Farkle

When Bryce and Kathy were in town last week, we played Farkle.

I actually tried to score points, too!

Where's the garbage?

You are looking at Leah's first made-up sentence. She has memorized several small phrases (where-is-it, I-love-you, here-we-go, etc.) and can say "hi" and "bye" to things on her own (hi fan, bye doggy, hi dress, etc.), but her first real made-up sentence came yesterday:

She loves finding pieces of paper and plastic, crumpling them up, saying "garbage", and throwing them away. We were in a room without a garbage can last night, and she found some garbage. I said, "Leah, go put that in the garbage in the other room." She replied, "Where's the... garbage?"

I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW FAST SHE IS GROWING!!

Vacation!

Matthew and I went on a vacation last week! We took a couple days off of work and headed out to the beach. Our parents were soooo wonderful to watch Leah for us so we could get away! I was a little nervous because I had only left Leah for a couple of hours at a time, only a few times, and never overnight. I think I handled it pretty well though. I mean, I think she handled it pretty well, considering.

Anyway, we stayed at a campsite at Cape Lookout and a hotel right on the beach at Lincoln City. It was SO nice and SO fun! We went to four or five different beaches, went to the aquarium, went whale watching, had a campfire, found tidepools and treasures, did a little shopping, ate really good, and went on as many walks as we could! It was perfect!

Leah's latest antics

Leah learns so much, so fast! She picks up 2-3 words or phrases each day, my new favorite being "I love love love you". She knows a few colors and about half the alphabet. Here she is telling me to be quiet, showing me a couple of emotions, and making all sorts of animal sounds :)

Big berry

My dad planted some new blueberry plants this season. Leah calls them "big berries" in the deepest voice she can muster.

Six down, twenty to go...

No, this isn't the latest word in the language I'm creating. It's all the letters that Leah can recognize! Point them out in any order you want, and she can tell you what they all are!


If you're thinking that this is the number of dollars I earn per hour, guess again. It's the rough number of words that Leah knows! My favorites being glasses, oh-no, sorry, pretty, and bicycle.


And this is just the number of degrees I wish it wasn't right now.

Harry Potter :)

Our friend Crystal had two extra tickets to the midnight showing of Harry Potter 6 on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning?) and invited us to go with her and some other friends (Thanks again, Crystal!). We had so much fun! The movie was great! A bit depressing at parts, but fun anyway. I hadn't read the book since it first came out a few years ago, so the story was almost all new for me. When I saw parts I did remember though, they were just as I pictured them!

Anyway, this was the first movie that Matthew and I have been to since Leah was born. We just end up waiting to rent movies when they come out. It was so nice to be able to put Leah down to bed and leave her with my parents so that we could go out (Thanks again, Mom and Dad!). Of course, we got to bed about eight hours after Leah did, and she got us up about three and a half hours later, but we survived in the end and are glad we got to have such a fun night/morning :)

This post brought to you by the number 2...

Leah has a favorite number! This is how I found out:
Me: "Leah! One..."
Leah: "Two!"
Me: "Good job! Three..."
Leah: "Two!"
Me: "Hmm. Five..."
Leah: "Two!"
Me: "... One, two..."
Leah: "Two!"
Me: "Okay. One..."
Leah: "Two!"
Me: "Good job!"

Playing with Malia

Leah's cousin Malia came over to play the other day. I'll let the pictures tell the story :)

Leah's learning to pretend and make up games

Leah put a tupperware container on her head yesterday, turned to me, and said, "Hat!"

Also yesterday, she put some crackers in a cup, put a ball on top of the cup, and asked me, "Where is it?", like she was hiding them for me to find. I said, "I don't know, where is it?" She took the ball off the cup, looked inside, and said "Peekaboo!"

I tell you what... my job is a lot harder than it was when I worked in the office, because I watch Leah at the same time, but it is definitely a lot more fun and entertaining with these little games she plays with me during work :)

Shoes

I never thought Leah would do this, because I'm not really into shoes (though I do own some). But today, all on her own, probably for the same reason she likes to wear tutus, Leah ... well, see for yourself. I guess she's just a girly girl. That, or she just likes to be a big kid :)

Beach Trip

Matthew and I took Leah on her first beach trip on Wednesday. First, we went to Astoria and stopped for lunch. Then we went to the Astoria Column, and then it was off to the beach. As you can see, Leah had lots of fun! (We did, too!) It is interesting to think what it must have been like for her. She had probably never imagined anything like this before--a great expanse of flat, wet, soft stuff, and lots and lots of water moving around on the ground! It was cold and very windy, but she had a good time splashing in the wet sand, and dancing, and running. Afterwards, we went to a couple other lookout places (in Fort Stevens and Hammond) and then headed back for home. We even stopped at Matthew's old mission president's house. He just happens to live about a half hour away from us right now! So we had a very nice day, and hope to be able to have many more days like this in the future.

In case you were wondering, Leah was verrrry good on our trip! We think it helped that we were outside so much. She took two naps in the car, and even ate a lot at lunchtime!

Some updates

Well, not a whole lot is new with Matthew or me (other than going on a real date last night!!), but plenty is new with Leah! Every day there is something new. I love re-discovering things with her... it's almost like everything is brand new as I watch her learn about the big world around her. So, some cute (or maybe just notable) things:

• There is a light waaaaay down at the end of the tunnel. Leah's diaper days are numbered! For the last three days or so, she has said "poo" every time she messed her diaper. On the list of things to get for our new apartment in Seattle: potty training seat.
• Leah is learning her first color! She will point at my jeans and say "boo". Then point at the blue house and say "boo". The the blue car and say "boo". Don't try to trick her yet though... she may just get confused and call everything blue.
• She can tell my parents' two black labs apart, and call each by name.
• Her newest word is "owie". She sliced her little thumb yesterday with a tape measure (didn't know those were so dangerous) and got a bandaid. Since then, even today, she will hold up her thumb and say "Owie, owie, owie, owie, owie..." I think she is better though.
• Yesterday, Leah picked me a Leah-sized bouquet of dandelions. Then she proceeded to pick a couple dozen more, tear them to pieces, and throw them to the ground while saying "Doh!!"
• She says "weeeee" when something is fun! Example: hills.
• Long ago, Leah learned how to draw. She is still learning what to draw on. Paper, yes; bananas, no.
• Once she was drawing on a piece of paper with Grandma and me. Whenever one of us would draw something for her, Leah would take the pen and scribble right over it! Every time. Either she is grasping the concept of coloring, or she is trying to enhance our little drawings. Or she just thinks we do a bad job.
• Whenever she hears music, or the word "dance", she dances!
• Leah loves big chairs. She doesn't so much love her high chair.
• Her favorite food might be rice. It might be green beans or bananas or grapes or crackers. It might rotate.
• The most impressive animal she knows is a squirrel.
• She has a verrrry good memory. You can tell her what something is once or twice, and she'll remember it a few days later.
• Today Leah hid her face, said "Where is she?", unhid her face, and said "Peekaboo!"
• She is starting to combine words, such as "Bye, doggy."
• She will sometimes stick her finger in her mouth and say "Sshhhh..." if you try to get her to whisper.
• Her pronunciation couldn't be cuter!
• When Leah wants something, she will point and say "day-go"/thank you. When it is not clear what she wants, I'll say "What?" and try to hand her something. If I'm wrong, she'll say "no", I'll say "What?", and we'll get a little game going. Sometimes she'll try to play by herself, saying "Day-go. Wat? Day-go. Wat? Day-go." :)
• Leah knows what letters are. We have letter magnets and try to tell her what letters they are. For the last few weeks, she has pointed at letters (even just on a page or a sign) and made letter-like sounds. One time, we were out for dinner, and there were numbers on the side of the table in front of her high chair. She started trying to name those off, too!

Grandma's Necklaces

Leah loooooves to play with Grandma's necklaces. The more, the better. She would also like to apologize to Grandma for the ones she has broken :(

Walk Pictures

Here is a little visual to go along with my last post.


"Bee!"


Walking out to the dogs ("Dah-gee! Wuff!").


"Sha-tah! Taow!"


Just walkin' through the grass.


Picking flowers.


This has become Leah's "spot". She will sit down right here every time we go for a walk. She won't sit anywhere else.


Picking grass.

Walks

I like to take Leah outside on a walk most days. Here is how it went today:

After lunch, I pick Leah up and say, "Leah, do you want to go........ outside?"

"Saass!" This is her interesting word for 'outside'.

We get on our shoes ("shoosh") and I help her out the front step. Immediately she sees the container of bubbles on the porch rail. "Pop. Pop!"

"Leah, let's go for a walk first, and then we can do bubbles."

"No!"

"Want to go see the doggies?"

"Dah-gee! WUFF!" She is persuaded to follow me off the porch and begin our walk.

Just a few steps out, I hear "bee!" and sure enough, an unidentified insect flies by. "Hap!" I look down, and Leah is holding up her hand for me to 'help' her. Unable to refuse, I hold her hand and guide her to the dog kennel. We turn the corner at the side of the house and come within view of the doggies.

"Dah-gee!" Leah starts dancing away towards the dogs.

We stay and play by the dogs for a while, and then head for the back patio. As we walk past the windows, Leah points and says, "Bah-bah", her word for all of her grandparents. "Yes, Leah! Bah-bah" (whichever one) "is in there!"

We get to the edge of the patio, and Leah does something she has never done before. She voluntarily plops herself in the middle of a patch of buttercups. (It just so happens that I had done something I have never done before too. I left my camera inside.)

Here Leah discovers the joy that all kids everywhere discover at some point in their childhood--picking grass. I sit down next to her and am taken back to those late summer days about fifteen years ago, sitting in the middle of the field with my soccer team, listening to the coach explain a new drill... and picking grass.

Leah snaps me out of my flashback with "Fa-wa?" I look down and she is holding a flower out for me to take. Well, I can't pass this up. I accept the flower and pull out my cell phone to take what pictures I can. After one or two, Leah reaches for the phone and says "Day-goo!" ('Thank you', here meaning 'Give that to me'.) I hand her my phone, and she sees the picture of Matthew on it. "Daddee!"

After we get our fill of grass-picking, we get up and visit the doggies once more. Then we make our way back to the front door, but not without Leah remembering the bubbles. "Pop!"

"Okay, we'll play with the bubbles for a while." I don't know who enjoys this more, but we both have a fun time. Before my head gets too light, though, I put the bubbles away and bring Leah inside. And now it's nap time. But that's another story.

Seattle... and chocolate.

Last week, Matthew and Leah and I took a day trip up to Seattle. We wanted to check out the neighborhoods around campus and get some research going on where we want to live in a few months. We also had to drop off a few things at school. While we were up there, we decided to try out a few fun things around the city! We went out to eat, visited Matthew's aunt and uncle, went on some pretty drives, and spent some time on campus, which was beautiful. We heard about this park along the Puget Sound too, called Discovery Park, and decided to check it out. We thought, "Cool, a park along the water, I bet that will be a great place to take Leah and have a nice afternoon!" Well, it turns out that almost all of the roads are blocked off to visitors ("Authorized Vehicles Only"), and you have to park and hike across the 500+ acre park just to get to the waterfront. Try that with a grumpy 18-month-old! We didn't. We just found this "view point" a ways out from the water that was obstructed by trees. And then Leah slipped through a hole in the bench and hurt herself :( And then we left.


Our "view". At least we could see some of the Sound, and it was a beautiful day!


We couldn't drive through Tacoma without stopping at the Brown and Haley factory! We got all kinds of discounted chocolate, including a dozen raspberry mountain bar "boo-boos" for a buck!

Who knew such a tiny little place could make us so happy? ;)

18 months old!

Our sweet little "baby" has turned 18 months old! Sometimes it seems like time has gone so fast, and other times, it seems like she has to be much older than that. She has grown up so much in the past year and a half. She has learned so much and almost seems like a different person!

With 18 months comes nursery! I guess I didn't realize that I get to go, too. Well, if I want to keep Leah from screaming, anyway. The nursery leaders are very good and kind, but whenever I sneak a couple steps to the door while Leah is looking away, she starts frantically looking around and crying. It's like there's some Mommy sense, like an invisible string that starts tugging at her when I start to go too far. It doesn't help that nursery is during her normal nap time, so she is too tired to play very well. We'll work on getting her more used to nursery, so that soon she can be comfortable and happy with all the other cute little kids.

Okay, okay, here are some of the latest pictures. There is a picture from Leah's first experience with bubbles, her first trip to a strawberry patch, and another picture too cute not to post :)

Oh, "no"!

Leah has learned a new word: "No". She is becoming more defiant, more independent, and... more attached. What? You would understand if you spent all day with her :) She likes to do things her way, that's for sure! She also likes us to do things her way. And this is her new way of telling us what she doesn't like. It's really cute though (watch me eat my words in a few days, I'm guessing), because she bunches her little brow into a scowl and then uses her sweet baby voice to say, "no!"

You would think that this would turn her in to a little rebel, but she is also perfecting her "thank you"s. Well, it sounds more like "day-goo" right now, but it's pretty recognizable every time! She says "day-goo" whenever she wants to give, take, or exchange anything. We give her something, "day-goo". She gives us something, "day-goo". Repeat until bedtime.

Since this is the "Brewer Family Blog", I suppose I should update you on the rest of the family then. Matthew and I have officially become enhanced residents of Washington. Well, our new drivers licenses are enhanced anyway. Also, I worked about 15 more hours than my usual 20 last week. It was a little crazy watching Leah while working for 11 hours on Friday, but luckily she found interest in the Curious George movie... twice. Who knew the Man in the Yellow Hat actually had a name? Anyway, she was a real good girl, and we are both glad to be back on the 4-hour-a-day work schedule. Matthew has been working extra too, so we have both been busy. We love our evenings together, and the weather has been perfect at night to take lots of little walks through this beautiful area we now live in.

More later!

We Love the Northwest!

Matthew and Leah and I have spent a little over two weeks in the Northwest so far. We have loved it! Matthew started a new job for the summer and I am back to work with my same job. Leah has reached all new levels of cute and learns new words faster than I can keep track of them! Her favorites are Hi, Ruff/Huff/Fuff, and Doggy. She says Hi more times each day than I can count! She loves going outside to pick flowers (fa-wa) and to see the doggies. She started doing this cute little prance-walk, too... I have a poorly-compressed video of it among some random pictures below.







We hiked to the top of Multnomah Falls with Matt's family!

Graduation, moving, and more!

We have been very busy lately! Matthew graduated and we moved to Washington! And a lot of other little things in between. Here are some pictures:


We went to the park a lot.



And saw some cute little goslings!



Leah's first ponytail!



Graduation (...and my attempt at cool angles...)!



Immediately after graduation, we went to a wedding and then hit the road! Matthew's parents helped us drive back (thanks again!!), so this was our view for most of the trip. We moved from Utah to Washington, so naturally our truck's license plate was from Oklahoma, indicating to us over and over again that we are "OK".



Leah was so good on our trip! This is how she looks at the camera when I turn it to get a portrait shot.

Leah's Growing Vocabulary

Here are some words Leah can say (which she also knows the correct associations), along with her super-cute pronunciation of each:

Hi -- Hi
Daddy -- Dah-tee
Mom -- Mm (sometimes Mahm) :)
Leah -- Ee-ah
Baby -- Bee-bee
Go, Dog. Go! (Favorite book) -- Dah-go
Cracker -- Dah-ku (this one’s hard to spell)
Yogurt -- Go-go
Cheese -- Chee
Ham -- Am
Bear -- Bah
Meow (for a cat) -- Mee-mah, My-num, Mee-na-mah
Duck -- Dah
Doll -- Dah
Toe -- Doe

She also likes to say "Bee-dah-bah", which I think she picked up from us saying "Peek-a-boo", but she hasn't put it together with its meaning yet. It's pretty cute, though!

Just a Few Pictures

First, updates: Matthew has 2.5 weeks until he graduates! And then we are moving to Washington! We sold some more furniture, too.

Second, pictures:

This is Leah on a stroll at the park. She never looks back!

Just a pretty picture of our pretty girl.

Leah in her camo pajamas.

Zoom in, and you can see her BLUE eyes!

We're going to be Huskies!

(Big apologies to Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Albany!)

The Many Faces of Leah

Sorry it's a little stretched... I'm working on my compressing skills. Can you see Leah's teeth? She has ten now!

So long, old friend...

Well, it's official. We really are moving soon! Today we sold our couch and dear friend of nearly four years. We put it up on craigslist last night, thinking it would take a while to sell, but it only took abot 12 hours. So now we are couch-less for the next month! We still have a few good chairs though, so don't worry about us too much :)

Goodbye, couch...

Spring Break!

Here is a little taste of our Spring Break last week:

We went to Bryce and Kathy's house and played on their swingset (and played games, and flew kites, and lots of other fun things!).



Then we all went to Zion National Park! We had so much fun in Zion Canyon!

During our trip, Leah grew more and more confident. She was often the leader, but we followed very close behind :)

...make that nine.

Leah's fourth "first year molar" showed up today! Just thought I'd correct that from the last post.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! (yesterday)

For St. Patrick's Day, we had corned beef and cabbage! Leah was true to her Irish roots (however diluted) and ate a huge helping. Her THREE new molars probably helped her out quite a bit. Yep, we discovered a bunch of molars in Leah's mouth the other day. One day, we thought she had five teeth; the next, she had eight!

We are thoroughly enjoying Matthew's Spring Break! We have been going on picnics and throwing the frisbee and just enjoying the beautiful spring weather. Maybe you'll get to see pictures of all that soon... maybe not. But I bet the suspense will keep you coming back here every day, just in case.

Leah is also walking more than she is crawling now. Sometimes she walks with her hands down! And her latest word is "gogo". Yes, it's a word. It means "yogurt".

And nevermind about the books, I found a few already!

Cheese

Leah is learning so quickly these days. The older she gets, the faster she learns new things. It is really fun to watch. Now, whenever I pull out some cheese and give it to her, she says "chee"! Kind of a weird early word, at least to us, but it is pretty darn cute. I mean, she doesn't call us "mama" or "dada" or anything else specific yet, but she can say "hi" and "chee". She is also walking at least as much as she is crawling. Her balance is getting so good!

Sometimes Leah plays this game with me that she just came up with by herself. If I'm sitting on the floor, she will stand up behind me and hold on to my shoulders. Then she will peak around one side of me until I look at her and then she giggles and peaks around the other side until I look at her and she giggles again. It is really cute because she likes to do this over and over. She just loves to play and make us happy!

Also, we are all getting over our colds! Matthew has Spring Break this next week, so we are excited to see each other a bit more each day!

And... I'm looking for a good book to read. Anyone have any suggestions?

The latest...

Wow, blogging is hard. Let's see, what's been going on with us lately? It was my birthday! Matthew spoiled me lots! We went to the temple, had the best pizza ever from the Pie, ate the most delicious cake ever, went out to breakfast (a couple days later), and we are still trying to find a good day to go to a Jazz game and go fishing! We had to spread out my birthday a little bit because of it falling on a Tuesday. I had so much fun though--it was a very happy day!

Last weekend, Bryce and Kathy and their kids came to visit! We had a lot of fun with them, and Leah loved playing with her cousin Elina:

She just didn't know what to think when she had to share her toys!

Since then, I've been sick, Leah's been sick, and Matthew is getting sick. Matthew applied for a summer job, and my bosses are willing to let me keep my job once we move away from Utah!

While I'm on here, I think I'll show off Leah's latest skills. Keep in mind that, three weeks ago, she could barely stand up for a few seconds, and she's been sick a couple times in there, so we haven't been practicing as often as we could otherwise. (I hope you don't get too dizzy... sorry!)