Courtney Bug

For Christmas of 2010 we got the best gift ever. Our little Courtney Rose. Born on December 22 at 1:04pm weighing in at 6lbs 15oz, and standing (in theory) at 19.5 " tall, she is perfect. Her due date was the 28th, but I asked to be induced before Christmas to which my obstetrician gladly complied, because I really didn't want run the chance of being in the hospital on christmas, especially with Tal at home. Also we really wanted this baby before 2011, go ahead and call us greedy; that's what we are. They started the pitocin around 8:30am, got an epidural around 10, they broke my water around 10:30 and I started pushing at 1:00. Yep, a whole 5 minutes of pushing. I had no complaints! Luckily with both of my babies, labor has been the easiest part (thanks to epidurals). Which works out incredibly well for me, because for all my talk of having whimpy patients, when I have pain I'm just not a good person.

Since then she has remained the little angel that she came out as. She is very easy going and only cries when she's hungry or tired. She is a great sleeper. Even initially coming home from the hospital she would sleep 3 hours at a time. Beautiful! The other night she slept for 7 hours, that's mommy's little girl! She is smiling at us when she's awake and somehow it seems like I love her more everyday. Is that possible? It must be because it is happening! We love, love, love this girl and are so thankful that she is in our family (and out of my belly!) I love being able to turn over in bed without it being a chore, I love eating whatever I want without thought of consequences, but mostly I love that I'm able to kiss and hold her now.

This too shall pass...

So its been quite a while since I've posted about our family going-ons but with good reason. They saying goes that 'A picture is worth a thousand words.' Well I can guarantee that when I took these pictures I had thousands of words going through my head but few are appropriate to post here... A few weeks ago before these hurricanes hit, I listened to a talk by Pres. Monson in which he was talking about enjoying the journey of life and not being focused on the end. He said to enjoy children in the home while they were there because some day they would be gone and we might actually miss the messes they left. That talk saved my child's life. period. I have since listened to it twice more in my attempt to be reminded of those words in times of need. Despite all the messes and disasters this kid somehow still manages to stay cute in my book. Maybe its his blindingly blond hair, or the way he asks to watch "Bish" (Finding Nemo) or "Ars" (Cars); both sounding so close to being inappropriate, but so cute coming from a little runt like him. (seriously, runt. A whopping 23 lbs at almost 2 years old) Maybe its the way he whispers his prayers or how he gets so excited to read 'Green Eggs and Ham'. Maybe its the way he hoards rocks, dirt, leaves, twigs and toys in the trunk of his push car that he's found on our journeys out of the house. Maybe its the way he imitates how a tractor sounds... 'mooo' (that's how they sound on Cars anyway). So many possibilities! I'm thinking though if he keeps this craziness up he better start looking for more ways to look cute!

For some reason it didn't post and I'm not taking the time to make it work but I also added a pic after this one as a 'before and after'. This is Tal right after church. One hour later while our home teachers were here he walked into the room covered with a boxful of cornstarch. Just when I though the kid couldn't get any more white...We have sinced cleaned out the pantry and put a lock of sorts on it. You might ask why did I wait so long? For some reason I had it in my head that I wanted to encourage his curiousity... now I'm strongly leaning towards the idea 'encourage curiousity!!! Outside!'

Summer Lovin'

So this won't be a great update, I'm just tired of seeing a poop bag whenever I log on. goo. We've had really good times this summer playing at the lake with family, learning how to master a spoon and fork (still a work in progress), learning how to cook (or at least taste test) and dressing up in Halloween costumes.... Good times right? Tal doesn't say a lot of words but he will make the sounds for a few animals including a chicken, dog, cat, tiger, cow and my favorite a fish. What sound does a fish make, you say? Well if you ask my son he'll promptly make the sound of bubbles in an aquarium. And that's what a fish says! He's not quite the ferocious tiger you see depicted. For starters he's 18 months and fits perfectly in his 12 mth costume and if you ask him what a tiger says he says in a soft, high-pitched voice... rawr?! The rest of us are doing pretty good as well. Daren started his 2nd year at law school and so far its good. We're both looking forward to football season getting underway. I like to watch football but I think I like it more that every saturday will guarantee us a few hours of Daren coming out of "his cave" (our office) to watch football and play with us during the commercials! I'm feeling much better these days since most of the nausea/tiredness/grouchiness has decreased. Yeah! We found out we're having a little girl which we're very excited for but I'm also a little apprehensive. I went shopping for little girl clothes and only ended up getting clothes for Tal because I couldn't decide what girl clothes were cute. I've been debating whether its good enough to just dress my little girl in sports/boy clothes but I'll pierce her ears and have her wear flowered head bands.... she'll never know the difference right?! :) Well I can hope anyway!

Disclaimer

The following 4 posts are out of order. I posted chronologically and am too technically challenged to switch it all around so there are 4 different posts counting down backwards. Sorry!

Last One

In the attempts of the ranger station to keep this canyon "pristene" it was required of all hikers, starting in 2010, that they carry out their fecal matter. That's right folks, as if this trip wasn't fun enough that pretty little bag is weighed down with poop. Actually Daren really was a life saver for me and carried mine with his. If that's not true love I don't know what is! You can bet though that the first thing done when ending our hike was finding a trash bin to dump all this crap (literally) in!

Sunrise the last day of our hike. We hiked 11 1/2 miles the day before and today we only had to hike 8 1/2 to be done. It was our best time for 8 1/2 miles during the whole trip!

The most beautiful looking stop sign I have ever seen... The first modern sign of civilization!

We ended at Lee's Ferry near the Glen Canyon Dam where the Paria empties into the Colorado River. All in all we had fun, made memories and built a lot of character which is what these trips are all about! The things I saw where incredible and I would never have appreciated them as much had I not hiked down to see them myself. The trip was beautiful. So beautiful in fact, that I don't think I'll ever be able to go again, in fear that I'll mar the wonderful memories I already have :) The End. PS. I've posted all of our pics at
picasaweb.google.com/laytontribe/Paria#. There's 314 pics so proceed with caution.... Maybe I should rename the site "Gulch" :)

Paria 3

So we came to a place where we had to walk through about 10 feet of water up to my mid-thigh (hence the sexy leg shot, lucky you!)which must have been 40 degrees. It was cold. Before coming on the trip I had expressed some fears to Daren about flash floods and the possibility of dying. Being the sweetheart that he is he calmed my troubled soul by getting me floaties before the trip. SO dreamy!! Since this was the most water we had seen up to that point, I thought I'd put them on, just in case. Plus when I go backpacking, I feel obligated to use everything in my pack at least once, that way I don't feel like I've carried around extra weight in vain... This pretty face I have on is my looking back at Daren thinking... 'If this doesn't count as grounds for a divorce, I don't know what does!'. OK, that wasn't honest at the time, but I did feel that way later :)

Shawn, Daren, Shanna, Mom and Pop Layton after going through most of the mud for the day. Behind us is an emergency exit route out of the canyon.... if only....

There's a place on the trail where you have to let yourself down 15-20 feet which a rope that's been left there. We tied out packs on to let them go down first and then shimmied our way down after them. Ah, good times!

This is us the next day. We have semi-legit smiles on our face because today we only have to hike 13 miles!!! Yeah Us!

Paria Canyon 2

So obviously this is a picture taken looking straight up at the sky. It kind of gives you a feel of how much light hits the floor of these slot canyons, which is slim to none. In some places where we saw sun on the ground it was probably the only hour of the day that dirt saw sunlight... poor dirt.

In areas where the canyon is narrow enough you can see debris that was stuck by flash floods and who knows how long its been there. This pic is pretty grainy because I had to lighten it up quite a bit because its pretty dark in those areas. I'm also wearing a sweater because in a place where satan must exist due to the lack of sunshine, it gets a little chilly for this Arizona girl. It was low 60's!

Nothing incredible, but we both really liked the detail the water had left indefinately imprinted on this wall face. Again this was taken the first day because by the end of the trip when I saw a wall face like this all I thought was 'Another stupid rock dividing me from some air conditioned car ride home!' Yep, sorry about the negativity...