Every Day Sunshine

I’m feeling like life, in some respects, is on permanent fast-forward.  Lyla is now 4 months old!!  While she doesn’t much like sleep, there are many things that make her adorable.  I’ve decided to record a few of them so that some night when she’s not sleeping (again), or when she’s 6 and can’t seem to talk without whining,  I can read them and remember why she’s my princess!

• That adorable smile.  Now she’s been smiling since 3-weeks-old (no it wasn’t just gas) but these days that smile pops up when I walk in the room even if it’s pitch black and 3:23 am.
• Her drool.  I know, weird, but this girl has an over-abundance of spit.  She soaks through a bib, shirt, and onesie without even blinking an eye.  She is constantly blowing bubbles and, frankly, I think it’s so cute!
• Her budding love of toys.  She is now interested in grabbing, shaking, and sucking on (enter the drool) toys.  I guess it doesn’t have to be toys, she’ll do that with her binky, blanket, hand, whatever, but watching her skills emerging is always amazing.
• Her magnetic personality.  This girl is a social bug.  She seems to pull in the most innocent of passer-bys with her “talking” and winning smile.  Even grown men turn to mush when she graces them with her grin.  (note to self: watch out for this ability when baby is 16)
• Her love of her big sister and brothers.  Lyla is the center of attention ALWAYS and no one even minds.  In fact, she is often the cause of a fight because so and so made Lyla look at them when she was adoringly gazing at someone else.  She is a lucky girl.

Well, this list could be much longer.  However, there is never enough time and hopefully this list will be enough at 3:23 am sometime later this week!

Lyla's New Skills at 4 months!

On a general basis, I love motherhood.  By the world’s standard 4 kids is a lot, but I’m feeling it is just right.  However, there are those occasions when life, and lack of sleep, build up to the point that living all the motherhood experiences is way down the list of things I want to be doing.

Friday was just one of those days.  Nothing BAD happened, but nothing GOOD seemed to be coming my way either.  I was on my, oh, bajillionth day of sleep deprivation, I was tired of staring at the same walls, and meeting another need seemed too much to bear.

Enter amazing, super-hero husband!!!!

After dinner (yes, I did manage to feed my family), my cute husband took the kids, including 4-month-old Lyla to the basement where he entertained them from dinner time till bedtime.  This was an even bigger undertaking than entertaining on any other night because we let them stay up later on Fridays.  I have no idea what dangerous things took place in the playroom that night, I just know that occasionally a child would come upstairs tied up in some fabulous way and simply excited with the challenge of getting out.  Thus, the birth of their new favorite game, “Escape Artist”.  Now, I can’t say that this is anything I would ever have thought of doing, however, my amazing super-hero husband is the greatest Dad on earth and he somehow knew this would be a hit!

Meanwhile, I laid, practically comotose on the couch upstairs in front of some mindless television thanking my lucky stars that I caught this fabulous guy!

These days, luckily, are few and far between but I know when they do come, my hero will be there to save the day!

One of the many things Blake has taught the kids. The art of fort and snowball making!

Lyla turned 3 months old on Tuesday!  It feels like just yesterday that she was born and yet it feels like she’s been a part of our family forever.  Oh how we love our little Lyla Kay!

Our sweet little princess!

Our Christmas Eve and Christmas were fantastic again this year!  We always start Christmas Eve by going out to breakfast at IHOP.  We were in an out in less than an hour so it couldn’t have gone smoother!  We then headed back home where Blake and the 3 older kids got ready to go enjoy our immense amount of snow by doing some sledding.  This gave me some much needed time to do a little cooking and finish up some Christmas surprises.  After a yummy, warm lunch of soup and bread bowls we started into our Christmas Eve present tradition which has the kids opening their gifts to each other and their new PJ’s.  We also let them open up a family gift of Hyper Dash/Hyper Jump which gave us a little exercise.  (emphasis on little)  We then headed down to my brother and his wife’s home who we have spent 7 of our 9 Christmas Eves with.  We always bring one salty and one sweet treat to share with everyone and after much eating, we do the annual Nativity Production.  Chloe played Mary, Chase was Joseph, Parker was a camel for the wisemen and Lyla was the honored baby Jesus.  The kids changed into their new jammies there and upon our arrival home we read “The Night Before Christmas” and put out cookies for Santa and oatmeal for the reindeer.  The kids, of course, went RIGHT to bed (if only we could use Santa as an incentive every night!).

Christmas morning was filled with Santa, present opening and playing, playing, playing.  Grandma and Grandpa Lewis joined us for our Christmas lunch, thank heavens they made it in the snow!  I told Blake that morning that all I wanted for Christmas was a BIG, LONG NAP and I actually got it!  The evening was filled with watching a movie together and eating Christmas treats.  All in all, the two days were great and made for a lot of wonderful memories!

So, here I am.  My first blogging experience.  I have enjoyed many blogs of family and friends and have decided that blogging is the way to go to keep people updated.  Life in the Scarbrough household is busy, busy, busy.  With everyone home for the summer, each day goes by either lightening speed fast, of snail-paced slow.  We have tried to have a few exciting outings, but with the lovely price of gas these days, we have tried to keep busy at home as well. I have enjoyed some trips away, one for 5 days to Girls Camp for church and a short 2-day get-away for Blake and my 9th anniversary.  They’ve been fun but a little slower paced since I seem to get larger everyday.  This baby girl a-growin’ makes everything just a little bit harder!

We are looking forward to our 4th of July weekend, going up in the canyon for a picnic and some fun with family and the big firworks show at Thanksgiving Point on the 4th and, on the 5th, cleaning/organizing so we can have a future yard sale.  What fun!  Anyway, just wanted to start this thing since I’ve had it set up for MONTHS!  Enjoy!

Blake’s brother recently got married.  Here’s the kids BEFORE the ceremony began.  Don’t they look excited?!