To My 3-Year-old on Her Birthday

Leah,

I can't believe how big you're getting and how smart! Could it really be three whole years ago that you were so tiny you looked swallowed up in everything you wore? Now you're running around, jumping up and down, talking in complete sentences, singing your ABC's, "reading" your books, making up your own songs, and using the potty like a big girl (sometimes)!

Last year on your birthday you were all about Elmo and Sesame Street, now you are completely a princess! You love princesses and all things related. I love how you get so excited about wearing a "pretty dress" every Sunday to church, and how you can't wait to go show Daddy you're a "princess", and you go up to everyone at church and hold out your dress for them to see. I love how you twirl around and beg Daddy or me to dance with you when you put on a pretty dress (I'm reminded every time I turn you down that you're not going to want to do that for long!). You get so excited about any book, toy, picture, or clothing item with a Princess on it. The only books we can ever get from the library are either Princess books or Dora (I think you must consider Dora one of the Princesses). You truly are our little princess.

And yet you're not afraid to get into the dirt, either. You love going to the "zoo-meum" (the Science Museum), and you're not afraid to touch the bugs, turtles, or snakes they have. You love to dig in the dirt in the yard or in the sandbox. You don't seem at all worried you will get dirty or mess up your clothes. Some of your other favorite things to do are go to the mall play area, any store with toys, go to the library, and watch cartoons on PBS (I like that you can be entertained by TV and seem to learn a lot from those cartoons, although sometimes I wish we didn't watch so much!). You love to listen to music and dance in your room. You love to play dress up and pack things into your purses. You always keep a stack of books on your bed, and they come with you downstairs in the morning and in the car when we go anywhere (along with your trusty blanket, Elmo, and stuffed cat).

Leah, you have such a fun sense of humor. I love your giggles, especially the contagious ones that make your brother and everyone else giggle, too. And you always seem to "get it" when I make a joke about something. Besides that, you are such an inquisitive little girl! Though you haven't quite gotten to the "why" stage, you ask anything and everything else! "What's she's name?" "What he's doing?" "What're you eating?" "What that is?" All day long you want to know what things are and how they work. I love how you love to read and love to learn.

You are definately your Daddy's girl. When he's home, you want to be wherever he is. You always want him to hold you or play with you or dance with you. Lucky for me, though, I still get you when he's at work! I'm so glad you still love to snuggle and give hugs and kisses. I love it when you come to me with your blanket and say "I want to hold you." It reminds me you're still my little girl.

Though you hate when Andrew is playing with toys you want, we can tell that you love your little brother, and it melts me everytime I see you reading a book to him, singing him a song, holding his hand in the car or the stroller, getting him his cup or paci, or just teaching him something you know. You're always getting into mischief together, and my prayer is that the two of you will be so close when you grow out of the "all the toys are mine" stage!

You already have such a heart for things of the Lord. You always remind us to pray before we eat, and have just recently started praying on your own out loud. You love to sing hymns we've taught you and totally adore going to church (although that might be more because your friends are there, but at least that means you have good friends). I can't wait for the day you accept Him as your Savior. Thank you for keeping me laughing and keeping me on my feet all the time-- I'm looking forward to watching you grow.

Love, Your Mommy

My Favorite Pics of Leah's 2nd Year:

Leah's 3-Year-Old Princess Party

We celebrated Leah's 3rd birthday with an intimate, laid-back little party at home yesterday, just our little family. Amidst the move and all that's going on lately, it was a great & much-needed family day!

The day started with cinnamon rolls for breakfast before church. (Of course Leah is already donning her princess nightgown and sippy cup.)

She is a cheeser for the camera! Anytime we told her we wanted to take her picture, she would say "Cheese!!" really loudly with a huge grin. Here she is after lunch-- her choice: hot dogs with macaroni & cheese.




Then Daddy took Leah for a special date to the "new" mall. (It's actually not new at all, but it's one I took her to for the first time the other day & they have a much better play area than the one we normally go to, plus, they got to ride a little train!) While they were gone, I decorated the house for a princess party.

She looked so grown up when they got back, with her little purse, the crown & tutu (which she did, in fact, wear all afternoon, even at the mall), and the smoothie Daddy had gotten her.

We had to open presents first. And it was a whirlwind race to the finish. She ripped each one, exclaimed over what it was, then moved on to the next. (She did play with each one individually later, though-- she just had to get through the wrapping paper.)

Well, okay, she did stop a second to look through the book of Pretty Princess puzzles.

Then it was time for cupcakes! She was not as intimidated by the candles this year (and probably because it was just the four of us) and blew them all out in one blow. She even sang the Happy Birthday song along with us.

And she ate 2 cupcakes. (Well, the frosting off of 2 cupcakes.) Because you only turn 3 once.

And the little brother greatly enjoyed his cupcake as well.

After cake it was time to play with her new stuff! She loved her new dress-up clothes and made an interesting ensemble.


She got a set of Cinderella figures and made up some interesting stories for them to act out.



Leah was so happy all day long-- she got to do all her favorite things and be around the people she loves the most (including her friends at church in the morning). I felt a little guilty at first that her party wasn't nearly as big as Andrew's, but she's had 2 big parties already, and sometimes simple is better. I don't think she'll care 20 years from now that she didn't have a lot of decorations or any friends at her party. I just hope she remembers how much love we all felt being together to celebrate her little life.

And here's a little video from the day:

Little Firsts

Little milestones that I wouldn't record in a baby book, but are still important, and still make me smile:

His first time using a spoon. He really just kind of took off with this-- I never really showed him much, just gave him a spoon and let him have at it! Now every meal he wants to "help" me spoon his baby food from his jar to his mouth. It's messy and requires more time, but he's learning. He seems to actually do better with a fork than a spoon and I give him both at every meal. He tries to put everything on his fork, too, including Cheerios and crackers.

His first bowl of spaghetti: (First of all, I have to say this boy loves to eat! He will eat anything you put in front of him-- and a lot of it! He probably ate more of this spaghetti than Leah did. This was the first time I took a plate of what we were eating and just put it in front of him. And he loved it! He did the perfect combo of using his hands and his spoon.)

Her first time using a paintbrush. She loves to paint and would do it every day if I let her, although really she only wants to paint princess pictures right now. We did watercolor and craft paints. (Look at the concentration!)

His first shoes (he's still not really walking yet, even though he'll take a few steps here & there). He loves shoes and gets excited when I go to put them on him.

Andrew @ 13 months

My little boy isn't so little anymore!! Can't believe how big he looks everytime I see him.

Any communication issues I was worried about have gone as Andrew is yammering all the time now. Though he still doesn't really say many words, he says all kinds of syllables. He has also started pointing at things he wants. He is starting to imitate more actions, well, like talking on the phone-- he will hold a remote or toy phone to his ear and say either "hey!" or "'lo". Very funny!

He is so close to walking. He can walk holding on to me with just one hand. He has taken a couple steps on his own, but not really on a regular basis. He does stand still on his own quite a bit now (although when he realizes he's not holding on to anything, it kind of surprises him). Leah loves to hold on to his hands and walk him all around the room. (Wish you could see his curly hair in the picture below. It definately curls in the back when it's wet.)

Instead of weaning to eat less, he is actually eating more milk now. He still nurses usually 3 times a day (although sometimes I'll give him a bottle of formula at lunch-- it's so much easier just to hand him the bottle and it keeps him busy a good 10 minutes), and now I've added a bottle at dinner. He always seems so fussy right around 5:00, and I think it's because he's really hungry. I'll give him snacks twice a day (in addition to the Stage 2 baby food at each meal, of course) and sometimes right before dinner, too, but he still seems so fussy, and the bottle seems to content him. We're working on the sippy cup-- he takes juice just fine but still not milk. I'm going to try to eliminate the night time nursing soon, because really I think that's more just for comfort now than anything.

I think he really is ready for more solid foods, but seeing as how he still only has the one tooth, I feel we're somewhat limited. He has started to like graham crackers, dry toast, cookies, big pieces of cold melon or other fruits. He loves his "Safe Feeder"-- a small netted bag on a ring handle in which you can put any kind of hard fruit or other food he may choke on (I usually put in apple or peach slices or, frozen yogurt pops).

He generally sleeps now until about 7 a.m. but he will usually wake up between 5 and 6. Sometimes he wants to eat, sometimes he just needs his paci to go back to sleep. He seems to have dropped his morning nap (esp. if he sleeps till 7), but will sometimes still sleep if we are in the car out & about. His afternoon naps are very unpredictable. If it's an hour I'm usually very surprised but lately they've been a little longer, maybe from the dropping of the morning nap. Usually his naps are a total of about 1 1/2 -2 hours.

He loves bath time with his sister now. He especially loves to splash!

And Leah's bed is one of his favorite places to play. He climbs up himself and throws his body all around, burying his head in her pillows. Falling off head first is the best part for him!



When Daddy's home, everyone wants to be with him! I made a face to get everyone to laugh in this picture. It only took 4 tries to get this:

Videos

A few videos for your viewing pleasure. (It takes me forever to get these off my little camera, so I always do a bunch at a time.)

Leah singing "Zaccheus":







Andrew pushing the stroller on his own. (And the end is the reason why he'd better hurry up & learn to walk so he can keep up!)







And bathtime! Andrew loves to try to "catch" the water in his hands. He was a little distracted, though.

And We're Off!

Much quicker than we ever could have imagined, our house sold after less than 4 days on the market. What a way to make it all worth the wait! I spent all last week cleaning, decluttering (even more!), and getting the house ready to take photos for the listing. We were told that showings could happen at anytime, sometimes with less than an hour notice. So every time we left the house, we were to make it look picture-perfect. And, after only 2 days of having to deal with that (plus two small children who would have messed up the room I just cleaned no sooner than I was moving on to the next), I'm so grateful we didn't have much more!

We had one showing Tuesday evening and another Wednesday afternoon. The "winners" came Wed. afternoon. Their original offer was about $10,000 less than our asking price. Our wonderful realtor talked them up about $6,000, and advised us that even though we will be losing a lot of money on the sale, we should probably take it, with the way today's market is. So we were excited that the house sold quickly, we can move on and not have to put anymore money in it, but we also felt slightly dejected that we would be losing so much. As time has passed, we have more of the excited feeling, because we're almost at the end-- we can finally get where we need to be and start moving on with what we're supposed to be doing. :)

We originally had a closing date of Sept. 21st but convinced the buyers to move it up to Sept. 7th, which puts us moving Labor Day weekend. Of course, there is still the risk that something will fall through-- the buyers' loan will fail, the home inspection will show something terribly wrong, who knows what else-- so we are hesitant, but we are trying to remain positive. We do have to be moved out by closing, so we are pressing forward with that.

Meanwhile, guess who's taken a couple steps on his own today, making the packing & moving process, even more exciting??

Kids Museum

A co-worker of Brett's gave him a free family pass to Marbles Kids Museum downtown so yesterday we all got to go! It was definately a fun, much-needed family day for us Cody's. Both kids slept really well last night after their busy day at church, no nap, and the museum!

I've been to Marbles only once, when Andrew was just a newborn. I think he enjoyed it much more this time! Leah tends to get overwhelmed in situations with a lot of people and a lot of things to do or look at. So we had a few tantrums, but really, who can blame either of them-- there was just too much fun!

Of course Leah loved the dress-up. (I don't think I'd pay money to see this show!)



And Andrew loved the electric car.

Andrew controlled the entire Engine Room of the submarine. Meanwhile Leah the Scientist was discovering what was below the water's surface.

Andrew finally made us some money!

I know I may be a terrible mother for taking a picture of his tantrum, but everyone at our church thinks Andrew is always so quiet and well-behaved. I had to prove them wrong. He was mad I took away the toys he was playing with so we could move on.

Leah got to pretend to walk her dog, then wash him. (Don't know why, but she named him Kenny. She's really into naming things lately.) Then she joined him in his house.