Little Chicks!

We came home from our trip to find that some of our chicks had hatched. (As of this writing, 36 out of 42 incubated eggs have hatched.) We had Leah practicing "gentle". She wanted to grab the chicks, but was appeased with being able to poke them (gently, of course!).

Look at that smile! She's a farm girl, for sure. :)

Off to Lufkin we go...

This weekend, the three of us traveled up to Lufkin to go to a friend's wedding. On the way up, we stopped for a nice quiet lunch in the Sam Houston National Forest, where Leah ate her weight in home grown tomatoes. It was funny at the time. It was gross much later.


During the wedding, childcare was provided for children under the age of 3. So we dropped off an extremely tired child with strangers who seemed to be somewhat overwhelmed with the number of small children they were watching. Leah stared at us, a bit confused, as we left the room. She must've cried most of the time, as her eyes were quite red-rimmed and watery when we picked her up. This picture was taken after the wedding ceremony when we managed to eek a slight smile out of her.

The wedding was great, but our time at the reception was short-lived. It's tough to have fun when you have an extremely tired, cranky baby who is just out of her element. We did get some smiles out of her though and Leah proved that she can be quite the charmer when she wants to, as displayed by the video below where she's showing off her new "sweet girl" moves. Clap, tilt head to the side, and smile. It is SO. CUTE. And she knows it.

Once back in the hotel room, Leah got her second wind. I think she was just pleased to not have us holding her, trying to make her smile, etc. She spent plenty of time exploring the room and playing her new game: stand up, clap, fall down, laugh. Repeat.

Ready, set, GO!

We had family photos done about a week and a half ago, thanks to our friend Laurie who gave us the session as a baby shower gift. The pictures above are just a little peek at the many shots she took of us. If you'd like to see the entire session, just follow these simple steps:

1.) Go to http://www.laurieheathstudio.com/

2.) Click on portraits

3.) Click on client proofing

4.) Type in judyfamily as the password

5.) Enjoy!

Here's the catch: You can only view these pictures for 10 days, so if you're looking at this past the 23rd, then you're too late!

Jared and I are pretty critical of ourselves in those photos, but let's face it-- the session was about Leah, not us. :) And Laurie always does an amazing job! We always look forward to seeing how she can turn ordinary stuff into such beautiful pictures. Although, Leah is a pretty cute subject, if I do say so myself. Oh, AND, (I'm going to toot my own horn here, so bear with me), I made little Leah's watermelon dress... how about that! :)

I often see pictures of Leah's cousins while they are sleeping and think, "How do they do that?" Leah can be a light sleeper, and so it's almost unfathomable to click a camera in her room while she's trying to catch some Zzzz's. But, I was able to sneak these two photos while she was napping a few weeks ago. And no remarks on her lack of chubbiness, thank you. We feed her as much as we possibly can, but she just keeps getting longer instead of fatter. (As displayed by her 9 month appointment where she weighed in at 14lbs and 10 oz, and was 26.5" long-- 5th % for weight and 25% for height.)

She looks all sorts of long, doesn't she?

Poor kid has Daddy's rib cage...

And this picture's just cute... because she's got pigtails, of course!

The Fam comes to town, part II

This is as close as Leah could get to Uncle Jas. I think she touched his shoe.

Lovin' on Granmom.

One of the "requirements" of the visit was to see alligators, so we took everyone to Brazos Bend State Park and, well, saw some alligators. And then us ladies hunt out in the grass while the men tended to the grill.

Oh, look at the smile on Jared's face! He's thrilled to be putting all of his new-fangled gadgets on his favorite gun! (Ok, so it's my favorite too. Shh!! Don't tell!)

The Fam comes to town!

Soooo, a month ago (ack! Did it really take me that long to post this?) we had some family come to town. Jared's parents and his brother Jason and sister-in-law Erica came to visit. They were an incredibly easy group of visitors to host and we had an awesome time! We're glad we got to spend some time with everyone and the week went by extremely quickly, as always.

Leah and Grandad doing an early morning reading of That's Not My Puppy. A classic. Leah obviously knows who her puppies are. In fact, she's even started saying dog... or maybe it's duck... or maybe it's just da. :)

We did the typical crawfish boil so Jas and Erica could experience the deliciousness of the "mud bugs". (And no, Jared's mom did not drink all these beers. She is not a lush.)

We had lots of fun playing croquet in the yard and would have played some more but we got a bit rained out and the court (field?) got flooded.

Leah likes to show her enthusiam during bath time. She's gotten to the point where she can be anywhere in the house and when she hears the tub start to fill, she will quickly crawl over and try to climb in. (Notice all the "waves" in the photo from her splashing.) On another water-related note, Leah has discovered the pet water bowl, which leads to a wet baby, wet floor, and wet kitties who are trying to eat next to the bowl. On a cat-related note, Leah has also discovered cat food, which we are constantly fishing out of her mouth. On a fishing-out-of-her-mouth-related note, she has discovered the house plants, which she also tries to eat, so they have been relocated to higher grounds. Ok, I'm done now.