Faces

Just a few (of the many) faces of Leah...

In an effort to take more pictures with my real camera, I broke it out the other day before naptime and took a few pictures of Leah.  I was trying to get her to smile and say cheese, it didn't work so well...

She's Ready {Football Edition}

Leah's ready for KSU football, are you??

With K-State beginning their football season this weekend, Leah had to try on her cheerleader uniform and while she was in it I decided to get some pictures.  I don't think this collage turned out as good as the last one, but I was in kind of a hurry and she's getting harder to photograph these days.  I'm so excited for football season to begin, it has to mean fall weather is right around the corner, right??

Bring on the Cats!!

Visitors Go Visiting

My parents were here over the weekend and we decided to take them on a tour of the dry Illinois countryside and drove them up to Tim's parent's house.  I think my dad really just wanted to compare the Kansas corn and crops with the Illinois corn and crops.

 Leah, Robyn and I enjoyed a little pool time.  The water temperature was fine, but once you got out it was cool. (never thought I'd say that after the hot summer we've had!)

 Tim spent much of his time doing this, playing with our new video camera.  We finally broke down and bought one, we figured Leah's doing something new and fun everyday that we might want to have it on tape for someday.  Stay tuned for more videos.  

 After swimming and supper, we played outside in the beautiful 80ish degree weather.  

 Everyone had a turn playing on the little play park.  Papa Greg even pretended to get stuck. 

 Thanks for the hospitality Jim and Robyn!

 Grandma Debbie and Papa Greg headed home this morning.  We were so thankful they were able to come for a visit and we're looking forward to seeing them in Kansas in September.  

Zoo Day

My parents are in town this weekend and since the weather is so nice, we decided to hit up the zoo (along with the rest of the city of St. Louis.) We opted to avoid some of the crowds and ride the train and the carousel. I was a little disappointed in the train because we couldn't see very many animals from it, but it was nice to ride for a while and not have to fight the crowds.
Leah enjoyed the carousel the most and the trip to the zoo was worth is just for that.

 The first place we headed was the elephants, we were hoping to see the baby elephant, Kenzie like last time, but we only saw this one and one other one.

 Grandma Debbie (or GaDebbie, as Leah calls her) and Leah on the train

 Leah's first ride on the carousel.

This is when she figured out, "Hey, this is kinda fun!"

Leah, Papa Greg, and Grandma Debbie on the second ride.
We also ended up seeing the gorillas, monkeys, bears, and hippos. Next time we'll have to hit up the rest.
I'm so thankful for this cooler weather and I hope it stays around for awhile, I'd be okay with an early fall.

Wordless Wednesday

In an effort to stay more on top of my blog updating, stealing this idea from several other bloggers.

Here is Leah hiding from Tim before he walked in the door from work. I was surprised how long she sat there, but once he opened the door her gig was up.

Letters to Leah {22 months}

Dear Leah,
I can't believe you'll be 2 in just two short months, where did the time go?!?

I feel like you're changing so much, it's hard to keep up with all the new things.
Here are a few:
- You still sleep from 7:30 am to 7:30 pm and take a 2-3 hour nap.
- You're a good eater.  When we ask you what you want for dinner, your standard response is "chicken".  You also think anything that comes on a hamburger bun is a hamburger.
- You like to pretend you're a snake and make the "sssss" sound to see my scared reaction.
- You also say "Hey ____!" repeatedly.  Hey Mommy!  Hey Mommy! or Hey Daddy!  Hey Daddy!
- One of your new favorite phrases is "No way, Jose!" Tonight I asked you if you were ready to put your pjs on and you replied "No Way, Jose!"  I just had to laugh!
- You love to read and can even "read" some of your books on your own.
- You can sing your ABC or the ABCD's like you call them.  You also sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and recently "Happy Birthday".  You like me to sing to you and often refer to the song by the entire first line, for example "Rock-a-bye Baby" is "Rock-a-bye baby treetop".
- You love for me to sing "You are My Sunshine" before bed and ask for "sunshine" every night.  We do a lot of singing!
- Every time we get in the car you ask for your music and your favorite song is "5 Little Monkeys Jumpin' on the Bed" or "Monkey Bed" to you.
- You've started playing more by yourself, which is so nice for me to be able to do a few, quick, little things. One of your new favorite things to do is to line your toys up, you usually line up your bath squirters (Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, penguin, whale, etc.)
- We've started playing a match game with the cards face-up and you can consistently get 3-5 matches on your own.  You also like to line these cards up and can sometimes be quite particular if the cards don't cooperate.
- You like to watch "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" or "Mickey Mouse C-House" to you, and Dora.   You think every movie is the Winnie-the-Pooh movie, we have watched Winnie-the-Pooh quite a few times.
- I think you're starting to figure out our "real names".  I yelled "Hey Tim" down the stairs and now you yell "Hey Pim" down the stairs too.
- You don't like having your hands dirty.  You often ask for a napkin at dinner time because your hands get dirty.  We tried finger painting and it ended with you in tears because your hands were dirty, we'll keep trying, hopefully you'll learn messy hands can be fun!

Life with you is never dull!  We love you more and more each day and I can't wait to see what you learn next!

 Bringing me pizza from your kitchen. 

 Playing with the match game cards.  I should add that I had nothing to do with the line-up. 

I asked Leah to sit in her chair with Eeyore and this was her pose, nice! Not exactly what I had in mind. 

County Fair

With the hot weather and our vacation, Tim and I were a little disappointed that we weren't going to be able to go to the fair at least one night.  Thanks to thunderstorms in NYC and a cancelled flight, (not good for the vacation, but okay for the fair) we ended up being able to make it to the fair.
We met Robyn, Sally and Trent for some fair food and some animals.

 One thing little boys love about the fair, tractors free to climb on!

 Leah found a balloon and loved it.  This was balloon #1 of 2 and neither of them lasted very long. 

 Checking out the animals. 

 These miniature goats were my favorite. 

4th of July

Annual tradition for the 4th of July is to go to Tim's parent's house and set off fireworks.  Tim and his dad spend hours preparing for the fireworks show, this usually includes a reviewing the previous years' score sheet, shopping for the fireworks, deciding on the order to shoot them off, creating a scoring sheet, preparing a launch site, and finally shooting them off.  The fireworks show almost didn't happen because of the hot, dry conditions and the fact that several cities cancelled their shows, but they made sure they took safety precautions and on went the show.  I did take some pictures of the actual show, but I'll spare you those, they didn't turn out the best, and I'm sure you've all seen fireworks.
I did take the opportunity to take a family picture and a few pictures of Leah in her 4th outfit.  The weekend also included relaxing, swimming, and a family bbq complete with homemade ice cream.

 Not the best, but it works. 

 It was so hot and humid that I wished I would have picked something a little cooler for Leah to wear, but I couldn't resist this cute jean dress. 

 Leah and Papa Jim tested out the warm water. 

I love this picture because of Diana and Trent laughing in the background.  They were racing a remote controlled boat around the pool.  

Summer Fun! {Randoms}

Just a few random pictures from earlier this summer.

 Leah's quite the little helper and loves to help Tim feed the birds.  Every time we walk by the bird food in the garage, she comments on it. 

 We found a new park in Waterloo and really enjoyed it.  It might be our new go-to park.  It has the perfect sized equipment for Leah and it's shaded, win-win! 

 The best $10 I've spent all summer was buying Leah a doll stroller.  I wish I could have captured her face when do got home from Target and got the stroller out, it was priceless.  Even after her nap, she remembered her stroller and was so excited to play with it. 

 Pursley got the first ride, are you surprised? 

Sometimes Leah thinks it's for her.