The Brewer Family Blog

Cute kiddos

2011-12-22T17:28:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-18T18:16:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-15T12:11:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2011-12-12T21:40:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-11T15:32:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-08T10:26:00.000-08:00

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...

2011-12-06T09:28:00.001-08:00

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 :)

Happy Fall!

2011-11-22T13:34:00.000-08:00

New words

2011-11-17T18:29:00.000-08:00

Here is a list of words that Grant can say (with proper meaning most of the time):

Hi (Grant's first word was the same as Leah's)
Doggy (this word can mean almost any animal too, and most things)
Kitty (he says it "kiggy")
Daddy
Bath (more like a whispered "bahhh")
Uh-oh
GO-GO-GO (spoken whenever he sees a sports game on TV, or during the opening song of The Cat in the Hat)
Peekaboo ("pee-uh-oo")
Apple ("appo" or "appu")
All gone ("ah-gin", but you can tell what it means because he says it whenever something is all gone!)
Eye

And a lot of grunts and pointing fill in the rest. It's amazing what you can understand from a grunt, a tone of voice, a point, and a specific facial expression!

Little walker

2011-11-11T21:16:00.000-08:00

Here's our little Grant buddy! About 2-3 weeks ago, he decided that 17 months was old enough, and he took his first step. He had been standing up a lot on his own for a while, but just felt like crawling was easier and faster. Little by little, though, he found out that walking was kinda fun! He would just have this huge grin every time he took a step or two, even though he usually fell down pretty quick. But, practice makes perfect, as they say. And our little guy gets better every day. Leah loves to hold his hands as he walks. And Grant has figured out that it is sometimes faster to walk than to get down, crawl, and get back up.

I just love watching him walk. It makes him so happy. And he is the cutest thing ever! (Sorry, but a mom can love her kid, right? :) )

Halloween, take two!

2011-11-09T22:47:00.003-08:00

So I didn't have time to write anything when I posted the Halloween pictures, but now I do... so I'll tell y'all a little about what in the world you're looking at!

Saturday night (October 29) was our church's "trunk-or-treat", where everyone comes to the parking lot, opens up the trunks of their cars, and hands out candy to the kids. Leah had decided to be a blue butterfly back in August I think, which was perfect because the dollar store had butterfly wings, and pipe cleaners are super cheap, too... Thanks, Leah! Uh, back to Saturday. Leah was adorable going from car to car, and sometimes, in all the confusion, going to the same one twice in a row. Grant was a little overwhelmed by all the people, but was fine once we got him out of the stroller to carry him. When we got home, Leah immediately wanted to share her candy with us. What a sweetie :)

(Not Halloween-related)
Sunday, Leah got to say her little part in our church's Primary program (kind of a special meeting where the kids have little speaking parts and sing songs for everyone... it's awesome). She did a great job with her part, but was too distracted and having too much fun to sing very much of the songs :)

(Back to Halloween-related)
The pumpkins! Matthew's was the scary face (as usual), Leah wanted the robot, mine was Mike Wazowski (can you tell? Leah wanted me to do a monster, so I tried to do Mike.), and we chose a doggy for Grant in honor of his most favorite word. And oh, the pumpkin seeds! I look forward to those every year.

Uh, we took Leah trick-or-treating around our apartments on Halloween. Grant had fun pointing at the pumpkins everywhere and knocking on the doors as I held him up to them. He got pretty heavy after a while though (strollers don't work very well with all the stairs to the apartments), so he got to hang out at home "helping" Matthew hand out candy. Leah had so much fun. My favorite part was when she saw (twice) a kid dressed up as something all white with a white mask covering his/her entire face, and she looked at him/her and said "Silly!!" (both times).

I think that about covers it. Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-05T01:21:00.000-07:00

In the words of Leah

2011-10-10T21:53:00.000-07:00

My favorite thing that Leah said all day, other than "Whoopsie that you did" (and "I love you" and "You're my best friend", of course!), came as she was reading a li-berry book. She had the following page open:

(From "The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That: Oh Say Can You Say What's the Weather Today?")

Leah: "What happened to Thing One and Thing Two?"
Me: "Oh, do you think they changed clothes?"
Leah: "They changed clothes, and turned into Nephi!!"
:)

"Smile for the camera!"

2011-10-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

I said those exact words, and this is what I got. Can't say I didn't try, right?

P.S. Though the blog gives no recent evidence of it, we are indeed alive and well :)

Pillows and blankets

2011-08-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

Grant loves pillows and blankets. If we leave one out on the floor, he will crawl right over to it, bury his face in it for a few seconds, and then roll over it with a huge grin. It is the sweetest thing! I like to leave out pillows and blankets now... :)

Playing with Leah

2011-08-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

These are some of Leah's favorite games :)

Candyland, "bug game", dice-and-blocks, matching game, dice game, puzzles, etc.

She is such a sweetie... She waits until Grant goes to sleep, and then: "Mommy, howbout we ... play a game!!!" "Momma, can we play something together? Pleeease?" "I never play bug game before! I never play it this day!"

My kind of picnic...

2011-08-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

Blue Angels

2011-08-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

Our kids (particularly Grant) sure love airplanes, so when we heard that the Blue Angels were coming to town, we thought it would be fun to go watch. We walked over to the nearby nature trail (which goes right along Lake Washington) and got a nice view of the planes from afar. They did fly right over us a couple of times, which was loud enough to scare poor Grant, but I think they had fun overall :)

Watching...:

Here they come!:

Leah got a little bored after a while and sat in the grass:

July Family Trip

2011-08-11T07:11:00.000-07:00

During the first week of July, we went to stay at my parents' house for a week (the same week that my brother and his family came in town, and shortly after another brother moved back to Washington). We had so much fun all together! I took an embarrassing amount of pictures, but I guess it's okay since I have some really cute ones and lots of memories! Here are the highlights of our fun week!

On the way down, we stopped at the Brown & Haley shop and Cabela's. Then we visited with Grandma and Grandpa Brewer at their house and played with them at the park before starting the festivities with the Caine side:
- We went to the park for some afternoon Fourth of July fun!
- We rode on a train!
- We played outside with water balloons, squirt guns, kiddie pools, and sprinklers!
- We went to the beach (Grant's first trip)!
- We had a picnic at the park!
- We played a lot with special "grandpa and grandma toys" :)
- We had a movie night!

Almost walking!

2011-08-08T10:45:00.000-07:00

Here's how Grant is doing with learning to walk :)

Dah-gee!

2011-08-05T21:30:00.004-07:00

Okay, so I am behind on this blog, but here is a cute video in the meantime. Grant loves doggies, and "doggy" is his favorite word (out of a handful) to say. I thought this video captured him perfectly. We adore our little guy!

Peek-a-boo!

2011-07-19T16:29:00.006-07:00

A week ago, Grant learned how to play peek-a-boo! We play it all the time now, and we have so much fun! Just say "peek-a-boo" and Grant will put a hand or two anywhere on his face, then pull it off really fast with a huge grin!

Also, he has started "pointing" at airplanes as they fly by...

...although this looks like he's trying to give it a high five. :)

June

2011-07-01T11:09:00.006-07:00

We have had a very comfortable June here in Seattle. Most days have seen us wearing long sleeves, jackets, or sweaters. There have been plenty of sunny days to play outside, but it has been a pretty cool June. Nice! So, here is a little of what our June was like, since I last posted:

Our tomato plants have been growing nicely! Actually we got them in May, but I have been so excited to see them grow so quickly. The other day we woke up to see them bent completely in half. We tied them up to some sticks though, and they still look alive! So we are excited for some big beef and cherry tomatoes a bit later on.

(Just about) every time an airplane flies over us on one of our walks, we can look down and see Grant doing something like this:

He's been doing this for a few months. We never pointed them out to him or anything. He just recognizes the sound on his own and knows to look up! He just looooves airplanes!

Haircuts! We gave Leah her second haircut, and Grant his fourth:

This is how they look when I try to take pictures of them by myself... bored.

Then Daddy comes along and helps, and they give him great big smiles! (Thanks, Daddy!)

Writing. Leah has been learning a lot! Here she wrote "MOM" twice, all by herself without any prompting or encouragement. I saw it only after she was done and showed me:

Here she wrote her entire name by herself (I wrote the "Love,"... it was for a card). I did encourage her some, but only verbally. (I didn't write it with her, for example.)

Leah (and I) just started a little preschool co-op type thing here at our apartments with two other kids and their moms. We are focusing on a different letter each week, so I expect she will just keep getting better :)

I think that's it for the pictures... A few more little updates: Grant has 12 teeth now! His last two "first year molars" just broke through on his 13-month birthday. Yay! Finally! He can also get down on his own (if he's been standing up). Yay! We've been going on lots of walks (every day, if the weather agrees with us).

That's about it for June. Happy July!

Snoqualmie Falls

2011-06-09T22:02:00.003-07:00

Last weekend, the weather was so nice that we took a little trip out of town for a picnic at Snoqualmie Falls! (So did everyone else.) It was beautiful! We couldn't believe that a place so un-"city"-like was only half an hour out of Seattle! It was like a completely different world. Calm, spread out, forested, suburban-ish. We loved it. Why can't UW be in Snoqualmie? ;)

Birthday boy

2011-05-26T14:35:00.004-07:00

Grant had his first birthday this week! At his checkup, he weighed almost 24 pounds, and measured 31 inches long. He started crawling about 3 weeks ago and got really fast really quickly! He loves to climb on and over things (my favorite is when he climbs onto my lap), but hasn't quite gotten the hang of pulling up to standing. He has nine teeth, including one molar, and it sure seems like the next seven are really close behind. Poor li'l buddy.

Grant is such a sweetheart and I am so happy that we get to have him in our family for many, many more years to come (however many forever is)! Here are a few fun pictures from his big day!

Now that Grant is a year old, we're excited to let him try lots of new foods! So far we have just done the cupcake, and a little whole milk. Bring on the cheese, yogurt, honey, eggs, etc.!

Leah's latest cuteness

2011-05-22T21:54:00.002-07:00

Pretty pretty princess...

Peek-a-boo!

I got this idea from one of your pictures, Bryce! :)

Pretending to be Mike Wazowski:

Notice she "only has one eye"... open, that is.

Baseball

2011-05-14T11:46:00.002-07:00

Ask Grant what his favorite sport is and he'll say, well, he'll probably just give you a great big, pure, happy smile. (If you're lucky, he may give you an "et!" or something equally cute.) But he sure looks great in a baseball hat!

There is just something about little boys in baseball hats. :)

Swinging

2011-04-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

Leah and Grant could spend all day on the swings. We have a few here at our apartments, along with some slides and other things to play on.

Kite flying!

2011-04-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

On a particularly windy Saturday, we went to the park to try out our kite! We had a great time.

Both kids loved watching it, particularly Leah who tried to "catch" the kite as we brought it back down :)

So sweet

2011-04-21T07:04:00.000-07:00

There is nothing more precious than watching the bond between your children grow.

They sure love each other!

Egg Hunt

2011-04-18T10:53:00.002-07:00

On Saturday, our apartments had a little egg hunt for the kids. We took Leah (it was her very first one), and she had a blast! For a kid, what could be better than going outside and finding containers full of candy all over the place, and they're all free for the taking? Hehe. You don't even have to dress up or say trick-or-treat :)

LLEAAAAAAAAH

2011-04-12T12:15:00.002-07:00

Here's our pretty girl:

And here's her name:

(We were playing the "letters game" and I spelled out her name. She rearranged it thusly.) :)

One for the fridge

2011-04-08T13:10:00.004-07:00

Last week-ish, Leah drew this picture of me and her! (She even "drew" my forehead.) We sure are happy :)

Rolls

2011-04-04T13:47:00.004-07:00

With the right recipe (in other words, "with enough butter"), anyone can make delicious rolls (as evidenced by the fact that I did so):

Yum!!

Cross your fingers!

2011-03-27T10:47:00.002-07:00

Grant learned to do this (all on his own) during the BYU/Florida game on Thursday:

Too bad it didn't help :(

Socks

2011-03-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

Grant is easily recognized by his state of sock-wearing:

Strangers everywhere alert us to the absence of his right sock... but the few seconds it stays on his foot is (most of the time) not really worth the several seconds it takes to put it on :)

Popcorn

2011-03-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

(The song, not the food...)

Leah's latest favorite :)

For lyrics (in case you couldn't understand each of Leah's perfectly enunciated words), click here.

Picnic Time!

2011-03-11T07:42:00.000-08:00

A little while ago, a day rolled along that was both sunny enough and warm enough, so we decided to grace it with our very first picnic of the year. We had great food, a great view, and great company (we even had a few visiting friends with whom we shared our lunch). Hopefully it is just the beginning of many, many more this picnicking season! (As I write this, it is pouring down rain. And cold. The next one might not be for a little while...)

Pillows

2011-03-09T11:02:00.001-08:00

Give Grant a pillow and get ready for some cute!

He looooves pillows!

Writing Her Own Name

2011-03-07T14:29:00.004-08:00

Leah wrote her own name, all by herself! See? (Ignore the monster up top.)

You don't see it? Let me point it out to you:

Okay, okay, so I did coach her a little. I wrote one letter on one side, then she did her own letter on her side. Let's zoom out:

But still! She is just learning so fast. She is always putting her letter magnets in order on the refrigerator so that they spell her name. She can also sound out a few small words (cat, hat, mom, bug, etc.) with encouragement, and if she's in the right mood :)

Five teeth!

2011-03-05T08:28:00.004-08:00

Just another number to add to all the ones from my last post: This morning I discovered Grant's fifth tooth!

Funny story... I had a dream that I found his fifth tooth. I woke up, remembered the dream, checked his mouth, and sure enough, it was there. Dreams do come true, folks!

9 months old

2011-02-24T14:13:00.004-08:00

Grant is nine months old!! At his doctor's appointment on Tuesday, he measured in at 23 pounds 6 ounces, and 29 inches. At eight months, I weighed him at home (on a different scale, obviously) at 24 pounds, so either our scale is off or he's just about the same. Either way, he's definitely big enough! He wears clothes sized from 3-6 months to 24 months. Depends on the brand. Shows you how reliable and "standard" those sizes actually are, huh?

He has four teeth last time I checked, and he is starting to say more consonant sounds (deedeedee, bababa, etc.), though not yet with any meaning that I can tell. It is so fun to "talk" with him :)

Here is a cute picture of our sweeties on Grant's nine-month birthday!

Photography

2011-02-22T08:07:00.000-08:00

Leah has been practicing her photography and has a nice portfolio put together. Do you think anyone will be hiring three-year-old photographers? Here are some of her specialties:

Okay, so maybe a profession is a long way away, but it was really cute to watch her put her baby dolls together on a chair and take a dozen pictures of them at different angles, saying "Say cheese!" every time. I just couldn't resist :)

Standing!

2011-02-15T14:45:00.002-08:00

I know a lot of babies can do this much earlier, but yesterday Grant surprised us with a new trick!

It is so cute and he just loves to stand! Of course, we have to provide the balance still, but it has been a lot of fun :)

World Record

2011-02-08T15:06:00.005-08:00

The Guinness Book of World Records lists the night of February 7-8, 2011 as having the largest number of hours of straight sleep by Jeralyn since Grant Was Born.

(8)

Well, they would if I called them up about it, anyway.

Both kids slept all night, AND I got to bed early-ish! Hooray!

Hands and knees

2011-02-07T11:01:00.004-08:00

Several days ago, we wanted to see what would happen if we propped Grant up on his hands and knees. When we let go, he stayed up for a few minutes all on his own! He has done that a few other times too, but always with our help getting up. (Each time, he spends a good portion of the time with his little head down... see the picture. He's just a cutie pie!) He is getting stronger and stronger! He is even better at sitting now, too!

Plus, he doesn't spit up anymore!! Well, just a teeny bit once in a while, but it really is very seldom! Our amount of laundry has gone way down, too :)

Also, Grant's little bald spot on the back of his head is gone.

Grant is growing so quickly that I just feel like I turn my head for a second, and by the time I turn back, he has changed so much.

Trains

2011-02-01T11:06:00.000-08:00

This is what Grant does when Leah gets out her train tracks:

I think all boys are born loving trains ;)

Eight months old!

2011-01-25T11:00:00.005-08:00

Our buddy is eight months old! I weighed him yesterday (wearing just a diaper, a shirt, and some socks) at 24 pounds!! Guess it's time to get out the bigger carseat!

Grant is rolling all over the place. He can get wherever he wants by rolling and turning. So we'll see if he ever feels motivated enough to crawl!

He still has just the two teeth on the bottom, and is still very picky when it comes to solid foods.

Back at seven months, we discovered that he could kinda sit up for several seconds if we balanced him just right. Now he has figured out how to take care of the balancing on his own and can sit by himself for several minutes!

Here's some cute pictures of our big boy!

And I have been having fun taking pictures of Leah and Grant together the past few days. It is so fun to watch them interact and to catch all the different combinations of expressions. Anyway, here are some of my favorites :)
(Click on the pictures to see them bigger...)

(P.S. Hoku, you inspired me to try a french braid... but it didn't really turn out. You did a great job with Malia!)

Grant's Dance, Revisited

2011-01-08T14:33:00.001-08:00

Grant has been working on some new moves!

I hope his Exersaucer survives whatever he comes up with next. :)

Grant's Dance

2011-01-04T08:58:00.003-08:00

Yesterday, Grant started doing this little dance in his new Exersaucer that he got for Christmas. Whenever I would smile at him, he would get really happy and do this:

This just makes me smile every time :)

Holidays

2011-01-03T16:10:00.005-08:00

We all had a really nice Thanksgiving and Christmas, and were so fortunate to spend both with family. We had lots of fun (of course), ate lots of good food (double of course), made cookies, decorated, saw lights, watched old Christmas movies, played games, exchanged gifts, saw old friends, and took lots of pictures :) They were pretty much the perfect vacations... I even had time to relax! I wish we could do it again. Thanks to everyone for making it such a great time!

But, due to a fussy baby and a sick (again... with the same thing, poor girl) girl, I will get straight to some pictures.

This one's just 'cause she's cute :)

Leah decorated this tree herself... multiple times. You can see her favorite spot to hang the ornaments, on the bottom-right of the tree :)

Making sugar cookies!

Grant turned seven months old!

Playing with half of the Brewer cousins (with more to come!).

Naptime is cuter without a crib!

Grant loves all things string-ish. Be it strings, ribbons, zipper pulls, cords, or necklaces, he will find it and grab on tight! And usually try to eat it, too!

And this one's just 'cause he's cute :)

Santa

2010-12-09T09:13:00.003-08:00

We went to a little "winter celebration" the other day, and Santa was there. I tried to bring Leah to get a picture with him, and this is what happened:

Her face really shows how she felt about the whole experience :)

Later, while we were still there, Leah wanted to go back and see Santa again, but she was just as shy of him as the first time. She just wanted another candy cane!

Three years old!

2010-12-08T16:15:00.004-08:00

Leah had a lot of fun on her birthday! Her Grandma Caine and Uncle Jeremy came to help her celebrate her special day! It was really cute -- she just seemed so happy and excited about everything the entire day. Here are some pictures:

Leah really loved all of her birthday balloons!

We went to Ballard Locks to watch the boats go through and check out the fish ladder (we might have seen one fish), and they had these fun wave sculpture things that Leah liked.

On the way to the park later, we stopped by the Fremont Troll. Leah wanted to climb to the top of the "scary monster", but it wasn't that easy to get her up even halfway, so this is as far as we got :)

Leah was so happy to open presents! She tried to share them all, too, and insisted that some of them were ours, even after she opened them.

Ever since her Daddy's birthday in October, Leah has insisted that she wanted a "blue chocolate cake" for her own birthday. We think she was referring to the blue box that the chocolate cake mix came in, but I thought it would be fun to frost it with blue frosting anyway. This was the first year that she blew out all of the candles herself!

We also had french fries for dinner (at Leah's request). Don't worry, we made hamburgers too, but Leah only had one bite of hers... oh well! It was her birthday, after all!

Yesterday was Leah's three-year appointment, and she weighs about 33 pounds and is about 37 inches tall. She is very healthy! She was sad at the end, when she had to get two shots ("the doctor gave me two owies"), but overall she was very excited to have her own doctor's appointment! (She came with me to Grant's six-month appointment last week, and has wanted to go back for herself ever since.)

Through the eyes of Leah

2010-12-05T19:13:00.004-08:00

Leah is three years old!!! I will post pictures and stories from her special day later, but first I wanted to show off her photography skillz (the 'z' means I'm serious ;) ). She got a cute little digital camera for her birthday and wasted no time in filling up the memory with over 100 photos. It is so fun to see what she thinks she needs to take a picture of! Here are a few of them:

As you can see, she was excited to take pictures of every one of her new crayons. Her poor Uncle Jeremy was her favorite subject though, and he was so patient with her flashing his face over and over. I just transferred all the photos off of the camera, so we will need to work on holding the camera still and not getting so close to people's faces... Stay tuned for more fun photos, through the eyes of Leah!

6 months

2010-12-03T10:10:00.005-08:00

Six-month birthday

Right before Thanksgiving, Grant turned six months old! He celebrated by cutting his first two teeth, and we celebrated by giving him "solids" (rice cereal) for the first time!

Grant likes his solids!

At his checkup yesterday, he weighed 20 lbs 8 oz, and measured 28 inches long. That's around the 90th percentile I think. So still big! He also didn't even cry during his shots! Just kinda yelped a little during the last one. He is just an awesome little guy! :)

And I just can't get enough of watching the bond and love between these two. It is the sweetest thing!

Leah likes to make Grant smile when he's sad.

He really likes it!

But sometimes gets overwhelmed :)

Camera

2010-11-14T13:58:00.004-08:00

I am convinced that I am the luckiest girl in the world. What other guy gives his wife presents for his birthday?! This year, Matthew gave me a new digital camera! I have been having a lot of fun trying it out, and I have a couple of cute, semi-willing (Grant more than Leah, hence the proportion of pictures in his favor) subjects. We had a few sunny days this past week, so I brought it out on one of our walks. Here are some cute ones!

Pirate

2010-11-05T10:25:00.003-07:00

I forgot to put this with the last post...

A few days before Halloween, we were at Fred Meyer when all of a sudden, Leah told me, "He's a pirate! He's a pirate!" Sometimes Leah notices the tiniest things, so maybe she saw some logo on a food package or something.

I looked around, and saw a man walking by, wearing a bandana on his head :)

Happy Halloween! And then some...

2010-11-01T13:13:00.004-07:00

We have had a busy week or so. It seems like there was something big every day!

Last Saturday was our chili cook-off.
Sunday was Grant's five-month birthday.
Monday and Tuesday was Matthew's conference in Spokane where he presented his research.
Wednesday was the first day of the regular season for basketball.
Thursday was Matt's birthday.
Friday we carved pumpkins.
Saturday was the stake Trunk-or-Treat.
Sunday was Halloween.
Today is the first day of November!
Whew!

In case you are wondering how it all went...

I won no prizes for my chicken chili, although it was yummy (I was up against 40 other chilis... no one could even try them all!).
Grant is five months old and a big, happy, rolling, nearly-scooting boy.
Matthew did an awesome job at his conference and even got invited to present at a bigger one in a few months.
We had pizza to celebrate the first day of regular season basketball, and the pizza turned out good, even though our team didn't :(.
Matt's birthday was a lot of fun! Leah insisted he wanted a black chocolate cake (we made him a delicious French Silk Pie). She also learned how to sing happy birthday with me.
Our pumpkins turned out cute, I think (see above). Leah found two ladybugs that came in with the pumpkins. For her, they were much more fun than the pumpkins. For me, the roasted pumpkin seeds were delicious. And Leah still likes to tell me that "Daddy's scary, Mommy's a kitty cat, Leah's a ghost, and Grant's happy!" Can you guess whose pumpkin was whose? :)
The trunk-or-treat turned out great! Leah dressed up as The Cutest Pirate I've Ever Seen. That's what I decided to call her. She has two cute little picture books about pirates that she really likes, so this was fun for her. It was pouring during the trunk-or-treat, but tons of people still came and Leah had lots of fun and lots of candy!
Halloween itself wasn't all that exciting, since we had already done all the trick-or-treating the day before. But we still had little trick-or-treaters come knock on our door, which was really cute.
And today, I can't believe it's already November! We still need to flip the calendars though :)
Whew, again!

Rolling

2010-10-28T14:07:00.002-07:00

Watch him go!

Grant rolled for the first time (accidentally) a few weeks ago. Over the past week, he has figured out how to do it on purpose and is getting better every day! And of course, this is the first time he did it for the camera :)

5 months old

2010-10-24T13:59:00.004-07:00

Grant turned five months old today! It sounds so old for him... so much older than four months, for some reason. I weighed him here at home about a week ago (so I guess it's unofficial) at twenty pounds, meaning we are now in the market for a new car seat very soon! He is happy and healthy and more lovable than ever!

He has successfully rolled from tummy to back and back to tummy (the latter one being on purpose), and has been working so hard at mastering both of them. It is so much fun to watch him grow and learn new things. We are excited to see what kinds of solids he likes in a month! He always looks so interested when he sees me eat.

Here's a picture from today of our smiley baby with our sweetheart toddler (preschooler?). Leah is a great big sister and loves to be goofy to make Grant smile. (Is it just me, or does Grant look almost as big as Leah?)

Here is Grant modeling my latest creative attempt. I made him a hat out of some scraps of fleece. It's a little big... and weird... but it will keep his head warm this winter. And I loved the picture.

And just two more pictures that melt my heart! I figured it's a post about Grant, so I'll fill it up :)

Post #100

2010-10-14T19:43:00.006-07:00

Wow, this is my one-hundredth post! Anyway...

Contrary to what I have heard so often, boys are just as much fun to "dress up" as girls :)

And here is our little princess:

And here is what she is up to...

She loves playing Candy Land (and follows the rules somewhat closely, more so with prompting, which makes it fun to play with her):

She loves her little brother and showers him with hugs and kisses!

She loves showing off her sunglasses :)

And I don't really have a good picture to go with this (understandably), but she has been having so much fun pretending lately! She goes to the pretend park, the pretend driving range, eats all kinds of pretend foods, and even once pretend-painted my face. Anything and everything can be pretend. Makes it nice for when we don't have exactly what she wants or don't want to give her something. (Example: Leah says, "Can I have some candy please?" We reply, "Here is some yummy pretend candy!" Leah takes it and pretends to eat it, enjoying it very much. She even asked me to help her open her pretend smarties one time!)

Oh, and hide and seek is a favorite right now, too.

A little math...

2010-09-29T11:29:00.009-07:00

First, some numbers... Yesterday, Grant had his four-month appointment, and he is still in the nineties percentiles for length (26 in) and weight (18 lbs 1 oz). Leah was the same length at four months, but didn't hit 18 lbs until she was twelve months! Interesting. Anyway, Grant is as healthy as can be!

Now for some arithmetic...

This:

Minus this:

Equals this:

Yessiree, Grantman had his first haircut a week and a half and ago! His hair was getting in his eyes and covering his ears, so we got out the clippers and finally gave him a little boy haircut. I was a little nervous because I thought all his hair was pretty darn cute, but it is even cuter now! His hair even looks a little lighter now.

Leah had her first haircut just after Grant's, too:

Both haircuts together:

One more:

This:

Plus two years...

Equals this:

And some cute tummy time pictures. I don't know how to include them in the "math" topic, but maybe you can measure the increasing angles between Grant and the floor?

Precious

2010-08-30T16:02:00.002-07:00

Anniversary

2010-08-27T09:15:00.005-07:00

Five years ago, today, I married my best friend!

They have been the five best years of my life. I couldn't be happier!

Adventures in wheat bread making...

2010-08-25T09:55:00.005-07:00

I've baked. I'm not great at baking, but I'm not new to it, either. I've made white bread, wheat bread, rolls, breadsticks, cornbread, focaccia bread, banana bread (see two posts below...), cookies, muffins, scones, brownies, cakes, et cetera. Most of the time, things turn out okay (don't see two posts below), but I want to get better so that I can make something spectacular. Something so good, it doesn't have time to cool before it's devoured. Something that people remember and ask for ("Oh, I hope Jeralyn makes her delicious <insert delicious food for which I am known, here>!"). Commence wheat bread experiments.

The other day, I ground up a little bit of wheat and made my first attempt (in a long time) at a delicious loaf of wheat bread:

(Overhead view necessary since loaf did not raise above edge of pan.)

Surprisingly enough, this loaf was rather tasty. The dough did not rise. At all. I think my water was way too hot and destroyed the yeast (yes, I used yeast). I let it try to rise for hours, and even punched it (it hardly made a dent, but it helped relieve my frustration at the dough ;) ), but it remained dense and heavy. So I cooked it. We ate it. I learned.

A couple of days later, I found some new recipes and wanted to try again:

(Overhead view not necessary since loaf is about a hundred times taller than the last one.)

(This loaf turned out so pretty, it deserves another picture.)

Okay. Big difference. I got the water the right temperature this time. I let the dough rise over a warm oven. It actually doubled! Success! It rose (raised?) even more the second time, and even more in the oven. The top was a little dark, but it was light and fluffy. It tasted alright, but Loaf Attempt #1 actually tasted better. This one is great with a little butter and honey, though!

So now I need a little break from wheat bread making. I think next time I will return to my first recipe and be more careful with the water temperature, and I may just have something. If it turns out, watch for me to bring some to your door one day :)

Our cute little guy

2010-08-19T13:23:00.003-07:00

We all love our Grant!

Ever have one of those days?

2010-08-19T09:05:00.005-07:00

...where everything you cook turns out like this?

(This is supposed to be blueberry banana bread.)

A couple of weeks ago, I made this banana bread. I've made banana bread successfully dozens of times. What happened here? It actually tasted pretty good... Anyway, I'm glad I took a picture because now I can laugh about it :)

Webcam

2010-08-10T20:36:00.007-07:00

We had some fun taking pictures with the webcam today :)

Leah and Grant lately

2010-08-05T09:44:00.006-07:00

Back on the 27th of July, Grant had his two-month checkup, and it was confirmed that he is a BIG boy! He weighed 14 pounds 11 ounces (95th-ish percentile), and measured 24 inches long (90th-ish percentile). I know boys and girls grow at different rates, but I checked Leah's old measurements, and this is about how big she was at four months. Interesting comparison for us :)

Over the past few days, Grant has started liking the idea of sleeping for a 6-7 hour stretch every night (yes!!), followed by 30 minutes of diapering and eating, followed by another 2-3 hours of more sleep. By that time, Leah gets up and we all start our day. I can live with that!

Leah has been making some big improvements with potty training, too! When she has to go, she looks at Mommy or Daddy and says "I gotta go potty!" and then she runs over to her potty chair, takes off her underwear (yes, underwear!) and pants, sits on the potty and does her business, then counts to 10 (so she doesn't get up too fast), grabs a wipe and wipes, and then comes to Mommy and Daddy for help putting her underwear back on (she gets it all twisted still) and washing her hands (she can't reach the sink on her own). We still give her treats afterwards, and we still put a diaper on at night. Most mornings, though, she will wake us up with an "I went potty in potty chair!" and we go in and she has taken off her (dry) diaper and gone in the potty chair all by herself. We are so pleased that she is able to do so much on her own, and not have to worry about diapers anymore! We are still working on getting her to sit on the toilet though... so far, she is not a big fan of sitting on the "big potty chair".

After a couple minutes of tummy time the other day, Grant got upset and started crying and rubbing his face in the blanket. Leah was showing sympathy! :)

Cute, but it's hard when one kid crying gets the other one started, too...

Image overload

2010-07-26T11:25:00.005-07:00

When we moved, I lost our camera for about two weeks. One day, after trying to research new cameras, I took a nap for approximately one minute, in which I pictured myself finding the old camera in a box under something. When I awoke, I thought to myself, I haven't checked the "cell phone stuff" box under the bed yet. I immediately went upstairs to check the box, and voila! There was our camera :)

I have since tried to make up for lost time by taking extra pictures. As a result, there will be a lot of (cute) pictures in this post. Enjoy!

Like Father, Like Son, Part I: Here is Grant wearing a little outfit that his daddy wore as a baby. Grandma Brewer brought it for us!

Like Father, Like Son, Part II: This is one of our first family pictures with Grant, and it was on his blessing day. We had just moved into our new apartment the day before, and we had both sets of grandparents in town. Grandma Brewer brought the little blessing outfit that Matthew wore when he was blessed as a baby!

Smart Girl: Yeah, we think our little Leah is a smarty, and sometimes dress her as such :) She is so social, too, and loves all of the neighbors we have now. She calls all of the kids her "new friends" and asks where they are whenever she doesn't see them.

Fun at the Park: We have been having fun trying out lots of new parks in the Seattle area. Leah loves the playgrounds and the water (a lot of the parks are along the Lake or the Sound). The sad part is trying to get her to leave! To save room, here is a little collage of the many pictures from our park trips:

Two Months Old: Grant turned two months old on the 24th. That seems both too long and too short for what it actually feels like. Hard to explain. He is super healthy! He has started to sleep during the night, only getting up to eat once or twice, and then going back to sleep fairly easily. We are very happy about that :) He is big and strong, holding his head up by himself most of the time. He smiles so easily when you smile at him, and he is getting really chubby too!

What makes the trees green?

2010-07-23T13:16:00.002-07:00

Listen closely!

This is for Bryce and Kathy :)

Quilt Lady

2010-07-05T09:42:00.004-07:00

At church, there is a woman who makes a quilt for every new baby born in the ward. No one knows who she is (except for a couple of people who help give them out), and she is anonymously known as the "Quilt Lady". We received Grant's quilt last week, personalized with his name on the back!

(It is a little hard to see in this picture, but each red square has elephants in the shapes of each letter of the alphabet.)

Thank you, Quilt Lady! It is beautiful!

Smiley

2010-07-01T19:38:00.004-07:00

Grant has started smiling on purpose! He will smile back at us sometimes, and you can tell that some of them aren't by accident :)

One month old

2010-06-24T19:01:00.012-07:00

Today, Grant turned one month old. It is hard to believe that it has already been a month since he was born! But, it also seems like a lot longer since he was born... At his doctor's appointment on Tuesday, he weighed 10 pounds 15 ounces and measured 23 inches long. (Compare to Leah at two months: 11 pounds 4 ounces and 24 inches... her length then being in the 90-something percentile.) He still doesn't like to sleep at night, but he sure is growing!

It has already been almost five weeks since I stopped working. That is how long I had off after having Leah before I went back to work. I am relieved to not have to go back this time! I still feel way busier now than I did when I was working.

Matthew has successfully completed his last "full-time" quarter of classes, and has been doing research, which he will continue throughout the summer. Plus, we are moving to student housing in a couple of weeks!

Here are some pictures from Grant's "birthday" today:

Leah is an excellent big sister!

This is one of Grant's most common expressions so far. And notice we downgraded Leah's bandage... just to clarify, she's fine; she just hit her head on the edge of our fireplace the other day and, well, head injuries can get rather gruesome, which is why she had the mega bandage on the last post.

Leah got everyone involved in tummy time (yes, even me, not pictured):

Funny face:

Good-looking boy:

Bonk!

2010-06-20T15:45:00.005-07:00

Yesterday, Leah got the worst bonk of her life... literally! Here she is showing off her mega bandage:

Thank you to Matthew for rushing home to rescue us right when this all happened! He sure has a special connection with his little girl :)

Awake

2010-06-09T12:38:00.005-07:00

Not only is that how we spent most of the night last night, it is how Grant was when I took these pictures yesterday...

I still haven't caught his little smiles on camera... but let me assure you, they are so sweet :)

Also, I was looking at some of Leah's newborn pictures recently. I used to think she had a lot of hair when she was born, but now I'm convinced she was a bald baby, haha!

Two weeks

2010-06-08T09:21:00.005-07:00

Our little guy is two weeks and one day old! He already seems so much older and stronger from when he was born.

We were very excited when Grant slept for a four-hour stretch last night!

Sometimes he finds his little thumb to suck on :)

And this was fom his first bath:

I have realized that I don't have very many eyes-open pictures of Grant... so that is something that will be worked on!

The Newest Brewer

2010-05-27T09:32:00.009-07:00

Grant Lincoln Brewer was born at 12:22am on Monday, May 24, 2010, weighing 8 lbs 5 oz, and measuring 20.5 inches long! He came ten (almost eleven) days ahead of his due date. (Compare to Leah: 7 lbs 8 oz, 21.5 inches long, seven days late.)

Everything went so smoothly! We had some wonderful help with Leah from one of Matthew's friends and my mom, even though it was a little sudden. Labor was around six hours. When we got to the hospital, we found out that I was completely dilated and effaced (or, ready to go!). I was in a lot of contraction pain, but I felt mostly in control. I figured that any pain medication I got, wouldn't save me much pain since I was almost done already. (Which was true... we were at the hospital for about 40 minutes before Grant was born, so by the time I would have gotten any drugs--and they were taking their time--I would have only had them in effect for 15 or 20 minutes. In fact, it happened so fast that I was still wearing my regular shirt and jacket until right after Grant was born!) So I gave birth completely drug-free! The only drugs I got were after birth, because I needed a couple of stitches from a very small tear (MUCH better than when Leah was born).

Some thoughts: I never thought I could handle a "natural" birth. I had read a lot about breathing and relaxing, but mostly with the idea that it would help until I could get some medication. These things really helped me through, though. It really wasn't as bad as I thought it would have been. I mean, it was hard and very painful, but I was able to manage it. I felt very blessed and strengthened... there were a few very late contractions here and there that just weren't that bad, and I was so sleepy from a bad night's sleep the night before that it was easy to relax between the really bad ones. I don't know that I would ever plan for another "natural" birth, but I am SO glad I was able to make it through. I am amazed at how fast I felt good afterwards. No epidural = no epidural headaches!!! That might be the best part :)

Anyway, I am feeling great, Grant is nursing great (even that is going so much better this time), and we are all enjoying this brand new baby so much! Last night, he slept between every feeding so we even feel somewhat rested. Leah has been a good girl, but not showing a lot of interest in Grant yet (some, just not a lot). She has been more interested in playing with Grandma.

Okay, picture time!

Saturday, May 22, 2010, at 38 weeks 2 days ("before"):

Monday, May 24, 2010, at 38 weeks 4 days ("after"):

Right after birth:

Our sweet little Grant:

He has lots of dark hair!:

A smile? Kind of:

Leah came to meet her new baby brother at the hospital:

Leah and her mommy:

And just another cute one of Leah:

Longest on record

2010-05-17T09:26:00.005-07:00

"I want to go outside and play with bubbles!"

That's nine words! And a complete and correct sentence! It's the longest one I've caught Leah saying so far.

Also, she calls gummy bears "yummy bears". That always makes me smile :)

Big girl

2010-05-14T15:18:00.005-07:00

I realized I haven't posted much about our little sweetheart lately... Here is some of what she's been up to!

Feeding the ducks...

One time, her duck friends followed her halfway to the car :)

Being incredibly cute...

Attempting to draw Ernie (from Sesame Street, or "Sen-sah-yeet" as Leah would say) for the first time...

Right afterwards, she drew Bert too!

Telling me she's a bunny when I put a banana sticker on her nose...

Making her own "rolls" when I gave her some extra bread dough to play with...

Learning to wink...

Picking all the "white flowers" (dandelion seed things) she can find, blowing the seeds off, and making wishes...

Playing at the park...

And last but not least, learning how to do shadow puppets...

Big month

2010-05-14T15:07:00.008-07:00

Next month brings with it a lot of change for us. We have...:

- 1 week of my work left
- 20 days until my due date
- 3.5 weeks until the end of Matthew's quarter (yes, my due date is during finals week)
- and quite possibly one more that is still being worked out

Needless to say (so why am I saying it? I don't really know...), The Brewer Family Blog will likely take a back seat pretty soon.

Speaking about Big Change #2, I had a doctor's appointment a couple days back, and now I'm starting to have weekly appointments. Everything still looks fine, and we are still happy with how things are handled there at the hospital. Today I am 37 weeks and 1 day, so this baby is considered "full term" and could probably breathe on his own by now. Of course, the longer he stays in, the better :)

One, or both, of us is definitely getting bigger...

35 weeks

2010-04-29T14:32:00.005-07:00

I haven't updated this for a while, and I can't think of much to write about. The biggest (literally) thing going on for me right now is our upcoming arrival!

I had an appointment yesterday and everything is measuring just right. Our doctor and the nurses are all very friendly--they even remember Leah's name in addition to mine :) But the appointment was overall pretty uneventful, which is good.

We are still figuring out a middle name for the new little guy... he sure has been active! They say to make sure you feel the baby ten times in two hours (or something like that), and whenever I start to count, he makes it to ten in like two minutes.

So here I am, with about a month to go...:

Spring Break Beach Trip

2010-04-05T17:47:00.002-07:00

For Matthew's Spring Break, I took the week off and we spent a few days at the coast! We went to Ocean Shores, Washington. Somehow it was sunny the entire time! We had lots of fun walking on the beach, collecting treasures, miniature golfing, bowling, eating yummy food, watching movies, chasing birdies, running from the waves, etc.

On the way home, we made a stop at the Olympic Rain Forest, saw the "world's largest spruce tree", then drove north along the coast and around the entire peninsula. We drove right along the ocean, mountains, and lakes. It was a beautiful drive! We stopped at Port Angeles and found some great tide pools and saw Canada and the strait. We kept going, rode a ferry, and made it back home.

The whole trip was so nice and so fun! I wish we could go again. Leah was great and she keeps saying, "Beach! Do again!" :)

A Little Catch-Up

2010-04-03T07:12:00.002-07:00

Matthew and Leah and I went on a picnic to this fun park right on the water across from downtown Seattle. We had a really nice time, and the park had a lot of personality :)

Looking out across the water from the park.

Leah has become attached to several stuffed animals for naptime and bedtime. Her current favorite is this hedgehog-looking thing named "Tiny Bear". He is very easy to misplace :)

Our cute girl is growing up!

But she still loves "kid" things, such as playing in great big boxes!

Toddler Bed

2010-04-02T10:10:00.008-07:00

Imagine here a picture of a sweet little two-year-old, sound asleep in a brand new ~~toddler bed~~ big girl bed.

About two weeks ago, we decided that since Leah was going to bed and sleeping so well, she would be ready for a toddler bed. And that would give her two months to adjust before having a little brother take over "her" crib. We took down the crib and set up the new bed, got Leah a special new blanket, and got her really excited about being a big girl in her new bed. We fully expected Leah to get up all through the night and protest having to stay in her bed by herself. Nope! She was a pro from the very start. I think she tried to get up once, but I told her she needed to stay in her bed to sleep, and we have had no problems since then. It was so much easier than I expected! What a good girl! (If only potty training came so naturally...) She even sleeps exactly as long as she used to, except now she goes to sleep happier and wakes up happier, sometimes opening her door and greeting us with a great big "Surprise!" It is especially cute to listen to her pitter-patter down the hallway to come say "Good morning!" if we are still in our bedroom!

Now, we are staying at Grandpa (gwappaw) and Grandma (gwammaw)'s house, and she is sleeping in a different room on a twin bed (with pillows on the side to prevent falls). No problems again! It makes me so happy :) No more portable crib to worry about! For a couple months at least...

29 weeks

2010-03-19T13:17:00.002-07:00

Yesterday I "turned" 29 weeks! We had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday, and everything looks perfect. She could even tell that Baby's head is down, so hopefully he settles in and stays that way! Everything measures just right for Baby and for me. I got to drink the fabulous glucose drink (which is sort of like drinking 3 cans of orange pop, condensed into one cup of sugary syrup). I'm just glad they don't have to do a salt tolerance test ;)

Anyway, here is a picture of me and my tummy at 29 weeks... I even smiled!

March Madness

2010-03-18T12:16:00.002-07:00

Hooray for BYU! Made it to the second round!!

Watching the BYU/Florida game, I tried to get Leah to say "Go BYU!". She would look at the TV and say, "No BYU! Go Jazz, go team!" Guess she's not that in to collegiate sports ;)

Also, Villanova better not have any more close calls like that... they can't lose until the championship game!

Animal Crackers

2010-03-12T16:23:00.008-08:00

A conversation overheard between Leah and her animal cracker:

Leah: "How are you?"
Animal Cracker: "..."
Leah: "Good!"

Animal Cracker: "..."
Leah: "Okay, bye bye!" Chomp.

Note: These pictures are reenactments.

Leah's Pretty Dress

2010-03-03T16:27:00.005-08:00

Maybe I should rename this blog to "A Blog about Leah, and Sometimes Her Family". ;)

This is Leah's "pitty dess" that she got as a Christmas gift. Lately, whenever she wears it, she has to run in to her room and put on her Sunday shoes! Then she likes to tell me all about how pretty and cute she is :)

Anyway, it is hard to get really nice pictures of Leah mid-play, but she makes them pretty cute anyway (at least I think so!).

Park #1

2010-02-22T15:22:00.007-08:00

A trip to View Ridge Park.

Learning that we are about to go to the park ("I love park!"):

Picking flowers on the way to the park (and developing yellow noses):

Trying to share flowers with the birdies on the way to the park ("Here go birdies! For you!"):

Playing on the little kid playground:

Going down the little kid slide over and over ("boo side"):

Taking a quick break:

Playing on the swing ("wing"):

Discovering the very big kid slide (and making mommy a little nervous!):

Playing in the tunnel, and looking darn cute while doing so:

I think we'll head there again right now :)

Park #2

2010-02-22T15:16:00.005-08:00

A trip to Magnuson Park.

Throwing rocks in the water:

Picking flowers:

And just a couple of pretty views at the park:

Smart girl

2010-02-17T21:14:00.002-08:00

Leah surprises me every day with something new she knows. Usually with something that we never taught her, and we have a hard time figuring out where some of it comes from! Here is a cute little video of her. I admit, we taught her the first two questions, but she came up with noticing people's eye color all on her own.

Camera Fun

2010-02-16T12:12:00.005-08:00

Leah and I had some fun with the camera the other day!

A few of the many faces of Leah:

Mom trying to set a good example of smiling for the camera:

Lately

2010-02-16T11:53:00.004-08:00

So, we have been really busy lately! Matthew is in the middle of midterms and research, and I am trying to juggle work and motherhood and pregnancy. But we have had some good times in the middle of everything! In January, Matt's brother Adam and our soon-to-be sister-in-law Kylie came to visit! (See ferry picture below.) They were our first official visitors since we settled here in Seattle! Also, my parents came a couple of weeks ago! (See picture of Leah with the statue of Mr. Ivar below.) Then, we went to visit our parents this weekend! We got to help see Matt's brother Daniel off -- he is starting a mission to Brazil tomorrow!

Okay, here is a group of pictures to help catch you up :)

Video: Big and little animals

2010-02-03T17:12:00.004-08:00

I realized I hadn't posted any videos of our little cutie lately, so here is one of my favorites from back in October.

Video: Leah's favorite song

2010-02-03T17:10:00.004-08:00

Here is a video of how much Leah likes her song. This is from back in November. I guess she's mellowed out a little since then :)

Another "my girl is super cute" post :)

2010-01-26T17:11:00.008-08:00

Okay, so I haven't posted any new pictures of Leah for a while, and there have been quite a few cute ones recently. Enjoy!

Comfortable #1 (note the legs)

Comfortable #2 (note the legs again)

"Leah, stay out of the Restricted Area..."

Shy face

And a whole bunch of cute hat pictures:

Leah's favorite song

2010-01-25T09:14:00.002-08:00

We have a digital piano that Leah likes to play with once in a while. I'm sure she has figured out more of the features than I have! I was surprised once to hear her play back a recording of herself.

Anywho, Leah gets up on a chair and presses the button for the demo songs, then turns to me to tell me "it's coming". Demo Song #1, as it has hitherto been known, starts up and Leah dances and giggles and then stops it and restarts it again... and again. This might sound a little annoying, but Leah has very good taste in music, and even Matthew and I are big fans of Demo Song #1. I even attempted several internet searches for the real title, all unsuccessful. All I had to go on, after all, was the name of the piano and "demo songs", neither of which were any help.

Now, on Saturday, Matthew and I were watching figure skating on TV... slightly uncharacteristic of us, but still quite fun. My favorite by far was Sasha Cohen, not because of the skating, but because she skated to Demo Song #1! Finally, I had something to base my search on! Within five minutes, I found that Leah's favorite song is Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, third movement. Go ahead, look it up :)

Too bad Leah was asleep during the skating!

It's a ... BOY!

2010-01-06T17:29:00.004-08:00

We had our ultrasound today and got to see our next little baby! This is his cute little profile :)

It was so amazing to see a new life growing and moving inside of me! This was a very special experience for us. We brought Leah with us so she could be a part of it too, and she can already say "baby brother"!

Children's Museum

2010-01-03T10:04:00.006-08:00

Yesterday the three of us took a trip to the Seattle Children's Museum (thanks again, Bryce and Kathy!)! We had a great time, but of course, only took pictures of Leah! Here are a couple fun ones:

On the way back home, we stopped by the temple and took a nice little walk. Whenever Leah sees a picture of a temple, she says, "Oh goodness!", so it was fun to take her here and listen to her say, "Seattle Temple, oh goodness!"