I've created a MONSTER!

It all started about a month ago.....

I was desperately trying to get some work in since I had been really behind on my hours, but unfortunatey Raylee had figured out that she could pop the keys off the computer and I couldn't distract her with any toys, so I put on a cartoon on for her hoping that I would be able to work for a few minutes in peace. She loved the cartoon and watched a lot more of it then I thought she would, so since then I have been guilty of putting on some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or The Backyardigans for her so that I could get a little more work in. I try hard to not let her watch too much TV, but lately it is getting harder and harder. She has figured out that I use the remote to put a show on for her, so she likes to find the remote and bring it to me with her big puppy dog eyes, and when I won't put one on for her she throws a huge tantrum (yep, she's gotten to the stage of the throwing herself on the floor while crying and screaming tantrums. So fun.). When I do put a show on for her she makes me scoot her chair over by the coffee table so she can sit in to watch her show.

I still put on a show for her while I work to help entertain her, but now I just get a good dose of tantrums and tears to go along with it and have also resorted to hiding the remote. The good news is that Corey has discovered that he also loves The Backyardigans and he and Raylee often watch it together.

Bringing in the New Year

This year for New Years Eve we had a little party at our house with some friends. We were going to go out to dinner at Chilis but when we found out the wait was 2 hours we decided to just get take out and eat it at our house. We had lots of fun playing games. The boys played Fifa on the playstation most of the night but the girls were able to convince them to spend a little while with us playing games.

Raylee had lots of fun with Bregenz. She followed him around everywhere and copied everything he did. It was super cute!!

Holiday Fun

After Christmas we hadn't had our fill family so we spent the next few days partying some more. We went up to Corey's parents house the next two nights to play games some more and had lots of fun minus two Raylee incidents where she bumped her mouth on a table and came upstairs with a mouth full of blood and the other was just a choking incident.

On Sunday after Corey got to speak in Sacrament Meeting we headed down to my familys for our annual Sleep Around the Christmas Tree. This is one of my favorite Christmas traditions that we have been doing for as long as I can remember where we have tons of yummy food and play games and then we always watch a movie and everyone sleeps around the Christmas tree. We are getting to big to all fit around the tree, but we still have an awesome party and spend the night and this year was no different!

On Monday we were also able to go sledding with my cousins. Every year in the week between Christmas and New Years we always do lots of activities with my moms family, but this year I was only able to make it to sledding. Raylee ended up being super ornery because she was in need of a nap, so we didn't stay very long but I still had lots of fun. After sledding we went back to my Grandmas for dinner.

I love the holidays and I had tons of fun this year, although it went by way to quickly!!

An Incredible Christmas!

We had a great Christmas this year filled with lots of family and fun! On Christmas Eve we went down to my aunts house to spend the night with my family. We had a yummy dinner and read the Christmas story, sang some Christmas songs, and then all the kids opened a gift from my Grandma Bird. Raylee did pretty good opening the present and had tons of fun playing with her farm puzzle.

After we left my Aunts we went to my parents house where we were spending the night and my dad surprised with an early present of getting the Guitar Hero World Tour for the Wii and we all had a blast playing that the rest of the night.

On Christmas morning we went out to the family room and discovered that Raylee must have been a good girl this last year because Santa left her some presents. She got a Cabbage Patch Doll and a Little People Noahs Arke set, and a whole bunch of goodies in her stocking. We gave her some clothes and an animal sounds book, and my parents gave her a Little People Car a little magna doodle, and a couple of Little People Books. Corey and I got a bunch of good stuff from each other, and my parents gave us a card table and lots of much needed food storage. Al and Baylens family gave our family some tonka toasters to use while camping.

Raylee had lots of fun rocking her baby on this little rocking chair my mom has.

A little later in the morning my sister Alison and her family came down from their house and all of the grandkids opened their presents from my parents.

At about 2:00 we left my parents and went up to Coreys family. We stopped at his grandparents house and visited for awhile, and then went his parents house where we got tons more gifts. Raylee got a Tinkerbell Barbie and some clothes from them. Corey got some shoes and a shirt, and some treats, and I got a breadmaker and some smelly bricks for my candle warmer thing (hope you know what I'm talking about because that sure didn't make any sense!). Jaime and Daniel gave us a new game, and Bella gave Raylee a set of Pooh Bear Books which Morgan helped her open.

Then we spent the rest of the night playing games, and had lots of good food.

It was a great day! We ended up staying the night in Tremonton because we didn't dare drive home because of the terrible road conditions. All in all it was an incredible Christmas, and I can't believe how blessed we are!!

Ho Ho Ho!

I have been so excited for this Christmas because Raylee is a little bit older this year and has a better idea of what is going on. She loves the Christmas tree and gets excited everytime I turn on the lights, and she also really likes Santa. One of my Christmas decorations is a little stuffed Santa Clause which Raylee absolutely loves and carries around with her everywhere. I taught her that Santa says Ho Ho Ho, and so now every time she sees a Santa she says Ho Ho Ho (which really sounds more like Huh Huh Huh).

Because she loves Santa so much, I thought we would try to take her to see Santa this year, and hoped their wouldn't be a huge meltdown. We ended up going to see the lights at Willard Bay and at the end they have a spot where you can see Santa and his reindeer. Raylee ended up screaming for the minute she was with Santa, but it was worth a shot. This Santa looks a lot like her doctor and sounds a lot like him too (maybe they're related?) and so maybe that's why she was terrified of him.

Maybe next year will be better!

Raylee at 15 months

I was pretty lucky for Raylee's first year because Corey was the one who filled out Raylee's baby book, and he did it every month and wouldn't leave any line blank. Well I guess now that the baby book is completed it is up to me to keep track of all the new things (good and not so good) that she has been up to, so here's Raylee at 15 months:

• She is now a pretty speedy little walker. She still wasn't walking that great at 13 months (still just taking a couple steps at a time) so I had a little talk with her and told her she only had until she was 14 months to start walking and she was an obedient little girl and by 14 months she was walking all by herself.


• The only word she really says is "dat" (that) and I hear that one word about 3oo times a day while she points to what she wants, and hi. She doesn't say mama very often (although she can) and her daddy comes out as da (which sounds very similar to dat).


• She knows what a bee, snake, elephant, bear, tiger, llama, and beaver say and she's learning more all the time.


• She loves to put anything around her neck (like a necklace) that she can and this habit makes me VERY nervous. She also loves to put things (such as cookie cutters on her wrists like bracelets. What a little girlie girl.


• She now has 12 teeth, and those 4 molars were doozies.
  Her favorite book is Ten Little Ladybugs, but she loves any book especially if it has animals in it.


• She loves to do the actions to itsy bitsy spider, and loves me to sing patty cake, 5 little monkey swinging in a tree and loves to play peekaboo.


• She has become a picky eater, especially with her vegetables.


• She is a little copy cat. If we are sitting a certain way, then she will try to copy where our hands our exactly. When there is a group of people folding their arms for a prayer, she will fold hers so she can be like everyone.


• She is a little daddy's girl. Whenever her daddy leaves, she goes to the garage door and tries to get it open so she can go with him.


• She loves balls. Corey got her a little soccer ball and she loves to go around and kick it and throw it.


• She is not a great sleeper. She had started sleeping through the night again, but then she started getting all her teeth so she now wakes ups anywhere from 1-4 times a night much to my dismay.


• She loves to dance. She always hears the music in everything, and there are a lot of times I don't even here it until I look over and see her dancing and she's got some great moves.
  She can point to her: head/hair, eyes, nose, tummy, and toes.

This list could probably go on and on forever so I will stop now, but our little Ray Ray is learning SO many new things everyday. She is a sweet girl and can always put a smile on our faces! We our SO lucky to have her in our lives!!

Bad Luck

They say that bad luck comes in three's, and I am hoping that is true because we have had about all the bad luck we can handle this past week and it was all focused on our vehicles.

Case of Bad Luck #1: We drove home from St. George on Friday morning and Corey dropped me off at my parents so that I could continue to party while he was a good boy and went to work. I ended up staying at my moms that night because I just wasn't done partying, and so I left Corey by himself for the night. Well, I guess on his way home from work he stopped at a Winegars that is about a mile from our house, and when he came out of the store he realized that he had locked his keys in the Jeep. He called me in hopes that mine were at the house, but unfortunately I had left them in the Jeep as well and we didn't have any other sets. So, Corey ended up walking home, finding the hidden key for our house then getting the key to the car. He then grabbed a hanger and drove back to the jeep hoping that he could save us the cost of the locksmith by breaking in. Some guys came out of the grocery store and asked if he needed help. One of them said they had a tool that might work, and luckily it did! I guess since Corey say how easy it was to break into a car he didn't feel comfortable leaving one of our vehicles in the parking lot, so he drove one home and then ran back and drove the other home.

Case of Bad Luck #2: The next morning (Saturday) Corey slept in and was in a hurry to get to work since he was supposed to open. In his hurry he wasn't very careful pulling out of the garage and ripped the sideview mirror off. Luckily he was able to tape it together so it still works until we can go get it fixed, but until then we are looking pretty whitetrash!

Case of Bad Luck #3: On Monday afternoon I needed to run to the grocery store, so Raylee and I hopped into the car. I put the key in the ignition and tried to turn it, and all the sudden the key broke off in the ignition. I never thought a key would do that, but it did. Unfortunately the key had turned the car partially on, so I had to just let it run until Corey got home from work. We lucked out because after some gentle tugging with some pliers Corey was able to get the rest of the key out.

We did have some bad luck, but at least the damages won't be very expensive to repair! Now I think we qualify for a spell of good luck!?!

Thanksgiving and Putting Up Christmas

This year for Thanksgiving we went down to St. George to celebrate the holiday with Corey's grandma. It's always a little tricky and rushed when we do this because Corey works in retail and has to be back to work for black friday. We ended up leaving at about 6:3o in the morning trying to give us a little more time down there and hoping that Raylee would sleep most the way. We also finally got Raylee a front facing car seat in hopes that this would help make the drive a little more enjoyable for her. The plan didn't work out so well because she had a really hard time sleeping while sitting up, but oh well. Live and learn.

When we got there it was pouring rain and did that almost the entire time we were there. Corey didn't get to golfing, and we didn't get to go swimming. I totally spaced it and forgot to take any pictures.

On Thanksgiving, Corey's family always goes out to eat at a really nice buffet with crab, shrimp, and all sorts of fish, as well as the usual Thanksgiving food. This year they found out that the restauraunt wasn't going to be serving the seafood which is his familys favorite part so they decided not to go. So...we got to eat at Golden Corral for our Thanksgiving dinner, need I say more? And surprisingly it was extremely crowded. After stuffing our tummys full of food we were supposed to go see a movie, as is tradition in his fam, but the movie we wanted to see ended up being sold out so we went back to the condo's and played games which was really fun.

Even though there was a few disappointments, my Thanksgiving was still a great day because it gave me the opportunity to look at my life and realize how much I have to be grateful for. It's easy to be grateful for the main things in my life every day like my hubby and my sweet little girl, my family and Coreys family, as well as the gospel, but there are so many little things that I tend to forget about, and Thanksgiving is a great day to reflect on it all and recognize all the good in my life!

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Before we left for St. George we put up our Christmas. It's a little early but I have been really excited for the Christmas season this year and couldn't wait any longer. Raylee had lots of fun playing with a jingle bell while Corey and I got the tree ready for decorating. We made Raylee put on her few ornaments, and then she had a lot of fun trying to take down all the ornaments that Corey and I put up that were in her reach. Needless to say the bottom half of our tree is now devoid of most of its ornaments!



I was also really excited that we now have a house to put Christmas lights on! Corey wanted icicle lights even thought I just thought they would be a big pain, and Corey spent one of his days off up on the roof putting up the lights. He did a great job and I get a big smile on my face every time I turn the corner and see our house all lit up! Now I just need to get my shopping done!

Go UTES!!

Corey and Raylee had lots of fun cheering on the Utes while they were watching the big game against BYU on Saturday. My mom and Dad and my sister Emily and her hubby Dave came up to watch the game (although the girls didn't watch much of the game!) and Corey had fun rubbing it in to Dave who is a BYU fan!

Halloween and our Baby Ballerina

This year for Halloween Raylee dressed up as a baby ballerina. It was her first year trick or treating, and unfortunately she was really tired when we went so she was not a big fan of it in the beginning, but she warmed up in the end. This picture is of Raylee trick or treating at my sisters house.

We went up to Tremonton and Raylee did some trick or treating to a bunch of Corey's family and we got to see all of Raylee's cousins all dressed up.

Then we went down to my sisters house where my family had a little Halloween party.

It ended up being a lot of traveling, but it was still lots of fun and Corey and I now have lots of candy to eat! Yum!