Merry Christmas!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We have spent the past week and a half at Shane's parents' house in Ogden. We have had a great time, keeping busy visiting friends and family. We arrived Friday, December 15th, and I spent the night with Jake and Stacey, then spent the next day wedding dress shopping with Becky. It was so much fun! Of course, she looked beautiful in everything, so it will be interesting to see which dress she chooses. That Saturday night, Shane and I went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert, with Sissel as the guest singer. She is Norwegian, and Shane has several of her CD's, so we of course had to attened. And boy were we glad we did. It was amazing! It was by far the best concert I have been to in my entire life!

The rest of our vacation has been filled with family parties, friend parties and get-togethers, and of course some last minute shopping. We are glad that we were able to see so many of our friends and family. We have missed living closer to them!

Our Christmas Eve was a little bit different that usual. Landon had been sick with a cold/cough for a few days, with a slight fever as well, but he hadn't seemed too affected by it until he woke up from his nap on Sunday. He was feverish, fussy, and kept pulling at his ear and crying. We took him in to an urgent care clinic, where after two hours we finally left with a prescription for his cold and one for his ear infection. Unfortunately, it was almost 7:00 by then, and after stopping at five different pharmacies on our way home with no luck, finally headed home and started calling around to find one open on Christmas Eve on a Sunday night. There was a 24-hour Walgreens in Layton, so we hurriedly ate some dinner, left Landon with his grandparents to get ready for bed, and drove out to Layton. We got home just after 9:00.

Fortunately, Landon was feeling much better yesterday, and we had a wonderful Christmas. Landon figured out pretty quickly that the wrapped presents contained fun toys for him to play with, and he soon was excited to open the next one and see what other fun toy he got. He especially liked his new train set and his race track to shoot his cars down (and balls!). We spent the rest of the day at Shane's Grandma Brewer's enjoying vising with lots of family while there.

We love all of you and hope you also had a wonderful Christmas this year! We hope we get to see those of you soon that we didn't get to see this Christmas! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Jingle Bell Rock

We haven't posted for awhile on here, so I thought I would put something on tonight. Above is a picture of Landon with all of his cars lined up on the couch. He sure likes cars! After dinner tonight, Shane and I had a fun time watching Landon dance in the living room to Christmas music. He was pretty into it. He was jumping, spinning, and rocking back and forth. When the first song ended and went to the next one, he said, "no dat one," then "anoder one," until I found a song that he liked again. It was pretty funny. Shane took some video of it, so I will try to put that on our website tomorrow.
We have been doing well here in Portland besides that. The weather has been beautiful the past few days - sunny and in the mid 40's. Landon enjoyed walking around outside today, playing in the dirt and picking up leaves. He seems to be learning new words everyday. He says "pease" all of the time now when he wants something, and everytime we leave the house, he points to the wreath on our front door and says "weath." Aunt Becky was especially excited today when he repeated me saying "Beck" to her!
We had a fun time over Thanksgiving visiting my parents in Ashland. It was my first time home for Thanksgiving with them in ten years! Landon had a great time being spoiled by his grandparents and his Aunt Camille. Here is a picture of him with Shane's hat on backwards in my parents' kitchen.

Quack, Quack

Today is the eighth day of November, and it has been raining everyday here since November 1. This morning was the first dry period that lasted for more than an hour since Halloween. Even the veteran Portlanders have been saying this is worse than normal. We almost feel like we need to grow webbed feet! Landon and I went outside and played in the leaves this morning. There is a sidewalk just by our apartment that is completely covered in leaves. Landon loves to walk up and down the sidewalk, kicking his feet in the leaves. He says "that one," picks up a leaf, carries it around for awhile, then sees another one, repeats the whole process. Eventually he has to put some down before he can pick up his next one. By the time we come inside, he usually has four or fives leaves clenched between his fists.

This morning, we also had a few other kids come over to play. There were two boys about Landon's age, and one little boy who is seven months old. They all had fun playing together, and the moms had fun playing together too, and talking to someone besides a one year old! Here is a picture of Landon taking his teddy bear for a ride on his car.

Whazat Page Changes

Hey all!

This is Shane. I embedded the Malan Blog page within the Malan website on the Whazat? page. Test it out and let me know if you like it or not. Once you log into the blog, you can go back to our website and the blog will stay embedded in the Whazat? page. If people like it this way we'll keep it, if not we'll change it back so when you click on the Whazat? page you go right to the blog and away from our site.

Yahtzee

I just put Landon to bed, and I'm taking a quick break from cleaning up the kitchen. We had all of the Teachers quorum at our house tonight making heart-shaped sugar cookies for the Mia Maids. They are inviting them to a dinner next week, so the cookie was part of their invitation. It was pretty crazy here with seven teenage boys, the other Young Men's leader, and Landon and me. The boys were pretty funny. I hope the girls don't expect their cookies to be decorated too fancy, because I'm not sure if any of these boys had ever frosted a cookie before.

Landon and I went to story hour today at the library, and Landon especially enjoyed the story, There Was an Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything. They acted it out, and he especially liked the part when the pumpkin says, "Boo, boo!" He said two new words today - piano (pronounced yano) and dice (pronounced perfectly).

Now to the Yahtzee. Landon has a new trick that at first we thought was a coincidence. He likes to play with these larger-than-normal colored dice that I have. I noticed he had a couple of them with the number five facing up. I thought it was a coincidence, but soon he had all five with the number five! Pretty crazy!

Surprise Trick or Treat

This last Friday night as we were leaving the temple, Shane asked me why we weren't going to Ashland this weekend. We had Stake Conference on Sunday, and it was a satellite feed from Salt Lake that was the same for all of Oregon. When I replied that I didn't know, Shane decided we should get up early Saturday and drive down to visit my parents. We left around 6:00 Saturday morning, arriving at my parents' house just after 10:00. We put Landon in his cowboy costume and had him knock on the door to trick or treat. His grandma and grandpa were so excited to see him!

Landon had fun playing in the leaves while his grandma and grandpa finished painting the deck. It was a beautiful day in Ashland! Later, we had a dance party. Landon sure loves to dance! If anyone ever stopped dancing, he pointed to them and said "da-ning" to make sure they started dancing again.

Saturday night, we had a fun Halloween party. We carved pumpkins, made donuts, and played some Sequence. We were glad we made the trip, even if it was for such a short time! Check out our slideshow page on our website to see some more pictures of our trip!

Goodbye Party

So a bunch of people from work went out tonight to say goodbye to a girl I work(ed) with at Stockamp and I went as well. It was fun, especially the not working part of it all. I was there talking to my manager, and since I don't know a thing about drinks and all the different kinds there are I asked him what kind of drink he had. He said it was a vodka tonic and I said "Oh so there's vodka in it and what else?" He chuckled and said, "well...tonic. It's a Vodka Tonic." We had a nice laugh about it and I later told him I was drinking a drink that was two hydrogens and an oxygen! Not my funniest material but the best I had at the moment. :) I raced home on fumes and the gas light shining in my face to see Landon before he went to bed, but I missed him. I've been relaxing with Jess though, so that's been nice. One more day until the weekend!

Hey

I'm home from work playing with Landon and just winding down before scouts/young mens tonight. We got kicked out of the church building for tonight because the other ward is using the building, so we're combining with the deacons group to play some b-ball in a tournament that one of the boys is organizing for his sports merit badge. We may also go bowling. We'll see. Got a couple of pics from Landon in a tupperware bin. He thinks he's pretty cool. Hope everyone is doing well.

Later,

Shane

Cowboy Joe

Usually on Wednesdays, Landon and I go to story hour at the library. The storytellers are really great, telling engaging stories and singing fun songs. This week was Halloween costume day for story hour, so I got Landon all dressed up in his cowboy costume and headed on down to the rodeo . . . I mean library. He wasn't too excited about his boots at first, but he forgot about them once we got in the car and left them on during all of story hour. He looked pretty snazy in his flannel shirt, vest, sheriff's badge, boots, and cowboy hat. We listened to a story about an old lady who swallowed a bat, and other fun stories about pumpkins and witches. Landon was most fascinated with the pumpkins they had all around the room, especially the jack-o-lanterns that were all lit up. I forgot to get a picture of him all dressed up, so I will be sure to take on next time and put it on here!

FORTS

It is Monday night, and Shane is showing me how to use the blog. Landon had a fun day today. I went out with the sister missionaries, and Landon stayed home with Shane. I came home and the whole living room was rearranged, with blankets over all of the furniture. Landon was sitting under one of the blankets, laughing and "talking" to me, telling me all about the fort he had built with his dad. He was pretty excited about the whole thing. This morning, while I was getting ready, he was playing in the bathroom and found Shane's deodorant. He wanted me to help him take the lid off, and then he rubbed it in his armpit. Actually, it was more like his back, but he was trying. It was pretty funny. I guess that's all for now!

Testing One Two Three

We just found this google blog, so we thought we would test it out and see if we like it any better than our other blog.