Leah's Many Faces

The first picture was taken after Leah's nap. We tried to capture her tuft of hair on the side of her head. She frequently makes this face when she's excited about something or wanting to stick something in her mouth. One friend of ours says that she usually has this surprised look on her face.

The next one is the blank look that she gives us when she's bored if we're trying to take her picture and she just stares at the camera. You can also see the bright Leah smile has been permanently moved to our side bar so you may see it every time you view our blog.

I took the last picture while I was doing laundry on the bed. I wanted to keep her entertained so I was throwing the socks at her. I taught her how to fold them but all she wanted to do was eat them.

The Picture Collage

This is a picture collage from my daily activities with Leah. I didn't want to do a separate post about each one so I'll give a brief summary for each photo.

1. The Cookie Reach: Caught in the Act - this one happened during bath time one night. We had made some cookies that day and as we were changing Leah and getting her ready for bed, she was reaching over for the cookies. This is another clue that she must be raiding our food supply when we're not looking.

2. The Bundle - this is Leah's outfit when we go out in the 14 degree weather. She stays nice and cozy and can hardly move her arms.



3. The Snuggle - one morning Logan woke up with Leah at 7:30 a.m. and had to leave for school so he brought her to me. I wasn't done sleeping so we snuggled under the covers until she fell asleep. Logan snapped the picture before he left.


4. Current Events - we were reading the newspaper together one afternoon and as you can see, Leah has a different reading style than I do. She likes to understand the content so thoroughly that she tastes the paper.

5. Mismatched - Some days I don't have much time to get ready so I hurry as fast as I can. This day I must have hurried too much because I didn't even notice until that evening that I put on two different earrings.

Our idea of date night

Logan teases me that I spend all my time blogging. He pictures me at home all day while he's at school sitting by the computer. This is partly true. The little spare time that I do manage to fit in my day between caring for and feeding Leah, doing the dishes, running errands and cleaning around the house is spent on the computer. Leah has become more active and requires more attention now so any time she naps I enjoy the quiet time to myself.

Most of our blog covers Leah and her milestones so I'm attempting to blog about myself without including my life as a mother. Logan and I recently joined Blockbuster online where you pay a monthly fee and movies will be shipped to your home. Better yet, once you have watched one movie you can take it into the store and get a free movie. With a baby, bad parking around our apartment and the freezing cold weather, this is the perfect solution to date night. We can watch all the movies that we never got to see in the comfort of our own home. And we don't have to choose just one movie to splurge on.

Finding her voice

During the last four and a half months, Leah has grown a lot. She moved up her clothing size to nine months. She now sits up with little support and wants to push up and stand. She also likes to hear herself talk, especially to get her parents' attention. She tries to see how long she can go before her voice gets tired. Here she is during the Christmas break. (We apologize that the video is turned to the side. We haven't figured out how to change it yet, so we just posted it anyway.)

Major sleep breakthroughs

The past few days and nights we have been trying to get Leah on a schedule of less naps so she wouldn't wake up every three hours at night. She had two major breakthroughs the last two nights where she slept for seven hours straight, woke up to eat and then went back to sleep until 8:00 a.m. We (mostly me because I'm the one getting up with her at night) were extremely excited that she is getting the hang of things. She still has a hard time going right to sleep at night, but once she is out she can sleep for awhile.

We hope this pattern will continue in the future. Everyone, cross your fingers for us.

She must be raiding the fridge when we’re not looking

Leah had her four-month checkup this past Friday and ranked in the highest percentile in weight (or above it). This was not surprising to us since we haven’t been able to carry her for very long. We had weighed her a couple of weeks ago on our unreliable bathroom scale and concluded she weighed about 16 pounds. However, we were surprised to find out that she weighs nearly 18 pounds and is 25 inches long (and only 75 percentile in height). When the doctor saw her he said, “Yeah, she’s a pudge.” But at least she’s not concerned with body image.

She has changed so much from that tiny newborn we took home from the hospital. She sits up with little assistance and is always looking for an opportunity to balance her weight in the standing position. We try to compare her with the other babies in our ward who were born around the same time, but she’s just plain bigger. I hold some of the other ones and they seem so small and flimsy.

When my brother held her over Thanksgiving, he called her a hoss. So this makes us think that she is eating something else besides milk. Maybe she sleepwalks over to the fridge or has food stashed under her crib. She looks innocent in the picture, but how else can she be this chubby? Well, lucky for her, babies are allowed to be extra chubby.

The Beard Post

What you see here is the third annual Christmas Beard. I have to grow it out once a year just for fun, and the holidays are a perfect time for it because it is getting cold and I have little reason to look professional while on vacation. I love it because it's something different, despite what it does to my looks and my kisses. Most people tell me I look older with a beard, but here's your chance to tell me what you think. Leave a comment telling me which of the beard configurations you like most: full, chin strap, up-and-over, moustache or none. Blow the pictures up so you get a real good look. And include your name in the comment if you have a weird blogger ID like tagteam03 or something. I'll keep track and include the tally in a later post.

Those scary missionaries

I've already told this story to a friend, but I thought it was funny enough to share to everyone.

My calling since we moved here has been a ward missionary. Logan and I have been out with the missionaries twice and had them over for dinner a few times. This week we were asked to join them to teach a family. When we picked the missionaries up, they sat in the back seat with Leah. I guess she is starting to recognize faces and voices because she cried the whole time until we got to the appointment. Thankfully we were just going down the street so she didn't cried that long. We had to calm her down a little bit when we got inside.

Afterwards, Logan had to sit in the backseat with her so she wouldn't be too scared of them on the ride back. We'll have to expose her to more male voices in the future so she will not be so freaked out next time. Those scary missionaries!

First time rolling over

Leah just learned the past few days how to roll from her stomach to her back. She will now roll over almost immediately but in the same direction each time. I have been working with her to roll over, and now that she can do it we're working on rolling the other direction.

Video of the rollover will soon be available on this post. Logan's new computer just arrived today, and he will be downloading the videos from our camcorder to the computer.

She also giggled again last night but by the time Logan got the video camera, she stopped. I guess she never performs exactly when we're ready.

Four months old and cuter than ever

Now that Leah is four months old, she is so much more interactive. She makes sounds like she's talking to someone, which happens more frequently in the mornings when she is the happiest or when she wants to be picked up. She also watches both of us when we are talking on the phone and smiles big like she thinks we are talking to her.

In the top pictures she's wearing a hat that a friend gave us and it's a little big on her. When I put her fleece cowboy boots on, Logan thought she looked like a cowgirl.

Below are two pictures of Leah in outfits that both of her grandmas gave her for Christmas. We wanted to show them how cute she looks in those outfits.

Two years and counting...

Logan and I celebrated our two-year anniversary over the Christmas break in Texas. We stayed at a bed and breakfast in Arlington a couple of days before our actual anniversary. Then on the day, we spent time bowling, eating out at the Outback Steakhouse and watching a movie with my family and almost forgot that it was the day of our anniversary. As soon as we remembered we had to call Logan's brother and sister-in-law, who share their anniversary with us as well. We had a great time taking pictures in front of the Christmas lights.

Christmas Mega-Vacation

We had so much fun during our Christmas break that it's hard to include all of our fun activities. We did plenty of relaxing, including shopping, going to movies at the theater and watching them at home, putting together puzzles, and plenty of holiday eating. Each of our families had plenty of Christmas goodies that we couldn't resist.

The most enjoyable thing we did, however, was watch our families play with Leah. She was the center of attention most of the time, and now she won't let me put her down. Everyone loved how happy and smiley she was during our trip. Even though she saw plenty of new faces, she still giggled a little and put on a show. We definitely brought home too many gifts for her that barely made it in our suitcases.

Overall we couldn't ask for a better traveler. She slept a lot on our three flights and even slept during several movies at the theater. She also grew so much in those three weeks -- she moved up her clothing size to 6-9 months outfits. She now babbles like she's having a conversation, and she can sit up with little assistance. Another change is she now reaches for toys and wants to put everything in her mouth. We all had fun during the Christmas break, but needed another day or two to recover from our vacation.

We have posted several pictures on our photo page and will be adding more soon.

Leah's favorite Christmas present

Leah couldn't manage to open any Christmas presents this year. In fact, she didn't even want to play with any of them, except this little bow. She played with it for a few days until Grandma threw it away because it was getting too grungy. Now we can't figure out what to do with her rattles...