December Activities

Now that Leah is getting bigger and can appreciate and enjoy the Christmas season even more, I tried to do more things with her this year to make it fun and special. One fun thing was going caroling with some of our Putnam family. We got in the car and drove from house to house. She didn't quite get what was going on, but was very excited for the yummy treats and hot chocolate that were waiting for us back at Grandma and Grandpa Putnam's house. Everyone had a great time and we all agreed that we should do it again next year. Here's a picture of Leah enjoying cookies with Kynee and Kaylynn.

Another fun thing was getting invited to a gingerbread cookie decorating party at our neighbor's house. Our wonderful neighbor, Bonnie, read the kids the story of the gingerbread man and then had big cookies for each of the kids to decorate. Leah LOVED this activity! The other kids lost interest and went to play with toys, but Leah just kept decorating. I think her cookie had more sprinkles and frosting than anyone else's.

One day, we got quite a bit of snow. So we got bundled up and went outside to play in it. She thought being out in the snow was pretty fun. But she kept putting her hands down in the snow. And needless to say it wasn't long before her hands were too cold and she was ready to go back inside.

She even wanted to try to do some shoveling. But the only place to shovel was the grass. And the snow was so heavy, she could hardly get the shovel to move. Of course, we had to end the adventure with some hot chocolate. The whole adventure (hot chocolate included) took less than a half hour, which was fine with me.

We even made sugar cookies one night. I let her help a little with putting ingredients in the mixer and cutting the cookies out. When we got to the end, I let her play with the extra dough and rolling pin. She thought that was great and had a grand time getting getting all dirty from the flour.

The Sunday before Christmas, Norma, Brian, William and Sierra came over for dinner. We had a delicious spread of Mexican food including, enchiladas, burritos, rice, beans, chips, salsa and guacamole. And for dessert, we frosted some sugar cookies.

Norma's family had our family for the sibling gift exchange this year. So they brought over our gifts to see us open them.

Leah was so excited to open the pomegranate that they got for us! She loved showing it off for the camera.

In addition to the pomegranate and a game our family wanted, they found a book all about the TV show MASH for Ross, and some yummy chocolate treats.

We did some other fun activities that I don't have pictures of, like going to a Utah Valley Handbell Choir concert and to the "Festival of Lights" in Spanish Fork.

Leah loved decorating our Christmas tree and showed it off for anyone who came to visit. She also loved counting down the days to Christmas with the advent calendar Grandma Putnam made for me. She was so excited every day to put a little ornament on the tree and talked about how excited she was that Santa was coming after all the ornaments were on the tree.

We watched Christmas movies and TV shows. Leah's favorite by far was "Mickey Saves Santa." I'm not sure I can count how many times she watched it.

We read Christmas stories together a lot. Leah's favorite was Dr. Seuss's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." She now has most of the story memorized. We also read stories about the birth of Jesus and talked a lot about how Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus's birthday. And every night Leah requested that we sing "Away in a Manger" as our bedtime song. She also wanted to sing "Jingle Bells" every chance she could, especially if she had a bell to ring while she sang it.

One thing we didn't get to do in December that I wish we would have was a visit to Temple Square to see the lights and to City Creek Center to see the candy displays. Ross got to go to Temple Square with the youth for mutual, but Leah and I missed out on that.

2012 Tucker Family Christmas Party

(Love this picture! These girls LOVE their aunt MoMo.)
Last weekend we had a couple Christmas parties. We started the day with a yummy breakfast party with our extended Tucker family. Just as we sat down to eat we got a surprise visit from two special guests.

The three little girls watched intently from a safe distance on their Grandpa's lap! The kids loved this visit with Santa. He did a magic trick, read them a story, and even gave them all balloon reindeer before having each of them sit on his lap to get a goodie bag. Here's a picture of my grandma Tucker enjoying Santa with her great-grandchildren.

Leah did surprisingly well with Santa (as long as Grandpa was nearby). She even talked into the microphone to answer his questions.

She smiled really big right after I took this picture (what terrible timing, huh?). I also snapped a few pictures of some of Leah's cousins talking to Santa.

 Leah was really excited to swing at the pinata!

My camera battery died at this point. So I didn't get any more pictures of the fun activities like the bean bag toss through the snowman (for which Leah had incredible aim...I didn't know she had such a good arm!), making homemade ornaments and the impromptu dance session at the end.

That evening we had a party at my parents' house with our immediate family. The party got off to a late start when my dad was called off on emergency bishopric business. When he got back, he shared with us President Thomas S. Monson's Christmas train book. He then talked about how important it is to give to others at Christmas time and the need to have faith in our lives. After my parents gave us their special annual Christmas letters, we opened our gifts for the family gift exchange. Then we had cake and ice cream for my birthday before leaving for home. It had been snowing most of the day and the drive home was not fun at all (especially with Leah complaining most of the way that she wanted to go back to Grandpa's). But the time we were able to spend with family was very special. I love this wonderful time of year!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Last week we celebrated my birthday. It was a good day. Leah and I slept in even later than usual. We didn't have anything planned, but after we got up and got moving I decided we should do something fun for my birthday. So I took her over to the local mall for lunch in the food court and then let her ride some of the kiddie rides that I know she loves. I snapped this picture of us eating lunch. I love her big cheesy grin with a mouthful of food. What a cutie!

We sat and ate our lunch where we could watch the carousel. Leah could hardly sit still long enough to eat. She was so excited to go on the carousel. You can tell by the pictures that she was SO HAPPY to finally get to ride. Sheer delight!

 Then I let her ride a couple of the other kiddie rides. Here she is driving a train and a bus.

This is the cute message that my sweet husband left on the table for me. It made my day when I came downstairs and found it waiting for me!

 That evening Ross's mom came and watched Leah so Ross and I could enjoy a nice dinner out. We went to one of my favorite restaurants, The Olive Garden. There's not much better than a nice dinner full of yummy carbs! After that we went back to the house for presents and dessert. Leah was insistent on helping me open my present and cards.

And of course she helped me blow out my candles. These delicious chocolate cupcakes filled with caramel and topped with toffee bits and a caramel cream frosting were baked by my wonderful neighbor, Bonnie. Boy were they ever good!

Birthdays now seem a bit different than when I was a child. I used to get so excited for my birthday to come and to get a year older. Now the idea of getting a year older doesn't sound quite so exciting. But having so many people stop by, call, text, send cards, or leave messages on Facebook to wish me a happy birthday makes me feel special and makes getting older a little easier. Thanks to all my family and friends (especially my wonderful husband) for making 35 another great birthday!

A Book of Mormon Christmas

This year for our Leslie family Christmas party, we broke tradition a little. We decided to have our party early instead of on Christmas Eve. And instead of the traditional Nativity play, Ross's mom found a book called A Book of Mormon Christmas that we used as our script. This book had scriptures from The Book of Mormon that talked about Christ's birth along with traditional Christmas songs to sing. So we dressed up as characters from The Book of Mormon and acted out those scenes. I thought it was a fun addition to the traditional Nativity story that we have always done.

I think we all agreed that Isaac was the best looking Nephite/Lamanite. Look how awesome he looks!

William was our "Samuel the Lamanite." Everyone loved the part when the "unbelievers" got to throw rocks and arrows (i.e., feathers and pom pom balls) at him.

Leah especially loved this part. She kept throwing things at him even after the scene was over. And William, of course, was happy to let her do it. And for days afterward she loved talking about throwing rocks and arrows at William.

We passed the book around and took turns reading the scriptures from The Book of Mormon.

Here's Gavin as our "Nephi" praying for the people the day before Jesus was born. Followed by the unbelievers falling to the ground when the sign of Christ's birth appeared.  

And here's Sierra holding the star that appeared at Christ's birth. Followed by Mary (Alex), Joseph (Tyler)and Jesus in the stable.

Leah's attention span for the activity was very short! We had a hard time keeping her downstairs. She was much more interested in having a tea party with William.

The book even came with a menu suggestion. So going on those ideas we had enchilada soup, taco soup, quesadillas, chips, salsa, guacamole and for dessert some yummy tres leches cake. If you ask me, you can't go wrong with some great Mexican food!

It was kind of weird to get together so early in the Christmas season. But it is always good to spend time with family. I'm not sure what we'll do on Christmas Eve since we won't be spending it with our Leslie family this year. But I'm sure we'll find some way to make it special.

Thanksgiving Weekend 2012

Thanksgiving weekend was, of course, filled with all kinds of activities. We started off the long weekend with the ultrasound to find out about the health, growth and gender of our baby. The great news was that everything looked good in the ultrasound. Baby was very active and we got to see a lot a lot of it since three people each took a turn with the ultrasound machine (the tech, the intern, and the specialist). But probably the big surprise was finding out our baby is a BOY! Both Ross and I were a little taken back at the thought of having a boy. We are so used to having a little girl, that we were both not sure at first what we were going to do with a boy. However, the idea is definitely growing on us and we are getting more excited to meet him each day.

We decided to keep the gender a secret until we could tell our families in person. On Thanksgiving Day, we went to Ross's mom's. One of our food assignments was a jello salad. So we decided to make it a blue salad and cover it with cool whip so no one would know the color until they scooped into it. After the prayer was said, we let Ross's mom do the honors. Needless to say, she was very excited to dish into the jello salad and find out she had a little grandson on the way!

On Friday we went to my parents' house. We invited my parents, siblings and the kids to join us in our gender reveal activity. (Marc and Alison couldn't be there since she was having gall bladder/pregnancy issues and was at the hospital.) We filled up 16 balloons and put pieces of paper in each of them. Only one paper had the words "It's a BOY!" The other papers had messages like "Keep looking," "Try again" or "Not here". Then each person took a turn popping their balloon to see if they had the revealing news inside. I was afraid they would find it in the first or second balloon cutting the activity and suspense really short. But everyone popped their balloon and some got to pop a second one before we found it.

After our immediate families knew, I sent out a bunch of text messages with this picture. We saw this book at the library the day of the ultrasound and I had to get a picture of Leah with it so that I could use it to announce that she would be getting a little brother.

On Friday night, Leah happily stayed at my parents' house while Ross and I went to the Jazz vs. Kings game. I had hoped to see former BYU star, Jimmer Fredette, get some playing time. We were surprised to see him play for almost 2 quarters and nailing 3 deep 3-point shots. The Jazz were trailing most of the game, but made a great run in the 4th quarter to tie up the game. Then with a jump shot at only about 4.5 seconds left the Jazz took the lead and won 104-102. It ended up being a great game to see in person.

On Saturday, we had our annual Putnam Family Christmas party. It was great to see and visit with so many family members. I love my Putnam family and just don't get to see them enough anymore. One of the highlights for the kids was a visit from Santa. Leah talked about seeing Santa all week, but I was a little worried about how she would react when she actually saw him in person. Here she is waving to him when he came in.

Here's some of my family hanging out for our turn to see Santa. Leah was a little hesitant at first. But she did sit on Santa's lap. (It helped that he was handing out candy canes.) She even answered him when he asked her questions. But I doubt he understood anything she said since she was whispering so quietly. Later she wanted me to take her back up so she could wave to him again, but she made it clear that she didn't want to sit on his lap again.

Here's all of our family with Santa (minus Alison who was still at the hospital). In her present, Leah found Minnie Mouse pajamas and a "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" DVD. One of the sayings around our house is that Leah "can't get enough Mickey!"

Here are my Grandma and Grandpa Putnam. I love these two people SO MUCH! It is great to still have both of them here for the party yet again. Here's to more years with both of them still together!

We made sure we got pictures with my mom's generation along with their parents. They got a picture with and without spouses. These people have been so important to me all of my life. I am so grateful and proud to call them family.

After Santa, the little kids broke open a pinata. I would have gotten pictures of it except that Leah was so tired by then that she didn't even want to try it and ended up falling asleep on my lap through most of the excitement.

By the time the weekend was over, we were all exhausted. We had a great time and loved spending so much time with our family members. But I daresay, Ross may have been happy to go back to work on Monday so he could recover from our busy long holiday weekend.

Big News at the Leslie House

Now that word is starting to spread, I'm finally posting about our big news around the Leslie household. This picture is how we shared the news of our next little one with our parents and other family members.

I'm glad the first trimester is over. I often felt nauseous, but luckily never threw up. The hardest part was the food aversions. Very few things sounded good to eat. Foods that I loved, I couldn't handle even the thought of eating. Even water was hard to handle. I was also very tired during the day and had little motivation to do much of anything. Despite the great weather, poor Leah was stuck inside with me most days while we just hung out in our PJ's watching TV. But we survived and I'm feeling much better. I have more energy and a much better appetite now.

We have reached the 20 week mark. I'm starting to feel the baby move more and next week we get to find out if Leah will be getting a little brother or little sister!

The other big news for our family is that about a month ago our bishopric was reorganized and Ross was called to be the 1st Counselor. He is serving with two great men, Bishop McGriff and Brother Gorski. We're looking forward to getting to know these men and their families better.

However, our feelings about this news are a little more mixed than our news about our new baby. We are excited for the chance to get to know more people in our ward better, but the demand on our family's time and the weightiness of the mantle of responsibility is a little daunting (especially for Ross). Luckily we have a great ward with many people who are willing and have already helped us out with Leah so that we can take care of our church responsibilities. I'm sure when the baby comes, there will also be many hands ready to hold a fussy baby or entertain a restless toddler.

So often, daily life with the Leslies seems "same old, same old" and even with these new big adventures it still seems that way most days. But I know that as these big changes come about (and others that the future holds) that the Lord will continue to take care of us and that the new "craziness" will just evolve into the norm like it always does.