Sweet One Year Old

Lyla is ONE today! Happy birthday to the sweetest girl!

She has been such a joy from day #1 and continues to be the peacemaker in our family. She loves her brother, her sister, her daddy, and her mommy (even though she refuses to say “Mommy” and just clicks her tongue at me).

She loves: to take a hand and walk around the house, eating paper, throwing tantrums when she doesn’t like something, to be tickled, to dance by wiggling her little shoulders and shaking her head, going into the garage because she knows she’s going bye-bye, eating grass, toys with buttons that make sound, sitting on Mom’s lap while reading a book, blueberries but not bananas, playing with Masie’s hair (we’re working with her on not pulling it), necklaces, being with her family.

We think her favorite gift will be getting to turn around in her carseat so she can now watch the movies Miles and Masie have been watching and not just have to listen to them. We leave tomorrow for a road trip to San Diego, so it’s perfect timing.

We celebrated her birthday on Monday along with Memorial Day when we had my family over for a bbq and swimming.

 

Birthday girl loves the water.

 

So does her brother and cousins,

Uncles and sister.

 

Good food. Not sure if Timothy is smelling himself or tickling himself.

 

It’s not a pool party at our house unless someone is trying something dangerous. This time involved the roof of the house… I refused to take part by taking photos of that.

 

Gorgeous Natalee and Miles with Jillian and Ellyce waiting for the cupcakes.

Lyla enjoyed the freedom of making a mess without me stepping in with a wipie.

     

Masie loves the icing. Notice the paper in Lyla’s mouth??? She goes straight for it every time :)

Love it!!

It’s a Family Photo Thing

I’m so excited to share our new family photos.

We’re again preparing our adoption profile to begin our search for our next addition. That means we needed great new photos.

Thanks to our awesome  photographer.

    

Paperless

I just received my utility bill. Ok, I just opened my utility bill. It probably arrived several days ago. Chandler is now offering a paperless, electronic billing option. For “greater convenience and enhanced security, while also being environmentally friendly.” It will also save the city thousands of dollars every year.

Why not sign up?

We offer a similar service to our pool customers where they can have all of their invoices and statements emailed to them. We can do all transactions via the internet. It saves our company hundreds of dollars a year, is better for the environment, and is easier to keep record of. 25% of our customers have requested their invoices be emailed to them.

I am grateful to have 25% less invoices to fold, stuff, and stamp (well, Luke usually does that part). This month though, the service has been a bit of a hassle. We updated to Windows7, installed the newest QuickBooks 2010, have been having wireless router problems, and emails to my cell phone have stopped working or completely freeze up my phone. Several patches, port creations, calls to T-Mobile, help from brothers, and reboots later we’re up and running again. Except for my cell… a new one is coming in the mail.

It may be a hassle, but it’s worth it.

Join the environmentally friendly craze and at the same time you’ll save the companies you do business with a load of money.

http://www.bulwarkpestcontrol.com

Puerto Penasco

We had a fantastic little vacation in Mexico.

We stayed on the 7th floor in a beautiful and clean condo 100 feet from the beach.

 
The weather was amazing!

         

We even saw some dolphins from our balcony.

 

We cut our trip short though because Masie started having respiratory problems Thursday night. We thought the best thing for her might be the clean ocean air. We stayed another day, but by Saturday morning she was much worse. It took all of her energy to take a breath. A security guard at the complex pointed out the room where a doctor was staying, but he either wasn’t there or saw us coming and didn’t want to help.

It was a little scary being in a country and not knowing the language or where to go for medical attention. We decided to race back to AZ to take Masie to the doctor. I’m not sure what we would have done if it were a real emergency. It taught me a good lesson though to check out the medical facilities before leaving on vacation.
Masie had bronchiolitis, and we started her on breathing treatments right away. She’s breathing clear and is back to her old rambunctious, mischievous self again.