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!