Park #1

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

A trip to Magnuson Park.

Throwing rocks in the water:




Picking flowers:


And just a couple of pretty views at the park:

Smart girl

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

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

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

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

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 :)

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

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!

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

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!"

Merry Christmas!

A few weeks before Christmas, our ward had a Christmas party. We brought a pumpkin roll, and this was all that was left of it at the end. Let's just say it was a good start to a month full of delicious food :)


Here is Leah by the Christmas tree.


I redeemed myself in a Farkle rematch!


We had two Christmases--one with each family! At this one, Leah loved to wear the bows and ribbons. At the other one, she couldn't get enough of dropping piles of wrapping paper on people's heads, particularly hers and mine (not pictured, unfortunately!).


Matthew's side of the family has a traditional fish dinner on Christmas Eve every year. This year, we brought a contribution of homemade sushi. Mmm!


The night we were planning on driving back up to Seattle, this little storm hit. The roads were not cooperating, so we stayed an extra night at my parent's house. Too bad we showed up too late to help with these snowmen that my brother and mom made!

Our "baby" is two!

Leah had her second birthday last week. Happy Birthday, Leah! We love you!

Number Two!

We are excited to announce that we are expecting Baby #2 on June 3, 2010! Yay! :)

P.S. Here is how we told our families, around the table at Thanksgiving dinner. We just took off Leah's sweater, and waited to see who would notice her new shirt!

Eat it, duckies!

The other weekend, some friends of ours took us to the Arboretum here in Seattle. It was very pretty there, and they have a duck pond :) We brought a lot of old bread and Leah had lots of fun feeding them. When we ran out of bread, Leah started picking up handfuls of gravel and tossing it in front of the ducks (she couldn't quite throw it far enough to hit the ducks, thankfully). "Eat it, duckies!"

Here is a really cute picture that our friend took (thanks again, Emily!):

Ferry!

Last Saturday, we went exploring! We drove over to Bremerton and caught a ferry across Puget Sound back to Seattle! It was really fun, and a great way to see a lot of sights!

Our cute girl

Leah loves to wear her "big jacket".


She even likes to put it on herself!


And this is just a cute Leah in a cute dress :)

Nursery Battle Scar

This (see arm) happened sometime during nursery this past Sunday. Both Matthew and I were in with her the whole time, and neither of us heard any shouts or hollers, so it's still somewhat of a mystery... Though it is quite cute when she says "kiss owie" and kisses her own owie :)

"Leah Stories"

Whenever I talk to my mom on the phone, she asks me to tell her a "Leah Story". Of course, I can never think of the really good ones right there on the spot! So, this is for my mom, and anyone else who wants to hear a good story (or five or ten) about Leah... because I've got a few saved up: (WARNING: Leah is really cute, so this is going to be long.)

• Leah found her daddy's contact case the other day and immediately said "Wash chin!" Then she rubbed it across her chin, my chin, and Matt's chin. (Since then, she likes to help "wash" just about anything... with her hand, paper, a towel, or whatever she has nearby.)
• Whenever she sees a picture of a temple, she says "Temple, oh goodness!"
• When I go to change Leah's diaper first thing in the morning, she has started saying "Oh, man!" My best guess as to where this came from is me saying "Oh, man!" if there is a leak (which is not that often, really) or if her diaper is messy. Oops!
• Leah loves to point out if something is big or little. She will use her big voice or little voice accordingly. For example, a little cow says "moo!" really high, and a big cow says "MOOOOOO!" really deep.
• When she's happy, she will say "Woo-hoo!"
• If you say "Row row row your", Leah will say "boat, mewwy mewwy mewwy" (for merrily... etc.). If you say "If you're happy and you know it", she will say "clap hands" and clap her hands.
• When I am brushing my hair, sometimes Leah will say "Pretty Mommy!" :)
• When I get out a cookbook, or set the timer in the kitchen, Leah will say "Twenty minutes!" (This goes back to one time when I was looking at a recipe and said "Okay, Leah, it needs to cook for twenty minutes.")
• Leah likes to run up to me and say "Boo!" Then she asks me, "Boo Daddy?" I say "Okay" and she runs up to Daddy and says "Boo!"
• Leah also likes to tell me what color I am wearing: "Blue Mommy" or "Green Mommy" or whatever.
• Just now, Leah sneezed and I said "Bless you!" She then proceeded to say "Bless you, Mommy" to me (I fake-sneezed for her and she thought that was pretty fun) and "Bless you, duck" to the stuffed animal duck that was nearby.
• The other day, our box fan was down on its side and Leah said "Oh no fan. Boo boo fan. Up-daisies fan!"
• I was laying down yesterday and Leah approached me and said "Wrong, Mommy?" like she was asking me what's wrong!
• One more (for now): Last night, she tripped a little and fell on a couple of her toy cars. Immediately she pulled them out from under her and said, "Sorry, fire big truck. Sorry, taxi." :)
• Nope, she just did one more. She dropped a small ball behind our TV stand, which is slightly inaccessible to a toddler. She said, "Mommy, ball!" but I didn't really know what she wanted. I looked up to see her grab her penguin toy, drag it over to the TV stand, and say, "Penguin, get it, help!"

"Good girl, Baby!"

Leah really likes pretending these days. She likes to feed crackers to her tuffed animals, and offer water to the folks on TV. Most recently, though, she likes to help her toys play with other toys. Here, she is helping her baby doll play with a toy. If you listen closely, you can hear Leah instruct the baby to use her finger, and every time the baby gets it right, Leah congratulates her with a "Good girl, Baby!"

Also, listen for Leah saying "Bonk eyes!" as she, well, bonks the eyes of the animals on the toy.

Words we're going to miss.

Leah has her own little versions of words that I hope she never grows out of! I don't really encourage the right pronunciation for a few of them yet, because they are just so darn cute (especially in her sweet little toddler voice), but she will probably figure it out on her own one of these days. Anyway, here are some of our favorites:

Finging (finger)
Fum (thumb)
Pang-oons (penguin, singular)
Juffuff (Joseph)
Bassik-ball (basketball)
Widdit (ribbit)
Tee-Wets (T-Rex)
Bummy (bunny)
Dah-bidge (garbage)
Wah-wap (lap)
Effatent (elephant)
Boom (spoon)
Duh-duh-yoo ('w')

New place

Here are some pictures of our new place. (You can click on it if you want to see it bigger.) It has been perfect for us!

Seattle is fun!

We are very happy living here in Seattle. It has been really fun learning about it and discovering all the little things that make it different and exciting! I just wish I had my camera for everything that we see! Speed bump alternatives, Fifth-floor Target stores, airplane parts that decorate parks, cars parked all along every road, even if it's supposed to be a lane... etc.

Also, everyone that we met here has been so nice! Example: Tonight I found our church building and went to the Relief Society broadcast. I checked ahead of time, and it started at 5. I ended up the only one in the chapel listening to it! On my way out, a lady asked me if I was inside listening to the broadcast. She told me that the whole stake was eating dinner together and was going to listen to the rebroadcast at 7. So she invited me in to have dinner and sit with her. I said, "Oh, but I didn't know about it and I already ate!" She said, "You can eat a little more, come on!" Anyway, I felt so welcome :)

Okay, on to the pictures.

This is a park along the lake that is a five-minute drive from our place, with said decorations:

There, we learned that ducks like to eat apples!

And here is Leah just being cute. She loves her "-tories"!

She pulled all her toys out of her toybox, and then climbed in the box. :)

See-tattle

That's how Leah says the name of our new stomping grounds. We're here, we made it, and we've spent our first full day in our new place! It has been very crazy, but very good and successful. We are still getting organized and settled, so I guess I will wait to post any pictures :)

Three more days in Ridgefield.

In three days, we are moving to Seattle! It seems weird that it is coming up so quickly. We are both excited and sad. Excited for a new adventure in a new place, and sad to leave our families. We have had such a nice time being here with them! We will only be two and a half hours away, so we will still be much closer than we used to be, but much further than we are now.

Also, we have a new family picture (thanks, Dad!). See a tiny version of it to your right. :)