Leah Update

Since summer is coming to an end and things are slowing down a bit for our family, I thought I would do another post about Leah and what she's up to lately.

Life with a 2-year-old is rarely boring. Leah keeps us on our toes! She is always coming up with new ideas and always wants to do more and more things "all my myself" as she would say. She's pretty clever. She can open doors and uses a stool (or anything else she can find) to get up higher. So basically nothing is safe in our house unless it is really high up.

She definitely knows what she wants and has no problems telling Ross and I exactly what he wants or thinks. She's quite articulate these days. She talks in complete sentences and I can usually understand what she's telling me (as long as she's not crying or has her binky in her mouth). Her most common catch phrases these days include: "That was funny." "That was close." "I'm doing something." (that one always makes me nervous!) and "See if Mickey is on."

She loves to "play games." Which basically means she wants to get out a game and play with all the pieces. I try to get her to play with games that have letters or numbers in them (those are usually the ones she wants anyway). She can count to 13 by herself and sings the alphabet song by herself too.

These are pretty much all random pictures from my cell phone that I wanted to share and have with our "family history" records.

She loves to check the mail. These stickers came in the mail one day and she couldn't wait to use them.

 I love this picture of her. It has been my cell phone wallpaper all summer.

Leah LOVES to go to the park! There's one just a few blocks from our house. If we take her outside to play, there's a good chance she won't rest until she gets to go to the park.

I came home from mutual one night to this scene in the kitchen. She said she was making soup. She often pretends she is making something.

Most of the time she is a really happy girl. Especially when she gets to be outside.

I found her sleeping like this one night. It made me wonder if she was dreaming about having awesome ninja skills!

These girls belong to Ross's cousin. I watched them one day and the three of them had a great time together. I loved giving them all matching pony tails.

This is what happens when a 2-year-old is quiet for too long. You think they are just playing nicely, but in reality, they are up to mischief. Her poor baby (which she named "Cyleste" by the way) was covered in some stickers that she found.

She loves to take her baby (and sometimes her Kermit) for walks. Here she is giving her a wild ride. She must have taken that stroller up and down that stair over and over a dozen times or more before I finally made her go somewhere else to play (much to her dismay).

Sleeping with her Kermit! I love it when she falls asleep on the couch instead of on my lap. It rarely happens, but she is getting better about just laying down and falling asleep.

When she goes outside, she almost always wants to sit on our neighbor's bench and have her picture taken.

Here she is with two of her favorite neighbor friends, Ahsha and Parker. Too bad Ahsha has moved away now.

This is what happens when she won't listen to us and insists on jumping on the bed. This was an instant huge goose egg bump. You'd think she would learn from a bump like this, but no. She still LOVES to jump on the bed.

She is such a ham sometimes and is so full of personality. She is still pretty shy in public. But at home she rules the roost. It seems like we are often reminding her to not be bossy and to use her inside voice. She really enjoys hearing herself scream.

Here she has set up for herself a cozy spot to watch TV. I can almost guarantee she is watching her favorite show, "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse." She can't get enough of that show.

A couple of weeks ago, I took her up to go swimming at a water park with all of her cousins on my side. I didn't get any pics of them actually swimming. Leah loves to swim. I should have taken her more this summer. Oh well. Anyway, I did get a few pics of them all wrapped up in their towels. After a couple of hours in the water, they were pretty chilly.

This is six of the eight kids. The older two boys were showing my mom how they could jump off the big kid stuff into the deeper water.

Parker came over to get babysat one day. These two had a great time playing with the broom and mop. Too bad they aren't as helpful as they think they are being. I would have really put them to work.  

I took this picture of Leah and Kynee in their BYU shirts and sent it to my brothers just to get them going. They are big Utah fans. Leah is a big BYU fan. She loves to hear the BYU fight song, loves to find "Cougar Ys" when we're driving around in the car, and loves to see Cosmo and give him high-5's.

Like I mentioned earlier, Leah loves to pretend she is cooking something. So last week I actually let her help me make some muffins. She loved every minute of it. Now she thinks she needs to help me make everything.

I had both girls recently during the football game. These two love to play together and were on the go from the time that Kynee arrived. At one point, they had climbed in Leah's crib and were playing together. I left the room for a minute to take care of something. It got really quiet in her room, which started to make me nervous (as hyper as they were, I had to wonder if they had knocked each other out or something). Instead this is what I found. They were both laying down reading a book together. So cute!

Leah is also getting potty trained right now. (I will spare you any pictures of if because 1-I haven't taken any and 2-because who really wants to see pictures of someone else's kid -or yourself for that matter- sitting on the toilet???) But so far she is doing pretty well. She loves earning stickers for her chart. Hopefully we can be done with diapers soon!

Anyway, there's a little glimpse into Life with the Leslies lately. Hope you enjoyed it.

Youth Conference 2012

A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend our ward's youth conference. Their theme was "Living Waters" based on the scripture John 4:14, "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." All of the activities for the conference had to do with water.

We met early Friday morning and traveled to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple so the youth could do baptisms for the dead. Next we took them to a water park to play for the afternoon. Then we drove up into the mountains to spend the night in a cabin. At the cabin we just let the youth (and leaders) play games and mostly just spend time getting to know each other better. In the morning, we had a devotional from the bishop. Then we packed everything up and headed to a lake where they could enjoy boating, tubing, canoeing and just playing in the water and sun.

Needless to say, the youth had a great time and the leaders came home exhausted. (Actually the leaders also had a great time and the youth might have been even more tired than we were.) I've been to plenty of combined mutual activities, but this was the first youth conference I've attended with our ward. After being with them for over 30 straight hours, I was definitely reminded how funny (i.e., twitterpated) youth at this age can be (especially the young women). But we have such great youth that I would do it all again without hesitation (except for the part where they blasted out the radio playing teenie-bopper music-I could definitely do without that part again!).

Luckily I got to come home and get plenty of rest since the rest of my little family had gone to Nevada for the Miller family reunion. Ross and Leah went with his mom and uncle. They stopped in Elko both ways to visit Grandma Mary. Leah was SO EXCITED to go to Grandma Miller's again. She still remembered our visit in April and was looking forward to seeing all the clocks again.

While in the Reno/Fallon area Ross got to go to a Reno Aces baseball game and "Hot August Nights" (a car show). At the reunion they got to go swimming and spend lots of time visiting with family. They had a great time, but when it was all done they were happy to be out of the car and back home again. And as much as I was enjoying the peace and quiet, it was nice for me to have them back too.

Sierra's Sealing

On August 4th we got to witness and celebrate our niece, Sierra's, sealing to her parents in the Provo Temple. We've got to know Sierra quite well over the past year or so. And we were so excited when her adoption was finally official at the end of June. But we were even more happy to be there for her sealing. The sealing ceremony was so great. The sealer (who knows them because he is in their ward) taught some wonderful things before conducting the actual sealing. Sierra looked beautiful in her little white dress. What a special experience!! I love the temple. Afterwards, we went to a nearby park for a little family dinner and then her neighbors and friends came for a big celebration complete with cake and lots of yummy watermelon. Sierra is such a sweetheart. We are glad to have her as part of our family.

Last Week of July

So to finish up our busy July, we celebrated the 24th of July (Pioneer Day) by going to the "Days of '47" parade with some of my family. I didn't get many pictures at the parade, but here are a couple of Leah enjoying the parade on her Aunt MoMo's lap.

After the parade, we went back to my parents' house for some much needed naps. Then I tried to set up the kiddie pool in the backyard so Leah could beat the heat in the water. But someone had borrowed my parents' pool, so I had to improvise with the little sandbox. However, that didn't keep Leah from having a great time playing in the water. I even used water from the hot tub to fill it up. So it was a nice and pleasant temperature for her to play in.

She had a ball playing, but didn't always want to stay in the pool. She often ran over to the slide for a ride down. Which would cover her bottom and legs in grass and dirt. But she didn't seem to care in the least. (You'll see from the pictures that Ross also enjoyed soaking his feet in the water with Leah.)

Before long, Makynlee came out to join Leah in the fun. These two had a blast splashing together and chasing each other around. By the time they were done, the water was full of grass and dirt and who knows what else. They were two dirty girls in much need of a bath who didn't want to stop playing.

Here they are later on all cleaned up and playing on the bench swing. I know I say it a lot, but these two have so much fun together.

The next night we went to the Bees baseball game. We had a great time and, overall, the little girls did pretty well. They didn't care much about the game, but they definitely thought it was a fun place to play. They especially liked when Aunt MoMo bought a snocone and shared with them. This picture of Melyssa (MoMo) was actually taken by Leah (with a little help from me).

These two were on the go the entire game, but they were having such a great time. We have since gone to another game with them. They were both looking forward to going again and were both sad when it was time to go home.

During this week, my parents were with the youth in their stake on a Pioneer Trek in Wyoming. So my mom wasn't around to take care of Kynee during the days while my sister worked. So I offered to come back up and take care of her on Friday. Leah was more than happy to join me on a trip back to Grandpa's house. The girls did pretty good playing together that day. There was only one major cat fight that ended with both of them in time-out. One of their favorite things that day was playing in my parents' new free-standing pantry that didn't have stuff in it yet. They opened and closed the door while they were inside a countless number of times.

That evening after people were done with work, we met up with Ross and went to dinner at Texas Road House (yummy!) and then went to Trafalga to play. Trafalga is a local fun center with games, rides, miniature golfing, etc. We weren't sure the girls would be big enough for any of the rides, but they really wanted to try them and the workers let them ride. This frog hopper ride was one of those where they take you up about 30 feet in the hair and then drop you back down a little at a time on a bungee system, then take you back up to do it again. Both little girls wanted to try it. It was funny to see their different reactions to the ride. In the first picture, they are getting ready for the ride to start. So both are happy just waiting. But the next picture is taken about half way through the ride. Leah is clinging onto both of her aunts' hands with a look of uncertainty, while Kynee has a huge grin on her face and is loving every minute of it. But don't worry about Leah, she did have a good time and even rode it a couple more times before we left. Even though it involved a lot of panic on her part each time, she still wanted to do it again.

We thought the girls would enjoy the miniature bowling. They have little lanes with small balls, perfect for these small ones. Kynee got more into it than Leah. But I got a picture of both of them rolling the ball with MoMo's help.

We tried to all go miniature golfing, but by hole 3 it was obvious that Leah and Makynlee were going to make it a very difficult task. Both were enjoying it a little too much and we couldn't get them to leave anything alone. So I took the girls to find other things to do while the other 4 adults finished their golf game. Their favorite ride was a miniature pirate ship that rocked back and forth. We rode it over and over (with Leah clinging to me each time, of course - funny girl) and we even convinced the others to ride it with us when they finished their golf game. It was about 11:00 pm when we left that night, but everyone was having such a good time, that it was hard to pull away any sooner.

So that pretty much concludes our busy July. August is already a third of the way over. Our summer is slipping away so quickly. Ross has to report back to work next week. We've done enough fun things that we really can't complain, but it is still so sad to see it coming to an end.

Another Visit and Mom's Birthday

So things did slow down a bit after having the kids with us for a while. Our next adventure came the very next Monday when we went back to Ross's mom's house to spend more time with Kyle, Amy and Jackson before they went back home to Louisiana. We enjoyed the afternoon with them playing games and visiting while the little ones played. Visits like that are never long enough, but we did enjoy our time with them while they were here. We just hope that it is not another year and a half before we get to see them again.

That evening we went to my parents' house to celebrate my mom's birthday. We had to drive through what felt like a monsoon to get there, but we had lots of fun once we were there. My dad made some Mexican food for dinner and we had homemade ice cream for dessert (among plenty of other treats). We got back home really late that night, but it was great to be together as a family to celebrate our amazing mom and grandma.

Here's a picture of us singing happy birthday to her. (You can be glad you can just see it and not hear it!)

And of course, it just wouldn't feel right unless all the kids got a chance to blow out the candle. So here's a couple more pictures of the kids blowing out the candle too.