Gila Valley Temple

Eva has been very interested in temples lately, so when the Gila Valley Temple open house was going on I got it in my head that we HAD to go. It's a 3 hour drive and the girls did so well going there and back. Eva was super freaked out about the booties they wanted to put over her shoes and she wanted to take off her clothes and swim in the baptismal font REALLY bad. Which she announced very loudly...repeatedly. If it wasn't my kid I would have been laughing my head off. :) And then she wanted to touch EVERYTHING! I can't really blame her for that one though. It was nice to go, but I don't think it was exactly the spiritual experience I hoped it would be for her. Oh well...if nothing else I hope she at least saw that it was important to us that we go.
I wanted to get a family picture in front of the temple, but the battery died after one test photo. So, this is the one photo we have...of me holding Lyla chasing Eva who was determined to get run over. But it is a beautiful shot of the temple!

Lyla's Blessing

About a month ago we blessed our sweet little Lyla. It was such a special day with a good amount of family in town. The microphone didn't pick it up, but I'm told she laughed through most of the blessing. She is such a sweet heart! There were WAY too many cute photos of the weekend to choose from, so I'll just include one of the star of the day and one of the whole group.

Easter

I hope everyone had a happy Easter! Ours was nice and relaxing. Here's a few pics (for the grandma's) of the Easter egg hunt. Both of the kiddos are fighting off colds, so the whole weekend was pretty low key.

Thanks for the cute Easter dress Omi!

The eggs around Lyla's head were courtesy of her big sister. I had to rescue her from having an easter basket put over her face shortly after this.

2 Months

Lyla is 2 months old and lovin' life. She's sleeping a little better at night, which means Mom is lovin' life now too!

oh she makes me laugh....

Eva is always cracking me up. Here are a few of her most recent quotes:

This morning while she and I are sitting at the breakfast table we started talking about boys and girls.
Me: "Eva's a girl, Lyla's a girl and mama's a girl."
Eva: "Daddy girl"
Me: "No. Daddy is a boy"
Eva: "No. Daddy really big girl"

Later that night we were telling Jared about her swollen lip:
Me: "Eva you hurt your mouth today huh?"
Eva: "yeah....on washing 'chine" (washing machine)
Me: "yeah...you cried a little bit huh?"
Eva: "No. Cried big bit."

The other day we were supposed to go to the park after her nap. But alas...she talked for 2 hours in her crib and didn't sleep.

Me: "Well Eva, you didn't nap so no park"
Eva:"YES PARK!"
Me: "No. The deal was that we'd go to the park AFTER your nap, and you didn't nap so now we can't go."
Eva: "Mama don't talk. Eva really REALLY angee!" (angry)

I just love her. I think I'll keep her.

rainy-day photo shoot

Last weekend I decided to torture the poor kiddos and made them take a bazillion pictures. I must not know the proper technique for the old "just use a white sheet for a backdrop" trick because mine looks...well...like a wrinkly old white sheet as the background. Ehh well...the kids are still cute.

Lyla wondering why the heck I woke her from her slumber.

What luck! Both smiling at the same time!

Lyla apparently enjoys eating. She's put on a pound a week and is working on her 3rd chin.

Sorry about the little brown bear in most of these. It was the only way I could get Eva to agree to be in the pictures. Well... that along with many bribes of "Hey Eva! You want a jelly bean?"

You can tell they adore having their photos taken.

Lyla's birth story

Thanks to my sister Kelli for posting about the newest little Gardner while I was out! We're all home and slowly getting used to each other. We ended up naming her Lyla Grace. We couldn't decide on a middle name until the very last second. Eva is such a caring big sister and LOVES to help with everything. EVERYTHING. It's sweet....most of the time. :) And Lyla? She's been spoiling us rotten with her sweet disposition. In case you're interested in the birth story, here you go....

My water broke just before midnight on Friday just as I was checking on Eva before I went to bed. Thankfully I had a bag packed because I got so nervous I couldn't think straight. The only thing I could think was "oh crap. I just got ready for bed! I'd better do my make-up before we go...." Logical right? So while I did that very important step for child birth Jared loaded the car and we headed to the hospital. I didn't start having regular contractions on my own so they gave me pitocin at 5 am to help get them going. By 7 I said "YUP. i'm done" and hollered for and epidural. I'm tough I know....We slept and I woke up at 8:45 feeling TONS of pressure, which turned out to be because it was time to push! It took the doctor over an hour to get there, (she looked like she'd been in the middle of a game of golf) and after a couple of pushes...TA-DA! We had our little girl at 10:16 am. We haven't slept since. :)Brand new Lyla with her poor worn out dad

Megan took this awesome picture of Lyla holding my mom's hand. Doesn't she look like she's grinning?

I was worried sick about what to do with Eva when I went into labor. She and I have never been apart and I was afraid she would be SOOO traumatized by the whole experience of being without her mamma. Turns out I worried for no reason. When we left for the hospital we had Omi and Abba (my parents) Kelli, Emma, Tim, Megan and Shaun David all here to help. Just after I had Lyla I called home to see how Eva was holding up and was informed, "you guys need to do something about this kid...she doesn't even care that you guys are gone!" The poor little thing. A big group of some of her favorite people to replace her mom. She may never be the same.

p.s. Thanks Megan for snapping so many awesome photos for me!