Merry Christmas!

Hey everyone! I hope that everyone had a great Christmas. We are having a great time at my parent's house. Laneah loves being around grandma, grandpa, her aunt, and all her uncles. My dad got a kitten (named him Jack Bauer) for Christmas, and Laneah has so much fun playing with him. Laneah enjoyed opening presents, but got easily distracted, especially by toys that had already been opened. It was a wonderful day!

We took Laneah to the mall last week to get pictures with Santa. We all thought that she would scream her head off, but she did great! She didn't even pout:) They took about three pictures and she didn't smile. The photograper showed me the ones that she took and asked if they were ok. I asked if we could try one more to see if she would smile. The photographer was so nice, and said that would be fine. I played peek-a-boo with Laneah and she smiled! I was so happy!
Merry Christmas!

One year ago today.....

One year ago today, our lives were changed forever. We were given the most precious gift that one could give; a beautiful baby. After years of heart ache and longing, our hearts were filled with love and joy as we held our precious baby girl in our arms for the first time. This year has been the best year of our lives.

To Laneah's birth mother: We are so grateful to you for your selflessness and love. We think of you often and pray for you daily. We will make sure that Laneah knows what a beautiful and amazing person you are. We hope that this anniversary becomes a joyful memory for you knowing that you made our dreams of a family possible.

Night in Bethlehem

Whew! It is done! I am the activities chairman in our ward and I had to put together our Christmas party. Thanks to my committee, the party was a real success. We decided to do a Night in Bethlehem. If you aren't familiar with this activity, you re-enact the time/night of Christ's birth. We started in the chapel to start out on a spiritual note and then headed to the cultural hall to be taxed (non perishable food item that is donated to a food bank). Each person had to sign the census and then were given a money bag. People were to use their money to buy food and gifts from the different booths. There were seven booths in the room with different kinds of food, drinks, toys and gifts. I had each person on my committee in charge of a different booth to make each booth unique. I was very impressed to see people's creativity at work. We strung white Christmas lights on the ceiling so when it was time for the program to start, we turned off all the lights and it looked like you were sitting under the stars. The program was sweet and spiritual (Basically Luke's account of Christ's birth). People really seemed to enjoy themselves. It turned out great but I am glad it's over:)

Little Miss Attitude

Laneah is all sugar and spice lately; nothing in between. She is either defiant and demanding, or sweet and cuddly. On her defiant side, she sees "no" as a challenge, as in how many times can I do this before mom gives in? On her sweet side, she is giving kisses. I love her sweet, but very slobbery kisses. This video captures her giving me a couple of dirty looks, it is hilarious. I crack up every time I watch it.



Also she took her first steps yesterday. She did 4 steps and then got up and did 3 more. She walked a little today too, but I haven't been able to get a good video of it yet because every time she sees the camera she gets excited and crawls to me as fast as she can to get to the camera:) But I will get a video and post it soon! We leave to visit my parents in a week and we are so excited! Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving we were invited to Doug and Lieu's house along with Derrik and Kami, and Jeremy and Jessica. We had a great time and Lieu is such a good hostess.

I made these cupcakes Wed night with my nephew, Anthony (3). He loves to cook and decorate, just not for very long:) While we were pouring the batter into the cupcake tins he sighed and said, "um...when are we going to decorate?" I told him to go play while I finished. When the cupcakes had cooked and cooled he came in and helped me decorate one, ate it, and then left to play:) Oh well, I had fun anyway.
Didn't Lieu do a great job with the ambiance? I loved the decorations. She even made little name cards for our place settings.

Laneah and Dallas weren't really interesting in eating so they left the table to play. All the girls! Laneah, me, Jessica, Kami and Scarlette!
The turkey that Jessica and Kami made. Good job girls, it was delicious!
Jessica and Jeremy munching on some good snacks Lieu had put out.

Lieu had a little push toy shopping cart that Laneah wanted to play with all night. She is really into walking now. She wants us to walk with her or walk using her push toys all the time now. When she uses her push toys, she is getting pretty fast but she can't steer so she is constantly getting stuck or ramming into things, so funny. In this video she rams into the trash can and then falls on her bum:)


For dessert Lieu had made 4 kinds of delicious pies. She put the pumpkin pie outside to cool and put a top over it. When Doug took Laneah and I outside to see their dog, Hank, the pie was gone. Hank ate the entire pumpkin pie! LOL

We had a great Thanksgiving with our friends. Hope you all had a good time too!

11 months (my snuggle bunny)

Laneah turned 11 months on Thursday. I can't believe how fast my baby is growing! Here are some things that our little piglet has been up to:

• Finally! Laneah will snuggle! She was so active, she just wanted to see everything and get into everything, she didn't have time to snuggle:) She still doesn't do it all the time, but she is starting to want to snuggle a lot more. I take every chance I can!

• As soon as she hit 10 months, she became obsessed with books. Before that, she didn't want anything to do with them. Now she is constantly flipping through books. She also wants you to read books to her, which is great. One day, I was reading a book to her that is a touch and feel baby animals book. I was taking her hand and showing her how to feel the different textures, and after doing that a few times, she took my hand and made me feel the animal:)

• The baby in the mirror is her best friend. She loves playing with her friend in the mirror. She loves to give her kisses and head nudges. (For whatever reason, she likes to rub foreheads to show affection).

• Laneah loves to flip our bottom lips, except her motor skills aren't that great, so she rakes your whole face until she gets to your lip and flips it. She thinks it is so funny and does it over and over again.
• She is fascinated with anything that she can pull up and down. Ex-lids (she loves the lid to her wipes) , rugs, etc.
• We were working with her for over a month to get her to clap. She loved when we clapped, but when we would try to get her to do it, she would just take our hands and make us clap instead of doing it herself. A couple of weeks ago, Jason had to help his Grandpa in the morning so he left and Laneah was sad that he left. When he came back, Laneah saw him come in the door, got really excited and started clapping!!! Cutest story ever. Ever since then, she claps all the time. But she seemed to really make the connection that you clap when you are excited or happy, which is great that she can pick up on that social cue. (Pardon the mess in this video, Laneah got into the laundry basket and spread clothes everywhere:)

• She likes eating table food a lot. She is very independent and now she only wants to feed herself, so she gets really upset if we try to feed her anything:) This is what she looks like after she feeds herself.
  

• She likes to sing. She sings to herself sometimes, but mostly she likes to sing along with mommy. She has a very soft and sweet voice and gets really excited when we sing in church. Her favorite song is still Old McDonald.
• Laneah likes to help us unload the dishwasher:)

• Laneah has a great vocabulary for her age. Her favorite word is "baby". She also says "mommy", "mama", "dada", "ke ka" (kitty kat), "mimi" (grandma), "ball", "bee" (her favorite book is Hello Bee), "hi" and "bye bye"
• She is starting to dance, but won't do it for the camera. It is really cute, I will post a video once I can get one.
• She likes to turn light switches on and off, especially the pull down ones that are attached to the fans.
  
• Laneah loves to walk using her push toys, chairs and holding onto furniture.
• She has 6 teeth now, 4 top and two bottom, and is still teething, although I am not sure which teeth are coming in right now.
• Laneah likes to climb. Right now she keeps thinking that she can climb up onto the coffee table and she sure tries. She can make it up onto the couch if you put a throw pillow on the floor for her to step up on. This picture is of her after she climbed up onto on of our end tables.

• Our little girly girl loves shoes and jewelry. She is constantly playing with our shoes, although she never keeps her shoes on:) And she is always pulling at my jewelry. I don't wear much anymore because she has broken so many necklaces. She also loves pulling everything out of my purse and playing with my purse.

• Most babies have a special blankie or stuffed animal, but Laneah loves her burp clothes. Not one in particular, any one works. She likes to snuggle with them, rub them on her cheek, or lay on it like she is using it as a pillow. It is really cute.
  

Some things that aren't so cute (advice please!)

• She loves to gag herself. She sticks her fingers down her throat and gags herself all the time. She will do it with one hand and then when I take that hand away, she uses her other hand!!! I have no idea why she does this.
  
• She loves to drink bath water. I have tried bringing her sippy cup to the bath, leaving the water running and fill up a cup from it and let her drink from that...nothing works so far.
• She is testing boundaries. Ex- she loves the trash can in the kitchen. As soon as we are in the kitchen, she goes straight for the trash can. I tell her "you can't touch the trash can, it is dirty" and then I take her to the fridge to let her play with her magnets. And then she sits down and crawls right back to the trash can. And we do this all day, every day, with everything that she is not supposed to touch/do.
  
• It is nearly impossible to change her diaper. She will not stay still for a half of a second unless she is trying to grab her poo! So much fun.
• Will she ever stop pulling my hair????
• She will not keep her shoes, socks, or hats on and it is freezing outside.
• She thinks mommy is a jungle gym and a drum set

*****************************************************************************

Laneah is the sweetest baby. She loves to laugh, play and entertain. We love her so much!

A Bewitching Halloween

Laneah and I dressed up as witches for Halloween this year. We met up with cousins Anthony (dressed as a vampire) and Blake (dressed as Frankenstein) to go Trick or Treating. Laneah looked so adorable in her witch costume, but she didn't like her hat very much, so she kept pulling it off. Jason took her door to door while I took picture after picture:) Jason had a good time picking out what candy he wanted to eat since Laneah doesn't get to eat any of her goodies this year. When we got home, we piled all of the candy around her (I wanted a picture of it) and she went crazy. She started kicking the candy all around, laughing, throwing candy in the air and rolling around it! It was hilarious! It was a fun Halloween and I can't wait for next year!

"Nana Dos"

So my mom is in town, which has been lots of fun. She has been playing with Laneah's hair and calling the styles "Nana Dos", which cracks me up. She had to sit Laneah in the sink to do her hair because Laneah can't get enough of her "friend" in the mirror. My mom managed to get Laneah's hair to do two different styles: a Pebble's type hairdo and little pigtails, both of which are adorable. But don't take my word for it, just check out the pictures:)

10 months

Stats

weight: 19 lbs 4 ozs (50 percentile)
length: 28 1/4 (55 percentile)
Teeth: 5 (2 bottom, three top)
Eyes:Blue
Hair: Blond and crazy:)

Time just flies, especially when you have a little one! I can't believe that she is already 10 months old. Laneah is so much fun and so active. She loves to explore and get into everything. I put together a bunch of pictures and videos to give you a glimpse of what Laneah is like. She crawls all over the place. She can crawl on her hands and knees, but for whatever reason, she prefers to army crawl and so that is what she does most often. She usually crawls to the first thing she can use to pull herself to standing position. She loves to stand and she "cruises" (walks while holding onto furniture). She has been very brave lately and walks from the couch to the coffee table, but only lets go of anything for a few seconds. She stood up once by herself without pulling up on anything about a week ago, but hasn't done it since. Laneah loves to slap and bang her hands on anything and anyone. She is starting to like looking through books and being read to. She loves animals and gets so excited every time she sees our cat Monty. She is just starting to eat stage three foods. I thought that it would be easy because she has taken to solids so enthusiastically. But after screaming through the first few feedings, she now tolerates it. I have tried a few table foods, but she makes a terrible face and spits it out. She has become very suspicious of everything that I give to eat now. She even tests her beloved puffs by sticking her tongue out of her mouth so that she can spit whatever food you give her out quickly. She is very independent. Even though she is very clingy to me, she doesn't like to snuggle or be too close because there is too much going on..to much to see...to much to do:)


Laneah loves to bang pots and pans. She especially likes to play with them on the tile because it is so much louder. Recently she found out which cabinet is home to the pots and pans and enjoys pulling them all out.

Laneah discovered how much fun laundry can be. She likes to crawl into the laundry basket, snuggle with the clothes and then pull the folded laundry out of the basket, shake it (just in case it might still be folded), and then throw all the clothes on the ground.
She loves ties. Every Sunday, she plays with daddy's tie over and over again.
Laneah likes to play in the ball pit. She also loves to throw the balls out of the pit and then chase them. She recently started to like rolling or throwing balls back and forth to Jason or I. She thinks it is really funny.


Lately, Laneah climbs up onto the couch and looks through the blinds to see what is going on outside. She also likes to play peek-a-boo with the curtains. The bottom picture is her laughing at herself after playing peek-a-boo.
She is always crossing her ankles, she even crosses her ankles while standing and holding on to the coffee table sometimes.



Laneah really likes music, and she loves when you make music with her xylophone.


When Laneah gets really excited, she tenses her whole body and shakes with her mouth wide open. It is so funny.



Laneah loves to climb, so it was no surprise when she tackled the stairs.

One day Laneah just started making this noise that sounds like a little monster. I have no idea why she makes the sound or where she might have picked it up, but it is hilarious.

This is our coffee table. It has a bottom piece where I used to store magazines. Rather than crawl around the coffee table, Laneah just climbs through it.

Laneah loves anything involving speed, hanging upside down and adventurous. What she doesn't like, is when those things are over. We love to throw her in the air and do fun things to make her laugh. And she has a great time. But when we stop, she throws a tantrum and we think it is so funny. Bring on the terrible twos!

Last week she started making this funny sound and she does it all the time now.

Well those are a few of the things that our beautiful little girl has been up to. She keeps us busy, happy and tired. We sure love our little munchkin!

Fall Fun!

What a fun time of year. The leaves are starting to change color, the weather is nice, and soon we get to dress up for Halloween! Today was a jam packed family day. First we went to the Homestead Garden's Fall Festival with Aunt Megan, Uncle Tony, Aunt Jen, Uncle Pierson, and Anthony and Blake. The festival had all kinds of rides and games like a tractor pull ride, pumpkin bowling, painting pumpkins, pony rides, hay rides, face painting and more. The kids had a great time. Anthony rode on the tractor ride and got his face painted. Blake and Anthony both had fun pumpkin bowling. And Laneah went on her first pony ride. She wasn't in the best of moods at the beginning of the day, but after her lunch she was all smiles and giggles. We all went on the hayride and Laneah enjoyed that because the wind was in her hair and face (at home, she crawls up to the little fan we have in her room to drown out sound and sticks her face in front of it and laughs). After the festival we all went to the Chick Fil-A where Grandma Kathy works and got lunch. We took Laneah home for her afternoon nap and I made my apple pie. After the nap, we met up with the family again at Jordon's (Pierson's oldest son) football game. Anthony and Blake entertained Laneah by blowing bubbles for her and then chased Uncle Jason around the field and tackled him. After cousin Jordon won his football game, we had dinner and then all enjoyed homemade apple pie and vanilla ice cream to end a fun-filled fall day!

Oh That Hair!

This little girl of mine has gone from one crazy hair style to the next! First, all of her sweet baby hair fell out except for the "mullet" (one strip of dark hair across the back of her head). Then, with the mullet still in place, fuzzy blond "duck hair" started growing and growing, and grew straight up. Then the last of her baby hair, the mullet, fell out, leaving her with an asymmetrical looking bob in the back. Now her hair is so long, that it curls backwards! It is so funny, I think it looks like Sonic the Hedgehog. Nothing will tame this girls hair, I'm serious. I have tried gel and wax a couple of times, and it didn't take more than a few minutes for it stand right back up. At Megan's wedding, I put wax stuff in her hair and she kept grabbing her hair and pulling it straight up or outwards. By the end of the day, it was all over the place! Jason loves it though. Everywhere I go, people go on and on about her hair. You would not even believe how many people ask me if I style it that way. Someone even asked me if I curled it! Seriously, I don't know if these people are really digging her hair or not, because I'm not a fan. Don't get me wrong, Laneah is hands down the most gorgeous baby there is, but this hair business has got to end! (BTW I am being over dramatic on purpose for those of you who don't know me well) I am beginning to wonder if it will ever lay down............

Anyway, here are some pictures of my beautiful baby rockin' her crazy hair

Megan and Tony's Wedding

Yesterday Jason's sister Megan got married. Jen (my sister-in-law) and I were her bridesmaids. The wedding was an outdoor wedding and the weather was really nice. Megan looked stunning and her dress was gorgeous. The colors were green and ivory. Since my dress was green, I found a really pretty lavender dress for Laneah (for $10 at Babies R Us:) and had Jason wear his lavender tie. Poor Laneah was tired and teething (her top teeth are ready to pop out any time now) and she screamed during the entire ceremony! She did pretty good at the reception though and everyone was great in trying to soothe her or make her laugh. The food was catered by a BBQ restaurant and the cake was layered with pineapple, guava, passion fruit and strawberry and topped with a coconut flavored frosting. Megan shoved cake all over Tony's face and that was funny. Their son, Anthony, was the ring bearer and looks absolutely adorable in his little tux! It was a fun and exhausting day. I put together a slide show with some of the pictures.

Night at the Park

The other night was great. The weather was beautiful and we decided to walk to the park. The park is about a mile away. Laneah is finally enjoying walks in her stroller (of course at the end of summer:) I have taken her to the park a couple of times, but Jason had never been (he doesn't really like to walk). So it was a treat for me to have my hubby and my baby enjoying the outdoors with me. We walked to park and there was another little girl the same age as Laneah in one of the baby swings. Laneah and this little girl would just look at each other and laugh. It was so cute. Laneah loves the swings and would get so excited when daddy pushed her. The other little girl was sitting back and holding on, and Laneah, the little dare devil, was leaning forward with her arms out! (She is going to love roller coasters later in life.)



After swinging for a while, we took Laneah to the slide. Jason would start her at the top of the slide and help her slide all the way down. She loved it. Whenever he would take her to the top of the slide, she would kick her feet in anticipation.

Here is a video of her going down the slide. It is really cute. I have no idea why the videos on my new camera load sideways. Any camera savvy people who can help me out?




Jason wanted to walk some of the way home with Laneah on his shoulders. Laneah was thrilled, she loves being on daddy's shoulders.

Laneah loves to slap and bang things, even daddy's head. I was cracking up and had to get a video of it. (Heather, I know you'll appreciate this video:) And what's weird is this video isn't sideways ???? Hmmm....