Our House on the Prairie: March 2009

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Random pictures

She clearly was not up to something, or so she'd like us to believe.

This is inadvertently what happens when you try to get close up pictures these days. Leah sees camera, and Leah tries to get camera. Thus, the image above.

Looks like such a big girl, doesn't she? Little L pulls herself up on everything now... everything. The window sill, coffee tables, dogs, bookshelves, Jared's leg hair, etc. If she can grab it, she's using it to help her up. We're still working on learning how to get back down though, so in the meantime there have been a few tough tumbles! (What you don't know about the picture above is that the window sill is really only 15 inches or so off the ground... so though she looks big and tall, she is in fact not big and tall.)

Fabulous Tuesdays!

Tuesdays are by far the best day of the week for me. It's my one day where I get to be a stay-at-home mom, which is apparently my new goal in life. (I never would've guessed this 4 years ago.) There is just something absolutely magical about being at home with your kid during the week knowing that everyone else is at work. At any rate, here are some photos from last Tuesday's household adventures.

Leah likes to help me do chores around the home.

Like folding laundry...

... and "organizing" the newspaper recycling...

... and cleaning up from the previous night's dinner (Sorry ducky-- no wine for you!)

And then we finished up the day by taking some pictures in the wildflowers. It's Texas tradition to plunk your kids in the bluebonnets and take photos each year, but we don't have any bluebonnets so these will have to do. This is the only photo of the bunch that I took where she is not trying to eat the flowers. Extra fiber, right?

Rodeo time!

A few weeks ago, Jared took the day off and the three of us went to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. It was a fun day, but the place was super crowded with little kids because it was their spring break. Leah was so caught up in the activity around us that she refused to nap all day. Unfortunately, after spending all day at the Livestock Show, we never even got to stay for the actual rodeo. We decided that staying would be pushing it too far and might end in disaster, considering the extremely sleepy baby we had with us and the extremely loud place we were in. So it goes sometimes, right?

Loving on daddy while waiting for the milking demonstration. We didn't stick around for it because (1) the guy presenting it was awful, and (2) Leah claimed she already knew what it was all about.

Enjoying the pig races (side note: Last year I felt Leah kick for the first time ever while watching the pig races at the rodeo!)

Chillin' in the grass for a little bit of "quiet time". Her dress is obviously still a bit too big. What was I thinking putting my 7 1/2 month old baby in a 3-6 month old dress?

Monday, March 23, 2009

I know everyone wants to see pictures, but I wanted to jot this all down before I forgot all of the updates. Here’s a list of Leah’s latest accomplishments (and there are many!):

She got her 8th tooth this weekend. That’s right—I said 8th. She got her first tooth 8 weeks ago, so she’s averaging one new tooth per week. Unfortunately, they’ve been coming in in groups, so she’s had a rough couple of weeks! But she’s a trooper and pushing her way through it with only mild crankiness.
She’s learned to go from crawling to sitting back to crawling again. Up until last week, she needed a hand down to prop herself up, but she’s got it down now.
Last weekend she figured out how to pull herself up onto her knees. We’d walk into her room and see her little eyes peeking over the railing at us, and then…
This weekend she learned to pull herself up onto her feet! So, naturally we dropped the crib mattress all the way down before the little goober could topple over the edge. Her mobile had to come down too, since she kept yanking it off and tangling up in it. What can I say, she’s very grabby.
She entertains herself by crawling after the dogs. All. The. Time. Rowdy is awesome and pretty much lets her do whatever to him, and likes to roll over just in case her hand might happen to rub his belly during their interactions (belly rubs are Rowdy’s ultimate happiness). Heidi is a little less tolerant because she’s got those long beard and eyebrow hairs which Leah loves to grab. But, Heidi does like to let Leah “chase” her (it’s a slow moving game), and even gets out her stuffed stingray so she can make it a game of keep-away!

This little girl sure is growing up fast! More pictures coming soon!

Monday, March 9, 2009

Look out, world!

Leah is on the loose!

And after a month long hiatus, I thought I'd pop in again and say hello. We've got some new things going on here-- Jared just built an awesome Purple Martin house, which I need to take pictures of and post for y'all to see. Our wildflower "garden" is in full bloom, our vegetables are starting to take off, Henny Hen is making a recovery (albeit a very slow one) from her run-in with the bobcat, and the weather is in full spring mode!

As for Leah, she's made some progress in the past month. She now has 4 crooked little teeth, sits up completely on her own, and most recently started crawling. She's been working the inchworm crawl for about 2 weeks now and has just figured out how to coordinate left-right and front-back. Go Leah!