Our New Bling

So I was walking around the mall on Monday pushing Laneah in her stroller and I saw a little girl getting her ears pierced. I have always wanted to get Laneah's ears pierced but was just so nervous! I had wanted Jason to come for support, but I decided to be brave. I went to the Piercing Pagoda kiosk because they are professionals, not some random teenager at Claires. I was really nervous and asked the guy all kinds of questions. He said that when it comes to ear piercing, the younger, the better. So I picked out her earrings, but was still debating because I didn't want to possibly hurt her for vanity. Since I haven't worn earrings since high school, my holes had closed. I decided that I would get mine pierced first and that if it didn't hurt, I would get hers done too. I felt like a tug on my ear and then he went to my other ear and I asked him, "did you do it?" because seriously, I didn't really feel anything. This made me a lot more comfortable in getting Laneah's ears pierced. She cried for about a minute and then she was fine. And she looks adorable! I will tell you though, she does not like me to clean her ears. It has been really difficult for me to clean them well and they are a little pink. Any tips?

Laneah and I with our new earrings. (Jason took three pictures and cut my head off on each one!)

Laneah looking so cute with her new earrings. She has been doing this all month where she uses her tongue to suck on her upper lip (I think it is because her upper teeth are getting ready to come in). It is so cute though, I love it.

Labor Day Weekend Part 2- Beach Trips

We made it to the beach twice on our trip. The weather was beautiful the entire trip. The first beach we went to was Yorktown Beach. The great thing about Yorktown is that it is pretty much where the Revolutionary War ended. British Commander Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown with 1/3 of the British Army. We even went to the house where the treaty was signed (yep, the house is still there) So cool. Anyway, Laneah really liked this beach because it was on the bay so the water was really calm and pretty warm. She loved the sand, and took fists full of sand to her mouth multiple times. She was constipated for a couple days afterwards:) Silly girl. She really enjoyed the beach this time.

This is her excited face.
Playing in the water.
Out with mommy and daddy in the water.
This is Laneah playing in the sand. She is doing her newest favorite move, which I call the ballerina because she holds her hands and pulls them over her head and then puts them back down. She loves to do it over and over. I think it is so cute. I have no idea why the video is sideways, and I am too tired to figure it out. sorry.


Thomas dug a hole in the sand and put her in it. She liked it because she was able to stand without our help:)
Daddy drying her off.
On Labor Day we went to Virginia Beach. It was a beautiful day and we thought that the beach would be packed, but it wasn't. The waves were pretty big, I assume from the hurricane in the gulf area, and it really scared her. Every time we got close to the waves, she would cry. Eventually we were able to coax her to just get the waves lapping at her feet by clapping and yelling "weee!" when a wave would come up. Then she started laughing and jumping and wasn't as scared. She didn't want to get any closer though.
She had so much sand on her face, it looks like she has a five o clock shadow:)

Once again we had a great time. Thanks Thomas, we miss you!

Halloween Costumes

So I am trying to figure out what to dress Laneah as for Halloween and these are my top 5 choices. I wanted everyone's opinions so I am putting a poll up on the blog and I want you guys to vote.

A. Bunny Costume. This is so cute and cozy (and pink!)
B. Butterfly costume. This is so sweet and beautiful.


C. Punk Rocker. This is Jason's favorite. I think it would look awesome with her hair:)D. Fairy costume. I think this costume is gorgeous, but as Jason pointed out, she is probably going to want to be a princess or fairy for several years.
E. Witch costume. Although I love all the costumes, I think this is my favorite. I just love the shoes!

What do you think? And don't forget to vote! I don't think you have to be a blogger to vote.

Banana

Today my sister-in-law, Jen and her son, Blake, who is 2 years old (3 in October), came over to our house to hang out and play. Blake is active and adventurous and so much fun. Laneah loves to watch him and laughs at all the silly things he does. What we think is so funny is that he can't pronounce Laneah's name, so he calls her Banana. After playing, we went to lunch at Chick Fil-A. We just love having such wonderful family around to hang out with. Here is a video I took of him calling her Banana.

One.....Two....TEETH!

Ok, so I'm cheesy, but at least I am willing to admit it. Sorry for slacking on the posts, I know you are all just dying to hear about what I have been up to:) jk. Anyway, back to my cheesy title, Laneah got her two bottom teeth on Aug 4th! I can't believe it. She was playing on the floor and all of the sudden she grabbed something off the floor and put it in her mouth. I immediately put my fingers in her mouth trying to grab whatever she put in her mouth and felt something sharp. I freaked out at first, but then realized that she didn't put anything in her mouth, but had two little teeth barely poking through. They are so cute, but I hate that she is growing so fast. She is so big, at her 7 month check up she was 17 lbs, 8 oz and 27 1/2 inches long. She is in the 90 percentile for height. She doesn't officially crawl, but does everything else: creep or army crawl, side crawl, scoots, rolls..you name it, she does it. Right now she loves when we stack blocks and then she chases after them to knock them down. She also chases after the cat and Monty doesn't know what to think of that. It is pretty funny. Here are some pictures where you can see her teeth.

Baby Einstein

Laneah has been a huge fan of Baby Einstein since she was 3 months old and she has the hair to prove it. Now that's dedication:)
















Her favorite Baby Einstein movie is Baby MacDonald. She gets so excited when she watches it, it is hilarious.

6 month pictures

The Many Expressions of Laneah

Laneah makes lots of faces and most of them are hilarious. These were taken on the trip back to St Louis from Nauvoo and were all in reaction to a plastic cup from Taco Bell.

St Louis/Nauvoo

Sorry for the delay in getting my vacation pictures up. Our trip to St. Louis was great. We had so much fun and it was so nice to see my family. We took Laneah all over the place, she was tired but she had lots of fun. She didn't like the zoo too much. It was a really hot day and she just ended up falling asleep while sitting on Jason's shoulders of all places:) She did have her first carousel ride there with her daddy and seemed to like it. We also took her to Grant's Farm and they have a petting zoo there. You can feed the goats milk from a baby bottle, but the goats are really aggressive and they all jump on you if you have a bottle. I didn't want Laneah to have bottle and have the goats all over us, plus she probably would have tried to drink the bottle herself:) Laneah's uncles fed the goats to keep them close so Laneah could see them and pet them. She had a good time there, she likes to be able to see the animals up close. I think that her favorite place was the butterfly house. I love the butterfly house too. It is a beautiful indoor tropical botanical (enough adjectives for you?:) garden filled with plants, waterfalls, and of course, tons of all kinds of butterflies. Laneah loved watching the butterflies floating all around her and kept trying to catch them. Most of all, Laneah loved being around her aunt, uncles and nana and grandpa. They kept her entertained.

The fourth of July was fun. We had a BBQ and set off some fireworks. Laneah wasn't scared of the fireworks, but she wasn't as interested in them as I thought she would be. That night, my mom watched Laneah and we went to the annual fireworks show at the Arch in St Louis. Usually they call it 'Live at the Levey' but because the river level was already up to the steps of the arch, they had to have it elsewhere and called it 'Live off the Levey'. They still shot off fireworks from a barge on the river. We sat in the park almost directly beneath the arch. The fireworks show was really cool, especially with the arch.

Nauvoo was awesome! I love that place. We saw a lot of flood damage on the trip there (it is about a 3 hour drive from St Louis). The temple was beautiful and the sealing was amazing. We ended up having Laneah sealed to us in the same room that Jason and I were sealed in. It was cool because the sealer said to us that he didn't know why we were having it there because they normally don't do child/parent sealings in that room. But we knew why. What a special place. We hadn't been there since we got married. We stayed the night in Keokuk which is across the bridge and they have what they call a mall next to the hotel. At the "mall" they had baby tigers that you could play with. My sister and I got in a cage with a 5 week old baby tiger and a 6 week old baby liger. They were so cute and playful. Bummer we couldn't take pictures while we were in the cage, but we got a few pics of the them afterwards.

I know that I am missing a lot of stuff but it is late and this is already a long blog so I will write more later:)

Adoption Day and Celebration

So its final! We went to court on Tuesday morning. It only took about 15 minutes. Jason and I had to get on the stand and verify our names and information and state that we wanted to adopt Laneah. Then the judge ruled in favor of adoption and it was over. We took some pictures with the judge and then got our paperwork and left. It is such a relief to have everything finished. Now we have the sealing to look forward to next week.

Saturday was our adoption celebration. We had family and close friends over for a bbq and pool party (at Jason's grandparent's house..no we don't have a pool :) It was great. The rain held off until after the party and the sun was shining. Laneah actually did really good in the pool too. It was a lot of fun! We can't wait for our trip to Missouri and then Nauvoo:)