Bloom!

Leah continues to be quite the little helper, this time we worked on planting flowers. We'd already made a couple of trips to Home Depot to gather our supplies to plant our flowers.  

Let me remind you of what Leah did last year when we planted flowers, any chance she would do that again this year??  Fat Chance!

On a side note: I may have remembered this picture and planned for her to wear the same shirt (a hand-me-down of Emily's) to plant flowers.  It also happened to be something that was practical. 

 She loved helping me pick out which ones to plant next and was surprisingly helpful when I asked her to hand me the pink (etc) flower. 

The flowers in the wagon in the background are for the back deck and most of the ones on the porch stayed on the front porch.  I planted 8 pots and still have two more hanging baskets to plant, it's a good thing I had help! 

 Leah also found some time to play in the chalk, she's a multi-tasker! 

This is also the sign of a good day's work or play. 

 Then came Leah's favorite part of planing flowers, watering them!

Now we're just waiting for our flowers to bloom and watering them lots in the meantime! 

We Remembered

I know I'm a little late with this, but I thought I'd post it anyway and wish you all a Happy (belated) Memorial Day!
We spent part of the day yesterday remembering those brave soldiers and their families that sacrificed so much for our freedom.

 On our way home from Tim's parents house, we drove through Jefferson Barracks Cemetery, and we were reminded of just how much we have to be thankful for. 

 I am continually in awe of this place, even more so than I was of Arlington National Cemetery, and I'm not quite sure why.  

Hope you took some time to remember too!

Phone Dump Friday

 Tim got Leah a new outdoor chair and she decided to have her snack in it yesterday. 

 More of my mother's day present from my mom! :) 

 Cookie baking phone photos. 

 This was Leah on our way home from Kansas, one tired traveler, but she did great!

One of the reasons I love summer!

Happy Friday!

Cookies

One of my goals this summer is to do more fun things with Leah.  I'm trying to follow a schedule I found on Pinterest, more on that later.  One of the days is What's Cooking Wednesday, so I decided we'd try out a recipe I found on Pinterest (even though it's Thursday).  I'm not even sure I'd call this a recipe, it's mainly sugar cookie dough rolled in sprinkles, could not be easier.  I figured it'd be the prefect recipe to do with Leah.

I apologize in advance for the enormous amount of pictures, I just couldn't help myself!

 Leah and I got matching aprons from my mom for Mother's Day.  I tried to get a picture of us both in the but it didn't workout, we'll have to try again when Tim's home. 

 Leah's job was rolling the cookie dough in the sprinkles and she kept telling me "mo, mo".  I was too busy taking pictures and I guess I didn't keep up with her rolling. 

 Cheese!

 Towards the end she decided to taste some sprinkles. 

 And then she decided to taste a cookie. 

 Don't worry she didn't eat too much, but I did have to pry it out of her hand. 

 Helping me clean up, she's very into using a rag to clean things. 

 Watching the cookies bake. 

  The best part, eating one! 

I'm definitely adding this to our list of things to do again, it's easy enough for a toddler to do and the product is good.  Who doesn't love sugar cookies and sprinkles just make everything better.  I'll be cleaning up sprinkles in the kitchen for weeks, but it was worth it! 

Videos

I've been meaning to post these videos for quite sometime!  Now that I'm on a blogging roll, I figured I'd go ahead and post them.  This is also the first time I've uploaded a video to youtube, so hopefully it works!
Also, please ignore my voice in the videos, I hate the way I sound!

We're working on her colors, counting and responding to the question, "What's your name?"  

She's getting better and worse at putting her own clothes on.  Better, because she is starting to understand how to do it a little bit better and worse, because now she doesn't like me to help her- at all!

I feel like I could video Leah all the time, it seems like she's always doing something that makes me laugh, but I loved this one, the sunglasses, the phone, and "ho?"

And one from the splash park, she's not the one screaming, just running around.  

Enjoy! 

Basement Updates

I just realized I'd started this post and never actually posted it, so here you go!
One of our recent home improvement projects was to paint our basement.
Here is what our basement looked liked in October 2010, before we had really moved in.  We had yet to hang anything on the walls and were still missing some stuff.

 Here is our new and improved basement.  After much debating and two or three trips to Home Depot, we settled on a grey paint color.  I must admit that my first impression of the color was that it looked like a prison, Tim decided he liked it and we kept painting.   I'm glad we stuck with his choice, it looks really nice now.

 The grey paint takes away the yellowish tone from the room and makes it look so much cleaner.  We also got rid of the shades over the sliding door and added a new curtain.

 The grey paint goes perfect with the Cardinal memorabilia.

Our other basement project was Leah's playroom.  This room used to house my sewing machine and craft supplies.  The space would have been perfect as a craft space, but I never really took the time to organize it and it works better as a playroom anyway. 

Leah's chalkboard wall, I love the look of chalkboards and I love this one in her playroom.  I debated about making it a magnetic/ chalkboard wall, but I'm glad I went with just chalkboard. 

Leah's growth ruler made by Papa Jim and Tim

Her magnetic board and letters. 

I'm still looking for something to put on the walls, I've debated over what type of "theme" I want to have in there, maybe I'll finally do something over the summer.