Well, it's been a while since we updated the blog, quite a while actually :)  Not a whole lot of news to report as things are basically still the same.  Adah is getting more and more cute everyday and I thought some little videos would be fun instead of the regular pictures that are posted.  So ENJOY! Make sure and watch the top one first as they are kind of a continuation of each other. As a P.S. Adah chose the outfit she is wearing which is why she looks so nice in a t-shirt without pants and boots! We love you all!

Check it out

My friend Richie inspired me to start a weight loss blog since this is one of my big goals for the new year!  You can see it here

I think this will be a great way to keep myself accountable, so feel free to leave any remarks there you like to help keep me going :)  Also, if you want to start your own blog, send me the link and I'll add you to my post and we can get a little chain going! Yay!

Lanny out

Adah getting into the spirit of Christmas!

So this won't be a super long post, it's just a funny story accompanied by a cute picture!  This is what happened.

On the evening of December 16th, as I was putting our daughter to bed, she became VERY distressed, and started hysterically crying and yelling, "Mary! Mary! Please! Waaaaaa!!!! Mary!... etc... etc..." Now, there are a few possible Mary's she could have been crying for, so I will begin with narrowing down the list of who she may have been crying for.

1) Grandma Ackerman, who is named Mary

2) Her Cousin Mary, aged 5 (a good choice due to the close proximity of age)

3) Great Grandma Langston, also a Mary

4) Herself, who's middle name is Mary

5) And finally, The Virgin Mary

Any guesses?  If you guessed The Virgin Mary, you are CORRECT!  Here is why:  this week we had a ward Christmas party with white elephant gifts.  The gift our family received is about a 12" tall candle shaped like the Virgin Mary.  Adah has really taken to carrying this around with her and playing with it as well as her Little Mermaid Barbie, who knew that The Little Mermaid and The Virgin Mary could be Bff's? Obviously Adah did! :)  Anyway, as I was putting her down

 for the night, I put The Virgin Mary candle on her shelf, and she wanted to have nothing to do with it, and so cried her way into allowing me to let her snuggle it tonight.  So, as you will see in the picture below, she is sleeping with both the Virgin Mary and Ariel.  Pretty sweet. Gotta love the chilluns!

And on an unintentionally sacrilegious side note, as I was helping Adah pray tonight, I said "Thanks for letting me (speaking for Adah here) sleep with The Virgin Mary".  Sometimes I'm an unintentionally funny Dad, even if my real life Dad thinks I'm intentionally unfunny :)  

And on a happy note, we get to see lots of you in just a week or so! YAYAYAY!!

"Rabbit Hole", starring myself!

Last Thursday I opened "Rabbit Hole" at the University of Idaho.  It is my first semester up here and also my first show, and has been a really great experience!  I feel really blessed that I have such a good role my first semester here, as everywhere else I've been it seems like you have to "pay dues" before you get cast in stuff :)  

The cast I'm working with is really great.  The gal who is playing my wife, Crystal Munoz-Tesch is a lot of fun, and is about the only other Mormon in the department in general, so it was funny we got cast as the married couple.  We're both married in real life though, so I guess they figured we knew how to be married!  And just as a funny side-story/coincidence, we share the same anniversary (August 11th), although in different years. 

Anyway, I included a few of the pictures from the show for your viewing pleasure.  We close the show this Saturday, and I'll be sad to see it go (although my wife and daughter will be happy to have their husband and dad back I think!).  I haven't enjoyed working on a show this much in a long time, or working with a group of people this much either I have to admit!  I really enjoy it here, and I'm learning a ton and have grown a LOT as an actor, and although I'm not supposed to say this because it sounds cocky, I do a really good job in this play. :)  

Me and Crystal (or Howie and Becca)

Howie and Becca

In the background is Lauren Fins, a professor (although not in the theatre dept) at the U of I who plays Nat.  GREAT actress! Also, if I look skinnier, its cause I am ;)

The entire cast, including understudies.  On the back row (left to right) Daniel Gerber as Jason, Lauren Fins as Nat, Jessie Taylor as Izzy, Rose Fredson as Izzy's understudy, Jordan (don't know his last name!) as Jason's understudy, and on the front Crystal Munoz-Tesch as Becca, and I, Lanny Langston as Howie.

Thanksgiving away from home!

So, Katie and I had our first Thanksgiving away from either of our homes yesterday, and it was a LOT of fun! We had 12 people over, people from our ward as well as from the theatre department. There was much delicious food and lots of fun :) Me and Katie made the Turkey, and it actually turned out really good (thanks Dad!). Other yummy things we had were stuffing, freshly made rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, corn casserole, ham, yams, apple pie, banana cream pie, coconut cream pie, pumpkin pie.... and maybe some other stuff too! It was all SO good! Adah had a lot of fun too. We let her drink soda, and she drank about 3 or 4 cups worth of cream soda and got pretty wired up on all the sugar. The picture below is her dipping her barbie into her soda, I think she was surprised I busted her :)


A sample of what we had to eat. These were actually the leftovers, yay for Thanksgiving!

One of our friends had a fancy whipping cream dispenser that used Co2 gas for the pressure. Our friend April squeezed the trigger a little too hard and there was an explosion :)

Adah with our friend Matt, who kind of looks a tiny bit like my brother Todd.

Me carving the Turkey! It's a lot harder than it looks.

The BIGGEST post ever!

So, we've got a TON to catch up on since we've been so bad about posting. I've got quite a few pictures of Adah to put on here from various occasions, mostly notably her 2ND birthday! Which happened yesterday, crazy!  Anyway, I'll put up all of the highlights from the last few weeks up here. We wanted to take some video, but have no clue what we did with our video camera :(  

And just kind of a funny birthday story.  Adah was absolutely terrified of her presents for her birthday.  We put them down by her and she started screaming "No! Don't! Stop!" So we tried to help her but she still didn't want anything to do with them, and tried throwing them and kicking them away.  Anyway, we finally just opened them ourselves while Adah hid behind Katie's back, unwilling to come out.  After they were opened she liked them a lot though, especially all of "The Little Mermaid" stuff.

Also, in some fun news, we're having our very first Thanksgiving away from either of our homes, so that will be fun! We're having like 15 people over: some couples from our ward, and also some of my friends from the theatre department at the University of Idaho that were still in town with nowhere to go.

So, without further ado, picture #1: Adah at her miniature sized birthday party with her friend Jessica

Picture #2: Adah sleeping with her sweet new Ariel blanket which she LOVES, and her new Ariel Barbie which she basically carries around nonstop.

Picture #3: Adah in her new Ariel towel.  She also has a black eye that you can see in this picture. I think she kind of looks like a boxer in this one.

Picture #4: Adah at the duck pond by our house a few weeks ago.

Picture #5: Adah with a deer on a walk near our house. She thought it was a "Cow Rabbit", and no matter how much I told her "deer", she'd keep calling it a cow rabbit. Pretty cute.

Picture #6: On a walk a few weeks ago as the leaves were falling. Pretty leaves and an even prettier baby!

Picture #7: Adah's first tattoo.  Which, although you can't tell in this picture, she was REALLY scared of. She was sobbing and trying to rub it off her arm.

Picture #8: Adah's first haircut. This took place in October actually, just prior to taking a family picture with Katie and her siblings.  Katie's brother Neal said that Adah looked like she had a mullet, so that was that :)

Only one week late, the HALLOWEEN post!

Well, first of all, sorry we're so bad at posting on this site (this is Lanny btw). I've been in rehearsals a whole bunch, especially at nights, and then at school most of the day, and Katie has been busy being a mommy and working on her at home business--which is coming along very well, she's a smart girl, my wife.

Anyway, Adah was Tinker Bell for Halloween. We bought the new "Tinker Bell" movie that just came out for her so she could pick up some of Tink's qualities for her big night.  Her research was pretty good, she especially got the mischievous aspect of Tinker Bell's personality down really good :) So, anyway, here's some pictures!!

Adah Trick or Treating. She got the hang of it really quick. We went at our church, and they just had parents behind the doors in all of the classroom, and she learned real fast that she could go to a door and say treat and get candy. She didn't get the "Trick" part though, she'd just walk up and say "Treat! Treat!" And sometimes take more than the one candy she was supposed to :)

Adah with Peter Pan (also known as Soren who's in the Nursery too). She was really scared of him though and didn't want to take her picture with him. 

Adah and Mommy. Katie went as the ideal wife (barefoot, pregnant, and without shoes :)

Just another cute picture of the little girl!