Our Little Singer

I got this impromptu video of Leah a couple nights ago and thought it was too cute not to share (despite her scary hair). Enjoy!

Ross's Birthday

For Ross's birthday post I decided to do something different. After the festivities Ross sent an email to his family telling them about how he spent his birthday. So with his permission, I just used his email for my post so you can read how his birthday went in his own words (along with a few pictures I added):

I had a great birthday Friday. Thank you for the correspondence through email, text messages, phone calls, and cards. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Actually, the birthday festivities lasted pretty much through the weekend. Thursday night Cyleste and I enjoyed my birthday meal together at Tucanos, the Brazilian meat place where they slice the meat right at your table. Keep the meat coming and we don't want the grilled vegetables or cod. They were offering a special, grilled salmon at no extra charge, which was very tasty and fresh. I'm part of the Tucanos birthday club, so my meal was free, and since we had money left on a gift card, Cyleste's meal was free as well. We only paid for the tip. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

Friday, was a really neat day at work. Several people and students at school wished me happy birthday and I received a huge mug with a can of root beer inside as a gift from the office staff. It was neat to see Leah when I returned home from work. She proudly declared that today is daddy's birthday and wanted me to see the "Happy Birthday" banner that Cyleste hung in the living room. Leah thought the banner said, "Happy Birthday, Leah." Cyleste's family came down to our house Friday afternoon before the BYU football game, and we ate pizza at our house and went to the game. (BYU beat Hawaii 47-0). Two of Cyleste's uncles and her cousin and his wife also came down for the game. After the game we enjoyed apple pie a la mode. I opened presents and cards after her family left, and I received a new white shirt for church, a BYU tee shirt that I wore to the game, a gift card to Tucanos from Cyleste's parents, and a check from mom.

Saturday, Norma watched Leah while Cyleste and I went to the temple, and later in the afternoon, we went back to Norma's house for a special burrito dinner, which was great. I loved that fruit salad, Norma. Following dinner Mom, Norma, and Cyleste went to the Relief Society meeting that evening at Norma's stake center, while Brian and I stayed home and watched the kids. While the women were away, Brian made brownies with peaches baked in and ice cream for dessert once the women arrived home.

Sunday, we went to mom's house for dinner, and spent the evening with her.

This was a great weekend and a very enjoyable time with family. Thanks again for your thoughts and wishes. Love to all.

Ross

A Trip to a Corn Maze

Last week our neighbor invited me and Leah to join her and another neighbor for a trip to a corn maze. As it turned out, taking three 2-year-olds and an almost 1-year-old through a big corn maze was a bad idea! We made it about 10-15 minutes before we decided that wandering around in circles at a snail's pace was not the way we wanted to spend our afternoon. But we did get a few cute pictures of the kids playing in the corn maze before we went back to the maze entrance (we were still so close to the entrance, it was very easy find.)

Fortunately they had tons of other activities for the kids to enjoy. They all had a lot more fun trying everything else than they were having in the corn maze. Here they are trying the duck races, although the pumps were so hard to pump that none of them could actually do it by themselves. But that didn't stop them from playing in the water.

Another favorite were these big tractors, trucks, buses and trains that they could climb all over and slide off of.

One of Leah's favorite things was the cow train. It was a tractor pulling a train of "cars" made out of barrels painted like to look like cows. She wasn't sure about it at first, but loved it by the time the ride was over.

She also loved these swings made out of tires. Some of the other attractions included a jumping pillow, bounce houses, slides, pig races, and hay bales for climbing, just to name a few.

We were only there a couple of hours or so before we needed to leave. But it was getting hot and Leah still hadn't had a nap. So it was probably good that we needed to go. As we were driving home, Leah said, "Mommy, that was a fun day!" Without a doubt, she had a great time. Maybe I can try to get her there again this month. She'd love it!

First Day of Fall

On the first day of fall, Ross's mom invited us to join her on a drive up the canyon to a little hiking place called Cascade Springs. We were surprised at how much the leaves in the canyon had changed colors already. The mountainside was covered in vibrant reds, yellows and oranges. I forgot to bring our camera, so all I got were a few shots with my cell phone. So of course, the pictures do not do the beauty of the trees justice. Cascade Springs is located down at the bottom of a valley, so the colors there weren't quite as vibrant yet, but we still enjoyed a nice little hike.

Considering that Leah had only had about a 10 minute nap, she did pretty well on our hike. We brought a stroller to push her around in, but she didn't want much to do with it.

Then when she was walking down a steeper part of the trail, she tripped and fell. This sent her into meltdown mode and she was pretty whiny and grumpy the rest of the walk. I tried to get a picture of the two of us with my phone. But she was so grumpy that this was the best that I could get.

By far Leah's favorite part of the hike was stopping to look at all the "stop signs" as she called them. We had to stop at every little plaque along the trail so that she could touch the picture and pretend to read the words. Here she is checking out the big plaque at the end of our hike.

We weren't the only ones with the idea to drive up the canyon that day. The canyon was full of cars and people who came to see the colors also. Having so many cars share such a narrow winding road wasn't fun. But we were all still very glad we took the time to get out and see such a beautiful display in nature. I love living so close to mountains so we can enjoy them so easily!

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.