Cute kiddos

Grant was so sad when he couldn't find what he wanted to play with...

...then so happy when I found it for him!  This was the first time I got him to smile on command and say "eeee!".

Snowflakes

One of our favorite winter traditions is cutting paper snowflakes.  In Utah, we would start cutting them at the first snowfall of the year.  Here, that might not happen, so we just started a little after Thanksgiving :)

Check out this year's creations!

Decorating

It is amazing what a mess it takes to make our place look so pretty!

This was the first time we let Leah help us decorate.  She was a very good girl!  And she got to stay up realllly late :)

Grant woke up the next morning and was completely enchanted by all the lights!  And the buttons on this Christmas pillow.  He loves pointing out buttons :)

Happy girl!

And happy boy!

Four years old!!!

Leah turned four last weekend!  This was such a fun birthday for Leah.  She was sooo excited about every little thing!  It was really easy (and fun) to make her feel special, since she was full of birthday excitement already!  

 

Here's our beautiful birthday girl in her new birthday dress.

Ready for church!

Hugging her gigantic birthday balloon!

Opening presents!  (We had a "family party" on Leah's actual birthday.)

Leah with all her presents and wrapping paper!

For weeks before her birthday, Leah consistently told us that she wanted "muffins and carrots... and broccoli" for her special birthday dinner.  So that's what we gave her!  (We rounded out the meal, don't worry.)

Happy birthday to Leah...

Blowing out FOUR candles!  (again)

 Just loving her new sleeping bag and enormous balloon!

Sharing with baby brother... just a tiny guy with a big balloon :)

Leah's first birthday party

No, not a party for her first birthday... ;)

This was the first time we had a birthday party for Leah where we invited her friends to celebrate.  Our neighbors have a little girl who turned three the day before Leah turned four, so we got together and combined birthday parties.

We had a yummy ice cream bar.

We had yummy cupcakes and cupcake cones.

Blowing out FOUR candles!

Back for more sugar... ice cream!

Looks like it was a hit!

We played pin the cherry on the ice cream, red light green light, and musical "squares", and had a coloring activity.

Overall, I think all the kids had fun together.  Leah was in heaven the entire time!  She had so much fun playing with all of her little friends at the same time, and that is exactly why I wanted to do this for her birthday.  I think it was a success :)

Thanksgiving

We went on a nice trip to Vancouver/Ridgefield for Thanksgiving. 

Hanging out with the cousins!

We went to the Pearson Air Museum for the Festival of Trees.  Just as expected, Grant loved the airplanes :)

You could just see it on his face: "Mom, Mom, look at the airplanes!"  Of course, it came out more like "Uh, uhh!!"

They had a little kid area.

And Santa was there!  While we were waiting in line, we told Leah that Santa would ask her what she wanted for Christmas.  "What are you going to tell him, Leah?  A doll, a book, a ball, a toy?"  Leah peeked inside his basket and said, "I'm going to say 'a candy cane'!"

And some yummy "snowball" cookies :)

Watching the leaves fall...

I just love fall.  In fact, I have loved watching all of the changing seasons this year.  It is amazing to watch how things change outside, from one kind of beautiful to another.

We had all the pretty shades of fall colors around here, and now they are all falling to the ground!  But now it is a cold beauty, that makes me want to cozy up inside with my family, turn on the Christmas lights, and look at it all through the window :)

Watching the leaves fall off with each storm.  (These are all within a week or two of each other.)

Three leaves left on the tree outside our door.

One leaf left!  (As I write, this one is gone, too.)

Yes, I even think the fields of dead weeds are beautiful :)