Happy Mother's Day

I want to dedicate this post to the wonderful mothers in my life. Here is my own wonderful mother. The older I get, I find that I am becoming more and more like her, which is ok because I love her very much and think she is a great example of how to love and take care of your family. Thank you mom for all you have done and continue to do for dad, us kids and your grandkids. I love you! My mom got all her wonderful traits from this wonderful woman, her mother and my amazing Grandma Putnam. This woman has more love in her heart than any woman I know. She is the matron of over 100 members of her posterity already. Plus she is an outstanding cook! I hope I grow up to be just like her. Love you most, Grandma!

This beautiful woman is my dad's mom, my grandma Tucker. My grandma Tucker has always been an example of a faith-filled woman to me. Even as a child, I knew that the gospel of Jesus Christ was and still is vitally important to her. It is hard not to think of my grandma without thinking of all the selfless service that she gave to my dear grandpa. We like to tease Grandma a lot, but I hope she knows how much we love her. Love you Grandma!

This is the newest mother in my life, my sweet mother-in-law, Evelyn. From the moment that I met this woman I felt love radiating from her and knew I wanted to be a part of her family. She did an amazing job of raising seven wonderful children, one of whom became my wonderful husband. You did a great job with him, Mom. I love you!

And this is my wonderful "Turner Mom." This woman has been like a mother to me for the past 16 years or so. Not just any woman would take an extra in and treat her so much liker her own like this woman has done for me. I have learned so much from her in the time that I've known her. Thank you Vera. I love you too!

Leah @ 11 Months

Oh my goodness! Look at our little Leah! She's 11 months old now. She's definitely not a little baby anymore. She's growing and learning so much these days, it's amazing! I know I'm a little biased, but this girl is such a little doll.

This is a common view of our little girl for Ross and me these days. I feel like a tree sometimes. She always likes to hunt us down and try to climb up our legs.

Leah has become quite the little "helper" these days. Here she is "helping" to find an oven mitt.

Here she is "helping" with the dishes.

Here she is "helping" pick a DVD.

And here she is "helping" with the laundry.

In addition to these, she also likes to "help" empty the diaper bag and my purse, open and close doors, cupboards and drawers, and pick up little things she finds on the floor. She also thinks it is "helpful" to call people when she's playing with my phone. And she even sometimes insists on "helping" me eat my food.

As you can probably imagine, we spend a lot of time cleaning up after our "helpful" little girl. I think her mottos these days include "If it is in, it must come out," "If it is open, it must be closed" and "If it is closed, it must be opened."

A couple of days after she turned 11 months old, she figured out how to walk on her own. We were in the kitchen and she was playing with with some stuff when out of the corner of my eye I noticed she was moving toward me. I looked down to see that she had let go of whatever she was holding onto and was walking to her favorite cupboard all on her own. Since then she has gotten a little more confident and is starting to walk around more and more!

Here's a picture of her and her cousin, William from when we stayed at Ross's mom's house during spring break. Leah likes watching and playing with William. And William is so cute with her too. They had a staring contest at dinner one night and, to William's delight, Leah won.

Leah still only has two teeth, but that doesn't stop her from eating a lot of foods. Her new favorite food is Cheezit crackers. She gets so excited when she sees the box or finds them in her diaper bag. I've also given her little tastes of vanilla ice cream a couple of times in the last few weeks and she's definitely a fan. She also enjoys eating little bits of chocolate too. It's fun to finally be able to give her some of the yummy things in life.

In a few weeks we'll be celebrating her 1st birthday. Life is definitely not dull with our little girl, but we wouldn't trade it for anything. We love you sweet angel baby girl!

Easter 2011

The Leslies had a fun Easter weekend. I still feel like it snuck up on us and disappeared way too fast. It was fun to put a little Easter basket together for Leah. I kept it pretty low key. I mostly wanted to get her some much needed clothes. The poor girl is still wearing some 3-6 month clothes. (At least they can still somewhat fit her!) So I found this cute dress and summer outfit.  I don't think Leah really knew what was going on with the Easter baskets Sunday morning, but she still humored her mommy by posing for a cute picture.

Here she is checking out the new things in her basket...

On Saturday, we went to Ross's mom's house for a fun Easter/Mom's birthday/spring clean-up family get together. The kids got to go on a little Easter egg hunt in the yard. It was Leah's nap time and overall she wasn't all that interested in finding eggs, but we did get a few pictures of her first Easter egg hunt...

You can't tell in this picture, but she wasn't at all happy to be set down on the grass. She is not a fan of the grass at all yet. She was definitely a tired little girl.

Here's a little sign of excitement in her. Maybe next year she'll be more into finding eggs. But I still think she's a cutie even when she approaches meltdown.

On Sunday, we went to my parents house for Easter dinner. My parents also had a little egg hunt for the four grandkids that were there. Leah was a little more happy this time, but still uninterested in finding eggs. But that's ok because it meant that Cameron got to find all her eggs for her, which he was more than happy to do.

Easter is always a great time of year to celebrate the coming of spring (which we are still waiting for weather-wise). But more importantly, it is a great time to reflect on the life, Atonement, death and resurrection of our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. I am so thankful for my knowledge and testimony of Jesus Christ and his gospel, for the beautiful plan of salvation and for the eternal families that it makes possible.

Happy 1st Easter baby girl, we love you!

Playing Together

These two girls are so cute to see playing together. The older they get, the better they are at interacting. Even though their personalities are quite different they get along really well. Makynlee is a lot more outgoing and daring where Leah is more careful and reserved. It is funny how they can have such defined personalities at such a young age. It's also nice that they are at such close developmental stages since they are only six weeks apart. After going to the zoo during spring break, we stayed the night at my parents house. These are some of the pictures I took of them playing together... The kids love playing with the many Disney magnets stuck to my parents' fridge. At their age, playing mostly means pulling them off and throwing them on the floor!

This was the best part of their playing. Neither of them are big enough to walk on their own, but they both love to walk behind toys they can push. So we let them take turns pushing each other around on the Lightning McQueen car. They both liked pushing and riding. Too cute!!! Here's Baby J pushing Leah...and then Leah's turn pushing Baby J...
We even got a little video of it...

I still can't believe that they are even big enough to do this. They grow up so fast. Such cuties!!!

Zoo Trip

Last week, Ross was off work for spring break. Even though we didn't go away on vacation, we did manage to do some fun things while he was home. One fun thing was our trip to the zoo! This was Leah's first trip to the zoo and I think she had a good time. Here is Leah and her daddy checking out the elephant exhibit... This is the zoo's baby elephant, Zuri. She was having a grand time taking a mud bath while we were there...

My mom, Lyndsee, Jason and Makynlee (Baby J) joined us for our trip to the zoo. The girls really liked the animals that were big enough and moving around enough for them to see. The monkeys were a particular favorite. Makynlee also really liked the sand cat that ran all over its cage the whole time she was watching it. But if animals just sat there, they weren't interested.

This giraffe was going to town just licking this pole. My mom couldn't stand watching it. Its big slimy tongue was grossing her out, but I thought it was funny to watch.

Here's our little animal having fun at the zoo...I thought she would fall asleep in her stroller, but she stayed awake the whole time we were there.

The tigers weren't all that exciting...

Isn't she a cutie!?!

We had a good time with this turkey. Jason was making gobbling noises while we were watching him and whenever he did this turkey would puff up his feathers and make himself look really big. I told Jason the turkey thought Jason was hitting on his girlfriend (who was also by us at the fence). What an ugly creature...no wonder I don't like to eat them!

Look! Leah is as big as an infant gorilla! Her arms just aren't as long.

Here's a picture of my mom to prove that she was there with us...She enjoyed being there with the little girls and seeing all their reactions to the animals. At the end of our trip, we took the girls on the carousel. My mom wasn't really excited about getting dizzy on the ride so she stayed off and took pictures. Here's Lyndsee and Jason on the animals in front of us. (Jason has Makynlee on his lap.)

I didn't think I could get on with Leah, so I just stood beside her. I probably could have, but it was fun to be able to see her face as she was riding. She was really antsy waiting for the ride to start. She didn't want to sit on the polar bear and kept wanting me to hold her. I was afraid she wouldn't like it. But once the ride started and she started going up and down, she smiled so big and loved it! Then we put the girls on together for a photo afterward.
We had a great time at the zoo! I'm so glad that we decided to go and that my mom and Lyndsee's family were able to come too. I'm also glad that the weather was so pleasant that day! It was the one really good weather day during Ross's spring break.