Laynee and McKinley

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Carving Pumpkins

For family home evening on Monday, we had Matt's parents over and we all carved pumpkins. What a mess, but Laynee loved it and even drew a face on her own for her little pumpkin.

Scraping out the guts.

Carving the face

Grandpa and Grandma

My own little pumpkin

The finished pumpkins

All lit up

Benson's Farm

We went to Benson's farm (a farm right off of Reserve Street in Missoula) with the Banna's to pick out pumpkins to carve. The kids thought that running around the pumpkins was fun and Laynee got to pick out several small pumpkins.

Kady Banna and Laynee

Laynee displaying her pumpkin

McKinley

Sisters

Monday, October 6, 2008

One of Life's mysteries

Why are chubby thighs

only cute

on a baby?

McKinley 7 months old

Commentary from Laynee about General Conference

So we watched General Conference (a semi-annual meeting with the Prophet and Apostles speaking that's broadcased on TV) this weekend. Laynee had typical 3 year old commentary.

#1- Laynee watching Elder Joseph Wirthlin speaking, turns to me and says, "Look Mom, he looks like Old Grandpa." (Old Grandpa is her Great Grandpa Bell.) See the picture comparison below. I guess they do kind of look alike.

Elder Wirthlin

Great Grandpa and Grandma Bell with Laynee as a baby

#2-Watching the prophet speaking Laynee says, "Mom, President Monson's face looks kinda weird." Me, devastated because we have 2 other couples over to watch conference, asks, "Why?" Laynee putting her hands by her cheek and pulling her hands downward says, "His face goes down." I tried to explain to her that when you get older your skin gets droopy. She looked at me like I was crazy!

McKinley's sleep patterns

Okay, so I will be honest, McKinley has been sleeping in bed with me almost since birth. It was mostly out of necessity so I could get as much sleep as possible. Those of you that have more than one child understand this. (Those of you that only have 1 child probably think I'm a terrible mother.) Anyway, last week she started waking up 6 times between midnight and 6am to be fed and then between 5-6am and would squirm and wiggle and not go back to sleep, so I decided that it was time for her to move out of my bed. On Thursday night, Laynee was having a hard night, so I decided to feed McKinley and lay her down in the pac-n-play in the office. She SCREAMED for awhile, but I felt like I needed to spend some time with Laynee. After a fairly long time, McKinley finally went to sleep. (When I went in to feed her sometime around 2am, she had a poopy diaper and I thought, "I wonder if that's what she was screaming about..") So we survived that night of screaming it out. Since that night she hasn't fussed for more than a few minutes and then has gone to sleep. So last night, I was carrying her around and realized that she was acting a bit tired, so I went in and layed her down. She looked up at me and smiled. I said good night and turned off the light and shut the door. There wasn't even a fuss. She slept from 8pm to 4am, I fed her and then she slept til 6am, I fed her and she slept til 8am. I can totally live with this schedule!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Homecoming KPAX news story

Our friend, Brittany Tait, is a reporter for KPAX and did this story on Griz Homecoming. There are some pretty cute shots of my kids (watch for the double stroller and one of just Laynee at the end of the story) and a few dorky comments from me. Those that know Dan Stark will find his comments pretty funny as well. (Ignore the commercial for Vann's and feel free to stop watching after the story about the parade.)

Monday, September 15, 2008

Laynee's 1st Day of Preschool

Laynee started preschool last week. She absolutely loves it and I'm already impressed at the things she is learning. The first day she came home and told me that if someone gives you a snack to eat that you don't like, you don't say "Yuck. I don't want that." You say "No thank you." I had to laugh. I guess my child needs help learning manners.