Ella is Two!!

We met Ella and Janelle at Melissa, Josh, and Gabe's last Friday so that we could celebrate Ella's 2 year old birthday with a little mini party. Ella is literally the livliest most friendly little girl that I have ever been around. I love that Laney gets to have such a precious little bestie that she can learn all kinds of great things from. The girls were thrilled to get their yummy cupcakes, but had to move very quickly into the kitchen and it's tile floors!

Ella was much more dainty in her approach to cupcake eating. Laney has more of a stuff the whole thing in my mouth mentality.

Laney's signature "back away from my cupcake" eyes!
Joshua runs races with his mommy and daddy at their apartment. He challenged the girls to a race and here they are at the starting line.

Now, I am not sure what the explanation for this is. I have certainly tried to instill a love of running in my daughter. She has joined me for many a run in her BOB, but she was not having any of this running with her friends. She ran straight to my lap and was content to be a cheerleader for the rest of the heats. Silly girl!

Laney and Ella were checking our their newest friend. They were both trying to give him sips of their water. They are both so maternal. Laney has started picking up her babydolls and patting them on the back while she sways back and forth, just like I hold her before bedtime. I have to remind Laney that Gabriel is NOT one of her babydolls!

Some pictures from Jackson and Ella's actual birthday party at the fabulous Jumping Party! It was so fun!!!! I want to have my birthday party there!

Fudgsicles - YUM!!

Joshua and Laney got to have fudgsicles after lunch at our house on Wednesday. They were so cute. By the end of their dessert, they were so covered in delicious fudginess that they had to have a bath....which was also so cute!

 

 

 

 

Have Fun!

I saw this on another blog and got totally sucked into it. I guess my competitive nature kicked in and I really wanted to get a high number. Now, I feel a little dorky, but let's see if you get sucked in too!

77 words

Speedtest

More Park Fun!

Jess and I put Tessa and Laney together in a baby swing at the park today. Even though they looked so cute, they didn't really love the experience.

Laney enjoyed jumping on the bouncy bridge with Claire. She loves to do what Claire does I am so glad that she has such a sweet role model in her big cousin. Claire definitely loves taking care of Laney. She has a special voice that she uses when she starts taking care of Laney. The other day, we got to their house and Claire immediately went into her sweet caretaker mode. She put her arm around Laney and told her so sweetly, "Laney, today I am going to teach you how to not say NO so much!" It was hysterical. (Laney really does say NO alot, but I think it is mostly due to the fact that she doens't have many words yet. She is getting more and as she does, she is utilizing her favorite word a little less often.)

This is an attempt at a Claire imiation. Claire loves to hang on the bar before she slides down. Laney was watching her and trying to do it too. She is not quite tall enough yet to get a good grip, but she had fun trying.

A New Hiding Place!

We were all at home playing after Todd got home from work a few days ago. Laney discovered a new hiding place that quickly became the source of lots of giggles. She was burying her head and then her whole body behind the cushions of the couch. That in and of itself was super cute, but then she started saying "Bye Bye, Bye Bye!!" which came out really muffled because her head was buried behind the cushions. I am totally cuted out by Laney's sweet voice always, but it was extra cute when she was thinking that she was tricking us and disappearing behind the pillows.

Some Fun at the Park

Our playgroup met at the park this week and Laney had so much fun. She couldn't get enough of the slide this week. She kept wanting to climb up this scary ladder all by herself, which was not going to happen. I helped her climb up, she slid down and we started the whole process again.

She and Claire were playing in the "Christmas trees" (according to Claire bear)

YAY Maternity Leave!!!

Thanks to maternity leave, we have gotten to spend lots of fun times with Melissa, Joshua and Baby Gabey ( don't worry, I don't call him that in front of Pete)
Last week, we went over to their house to play. Laney loved crawling around with Josh in his tent and tunnel.

She can't get enough of Gabriel. She loves to look at him and always wants to touch him. She is generally pretty sweet and gentle, which totally melts my heart.

Later on in the week, they came over to play at our house. Joshua is the best sharer ever, which is definitely something that we are working on, so I love that Laney can see Josh in action.

Their favorite game was hiding behind the vertical blinds and then running out at us.

The blinds game morphed into a game of hiding behind the front door and running out at us. Todd came home in the middle of this game and Joshua was so excited to surprise Todd and yell at him.

We also got to meet the boys at the park for some outside fun. Joshua's before mentioned sharing skills were put to the test, when some bigger kids wanted to play with his toys. He did a great job and so did Laney for the most part. We're getting there.

On Wednesday, Melissa and her boys came to library story time with us. They were both pretty reserved for the whole thing, but when it was time to go and get their stamps and Valentine's lollipop, they grabbed hands and headed to the front. It was cuter than cute!

The Zoo!

We headed to the zoo with our cousins and the Hayes boys last week. Tessa hates the car and usually cries a little whenever we are in route somewhere. While we were on our way to the zoo, Tessa was fussing, and when I turned around to check on her, I saw Laney reaching over to hold her hand and comfort her. How sweet is that!!!!
This was my favorite trip with Laney to the zoo!! She is just getting so aware and gets excited to see the animals. The lions were roaring for us and she was roaring back!

Big E Little E what begins with E? Ear, Egg, Elephant, E E E!!!! Just one of the many songs that enters my mind while having fun at the zoo!
Benjamin, Claire, and Laney scored a free safari ride when we stopped to eat lunch. Someone must have left their quarter in, lucky us!

Chinese New Year!

We have done lots of celebrating in the past several days for Chinese New Year. It is so important to us that we incorporate Laney's Taiwanese heritage into our family's traditions, and the celebration of the Reunion Dinner for CNY is right up our alley. It is all about togetherness and quality time with family. We love that!!!!

We started celebrating on Thursday morning (New Year's Day) with Drew and Jake (the boys that we get to teach every Th.) We watched Nickelodian's new show, Ni Hao Kai Lan, which is so awesome. It is a new cartoon featuring a Chinese girl, Kai Lan, similar to Dora the Explorer.

We wanted to carry on our tradition of milk tea at our favorite tea shop, Bethany, but Todd had meetings all day long...boo. So Laney and I took the boys for their very first milk tea experience. They did not love it. Laney did though!!

Our community group had a CNY party on Thursday night. Tammy and her boyfriend, Stephen came over on Monday to teach me how to make dumplings, which are seriously my favorite food right now. I want to eat them for every meal!Then Echo came over early on Thursday night and got everything ready so that we could make dumplings with everyone at our party. All of our Taiwanese friends brought different authentic dishes so that we could share our very own reunion dinner together! Everything was really good. All of our friends truly love Laney and are always so sweet to her. Here she is with Allen giving high fives to Gary and Marcus. Laney loves dumplings as much as I do. She wanted to make sure that Zilla didn't try to steal anything off her plate. Mark and Jai-yo made a list of Chinese customs and a history of CNY that they shared with our group. Then everyone played a game that I didn't understand at all. The consequence for messing up in this game was to sit in the mush pot on Laney's Rody horse. I don't think that I was the only one completely lost because we have a picture of almost everyone in the middle. It was so fun!

We love our small group so much. It just keeps growing and growing and the Lord is fostering such great friendships between all of us!

Friday night we had a party with all of our family. It was really really fun. Grant and Claire made dragons out of egg cartons that they flew all over the house. We made more dumplings, passed out red envelopes, pinned wishes on oranges, and had fun spending time together.
Laney's third fantastically cute outfit. This is her East meets West version....thanks to the pink chucks.

Here is G playing with his dragon. I really really love Grant. I know all aunts love their nieces and nephews, but I think that I love mine the most. I have always had this superiority complex when it comes to my love. I remember in college thinking that none of my friends loved their boyfriends as much as I loved Todd (sorry :) those of you that read this) I feel this way about my family and friends too. And Claire ( who I also love more than regular aunts love their nieces) with her dragon!Laney needed a little pre-dinner yogurt from Bobbis.
And on to the real dinner. We had a bowl of tangerines, which are supposed to represent togetherness and longevity from Aunt Hailey, circular candy on a round tray from my mom, which should bring a year of sweet togetherness, lettuce wraps from Grandmommy. Grant helped me hide a candy in one of the dumplings. Whoever found should have a year full of sweetness, not to mention an extra red envelope!

Laney loved getting to see Pops, Nae Nae and Aunt Jen. We handed out red envelopes. They had paper money in them and chocolate coins. The chocolate was much more exciting to the kids than the money......I wonder how old they will be when that switches


Laney got Valentine's day presents from Pops, Nae Nae and Aunt Jen. They sure know her well. She got some chapstick, which I might have to borrow once in a while because she has "loved" all of mine to death, purses, ponytail holders, and the world's cutest tiny but totally real fishing pole!