Happy 1st Birthday Leah!

Leah turned 1 on 2/22/11 and we had her party yesterday.

On her birthday






At her party on Saturday


with her friend, Emerson (he is 2+ months younger than her)


eating snacks


the cake that my talented friend Lauren made


What am I supposed to do with this?


hmmmmm


that looks like it might taste good


mmmm it does!


Leah loved being surrounded by all the kids! And they loved watching her eat her cake! She picked off those little pink balls one by one around the top edge of the cake.


Then she started using her thumb to scrape the icing off the back.


She didn't put much of a dent in it. She is by far my neatest eater.

Opening Presents

money!!


She loved this little baby doll. We have a few around here that she loves to hug and pat, and now she has one that is her very own! She loves to look at it and smile and then hold it tight and give it kisses. Sweetest.thing.ever.


Pulling the first string on the pinata. It only took 4 strings to open and I thought the rest of the kids might be upset that they didn't get a turn, but once all that candy is falling, they forget all about it!

Leah had a great first birthday! It's really so hard to believe that her infancy is gone! She is toddling all around and climbing and playing right along with her big brother and sisters. Erica keeps telling me, "but, she doesn't look like she's 1!" lol I just love my little peanut!


At 12 months, Leah:
nurses 4-5 times a day
eats 3 meals and 1-2 snacks consisting of mostly table food
drinks milk and water from a sippy cup (YAY!!!)
sleeps 12ish hours straight at night
takes one 2ish hour afternoon nap
wears size 9 mos clothes
wears size 3 shoes
wears size 3 diapers
has 6 teeth
takes 5-6 steps in a row before falling
loves patting her baby dolls
thinks it's funny to find a paci and suck on it (I think she knows I always wanted her take one lol)
is sporting the little sprout hairdo on top of her head

Spring Bucket List

Spring is almost here! We are having some warmer days and the weather lately has been just beautiful. I was thinking about how I made a Summer Bucket List last year and failed miserably at getting things checked off of it.

go to the Children's Museum
go to Sea World
have a water balloon fight
go to a Free Summer Movie half-check*
join a summer reading program check
go on a picnic
make wall art for the kids' rooms

Um, yeah. I did *buy* some wall art for the kids' rooms. Does that count? Maybe. Perhaps my Summer list was just too ambitious. I did have a small infant at the time afterall. So here is my new Spring Bucket List. Hopefully I will be able to cross more off before summer gets here.

Take pictures in the bluebonnets
Send the kids out to play in the backyard more than once a week (if the weather allows)
Take the kids to the park (this is something I used to do with Natalie and Erica all the time, but just get worn out at the thought of taking all 4)
Go to the Children's Museum
Go to the Zoo

Ok, I think that's it for now. I don't want to get over ambitious again. We'll see if I can actually keep up with this one!

School days

We've been busy "doing school" lately. Chugging right along through the school year. I've started taking Natalie to the library every Friday after we drop off Erica and Graham at KDO (Kid's Day Out). She was sooooo excited when she got her very own library card. She's been checking out around 6 chapter books each week and reading them all by the time we go back the next Friday. I'm so glad she loves to read so much. Erica has started Hooked on Phonics and doing really well. She can read some short CVC words by sounding them out and I'm so proud of her. She doesn't technically start Kindergarten until the fall (if you go by the public school cut-off).

Natalie doing her Language Arts workbook.


Erica doing a lacing activity.


Leah playing with some blocks on the schoolroom floor.


And doing her latest cute thing - the sideways tongue.

Snow Day!

I know that any of you reading that live up north are going to think this is totally lame, but for us southerners, ANY snow is a big deal!



We woke up to our version of a Winter Wonderland and the kids had such a good time playing in it.







Well, except for Leah... and Graham.



Anytime Leah was outside she just kind of moaned and tried to bury her face in your arms. So we kept her inside most of the time. Poor Graham just didn't know what to think of the snow. He saw his sisters and the other kids on the block having a great time, but all he could feel was the bitter cold on his hands and face.



He was wearing 2 pairs of footy pajamas, so to fit shoes on his feet, he had to wear Erica's. I don't think he was thrilled about that. He'd finally had enough and went and stood by the front door til someone let him back inside.





He got a pair of sunglasses and thought he'd try to brave the cold once again! lol



Then when he'd had enough of his hands being cold, we put his sisters' (mismatched) mittens on him because he doesn't have his own. Poor little guy. He didn't seem to enjoy himself at all. Then after we came in to warm up a bit, he kept pointing outside saying "more snow! more snow!" haha. Once we went back out, he seemed to have a better time. Once it all melted this afternoon he sulked around the house for awhile saying "my snow... oh no... my snow!" haha. He just couldn't win.

You can tell our girls don't know what to do with snow.



They finally got the hang of it.





A bunch of our neighbors had their sleds out, so the girls got to "sled" (if you can call it that on less than an inch of snow) a few times.