My Girls

Dinner to celebrate McKinley

Back row: Amber, Janna, McKinley, Molly, Melanie, Courtney, Lacie, Heidi, Jami, Jenn, Brittney

Front row: Stephanie, Kelly, Sara, Natalie

Tonight, I attended a dinner at The China Garden to celebrate the birth of McKinley. A bunch of my girlfriends came. (Lacie arranged it for me.) It was so great to have everyone together and be able to see, talk and laugh with them all. I'm so blessed to have such wonderful, supportive friends!

Almost 7 weeks

I just wanted to post some updated pictures of McKinley. She's changing so much. I can't believe she's almost 7 weeks old!!

Kady

I thought these were such a great, happy pictures of Laynee with her friend, Kady.

Grace Lee, Breanna, Brooke and McKinley

The day we had the pictures taken of the 3 year olds, we also had pictures taken of the 4 new babies that have been born in the last year. We thought it would be a fun thing to do with them as well as the older kids.

Feeding the ducks

Feeding the ducks

April 11-13, my sister, Julie, and I drove to Great Falls, so she could spend time with all of my family that lives there. On Saturday, she spent the day with my mom and I spent part of the day at Gibson Park with a few of my brothers, their wives and their kids. Gibson isa huge park in Great Falls that has a duck pond. We stopped by the discount bread store and purchased a bunch of really cheap bread and bagels then headed to the park to feed the ducks, geese, seagulls, sparrows and anything else that will eat bread. It was so fun to watch our kids doing something that we did growing up. (Although, the birds have become MUCH more aggresive! Laynee was trying to feed some ducks and didn't notice a goose approaching her. Laynee was holding a piece of bread in her left and picking pieces off and throwing it with her right hand and the goose actually came up and ate bread out of her left hand when she wasn't paying attention. She didn't love that.) The highlight of the activity was watching my brothers, Kevin and Brian, "bowling" for seagulls. They would roll a bagel down the walkway and try to hit the seagulls and then watch and laugh as a seagull would try to pick up an entire bagel with its beak and fly away, while the other seagulls tried to get the bagel. The seagull with the bagel always ended up flying to the ground because the bagel was too heavy and then the other seagulls would attack the bagel. We laughed a lot watching this happen.

My Sister, Julie

Pfile Sisters: Janna Bell, Julie Page and Heidi Chapman

My older sister, Julie, flew from North Carolina to Montana to visit me for 12 days. She deep cleaned my house, spent time visiting with me, encouraged me to take naps while she watched McKinley, rode with me to Great Falls for another family visit, fixed meals, went grocery shopping with me, babysat the girls so Matt and I could go out on a date, helped with McKinley and played with Laynee. (Along with a lot of other things.) Her daughters, Jodi and Jemma, put together an activity box full of things for Laynee to play with while I feed McKinley. There are several pictures of Julie showing Laynee some of the activities when she was still here. (See slideshow below.) Laynee is constantly asking me to get something out of the box. --It was so nice to have my sister here. I wish she and her family lived closer, but it was such a treat to be able to share that time with her. She has 6 kids of her own and I know it was a sacrifice for her family, but I really appreciated them sharing her with me. While she was here, we went to a book store and she bought the book "My Lucky Day" for Laynee. She must have read it to Laynee 20 times. I would highly recommend it. (It's very funny and the illustrations are great.) Tonight, Laynee went and grabbed it to have Matt read to her and she read the first several pages word for word to him. She loves it. When we dropped Julie off at the airport both Laynee and I were crying when she left. I knew she couldn't stay forever, but I really enjoyed having her here.

Six Friends

Summer 2005

Kaitlyn, Bridger, Laynee, Sam, Brock and Kady

April 2008

When Laynee was a baby, there were over 6 new babies born in the ward that year. At an Elder's Quorum activity in the summer of 2005, someone decided to have a picture taken of all the babies. The moms got together this month and had an updated picture taken. It was fun to see how all the kids had grown.

Hiking the M

Laynee and Daddy

"All Missoula"
Taking a Break
Sitting on the M

Matt decided to take Laynee to hike the M. She made it part way up and then received a ride from her dad to the top. When she got up to the top of the mountain, she turned around and pointing out at the city of Missoula, asked her dad, "What is that?" Matt responded that it was Missoula. Then she pointed at a different area of the city and asked "What is that?" Matt said it was Missoula, too and said that everything she could see was all Missoula. It was a hard concept for her to understand. She had such a great time being with her dad.

McKinley vs. Laynee

I've had a lot of people asking me if McKinley looks like Laynee. The top picture is McKinley and the bottom is of Laynee at about the same age.