic-wrapped plate of cake (which had been on the kitchen counter) in a bear hug. I promptly took it away and counted my many blessings that Kyle was the one who had wrapped it because he usually does a much more thorough job than I do.
Later that day, I had taken some pictures of Kyler and was looking through them on my camera when I came across lots of pictures that Layla had obviously taken (they were of random objects around the house and most of them were blurry). As I was deleting the many pictures she had snapped, (and once again counting my blessings, this time for digital cameras that I can delete unwanted pictures off of) I came across this one:

I paused on it, thinking what a cute picture it was of Kyler, even though I hadn't combed his hair for the day, I thought maybe I could crop it enough in Photoshop that you wouldn't be able to tell just how messy his hair is. Then, I went to the next picture:

 

And the next one:

  

(Please try to ignore the mess of things on the counter)

  There's really not much more that can be said at this point.

 Basically

 Kyler

 was caught in the act and there's solid proof that he did the deed himself and, other than not stopping him or telling me what he was doing, his sister had nothing to do with him getting the cake off the counter.

And what had been a forgotten memory from that morning now had a lot more humor to it. 

(At least for me it did...)

So, back to the pictures that were meant for this blog, this is my favorite one of the pictures that I took:

 This picture shows Kyler as he is now. My baby boy that is growing up way too fast. The baby boy that has drool dripping down his chin 90% of the time. The baby boy that doesn't let anything slow him down. The baby boy that doesn't let anything make him unhappy, at least not for too long (unless it's his momma taking away the cake that he's carrying around in a bear hug in hopes that he'll get a piece, then he gets pretty upset). The baby boy that probably isn't really a baby boy anymore since he's almost old enough to officially be in Nursery. (Just a side note for those who don't know I was recently called as Nursery Leader in our ward, so even though he's only barely 17 months old, Kyler gets to go to nursery every week.)

This is and will always be my baby boy!

Kyler and Layla's New Game!

It's been a while. I've been wanting to put up some pictures from the Shuttle Launch last week and I've just been way too busy! Now I have time and the pictures are on Kyle's camera, so maybe I'll have time to get them up tonight after the kids go to bed. (But, no promises!)

For now, let me tell you about Layla and Kyler's new game.
The other day, I was paying bills and had left them to play together with hopes that they wouldn't bite and hit each other too terribly much! (Kyler's in this phase where he bites every time he doesn't get his way and he thinks that hitting is funny) After about 20 minutes, I heard them running around the house giggling like crazy, so I went to investigate

 

and this is what I found!

Layla would crawl as fast as she could and Kyler would run behind giggling

and then he'd just dive and tackle!

It's amazing neither of them got hurt on our tile floors!

Now, when they are bugging me when I need to get something done, all I have to say is, "Kyler, get Layla! Hurry! Get Layla!" and Layla crawls away as fast as she can as Kyler chases her down!

My Baby Girl's Not My Baby Girl Anymore!

So, we went to Busch Gardens on Saturday. The kids loved it!
Friday night we told Layla that we would be going and what we would be doing. She was very excited about the white tigers and before we even went she named one of them Mista Mista Tiga. When we got there the first thing she wanted to see was Mista Mista Tiga. When we saw them she proclaimed that one of them was the mom, one was the dad, and since she couldn't see the baby, it must be in the mom's tummy.

 

Layla loved being the big sister who could show Kyler where the tigers were.

We went on a train ride around the park and Layla LOVED it!

 

 I'm not sure if she liked seeing all the animals more or just the fact that we were riding in a train. She got really excited about the mom and baby rhinos!

 

The baby was really cute!

Every time we walked past a roller coaster, Layla said she wanted to ride it, but, she was definitely to small for them. Kyle tried to take her on the bumper cars (which she was really excited about) but she ended up being half an inch too short! Luckily the carousel wasn't far from there so we took the kids on that.

Layla, of course, loved it!

 

Kyler wasn't quite as sure about it, but he did seem to enjoy it once it got going.

 

Kyler's favorite part was a little play area near some tables where we took a little break for a snack. He loved climbing on the hippo sculptures.

 

He especially loved chasing around the birds that were scavenging for food!

  

Layla watched a boy climb inside this hippo's mouth and a few minutes later she went back to it and looked in and got really worried when he wasn't there anymore. She yelled into it "Hey guy! Hey! Where did you go!" Then she looked around with a very worried look on her face, went around to the backside of the the hippo and started looking for something under it's tail. I assured her the boy was okay and had left with his mom.

Now, for an explanation of the title of this post.....After several hours, we found a ride that Layla was big enough to go on. Not only was she big enough to go on it, she was big enough to go on it 

ALL BY HERSELF!

SHE LOVED IT! 

She grinned the biggest grin I have ever seen through the whole ride!

She was so proud that she got to go on it ALL BY HERSELF!

I'm starting to dread her first day of school. I got choked up just watching her on this ride!

 

This is my favorite picture from our day at Busch Gardens!

She absolutely loved that ride!

 

A fun day was had by all!

What I Love About Florida!

I'm one of those that would rather be cold than hot, so the transition to Florida has been a tough one for me. But, I am LOVING the winter weather here! Today, I needed to get some things done and the kids were being very grumpy and demanding my attention, so I asked if they would like to go outside to play. (Thank goodness we're renting a house with a fenced-in backyard!) They both put on their shoes and socks without a fight and are now as happy as can be! I just opened the back door  (and left it open so I could here if they started fighting) and now they are totally content. It's a GREAT DAY!

Layla loves to dig in the dirt so she sat down with her beach bucket and shovel and started digging away.

We have an orange tree in our backyard that has bright-colored oranges all over it. They are a little bitter, but maybe next year we'll be able to get some better fruit since we'll be able to take better care of it. (If anyone knows anything about taking care of citrus trees we are open to suggestions!)

Kyler found a smaller bucket and went to town picking every orange in his reach and collecting them in his bucket.

Then he sat down next to Layla and started telling me all about them (at least I think that's what he was jabbering about!)

Then, when I went to check out our banana tree that I'm pretty sure died when we had the freezing cold temperatures, he peeled and ate his oranges.

When I asked him if they were yummy, he just murmured "Mmmmm!" and kept eating away!

When it was time for Kyler to come in and take a nap, I went back out to get a few last pictures. Layla informed me that she was "still too busy for a picture", but Kyler flashed me his killer smile...the one that will get him anything he wants from me (just don't tell him that, I don't need him using it against me!)...

Today is a good day! (Dirt included)

Getting Started

Okay, I swore for the longest time that I was NOT going to get into blogging! I didn't want it to be something that would consume my time. I'd rather use my spare time saving our memories in a scrapbook, I thought. But, I'm afraid I have to admit, I've become addicted to the world of blogging. I love following blogs of friends and family! I even follow blogs of complete strangers who give me crafting & sewing ideas, and there are those who make amazingly good recipes and then share them with me so that I can make them and look good for whomever I may be cooking for (usually just my husband and kids)! So, here I find myself in the wonderful world of blogging! I'm not much of a writer (English wasn't my favorite subject in school), but I will give it a shot!

To start out I have some pictures of Kyler that I've been dieing to show off! Maybe it's just me being an overly proud momma, but these pictures are some of my favorites right now! I took them when we were in Utah, on the day before we came home. We went to my Grandma and Grandpa Mortensen's house for one last visit. Layla and some of the other cousins had gotten out the marble machine (I'm not even sure what it's called exactly, but marble machine will work). Kyler watched them put the marbles on and watched in total amazement as the marbles rolled down. (There are 2 things you need to know about Kyler - He LOVES balls and he loves collecting handfuls of things, so to have small balls that he can collect handfuls of is heaven on earth for him) He watched and studied for about 10 minutes until the other kids got tired of it and left the room. Then, he scooped up handfuls of the marbles and tried with no luck to get them on the marble machine. When he started to get frustrated I showed him how to do it.

After watching me do it a few times he decided to give it a shot again.

 This first close-up picture is his reaction after he got his first marble on and it started to go down.

After that it was true love....

It was like an addiction....

He just couldn't get enough!

 

I had to drag him out of the room kicking and screaming when it was time to go!