Ross's Birthday & Leah at 4 Months

I'm going to combine two posts here since I haven't posted in a while.

We've reached a couple milestones here in the Leslie family. Yesterday was Ross's birthday! So we've done a lot of celebrating lately. On Saturday we took some Dutch oven cobbler over to his aunt and uncle's house to share with a bunch of the Miller family before the BYU game. It didn't quite have enough time to bake before we needed to eat it, but it was still pretty good.

On Sunday we went to my parents' house for Ross's birthday dinner and celebration. Here's Ross with some of his birthday cake.
The kids love it when it is someone's birthday because they love the birthday candles. If you're really quick you might even get to blow out some of your own candles before they beat you to it. Ross has three little boys helping him here. We often end up relighting candles so that they can blow out more candles. They also like to help take the candles off the cake and lick off the frosting! As you can see, there's not a shortage of little helpers when it comes to birthday cakes!

Ross had to work on his birthday, but the secretaries at his elementary school took good care of him. They came in and sang happy birthday and brought him a big fancy cupcake for a treat! He works with some great people.

For dinner on his birthday, Ross wanted to go to Tucanos. For those who might not know, this is a Brazilian grill restaurant where they bring all kinds of great meat and grilled foods to your table for you to try. At a place like this it is hard to eat the meat "sparingly." It is so yummy, you just want to have more and more! Ross's mom and Kyle and Amy happily joined us for the joyous occasion.Here's Ross getting ready to open his cards and gifts. There wasn't quite room to spread them out on the floor around him like he did when he was growing up.

Here he is with one of his great gifts.

We all loved this card from Kyle and Amy.

Here's the birthday Daddy and his little Princess! We all love you so much Ross and hope you had a great birthday this year!!!

Our other recent milestone is that on Saturday Leah reached 4 months old. Can you believe it?It also happened to be a BYU game day that day. So here she is with some of her game day gear.She went to the doctor for her 4 month check up on Monday. The doctor said she was doing great and acting like a normal 4 month old baby. She is now 23 3/4 inches tall, weighs 12.3 pounds and is measuring in the 10-25 percentile. It is no surprise to us that she is a petite baby.

She isn't rolling on her own yet, but she can if I help her. She loves to put her fingers in her mouth as evidenced by the picture below. She often has some fingers or her whole fist in her mouth and gets them all slobbery. She is really close to a real laugh. I can get her to smile a lot and sometimes even the start of a giggle but not quite a full on laugh yet. She is getting better at grabbing at things but is still working on getting her hands to do what she wants them too.

The hardest challenge right now is that she has grown quite attached to me, which I find very flattering, but not very practical. She will start crying uncontrollably when others have her (even Ross sometimes). It is very frustrating as parents and we are working with her to help her get through this phase.

A few weeks ago, I took her into the hot tub for the first time. This was the reaction that I was expecting to get...

She still LOVES LOVES LOVES bath time. So I thought she'd really enjoy the hot tub too. Instead her reaction was more like this...I think she still enjoyed being in the hot tub. She didn't ever get upset at all. She was just her normal chilled self - just hangin' out taking in the experience. Here are a few more random shots of our little girl. What a cutie!Here's a shot from after church on Sunday. I love dressing her up all cute for church. She's not sleeping through church as much and I'm sure is more of a distraction to those around us as she looks around and watches and inteacts with them. We get lots of comments on how cute she is.

She likes to sit up more. She can't do it on her own yet, but she likes to see the world from a vertical view. She even likes to stand up on her legs when I help her. She thinks she is so big.

She still is no match for the car and will fall asleep almost anytime we take her anywhere.

I'm trying to post a video again. Hopefully it works. It is just a short video of our precious little girl being happy and smiling for us. Enjoy!

A Sad Day

A very sad thing happened last weekend. My best friend, Lesley, moved away to California! Her husband, Brian, graduated from BYU and got a job in San Jose. So they took their cute little girl, Hannah, and moved far away.

Brian's fellowship he got there will be for at least a year. We are hoping that this job will help Brian get a long-term job with Adobe and that he will be able to get a job back in Utah when Adobe expands more here. Until then, we will miss having them near by. I hope they have a great adventure in California. Love you guys!

Here is a cute picture of Hannah and Leah. Hannah liked seeing Leah. When we went over Hannah would try to share her toys and food with Leah. She also liked to take her pacifier in or out of Leah's mouth. So cute!

BYU Football

Now that summer is ending and fall is upon us, this is what will take up a lot of life with the Leslies. Ross and I decided to get season tickets for BYU football again this year. It will be a little harder to manage with an infant since we will have to find a babysitter for most of the games (which really isn't that hard since lots of people love to watch her). We decided that we didn't want to take her to football games since the weather is unpredictable, the stands are crowded and the fans are loud. So far, BYU is 1-0 with a win over Washington at the season/home opener. It will be an interesting year with so many new players, so we'll see how it goes.

GO COUGARS!!!

Leah at Three Months

Our sweet little Leah is three months old now! She's learning so much and she is getting cuter and cuter by the day. Her favorite past times these days now include blowing spit bubbles, chewing her hands, kicking her feet, smiling and cooing.

She LOVES LOVES LOVES bath time. When she gets in the water, she's all smiles and kicks her feet like crazy. With all her splashing, it is hard to bathe her without getting wet yourself.

We're still working on her sleeping, although she is getting better. When we take her out and about she sleeps like...well, like a baby. If there is a lot of noise or comotion, she'll sleep right through it. But if we are home in our quiet house, her naps tend to be really short. I sometimes play music in her room while she's napping to see if that will help her sleep longer. I'm working on getting her to sleep better in her crib. However, her favorite places to sleep are cuddled up in someone's arms, her swing, her car seat, cuddled up next to her mom on the couch or in her dad's spot in bed after he gets up. She's also great at sleeping through church. We love it!

She is a cuddly baby and loves to be held. She really likes it when I put her up on my shoulder so she can feel close and look all around. She also likes to lay on the floor and play too.

She's getting a little better with her hands. She loves to put them in her mouth a lot lately. But her dexterity isn't very good, so she sometimes pokes herself in the eye as she's moving her fingers all around. When we put something in front of her, you can tell she's studying it and trying to figure out how to grab it.

She's lost a lot of her black hair that she had when she was born. The hair that is growing back in it's place is much lighter. When the sun shines on it, her hair gets a red tint to it. I doubt she will end up with red hair. It will probably be a light brown color.

She definitely knows who Ross and I are and she likes getting our attention. She seems to have a radar for when we sit down to dinner. She can be zonked out on the couch, but when we sit down to eat she will wake right up. Then she'll often fuss until we let her join us for dinner on one of our laps. We've been letting her lay on the floor close enough to see Ross while we eat. She seems to like that because then she can lay and play and doesn't feel like we've left her all alone.

Like any baby she has her moments, but overall she is such a good and contented baby. We couldn't ask for a better little girl. I know that I've said this before, but I'll say it again...We love her SO much!

This is one of her favorite sleeping positions. She will often sleep with her arm over her face. I used to call this her "diva look." But then one night she was a sleep like this in her bassinet and when I looked over at Ross on our bed he was also sleeping with one arm up over his head and I realized that's where she gets it from. She wasn't being a diva, she was just sleeping like her dad does! I hope this video works. I had a lot of trouble uploading it. I wanted to show what she's like when she is being really chatty. Sometimes she will lay on the floor and just "talk" up a storm. It is so cute. If it doesn't work, I'm sorry. I'll keep trying.

Outings

Since Leah is getting bigger and as we are coming to the end of summer we've been enjoying more family outings. Leah has done great as we have taken her all over.

We of course have been to a few baseball games. Leah is so good to just sit on our laps and usually ends up falling asleep through most of the game. At the Orem Owls game last Saturday they had fireworks after the game. We were a little worried about how she would do with them. But she just ended up sleeping through her first fireworks show. Figures. I'm just glad she didn't start crying and throwing a fit during them.

Here she is at her first baseball game...

Here's a picture from the SL Bees game we went to. She's blowing bubbles - one of her favorite past times these days. A couple weeks ago we went to the Salt Lake County Fair. We saw the horse pulling matches - a first for Ross and Leah. My grandpa Putnam LOVES horses so I grew up going to them with my family and grandparents. At the fair we also saw pig races and a bike stunt show.

I don't have any pictures from it, but the last couple of Friday evenings we have taken our lap top to the park to watch movies. So far we have seen "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back." This has been a lot of fun for Ross and me. And Leah does really well just chillin' or sleeping on my lap.

We also took her to see "How to Train Your Dragon" at the dollar theater. She slept through the whole movie! It was a good thing we got her in for free.

Last week Ross had to start reporting back to work. So on his last day off we went on a family outing up into the mountains. We went to a beautiful little oasis called Cascade Springs where the water comes out of the mountain and cascades down though the trees and flowers. It is so pretty and hiking around on the trails was so easy.

Here is Ross and Leah in front of one of the little cascading waterfalls. She loves to be carried around in her Snugli.

Not surprising, Leah slept through most of the hike.

It was so pretty here!

After the hike we drove into Heber and enjoyed some great Mexican food and a yummy shake from Granny's! It was a great last day off for Ross. Leah and I enjoyed it too.

What a Blessing

On Sunday our little Leah was blessed in sacrament meeting. It was a beautiful blessing and as you can see by the picture below, we had a lot of support. By the way, thank you so much to all who made the effort to come support us - especially since it was so early in the morning. I'm so grateful to be married to a righteous priesthood holder and to have so many other priesthood holders that were able to be there to help bless our little girl.

Here we are with Ross's mom. She is so excited to finally have a little one in the family again. She loves to hold Leah whenever she gets a chance.Here we are with my parents and grandparents. I am so lucky to still have so many grandparents still living. I love them so much!

I love being a mommy and can't get enough of this sweet little angel!

Ross is such a good daddy. He really likes it now that Leah is so interactive. He loves to try to get her to "talk" to him.

Here are a few more pictures that I took after church. I loved the blessing dress we ended up using. It was the dress that both my mom and I were blessed in. I thought it was perfect for Leah.

Our little Leah is so much more alert now. I love to listen to her coo and babble. She is so fun.

What a sweetheart!

How precious!

I love this picture.

We had a BBQ picnic on Saturday night at a local park to celebrate this occasion. The weather was perfect, the food was wonderful and everyone had a great time especially the kids who loved feeding the ducks, playing on the play ground and seeing the trains as they went by. We were so glad that we decided to have a family party the day before. Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures from that night. Oh well.

A Busy Week

The last week of July was busy for our family. Each weekday Ross attended a speech therapy institute at the Red Lion in Salt Lake. He learned a lot, but was not particularly fond of the daily commute.

In the evenings we had a variety of things keeping us busy. One of the events was the 1st birthday party for Lesley's little girl, Hannah.

She got lots of great presents...but it turns out she wasn't too fond of the taste of her chocolate cake.

I'm sure it was no surprise to anyone that Leah slept through most of the party.

On Friday, we attended the festivities for Courtnee and Geoff's wedding. Courtnee is Lesley's oldest niece - I've known her since before she was even old enough to go to school. I can't believe she is even old enough to get married!

On Sunday, Lyndsee and Jason blessed thier little girl, Makynlee. We spent the weekend at my parents' house and enjoyed spending time with Jason's family who were in town for the occasion.

Here's the moms and the babies...

Here's just the little cousins...

What a cutie little Makynlee Sage is!

We also had all of my family together for the occasion, so we took some pictures.

What a motley crew...

Here are the the four sweet little girls.

Here are the four very rough and tumble boys.

Put them together and there's bound to be trouble!