Big girl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!"