April 2013

What a month! A lot has happened. After our whirlwind tour of Germany and Austria in March, a lot happened in the month of April! Layla turned 5!! A whole hand!! Her birthday was during a two week break from school, and since she was turning 5 she would no longer be allowed to attend nursery school. So in early April, we had to say good bye to her friends and teachers at Busy Bees. It was sad, but we were excited to move on to primary school.

After saying good bye to everyone at Busy Bees, we had a lovely 2 weeks off from doing anything. Nicer weather would've been great, but we still enjoyed ourselves. We spent a lot of time shopping!

We also spent some time out on the track running & riding Layla's scooter. One day we went out to fly Layla's kite, but it scared her way too much. I don't know how it was scary, it had cool airplanes on it.

Tickle fights always end in cuddles

You know how much Layla loves learning about outer space. I bought her a book about space that also glows in the dark! We had so much fun reading it and looking at all the pictures. It's now a favourite bedtime story.

Astronaut Layla

When Layla was leaving Busy Bees, I received her development file from her teacher. This was by far the cutest thing in the file. The teachers had no idea what song Layla was singing =)

Weirdo

First day of Primary School

Seriously, how cute does Layla look in her school uniform? Layla was sad to leave Busy Bees, but she was excited to go to a school whose school colour was blue, her favourite! She's had a bit of a hard time adjusting to the new school, though. Her first week she hardly ate anything from her lunch bag, and she had a hard time making friends. Her second week there was another new kid in the class, and they became fast friends. She's still adjusting to her full days of school all week, but she's doing well and learning a lot!

Climbing to be taller than daddy! Layla is able to go back to Busy Bees once a week for her French lessons!

Hide & seek champion

The other day I had an appointment and my neighbour was going to watch Layla for me. As she only lives a few houses away, I buckled Layla into the front seat. She was so excited! & so proud to be sitting up in the front seat.

Iron Man Layla

Opening gifts from Grandma Jo & Grandpa Jim. She screamed "WRECK IT RALPH!!!!!!!!!" So loudly when she opened it! We've watched it about a million times this month, and she's also enjoyed the Monster High movies as well!

I asked Layla how she wanted to spend her birthday. Jer wasn't able to get the day off work, so she asked if we could go out for dough balls with her best friends. So we went into Bury St. Edmunds to have lunch with her friends, and also got some shopping in as well!

One of her gifts for her birthday was these Tiny Titans graphic novels. They are SO CUTE & we've enjoyed reading them.

Batman

The other afternoon I was walking Layla into her classroom & as we were hanging her jumper on the coatrack a pair of little boys were sitting at a nearby table eating their lunch. They see Layla and one says "Hey Batman." to her. She looks up & responds "Hello Spiderman!" The other little boy gives her a little wave and says "Hi Batman." She smiles at him and says "Hello Superman!" 

By the time we had hung her jumper & book bag, changed her shoes, and I signed her in the boys were done eating their lunches & were impatiently waiting for Layla to go play superheroes with them.

AND THEN I DIED FROM ALL THE CUTE!!!!

March On

So obviously there was no post for February. It was a busy month for us, we moved out of the house the military forced us into when we arrived to this base & into a house on the economy, something of our choosing. Aside from looking at houses, picking one out, and moving all of our stuff to the new house not much happened. Jer left at the the end of February to attend a class in Germany, and during the month of March, we were able to go visit him there! Layla had a great time visiting the continent for the first time.

In the airport, ready to go see Daddy!

At a small cafe nestled in the middle of nowhere in the German Alps. They had the best donuts!

Hiking up to Neuschwanstein castle in Germany.

After a good 45 minute hike up, we made it to the castle & took a tour inside!

We also took a train to Innsbruck, Austria for the day. We were able to take a tour of the Swarovski crystal museum. The entrance was a Giant head with a fountain of water coming out of the mouth.

Layla liked the wall made of thousands of crystals!

March also brought the end of the spring term for school. Since Layla will be turning 5 over the term break, she will not be able to return to nursery school. She had her last day last week and we were sad to say good bye to everyone at Busy Bees! We've loved the past year at this school!

This is Layla's French class, Petits Enfants. Since she is moving up to Primary school, she will be moving up to the higher French class as well. I'm looking forward to her improvements in French.

This is Layla's first teacher, Miss Harriet. Layla has loved her from the start, and we were very sad to say good bye to her!

We are now enjoying term break before Layla starts at her new school. It will be 5 days a week, all day so it will be a big adjustment for Layla. We are looking forward to the new school and hope that Layla makes the adjustment easily.

Happy New Year 2013!

We spent New Year's Eve up with friends eating good food & playing fun games. Layla even had a few of her little buddies over to watch movies & play with! We all stayed up well past midnight & spent most of the next day being lazy. Layla got up relatively early, but by the afternoon she had passed back out!

I found Layla asleep like this one night. She was holding the blanket to cover her ears, and you can see how her left leg is crossed up over her right.

Layla has been a tomboy from the time she was born. She's loved cars, trucks, and trains (everything considered "boy") She's always collected Thomas the Train toys & toys from the movie Cars. Now she's getting into other "boy" related toys. She loves Superheroes, and she got a transformer from Santa so we've had to watch the Transformer movies and cartoons.

Layla's favourite part of school is PLAYTIME! (Surprise!) She loves playing with blocks or legos, anything she can build with. The other day she was so proud of this bridge she built, she asked me to take a picture of it when I picked her up.

She loves Supergirl & is proud to wear her Superhero shirts! Unfortunately some kids at school have started teasing her for wearing "boys" clothes. I've had to reassure her that the shirts are kids sizes, not boy sizes. One little boy was teasing her, but once she stood up to him and told him that girls like superheroes he let it go. There are 3 little girls who still keep bugging her about it, her teachers have been wonderful about talking to the class and trying to teach them to be nice to everyone, no matter what they're wearing or what they look like. It sucks that this is starting so early.

Cute & funny things Layla has said:

• "Do you remember how salad turn into ice cream when it wake up?" "No." "Well, I do!" (There were dramatic hand gestures and arm waving during this conversation.)
• "Mama, what's my brain thinking?" "I don't know, what's it thinking?" "I don't know!" "It's your brain, Layla. I don't know what it's thinking." "Well, I don't know either!"
• Layla decided she wanted to eat "X marks the spot" so she carved and X into her cookies.
• "Mama, do I look stylish?"

• "Daddy, don't eat all the cookies!" "I'm only going to eat three-quarters of them." She thinks about this for a second, then her eyes get all big, "Cookies ARE shaped like quarters!"
• "Mama, you have a funny kid!" "I know I do!" "Mama, it's ME!" "I know!" "Because it's me!"

We finally got some snow here in England! Layla was SO disappointed when it didn't snow for Christmas, but it took a few weeks and we finally got a few inches. Seriously, we got like 2 inches the first day, then maybe 4 from the biggest storm, but everything pretty much shut down because England doesn't know how to clear the roads. Everything gets packed down and icy, then when it warms up slightly it becomes slushy and muddy. Layla had so much fun playing in it & eating cupfuls, maybe the next time we move we can go somewhere that has more snow in the winter for her.

Last year the arts and crafts store had a big sale on canvas, so we have quite a few laying around. I painted Wonder Woman on one of them, Layla decided she wanted to make a drawing just like it.

Someone got a new sweatshirt in the mail from Grandpa Pete. I think everything he owns is Under Armour, so when he saw a little UA sweatshirt he had to get it for miss Layla. He thought it was going to fit her perfectly, but she's still and itty bitty thing! She wears it as a dress now.

Look at this kid. She's just so much cooler than me!

I know I've posted pictures of Layla & this rabbit before. His name is Truffles, and he is the Youth Centre Pet. Every Wednesday we go for gymnastics and after class we stop to say hello to Truffles. Poor kid wants a pet so bad, but with as much as we move, it's just not something we can do right now.

It's been too cold to play outside much lately. Even before it snowed it was pretty cold, but now that the snow has melted it's actually started to warm up. In fact, if it weren't so windy lately it'd be pretty nice outside! Any spare moment we have to play outside, Layla takes it!! I'm looking forward to the warmer weather so she can play outside more.

When Layla and I go to pick Jeremy up from work we like to get there a little early so we can sit in the parking lot and read or play games on the iPad. Layla likes to sit in the drivers seat while we wait.

If you know me at all you know I love blankets. I love homemade blankets. My mom has been making them for me since I was a kid & now I love to make them as well. My mom recently found some SUPERHERO fabric so she made Layla a blanket and matching pillowcase & made a blanket for me as well!

Happy new year everyone. I hope your start to 2013 was just as fun as ours!

Decembering

Okay, so December was quit busy! We had a ton of holiday themed parties with friends, we ate lots of food, we did a lot of shopping, and daddy came home from his deployment!

Layla said and did some silly things, such as:

-I was hugging Layla & she asked me to put her down because she had to rest her booty.
-Layla thinks that if we put our ears together then I am able to hear the song she's singing in her head. Oh, how I wish that were true!
Sorry, I don't have more. We were so busy this month, when she did say something funny I didn't take the time to write it down, I was too busy enjoying the moment with her.

I posted about Layla's Language Christmas concert, I was so proud of her! Singing songs in French, a language that a few short months ago she didn't even know existed. She's been doing so well with her French lessons, and is eager to speak with me at home.

Poor thing was also sick a lot this month. We both pretty much had a runny nose for most of the month. She was so sick that I took her to the ER twice while Jer was deployed, and we took her to the doctor once after he got home.

She may be a tomboy, but girl sure does love shiny things!

We have an elf on the shelf, Layla named her Cindy Lou. She comes to visit every December and does silly things around the house while we're sleeping. One day she painted Layla's nose red!! As you can see Layla was unimpressed by this. She was actually pretty upset that Cindy Lou tricked her instead of me!

One night after we had already gotten in our jammies and went to bed, I remembered that there was a meteor shower happening. I hadn't expected it to be clear enough to see any, but I checked out the window and was surprised to see that there was hardly a cloud in the sky! So we bundled up & headed out to the backyard hoping to see a shooting star. We sat out there for a while, Layla loves astronomy and anything to do with outer space, so I really wanted her to see a shooting star, but we were unlucky, and as it was quite cold Layla & I were both eager to go back inside to cuddle.

Then daddy came home!! We had to say good bye to him for a few months, but we were so happy to have him back! I didn't tell Layla he was coming home, I just told her we were going to pick up a surprise. She saw Jeremy get off the bus & was mad that I tricked her, but she was so happy to have daddy back!

His first night back, they were watching cartoons while I was making dinner. When the food was finished I went to tell them it was time to eat, but they were both passed out. I didn't want to wake them, but I knew they were hungry.

Layla had her first ever eye infection this month! Doctor was surprised she had never had one before now. One day she woke up with her eye basically glued shut with boogies, and as the day progressed it started to swell and became very red. It was quite painful, but once we got some eye drops from the doctor it cleared up quite quickly.

We took a few trips to the library with daddy, since he didn't have to work much the first few weeks he was back! I love Layla's expression in this photo.

We also took daddy out to the archery club for the first time. We've had fun having him join us on our little hikes.

One night while eating dinner Jer & Layla spotted some lightsabers out back. We went out to see that it was our next door neighbour playing with his new toys. He was kind enough to let Layla join in on the fun. She loves Star Wars & was SO EXCITED to play with lightsabers! She's the blue one on the right.

All in all December was quite busy & magical. A perfect combination.