The Many Faces of Laney

 The many faces of Laney!

 Carson and buddy Max on the fire truck at our library. 

 Carson's new morning routine poster...it actually seems to work!  He has to use the bathroom, brush his teeth, get dressed, make his bed, and have a great day-- all completely on his own without me nagging him.  It has made our mornings before school super smooth so far! 

 One of my favorite pictures ever!  AHHHHH. 

 Carson's first day of 4 year old preschool!  He loves his new school and his teachers.  He walked right in on his own no problem...tear tear :-)  I'm so thankful we found him an awesome preschool.

 Laney has discovered "Barney"!  Actually it's a funny story, Patrick was looking at a past blog entry dating back to the time when Carson was Laney's age.  He was reading about how Carson loved Barney and Sesame Street, neither of which we ever watch because we are always watching Carson's Disney Junior shows.  So I taped a Barney and BAM...she was a huge fan.  Laney ran up to her room and grabbed her Barney as soon as she saw him on TV and she has rarely let him go.  There's a video of her watching Barney on TV below. 

On the same blog entry that Patrick was viewing he read how Carson was afraid to crawl through a small tunnel at the park near us in North Carolina.  Ha!  You think Laney would have trouble crawling through a tunnel now?  She'd skip the crawling through, climb on top of the tunnel, and jump off. 

 

 Ugh...another one of my favorite pics ever!  This girl just wants to ride a bike now that Carson is riding on 2 wheels in the street!  She is out of control!

 2 weeks ago the kids went with Patrick and my parents to an apple orchard and today we hit another apple orchard.  We've been missing Michigan Fall's so we are getting in as much apple cider and pumpkin picking as possible! 

 Laney and I got some fancy new shoes from Auntie's trip to Spain and Carson and Patrick got some cool matching soccer jerseys!  Thanks Auntie :-) 

Last week Carson started school and has loved every day so far.  When I go in to pick him up he casually says, "I had fun Mom".  We got him some new school shoes and clothes and one day when he was trying on one of his new pairs of shoes he told Patrick, "I can jump so high I can see Jesus!".  Carson also started going to Sunday School this month :-)  He's been riding his bike like he was born to ride.  One day we went on a 4 mile round trip bike ride to "the blue park" at his request.  He was tired but he loved it and he made it!  He can start and stop on his own honestly it's like he's been riding for years.  I'm excited to get him a bigger bike next year so he doesn't have to pedal so much :-) 

Laney has been the cutest, most fun little monster lately.  She makes me smile and laugh non stop...she also exhausts me to no end.  Last week I was taking the kids outside through the garage.  I pushed the garage opener and sat down to tie my shoes.  All of a sudden I hear Carson scream, "Laney!  Mommy!".  I look up and see Laney hanging on to the garage door with both hands, hanging several feet off the ground as it was going up.  (all this happened in like 4 seconds)  I screamed and grabbed her, well actually pried her off because she had a death grip on that door.  She was about a foot from the top.  She thought it was so fun she was smiling so big and kept her hands up in the air.  I had to actually sit down for a minute after that one.  I wanted to cry at the thought that she could have fallen but couldn't help but laugh because that is just so Laney.  Moments later she pulled our big metal ladder down on her in the garage and she was pinned underneath (ladder is laying down now of course)...I got her out and she just walked away to get into something else like it was nothing.  The same day Laney got up on the open toilet and stuck her foot/leg down in the hole.  That made for a fun mid afternoon bath.    Never a dull moment here!  Laney is trying really hard to talk more.  She started saying "Bye" and "Ball" this week and she can make the sound that a horse makes.  I think she's up to 8 words. (Mama, Daddy, Grandpa (pop-pop), doggy, Jackson (ja-ja), bye, ball, neigh)