Our New Backyard!

We are so blessed! Jason's grandpa's company came and fixed up our back yard this week. The fence was falling down and it was a giant mud pit. Nothing can grow back there because it is such a shady area with all of the trees surrounding the property. So they poured concrete in the back and put up a new fence. It looks wonderful. My parents bought Laneah this cute little playhouse and we got her a slide and an adorable crab sandbox. And today we bought a really nice grill, I can't wait to cook on it! It is so nice to have a fun back yard and Laneah loves it. Thanks Grandpa, Kathy and Uncle Johnny!

This is the part of the back yard that is fixed up. The other side will have the grill and patio furniture.
Ha, Ha, I know, already messy. This kid doesn't waste any time:) I put the slide in the sandbox so she would have something soft to land on. I'm just a little over protective;)
Laneah playing in the sand box. She loves to dump the sand out of the sandbox....I guess I'm going to have to buy more sand:)
It was such a nice day, warm and 65. I was able to put these adorable flip flops on Laneah.
Playing with her play house. I love that it has a picnic table. She loves to sit on the little benches and also pick them up and carry them around.
Apparently, the pretend food tastes really good:)
Laneah loves the door to the play house. It also has a doorbell that has several different rings.
Just having fun, enjoying the new back yard:)

The National Zoo

While my mom and sister were in town, we went to the National Zoo in D.C. The weather was supposed to be nice, but it ended up being cold with a misty rain; I ended up buying a sweat shirt at the gift shop because I was so cold. We still had a great time though. We took the Metro into the city and Laneah thought it was a fun ride. Every time we would start moving she would throw her arms in the air and say "weeee!" Laneah loved looking at all the animals. They have a kids farm at the zoo and Laneah ran from one fence to the other looking at all the farm animals.

I thought that the coolest part of the zoo was the Orangutan crossing. They actually call it the "O Line", like it is a Metro line. They built this tower in the Orangutan cage and the Orangutans can climb to the top of the tower and then climb to 8 other towers throughout the zoo. As we were leaving the zoo, we saw this sign and laughed and decided to take a picture. While we were taking the picture, an Orangutan started climbing directly over us. We got a cool video of it and I posted it below.




Laneah was so tired from running around that she passed out on the Metro ride home. She loved the zoo so I imagine that we will be going plenty more times this summer.

Chuck E Cheese

Today we went with my sister-in-law Jen and nephew Blake to Chuck E Cheese. Laneah had a good time in the toddler section where they had a little playground with a slide. She climbed up the steps to the play area and then I think she wanted to get down so she turned to go down backwards, but instead of going down the steps, she went down the slide. Her face was priceless! She looked at me like 'what the heck, I'm sliding?'. She liked it so much that she ran back over to the steps, climbed in the play area and then to my astonishment, went down head first giggling. She did that over and over for a while and I got a little video clip of it. She also went on one of those little kiddie rides for the first time and loved it. We ordered pizza and while we waited, Laneah and Blake danced away to the Chuck E Cheese puppets and their songs. Then Chuck E Cheese himself came over. Blake gave him a high five and Laneah was curious about him but didn't want to get too close. She loved the puppets though, I could hardly get her to eat pizza and ice cream because she was so into them! After we left, she passed out in the car, she was really worn out. Thanks Blake and Jen for inviting us to a fun day at Chuck E Cheese!

Buckethead

For some reason, Laneah loves to put buckets (sand pails, baskets, etc) over her head and walk around. It is so cute. She will just pick up a bucket and start walking. She thinks it is so funny and she laughs, claps and of course, trips. Sometimes she uses it to play peek-a-boo too. Adorable. Now if only she would wear her hats......

Miss Chatterbox

Laneah has loved our cell phones for a long time. But right now she likes to play with all toy phones and even thinks that some things are phones (ex-remote controls) that are not. She walks around with her "phones" and has the funniest conversations. Sometimes she just babbles, and sometimes she will just say "hi...bye" over and over again. But the funniest thing is that a lot of times she puts the phone on her shoulder or behind her head instead of to her ear and mouth. This video she is carrying around her toy phone having a little conversation. Pardon the messy room, she loves to make a mess.

Philly, House Drama, a birthday party and lots of snow!

Yesterday we were able to go to Philly and visit with some of Laneah's birth family. We saw the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and ate lunch at Jim's Steakhouse (very famous, not that great though). After our touring, we went to Laneah's aunts house where we enjoyed a delicious dinner and had a good time laughing and playing. Laneah's two little cousins were there too and were so cute. Laneah also got to see her grandmother for the first time since she was born. It was a fun trip!


House woes: 1) about three weeks ago I was at the kitchen sink and for whatever reason I looked up at the ceiling and noticed a bulge. Yep, I pushed it and water came out. Jason removed the damaged water-soaked dry wall and said that the upstairs hallway bathroom was leaking but that he would be able to fix it. Three weeks later....it is not fixed and there is a giant hole in my ceiling still. However, in Jason's defense he was still helping his grandpa's company and so he was gone all the time. 2) Another leak. A week after the ceiling incident, I opened the cabinet underneath the kitchen sink to get some dishwashing soap and realized there was a leak. This time it was the garbage disposal. 3) Electrical problems. For about a month now, the lights in our bedroom have been flickering. It is annoying, it is like having a strobe light in your bedroom! Last week, the lights completely went out as well as the outlet next to the light. Then two days ago, Jason plugged his cell phone charger in one of the outlets in the bedroom that worked, and the lights came back on. We figured that it just needed a jolt and it was fine. But yesterday, before we left for Philly, we smelled something burning in our bedroom. The outlet had caused a small electrical fire! Luckily we hadn't left yet so we turned off the breaker and it was fine. However, I am back with no light in my bedroom...for now.....

Saturday was our nephew Anthony's 4th birthday party. The theme was a Monster Truck party. Anthony and one of our other nephews, Blake both have little four wheeler type cars and the kids raced them at the party, it was so funny. Laneah didn't want anything to do with the games or the people there. She clung to me until she saw all the balloons, she is crazy about them right now. She wouldn't calm down until she had all the balloons in her possession:)

And last night and today it snowed and snowed and snowed! I took Laneah outside this morning to let her play in the snow. We were outside for about 3 minutes:) She was happy until she stumbled in the snow and as soon as her face got wet, she was done. She looked really cute all bundled up though:)

Just Dance

I am sorry about being a blog slacker of late, but with Jason working 80 hours a week and trying to get through the piles of adoption paperwork, blogging has been put on the back burner. I really wanted to do a long post of what Laneah is up to at 14 months, but I (and you) will have to settle for just one thing today.

Laneah is really into dancing right now. I love it, it is so cute and funny. She loves Kayne West, Heartless is her favorite. Seriously, about a week ago we were in the car and she was fussing and then 'Heartless' came on and she started laughing, clapping and dancing! She also loves the 'Mamma Mia' songs too. But really she dances to most music right now. She has several hilarious moves, but as soon as I turn the camera on, she stops dancing. I was finally able to get a video of her dancing with some of her signature moves:)

Is it summer yet?

We're ready for summer. How about you?

The Butterfly House

While we were at my parents over the Holidays, we went to one of my favorite places: The Butterfly House. It is a botanical garden full of all varieties of butterflies. It is great to go in the winter because it is warm, bright and beautiful. The garden is full of tropical plants and flowers, as well as a small waterfall and stream. The butterflies fly all around you, and if you wear a colorful shirt, they land on you. They even have a section where they show you the transformation of the caterpillar to a butterfly. They have a caterpillar in each cycle. When the caterpillar is ready to emerge from the cocoon as a butterfly, one of the staff shakes the cocoon and the butterfly flies out into the garden. It is really cool to watch and have only seen it once when I was there. Laneah had a great time chasing the butterflies. It was fun watching her (as it always is) learn and discover. I know I've put up a lot of slideshows lately, but when there are multiple pictures, it is just easier to do a slideshow. Enjoy the pictures, I hope you also get to enjoy The Butterfly House someday.

1st Birthday

I know, finally! Sorry for the delay, but I finally have it together (sort of:). Anyway, our sweet little princess had two 1st birthday parties this year. We had one here with our friends and Jason's family and we had one at my family's house on her actual birthday.

The birthday party at our house was butterfly themed with white, purple and pink colors. I made a butterfly cake (which I was very proud of btw). It was a hectic day ( I had thrown the ward christmas party the night before and still had to clean, cook and decorate for Laneah's party). I put up her hanging sign that said "Happy 1st Birthday" and didn't really take a good look at it; only to see if it was straight. Later I looked at the sign and noticed the "a" and "i" were in the wrong place so the sign actually said "Hippy 1st Barthday" ! Luckliy I still had to pick up the balloons from the place I had purchased the sign from and was able to exchange it for a correct one. We ordered some yummy pizza from Papa Johns and people started to arrive. About 20 people came so Laneah was very clingy and shy. We ate and then opened presents. Laneah just clung to me so I had to open the presents and she would play with one hand while holding on to me with the rest of her body. Then we put a candle in the cake and sang "Happy Birthday" and she just looked at us like we were nuts:) I gave her a slice of cake and was hoping she would get really messy, but she was as dainty as she could be and really only tasted a little of the frosting and decided that she had had enough. I gave her a bath and after everyone had left, she had a blast playing with all of her new toys.

The birthday party at my parent's house was all pink princessed themed. (So fun, I love girly stuff. ) We bought Laneah a 1st birthday shirt, a pink frilly tutu, pink tights and pink converse shoes. She looked like a little punk princess. (Poor little thing was really sick, she must have caught a bug before we left. I felt awful that she was sick on her birthday and Christmas). We made cupcakes with pink frosting and sprinkles. Laneah was much less inhibited at this party because there were just a few people that she knew really well. She actually attempted to open the presents this time. I am surprised that she didn't care about tearing wrapping paper because is always tearing books, magazines, or anything else that you can tear. I guess she only wants to tear things she isn't supposed too:) She even crawled on top of some of the presents and then tried to open them with her teeth:) She had a great time with her new presents and chasing the kitten. Anyway, I made a slideshow of some of the pictures from her birthday parties. There are a lot of cute ones. Enjoy!