Cute conversation

As part of our pre-bed time routine, I was reading Leah her favorite book. Once we finished reading the story, I went back through some of the pages and showed her the puppies and pointed out their tails, ears, noses, etc.

Leah interrupts me with, "Mommy?"

"Yes, Miss Leah?"

"Night night."

Ahh, hint taken, Leah. Way to know your bedtime better than me. :)

Merry Christmas!

Opening the last day of the advent calendar on Christmas eve morning. And yes, that's chocolate dribbling down her chin. Then we spent some time riding our horsey (a Christmas present from last year that has come in handy lately). Daddy's hat is quite dirty, but Leah doesn't mind. It's all part of her rugged cowgirl theme.
Every cowgirl needs a pony, don't you think?

All decked out for church on Christmas Eve in her princess dress. Leah was very cooperative with the picture taking this Christmas. All I had to do was ask her to sit in front of the tree and she would. The pointing fingers was her own creative flair.

Some post church present-opening at Oma and Opa's house.

Christmas morning... I don't know what's with that fuzzy glow, I just liked her can-we-take-the-picture-and-open-the-presents-already look she's giving me.

This was our attempt at taking a Christmas morning photo of the "kids". It's tough to take a photo when you have 3 moving creatures. And the kitties weren't even close to cooperating, so they didn't get to be in the picture.

Daddy helping Leah open some presents.

Whew! Opening presents is tiring! I'm just going to take a little break here.

Playing with her new blocks, which she was adamant about putting on our windowsill. The silly girl would pick up two blocks at a time and run to our room to put them on our windowsill, and then run back to the living room to get two more. She was huffing and puffing the whole way. This went on for about 5 minutes, until I showed her that the blocks came on a little pull cart. It made her task much easier!

Christmas day, peering into Opa's juice cabinet. Pah! "Juice."

Pushing around her new little grocery cart with the ever essential ball and toy trucks. What good grocery store purchases.

Thanks to all of our friends and family who made this Christmas special for us!

Since we moved into our house, we've been talking about one day putting a TV above the fireplace. It only took us 3 and a half years to finally do it. I knew Jared was pretty handy around the house and good at fixing things, but he had a vision as to how this was all going to look once complete. And he was going to do it all himself. And he's never done anything like this before. And he didn't tell me a thing about just how he was going to do it. Now, you may be thinking 'Big deal, I put my TV on my wall too'. But there was a lot more to it than that. For one, we don't have an attic. So the wires had to be run through the wall. Two, part of the plan was to put a recessed cabinet in the wall to hold all of our entertainment accoutrement. Three, we couldn't find a cabinet that fit what we were looking for, so Jared was going to build it. And four, both the electric and the plumbing (because the entertainment cabinet was going to share a wall with the bathroom and reside in the cabinet under the bathroom sink) had to be rerouted in the process.

I don't know why I was skeptical about the whole thing, seeing as how Jared pretty much singlehandedly built our barn and has always been good at that kind of thing. Turns out I was being plain ol' silly because it's all done now, and it looks AMAZING. See for yourself.

The before photo. (Of course, it's not really the original before photo, seeing as how it doesn't have the original TV in it. But you get the idea.)

This is under the bathroom sink where the plumbing had to be rerouted from the right side (notice the hole) to the left side.

There used to be a cabinet above the toilet here. And now there are two big holes in the wall!! (These were used for running the many, many electric wires. And don't worry, the cabinet is back up in its original position.)

If you thought those holes were big, check out this giant one! Ack!! Just to give you some perspective, Leah is in the bathroom. I am in the living room. Talk about a lack of privacy in there!

Oh, the chaos of our living room mid-project. Notice the circular saw and caulk gun on the living room floor. That's normal, right?

With the help of some friends, the TV was mounted just in time for us to catch the last 4 minutes of last week's Eagles game (one of the few games that are seldomly televised down here in Cowboys country). Yay!!!

And the final product! Complete with shelves for photos and candles, and for our laptop and docking station, so we can watch things off of our computer on our TV (It's all connected). Combine all of the above with our new surround sound system that we got for Christmas and Jared's new Xbox 360, and you've got quite the entertainment experience!

Here you can see the rearranged furniture, which makes the room seem so much bigger. And there's Jared, playing his new toy on Christmas night. :) (Notice the sad, discarded original Xbox on the floor to the right.)

While our friends and family up north were getting snowed in, we enjoyed a nice day outside. The sun finally showed up after what seemed like weeks of clouds and rain, so we had to take advantage of it.

Nothing like a nice stroll on the picnic table while munching on some acorns.

Now if only I knew how to get down from here...

Not exactly the best way to get to the top of the slide.

So *that's* what that ladder is for!

Weee!!

Ol' Mac Na

Yes, I realize this video is sideways, and I apologize. But it was so darn cute that I had to post it anyway. Leah's favorite song to sing these days is Old MacDonald had a farm. She sings it in the car, she sings it in her crib when she wakes up, and here, she sings it while she swings. She's pretty good at doing the verse where "Ol' Mac Na" gets a horse, but I wasn't able to catch that this time.

During one of the days in our trip, we met up with some friends and wandered around the Philadelphia Historic District. Among other things, we saw the Liberty Bell, toured the US Mint, and stopped at this Free Quaker Meeting House that was built in 1783.

Naturally, we had to introduce Leah to the delicious Philly cheesesteak. And yes, I ate the whole thing. It was awesome.

All this activity wore Leah out, and she passed out in the stroller. I think that was the first time that's ever happened. And quite possibly the last.

We took a little break at Penn's Landing on the Delaware River. Check out how large and in charge I am. (And that was 3 weeks ago, so use your imagination.)

And some cute fall pictures...

So, I found this leaf.

But, I'm not sure what to do with it, see?

Do I smell it like a flower?

Oh, I'll just laugh at that Aunt Kim instead!

The week of Thanksgiving, we went back to NJ and DE to visit with everyone back home. We spent part of the week staying at Jared's aunt and uncle's house on the Choptank River in MD with the rest of his immediate family. The little cousins got some time to play together and we got some QT with the rest of the fam.

Three little beggars, asking for some snacks.
Those pigtails are getting a bit out of control.

One of the best things about the house (aside from the location), was all the little kid toys. The kids got a real kick out of the kitchen set. Look at them all in their jammies.

Kate, cheesin' it up before her kayak ride with her Daddy. (And no, she was not smiling like this during the kayak ride.)
Leah wasn't a fan of the kayak idea either.

Reading some books with Granmom.

High-fivin' Evan during a walk.

Update

Leah went to the doctor today for her 15 month check up. She is growing!!! Sort of. She weighed in at 19 lbs and 11 oz, and was 29.5 inches tall. She has finally stepped up from the lowest line on the charts to being 10th percentile in weight and 25th percentile in height. Go Leah. :)

I like to call this video, "Daddy, look at what I learned while you were gone!" (Actually, she learned this in about 5 minutes right before I took the video.)

Leah likes to talk on the "phone". And by phone, I mean her hand. Apparently, she's seen me do it way too many times (oops!), and the other day she even had a phone conversation with Heidi. It went a little something like this-- Hu-woh? arf arf arf! Heidi arf arf arf!

Though I wasn't able to capture that conversation on video, I did at least get the initial pick up and "Hu-woh?" of this one. So. stinkin'. Cute.

Jared is going hunting this week (somehow related to his "work" trip to San Antonio), and so he decided to practice using his bow and arrow in the yard. Perhaps he doesn't need to practice, seeing how at 35 yards, he did this:
For a little clarification as to what you're looking at, he shot one arrow directly into the back of another one. How's that for accuracy?

And here are some sweet photos of Leah and Rowdy hanging out before bedtime.

She must have thought that he looked pretty comfy laying on the ground like that, and decided to do the same.

Happy Halloweenie...

...from someone cute and teeny!!

We started off the day by wearing some Halloween-themed clothes. This photo happened purely by accident, even though it looks like I posed them this way.


I like this next one because Leah and Rowdy are making the same face.

We then went to the fall festival in Danbury, where Leah got to dress up in her Halloween costume-- Boo, from Monster's Inc! (For those of you that have seen the movie, I was going for the part of the movie where Boo is dressed as a monster.)

The hood didn't stay up very well and Leah kept pushing it off her head, so you can't really get the full effect from the photos.

Oh, and she never stopped moving either, so that made picture taking pretty difficult.

Maybe I'm biased, but I think our little Boo is cuter than the one from the movie (below).