Backtracking

In June,  Leah and I spent a week at my parent's house in Kansas.  In an effort to get caught up on our summer, I figured I'd post these pictures.

 While we were there we got to take in one of Natalie's T-Ball games.  I love kids playing sports, especially at Natalie's age.  I took these pictures right after she waved to me from the field.  

 Leah and Emily traded hats. 

 Leah in Emily's hat, 

 Emily in Leah's hat. 

 Since we were there before it got super hot, we spent some time outside, pushing the baby stroller.  We've since purchased our own baby stroller and I think it was the best $10 I've spent all summer! 

 We also checked out Papa Greg's horses. 

And played in the sand. 

I don't have pictures but things we also did:

- Leah and I met my friend Allison's baby Carson.

- Leah learned her version of winking

- Leah and I traveled to Dorrance and spent some time with Mary Kay, Susan, Grandma, and Hallie and Brooklyn. 

A Bear Hunt

With the hot weather, Leah and I have been trying to find things to do inside. It's been a little bit of a challenge for me trying to keep Leah occupied, so today I decided to put on my teacher hat and get to work. (I feel I wear this hat a lot, today I just took it to a new level.)



We started out reading the book "We're Going on a Bear Hunt". They read this book last week at the story time we go to and I decided to pick up a copy while we were there. It's such a fun book this lots of actions you can do with the book, great for her age. After reading the book we went on an actual bear hunt, meaning I hid one of her stuffed bears around the house and then we pretended to go looking for it, she loved it! After our bear hunt, we had a snack of Teddy Grahams or bears as Leah calls them. Then after our snack we made our own bear out of construction paper.



Our supplies












This was definitely a team project, Leah did the glueing with the glue stick and I did the placing.
This "Bear Hunt" kept us busy for the afternoon and we enjoyed ourselves.
The hot weather doesn't look like its going anywhere, so I guess I better get going on some more activities!

What We've Been Up To

Leah and I have been trying to keep ourselves busy and cool, here is a little bit of what we've been up to, in phone pictures. 

 Pony tailin' 

It didn't stay in long, but I was quick enough to get a picture. 

 Park playin'

 Cookie bakin'

 Corn eatin'

 Car paintin'

 Chicken eatin'

 Project finishin'

 Stackin'

 Sleepin'

 Pig-tailin'

 Readin'

And hidin'

Now that you're all caught up, I promise to be back soon with a post of real substance, until then, enjoy the pictures!

Letters to Leah (20 Months)

Happy 20 Month Birthday, Leah!
Every month I keep telling myself that I need to write a post about Leah and it always slips my mind.
- You weigh 26ish pounds
- You wear some 18 and 24 month clothes and even some 2T things.  Most of the 18 month dresses are too short, you're tall.  You wear a size 5 shoes.
- You're talking up a storm these days and repeat just about anything we say, including some things we don't want you to repeat. :)
- You can run, jump, and kick a ball.  Just today we started working on marching and you're pretty good at it too. You also do somersaults and love to climb. At the park you will climb up to the slide and go down all by yourself, you don't have any fear when it comes to climbing.
- You tend to be shy around new people and it takes you a while to warm up, especially to men.
- You still love Pursley, but have also taken a likening to a stuffed Winnie the Pooh
- You still sleep from 7:30pm to 7:00 am and take a 2-3 hour nap.
- You know all your animal sounds and now say the name of the animal when you see it instead of just the sound.
- We're working on learning your ABCs and with my help you can sing the song, you like to say the G,P,V, Z and a few other random letters here and there.
- You say please, thank you, and even excuse me occasionally.
- You know most of your colors, although for a while everything was purple (I can't complain with that color choice!)
- Just this week you put on your own shorts, they were on backwards, but I didn't have the heart to change them because you were so proud you put them on yourself. You are very interested in the potty and all that it entails.
- You like to play in your kitchen and bring people "coffee" to drink and pizza to eat.
- You like to watch Elmo and more recently Dora.
- You know a circle and heart and we're working on the other shapes.
- When you see a Powercat you say "Go Cats!" and when you see a Cardinal logo, you say "Go Cards!"
I feel like you learn something new everyday and we can't wait to watch you grow and learn even more!

Memorial Day Weekend

After our day of touring St. Louis, Tim and I headed to his parent's house to spend the weekend.
While we were there his aunt dug out this old play set.  With a little power-washing, it was like new and Leah loved playing with it.

 We always let Daisy try things out first, this was no exception. 

 We also spent some time relaxing in the shade while we played. 

 Playing with Mawmaw and Papa Jim

 Pretending to take a nap

 When Leah got really brave and decided to try out the slide and various sliding positions. 

 Trying on Mawmaw's glasses, I think she looks quite studious. 

More napping with Dad.

We had quite the weekend of playing, rest and relaxation.  

St. Louis Tourists

Last Saturday, Robyn took Leah to her house for the day, so Tim and I decided to check out some St. Louis sights.  One of the things on our St. Louis To-Do list was to tour Busch Stadium.  Tim had looked for tickets earlier in the week and they were all sold out, but Friday after the game we looked again and there were some available for Saturday at noon, so we took them.

 The first place we headed was down on the field and into the dugout.  The tour guides were very strict about keeping us off the grass.  

 Photos inside the dugout.  

Apparently to prove we were actually in the Cardinals home dugout, we were supposed to take a picture by the birds on the bat, guess these will have to do.  

 Tim with the sign behind home plate.  

I wish I would have gotten some pictures of/ with home plate, maybe next time. 

 This was our tour-guide, Tim said he was on some MLB game show so I thought I needed a picture, here he is showing us the different Cardinal logos.  This part is under the stadium and is where the opposing teams walk through to get to their locker rooms, we saw three Phillies players walk through while we were here.  

 This is the view Mike Shannon, the Cardinals radio broadcaster, has of the game. 

 This is his "chair", an exercise ball. 

 You may recognize the arches from here, I decided to stop and take a picture just for fun. 

 One of the parts of the stadium you can sit in is called the "Champions Club", four of St. Louis' 11 World Series trophies are on display in there. 

 To finish off our tour, we decided to take some pictures in front of Stan "The Man" Musial's statue.  

 Overall, we enjoyed the tour, it was nice to be at the ballpark when there aren't so  many people around.  One part of the park we didn't get to see where the player locker rooms, because there was a game that day, they didn't show it.  

Anyone care to go back with us?

 After the tour, we headed over to Fitz's.  Fitz's is famous for their root beer and floats.  You can even see them bottle the stuff right in the restaurant.  Tim and I both had hamburgers that were good, but we were too full to try a float, we'll add that to the do again list, too.  

We finished off the night with a beautiful night of baseball, well at least the night was beautiful, the baseball, not so much.