Leah's Bits

Leah's current favorite pastimes include emptying the cupboards and pulling everything off the pantry shelves that she can reach.  I've got five shelves in the pantry and only the top two have items on them.  One day I'll be able to fill it, right?  But in her mind it's all in the name of cooking.  She likes to stir, mix, pretend to put ingredients together, and then run to me with a wooden spoon saying, "Taste Mama!" Her cuteness and excitement balance out the mess of pots and relatively empty pantry quite well.

When it comes to doing big girl things Leah is all in.  She was a perfectly cooperative, happy patient at the dentist.

She wore another one of my dresses from the early 80's the church.  Knee socks and pinafores for the win!

I see lots of morning trips to the Children's Museum on cold winter days in our future.  Leah couldn't get enough of the painting and water stations

And it's not just real ducks she's in love with.  She gathered up all of the plastic ones and kept them to herself.

If I had a dollar for overtime I've said, "It's non-toxic, right?" to myself.  This girl is almost always getting into something.

Leah was pretty excited about all of Noah's goal scoring too.  We had to stop saying the word 'donut' and start referring to them as 'those round, sweet things you get when you score a goal' because once she heard the word there were tantrums for not having one right that second.  We've also learned that we don't say the word 'duck' either since that starts off an obsession about going to see them immediately. Oh Leah!

September Bits

I think all of September can be summed up in bits.  There were lots of little, memorable moments that's for sure!

Noah's school does a great family night at the beginning of the school year.  We were all excited for another night of Gators on the Green.

Luke doesn't start kindergarten for almost another year, but I'm already thinking about how much I'll miss him.  I LOVE having this boy at home.  We were eating lunch together and he unexpectedly said, "Hey Mom, let's take a picture together."  Done!

Noah is back to writing love notes, which I LOVE.

We used to walk over to the duck pond from our other house and now it's at the end of our street!  Leah is in duck heaven and asks to see the 'quack, quack' over and over again each day. 

This was the cutest first hair cut EVER! Leah held so still, smiled through the whole thing, and kept saying, "hair cuh, hair cuh"  If it involves being a big kid this girl is ALL in.

We celebrated another 100 days of scripture reading with a trip to Dairy Queen.  Two seconds after this picture was taken Leah through a tantrum that surpassed all other tantrums.  We tried to enjoy our blizzards despite the ear piercing screams, but that girl was determined to make it a memorable night (and not in a good way).  

Noah's first grade picture.  Love that boy!

While I was watching the Women's Broadcast Nate and the kids were off having fun at the park.  Leah loved playing in the stream.

We celebrated Papa's 71st birthday with ice cream at Leatherby's.  

For days leading up to it Noah and Nate talked about sharing a banana split.  Noah was so excited to dig into that mountain of ice cream with Dad!

On our way to Leatherby's the kids and I stopped at the cemetery to drop off flowers they had picked out.  We found Nana was there too.

Someone has installed a bench right next to Papa's headstone (thanks whoever you are!), and it was kind of nice to have a place to sit and hang out.  

Every time we go to the cemetery the kids demonstrate such sweetness.  Without even being prompted both Noah and Luke take a minute to sit by Papa's headstone.  Sometimes they say something to him, sometimes they don't.  But I love that there's some kind of connection there for them.  I try hard to keep him alive in our conversations, but it's hard to tell if the stories I share are sinking in and being remembered. 

Noah scored his first goals ever!  He's in his third season and, oh boy, has that boy been waiting for this moment.  We celebrated with donuts before school one morning.

And then we kept celebrating the next week (and the next week too!) as he scored three weeks in a row!