This is how the Barton's do bath

We are pretty lucky that despite all the sensory issues Layla has had, she loves bath time. We always have so much fun giving her baths too. She loves to color, play with her cups, read her bath time book and help wash her belly. Now that Layla's hair is out of control, we use shampoo AND conditioner...and she doesn't mind getting water dumped on her head a thousand times to get all the suds out.

I haven't taken pictures during bath time in awhile so I busted out the camera tonight. She was in rare form...in fact, she's been a wild woman ALL DAY.

 It drives me crazy that she likes to suck on her wash rag. Gross!

To get Layla to smile right now...we have to say "Show me your teeth". Sometimes it turns out like this...

aaaaaaaand sometimes it looks like this. 

Blowing bubbles in the water

You wouldn't believe how long her hair is until you see it in the tub. It is so curly it just sticks to her head but when it is wet, it goes down her back. I tried to get a picture but you still can't tell very well...

Dripping wet!

 She is discovering the acoustics in the bathroom are fun. And then this happens:

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had another great Thanksgiving this year. Not only did my Mom and Bob come up again, but Grandpa and Grandpa "Lucky" came up too! We did miss all our family back home (and in NYC haha) though.

This year we have a lot to be thankful for. I couldn't possibly list everything but I think most of all we are thankful for our spunky little Layla, our amazing families and friends and a new one this year...our house! It was so nice to host our first holiday in our new home. ;o)

I tried to get pictures of all the festivities but I'm sure I miss some things. Here are a few pictures of our fun Thanksgiving:

Layla helping Grandma and Grandpa with the stuffing. She really doesn't care to help...she just wanted to sit on the counter. 

Grandpa carving the 14 pound turkey that Bryan bought. 

 Layla didn't take a nap the day we were preparing all the food so she decided to crawl into Grandma and Grandpa's bed and cover herself up (all by herself). Here she is "nite nite". She can't close her eyes without opening her mouth LOL. 

 We have always wanted to put up Christmas lights and this year, we CAN! We were so excited to decorate the house...turns out this is going to be a lot easier next year when we have actual bushes to hang stuff on.

 This is basically ALL we did the entire weekend. Play Play-Doh. Every time we turned around Layla was calling "Paw Paw" or "Maw Maw" to play. 

 Here are a list of bad things Layla Grandparents taught her this weekend: #1- how to jump on beds, #2- how to stand on the back of grocery carts, #3- how to go down her slide on her belly...and I'm sure there are a few more I'm missing. She actually dropped the "f-bomb" during Thanksgiving dinner. Bryan asked "who taught her that?!" and without skipping a beat she said "Paw Paw". Now, I know non of her Paw Paws have ever used that word around me...let alone around her. But I do know that she LOVES to put the blame on others (she blamed Oscar for the TP incident a few blogs back) and I also know that it was so hard not to laugh.

 This girl had her finger in her nose ALL weekend as well. Funny that now everyone is gone she's stopped that...maybe this should be #4 on the above list?

 I loved to be tickled when I was little. I used to sit on my Grandpa's lap and count to ten while he tickled me just to torture myself. Now Layla does it and it is so cute to see!

This my friends...is part of our family Xmas gift from my Grandparents. They also got us a bird feeder but I didn't get a picture of it. We have a TON of squirrels in our backyard and Layla loves to watch them. It is so cute! So Maw Maw and Paw Paw decided to get us a feeder and look what we got a few days later!

 Needless to say it took 2 days and that corn is GONE. 

 Getting ready to do the tree...and picking her nose!

 Grandma helping out. 

Mommy and Layla decorating the tree. I'll have to post some new pictures now that all the presents are wrapped! 

Weekend with Gma and Gpa Barton

We had so much fun with Gma and Gpa Barton (and Anne) this weekend. On Friday I told Layla that they were coming and she walked around the whole house saying "Paw Paw!? Paw Paw?!" and she was SO excited to wake up from nap to them being here. She jumped right into playing school with Grandma:

Aaaaand those are all the pics I took of our weekend. LOL. We went to a museum and I forgot my camera at home! :( But I will share a funny story! They had a King Tut exhibit there with a ton of replicas from the tomb. I took my eyes off L for two seconds and sure enough, she's climbing over the barrier and going for the jewels. Only my child ;o)  

Gma and Gpa left Sunday morning and we hosted our church group Sunday night. We are lucky to have such a great group with a ton of kids and Layla LOVES to play with them. L didn't take a nap Sunday (ugh) and so she was pretty grumpy about the whole thing. We left the kids in the play room with our wonderful babysitters for 45 minutes and when we went to get them we found Layla like this:

I seriously could not believe it. She has NEVER fallen asleep on the floor like this. The kids were SO noisy and runny around like wild things and here is Layla dead asleep. I though about checking her pulse but I thought that might be a little over the top. HAHA. So here was our sleeping beauty taking her afternoon nap at 6:00 at night. Oh boy did we pay for that at bedtime. Two hours of crying...fun!

Hello terrible twos

All I can say is "wow". Nothing has prepared me for this. All of a sudden my sweet little cuddle bunny has turned into a toddler and I'm starting to understand what the "terrible twos" are all about. We've been pretty lucky with L so far but we are totally paying for it now! Haha. Today she decided that she didn't want to work on her ABCs and 123s anymore so I let her just walk into the other room. I THOUGHT she went into the living room or was rolling around in the foyer.

This is the real story:

What a wonderful week!

This week has been full of ups and downs at the Barton household. I'll start with the bad- Layla's sleeping habits are becoming a nightmare. She went 4 days this week without a nap...and two days on 15 minute naps. Gone are the days of editing pictures or surfing Pinterest for a few hours for this Momma. :( BOOOOOOOOOOO!!

But other than some horrible nights and naps...we've had a great week! This picture was actually take last week but I couldn't help but share. Layla was not napping great last week either and I finally went in there to get her after 2 hours of crying, screaming and "OH NOOOOOOO"s. I walked in to Layla sitting in her crib with no shirt. Or so I thought. I picked her up and realized she decided to wear her shirt as a dress. Nice. So I put her down and told her to "stand right there!" while I ran to get the camera. When I went back into her room she apparently had walked a few feet and realized I was back and RAN back to the exact spot I told her to stand it (while looking at her feet and moving ever so slightly a few inches when I asked her if that was the right spot LOL):

Now to this week. First we went to the library for the first time in awhile. I've never let L check out books for some reason...just never really thought about it. Lately she's really been into reading and LOVES to point out items and "read" books. So we took a trip to the library and she LOVED it. I let her carry in a little bag for books and she went right up to the children's books and started loading it up. It was like free shopping! Our library actually has an amazing kids section so I let her pick out 6 books and we brought them home and started reading to the dogs:

And a video of Layla trying to read to Oscar and Oscar not really appreciating it. I swear these dogs bark every waking minute of the day.

Yesterday we decided to go to Chippewa Nature Center to hang out for a bit. It was somewhat nice when we left but when we walked outside to go home it was SNOWING!! I couldn't believe it! Layla hated it of course. She hates the cold and when we walk outside she acts like she can't breath. LOL. Her teeth were chattering and she kept kicking my sides and holding her breath. SO dramatic. Anyway, when we got home I decided to snap this pic of the snow. And yes, that is all our CRAP out by the street. A result of us taking down the drop ceiling in the downstairs bedroom and me organizing our storage stuff. Hopefully it will be picked up next week...nothing like soggy cardboard. Yum.

And now for a Layla eating update! I still haven't heard back from her therapist but I am 99.9% sure that she's going to give us the "all clear". That's right folks...Layla is considered a decent eater! WOOOO HOOOOO! I honestly thought this day would never come. I know this is a topic I go on and on about but it has consumed our lives for the last year and I'm so thankful that we have seen amazing results with her. We still have to really focus on pudding and mushy stuff and veggies...but she actually gets a pretty good variety now.

For the most part eating isn't as stressful anymore. We have some trouble when we are anywhere other than home and we are still told to not discipline her at the table which I'll be honest, I don't follow all the time. I can't have her throwing food for the dogs or just plain not sitting when we are in public but...we pick our battles VERY closely.

A smile at meal time used to be SO rare. I really get teary when I look at these pics now because it has taken SO much work to get to this point. But here is Layla eating lunch today. Smiling, being silling, carrying on a "conversation" with me (haha) and eating a banana and chocolate covered cherries. ;o)

Halloween...a little late

I honestly forgot that I got these pictures on Halloween. I can't believe it! So here are two of the very few pics I took (how horrible is that?!):

Obviously Layla wasn't really feeling the love at first. She didn't want to sit her her wagon with her BFF Landon. I think it might have been the costume. But don't worry! A after a few houses she totally got it and they were buddies again. Although neither one of them wanted to get in the wagon and preferred to just stroll around the neighborhood on foot.

Here is Layla with all her loot. And yes, that is a Kit Kat in her hand. LOL. Also, in case you are wondering...that sign on our door is one that I put out every day when L takes a nap. Basically a "wake the girl up and you die" warning that their is a child napping in a house full of crazy dogs. ;o)

Blog about blogs

If there is one thing I go through faster than a pair of shoes...it is a blog site. I think we've had 3 or 4 since Layla was born but I PROMISE I'm sticking with this one on Blogger.

In fact, when I opened this account I tried to find an old blog that I started right around the time I went back to work after having L. I couldn't find the account and in typical "I'm so frustrated so I'm just going to start over" Ashley fashion I just stopped looking. And somehow yesterday, I found it!

So this is a blog that's main purpose is for me to blog about a blog that I started on the same blogging site but got frustrated and opened a new blog instead. Long story short right? Here is the old blog, in case I ever need it again (plus it's fun to look at old pics)

http://threebartonsblog.blogspot.com/

http://ashbphotos.wordpress.com/