HEADLINE: Layton home contains secret room

I think the value on our house just went up a bit this weekend. We recently discovered an extra room! Must have been hidden there by the original owners, because I don't remember it being there when we moved in. I always thought that this "space" in the house was just a big pile of rubbish, a dumping ground if you will, where we can stash stuff we don't ever want to see again. Turns out though, that there was an actual 4th room in that very spot, right underneath our noses, hiding there, the whole time!

But seriously, we had about 5 hours on Saturday with absolutely no kids, (thanks to Debbie for taking them with her to Orem) so we decided to tackle the beast that was our office. We forgot to take a picture of it before, plus Dixie said she wouldn't have let me post it anyway, so I found a picture that could be comparable to what we were dealing with before hand.

This may not be a perfect representation, but it gives you an idea of the space there was for moving around in there. Not much. Take a look at all the messy offices at this link, and you'll see a fair amount of pictures that were similar to how ours was before the CDC and the HAZMAT teams came through. The "after" picture will follow shortly, as soon as FEMA has finished doing their analysis.

Disclaimer: For Dixie's sake, please let it be known that this is not a fair representation of the rest of our house. The rest of our house is spotless, all the time, and never EVER gets messy. Ever.

May the Fourth be with you

Happy Star Wars day everyone!

SMARTIES

I had the funniest conversation with Maddie yesterday (well, she always has something funny to say)... but I wanted to write this one down so I didn't forget it.

We sat down for breakfast, and I fed her fish.
MOM: Your fish is not eating her food lately. Maybe she'll die some day soon.
MADDIE: No, mom, my fish will never die.
MOM: Yes, Maddie, your fish will die one day.
MADDIE: No she wont.
MOM: Maddie, all fish die some day.
MADDIE: Not mine.
MOM: I have a video on the computer that I can show you of a little girl who had a funeral for her fish just before she flushed it down the toilet. (here, you can watch it if you want, it's hilarious)
MADDIE: Well, mom.... computer fish and tv fish die, but mine will never die.
MOM: That video is a recording of a real fish that died. So all fish will die some day.
MADDIE: No! She wont!

I decided that I was done and that I didn't really care if I won this argument or not. So I let it go.
THEN......
Later that afternoon, the kids were picking a treat from their Easter baskets, and both decided to go with SMARTIES.

MADDIE: I'm going to have smarties because I need to be smarter.
MOM: Really?
MADDIE: Ya, Holly told me that there's the word Smart in Smarties, so if you eat them, then you'll be smarter.
MOM: Did you know that Holly was just joking. Smarties don't really make you smarter.
MADDIE: Yes, they do.
MOM: No, she was just being silly.
MADDIE: They really do mom! Do you wanna see?
maddie put a few in her mouth and chomped, when her mouth was clear....
MADDIE: See.... you're right mom! My fish will die some day. See, smarties made me smarter.

LOL, I just laughed my head off.

Ryan Hehehehehehehe

So for a long time now, Ryan has had this way of expressing his excitement, or really, just for expressing what he wants. If you ask him a question, and the answer is yes, he will make this noise. Sometimes it will be accompanied by a nod of the head, and the word "yes", but sometimes not. We get a kick out of it, and thought you all might too. Enjoy.

Image Tag

I noticed on Nat and Clint's blog that they had an image tag going. Clint noted that he's not tagging anyone, so I'm taking the initiative to join in. I usually don't join in on this stuff, but I thought, I'll see which picture pops up, and if it's a good one, I'll do it, if not, I won't. Well it doesn't get any better than Maddie riding a llama. Here are the instructions as posted on Clint's post:

1. Go to your documents/pictures folder.
2. Go to your sixth file.
3. Choose your sixth picture.
4. Blog about it.

Just so you know, I'm blogging this from my work laptop. (Hopefully my boss doesn't read this). So the pictures folder I was going through was only the pictures I have on my work laptop. This picture comes from a day when we went as a family to a co-worker's farewell party up at his home/ranch in Morgan. He was going to Afghanistan (incidentally, his one year is up, and he is coming back in a couple weeks), and invited everyone up for a party before he left. He owns a small bit of land and on it raises a few animals including a few llamas, some goats, a wild burro, and who knows what else. So anyway, he had all of us with kids go out into the field, and corral all the llamas into the pen so the kids could ride them. At first Maddie was on the ground with me guiding her, but she felt more comfortable being held, so I put her on my shoulders, and we were swinging our arms and running around the place trying to keep the llamas from getting away. They would come charging straight for us, and I would just stand my ground, which got Maddie really excited, and she was laughing her head off. Then they got a chance to lead all the llama's around by a rope, and ride them and what not. So this is a shot of Maddie riding "princess". The other llama had some serious tooth/jawbone decay problem, and had a big hole in the side of it's cheek. I don't think Maddie was too fond of that one.

5. Tag six people. I'm with Clint this one, I'm a bit lazy, and I don't really know 6 people to tag. So I'll just tag Dixie and let her do one.

Dad, can you hear me?

The other day, Maddie was playing with Dixie's cell phone, and was calling my cell phone over and over again. Most of the time I would pick up and talk to her, but this time I decided to let the voice mail get it and see if she would leave me a message. Well she did. And it's too cute not to share with you. I was able to get it off my cell phone onto the PC, but it's a bit quiet, so you'll have to turn up the volume to hear it well.

Mandles

I decided that DQ post was lame, something needed to replace it, so you're going to learn about Mandles. Go buy one. This is hilarious.