Esse and Estella Harmon Family Reunion

Esse and Estella Harmon
Married September 29, 1915
Salt Lake Temple
Father's Day weekend was one of the best weekends that my family has had in a long time. It was the weekend of the annual Harmon Family Reunion and this year it went back to its roots and was held in Afton, Wyoming. So my parents and all my brothers and sisters and their families decided to make the trip to beautiful Star Valley, Wyoming.

We left early Friday morning to make the 4 hour drive. By the time we got there, everyone was ready for lunch and ready to get out of the car. So we got some sandwiches and went to a local park where the kids had a ball playing on the playground and the guys had some fun playing a little ball.

After that we all went bowling at the local bowling alley. All of the kids got to play. Even the little girls took turns using the little green dragon to push the ball down the alley. My dad had a great game scoring over 150 points!

Friday evening we went to my uncle Chuck's house to cook hot dogs and hobo dinners in his fire pit (the picture from this are in the first collage).

Saturday morning my mom drove us around the valley to show us where her grandparents lived when she was growing up. (The pictures of their houses are also in the first collage.) Her Putnam grandparents' house has been updated with new siding. But her Harmon grandparents' house looks pretty much the same.

While we were out in Auburn, we stopped at another park so the kids to play. They loved the old merry-go-round thing and the old tetter-totters. You don't see playground equipment like this anymore.

My grandma Putnam was one of 13 children. Only 4 are still living (her and her 3 brothers, Ted, Larry and Keith). The reunion was held at Afton Elementary School. There was plenty of playground equipment and open fields to keep the kids happy and the adult could stay inside the gym to eat and visit.

Before we knew it, it was time to leave and make the long drive back home. It was a quick trip, but I'm so glad that we took the time to travel up there. I went to Afton every year as a child, so it was nice to go back to a place that held so many fun memories for me. But I think it was especially fun to spend so much quality time with my parents, siblings and their families. We had a great time. Thanks mom and dad for making this trip not only possible for everyone, but also for making it so great. We love you!

Just for fun, here's another post about how our little Leah Ru (as we like to call her) is doing.

Now that she is one year old, she is learning and doing so much more every day. It is amazing to watch her develop so quickly.

At her one-year doctor appointment she was 28 7/8 inches tall and only weighed 16 lbs 11 oz. She dropped below the 5th percentile in weight, but the doctor wasn't concerned at all because it is normal for their weight to drop when they start walking around a lot. Which is definitely what Leah does. She is a girl on the go! She's even starting to climb up on anything she can, the little monkey.

She's getting pretty good with her hands and likes to get them on just about anything she can. She loves to pull things out of bags and boxes and she even sometimes likes to put things in other things (like putting little toys in a bag or another toy). She has figured out how to open Ziploc bags, the little smarty pants! And she has also figured out that her finger fits perfectly inside her nose! She's so little that I have a hard time not laughing when she does it, but yes it is a habit that we are trying to curb already.
Here she is sporting her shades she got for Christmas. She loves to go outside and I've been taking her for walks in her stroller lately. She's actually pretty good at keeping her sunglasses on while we are on our walks.
Leah only has four teeth--two on the bottom and two on the top. The bottom two are both in the middle, but the top ones are the left middle one and the one left of that. Here she is eating Pad Thai noodles at the restaurant we went to for our anniversary. This girl loves to eat, especially if she can eat it herself with her fingers. I have to watch her though. If she's eating something she really likes (like macaroni and cheese) she gets it into her mouth about as fast as I can get it on her tray. I think she gets that from her dad!
Here she is playing on Parker's swing. Parker is a cute little boy in our ward who's about two weeks younger than Leah. They play pretty good together.
Her hair is getting pretty long. One day I put a bunch of sunscreen in it so she wouldn't get sunburned at a rugby game we went to. When we got home, I combed her hair and the sunscreen was so thick I could get her hair to do just about anything...
Here it is laying down nicely...so cute!Here's Hannah and Leah playing together when Hannah was here visiting with her mommy (my friend, Lesley) at the end of April.Here she is at a BYU baseball game. Ross went to a few games this season, but because it was such a cold spring, Leah and I only made it to about half a game. At this particular game, there weren't many people there and we happened to be sitting by a camera man. During the game, Ross's uncle (who was watching the game at home) texted us to tell us Leah was on TV a few times.
Here she is wearing her tennis shoes out and about for the first time. It has taken her a while to get used to walking in shoes. For a while there they were like her baby kryptonite, she couldn't even stand up in them.
Here she is playing at a park near our house. She wasn't sure if she liked the slide or not.
She loves watching and having other kids around. She is definitely a people watcher. One afternoon, her cousin, William came over for a while. He is always so sweet with Leah.Here she is swinging with Baby J at Great Grandma Tucker's house.
A couple other fun things about Leah...there's a picture of the Christus hanging right above her high chair. After she eats, she wants to be held up to see the picture closer and she'll always try to touch His face and it sounds like she is trying to say "Jesus." I love it!

She likes Elmo and also likes to watch Sesame Street. Fortunately it is one of the little-kid shows that I like too (but Ross isn't as excited about watching with her).

She LOVES to play with cell phones. She also likes to play with remote controls. She's a good little button pusher! Here she is standing on her very tip toes trying to reach the remote controls on the shelf.
She also likes to read books. She has a lot of books (as you can see from the above picture). She often bring us one of her books and then wants to climb on our lap so we'll read the book to her. Right now, her favorite books are the ones with animals in them. She loves animals, especially dogs and cats. When we are outside and she sees them, she goes nuts. A couple days ago, she even walked barefoot across the grass (which she normally hates) to try to get to a dog.

She went to her first dance recital last week. My sisters, cousin, and a few of Lesley's nieces were performing. Overall she did pretty good and even danced a little bit. She likes music. When we're at church, she often starts waving her hand up and down during the hymns like the chorister does. Maybe she'll serve as a chorister when she grows up like her Grandpa and Grandma Leslie! Here she is with her aunt MoMo (my sister, Melyssa) after she performed.
Favorite aunt MoMo again with both baby girls.

So that's life with the Leslie's lately. As you can tell, there is rarely a dull moment around here with Leah except when she's asleep (which she is finally a little bit better at, by the way!).

3 Years and Counting...

On Monday, Ross and I celebrated our third anniversary. It was nice that Ross didn't have to work that day. He's helping with the summer speech program again, but it doesn't start until next week. Ross's mom was nice enough to come watch Leah so we could use our Seven Peaks passes. We figured that on a Monday afternoon that turned out to be cloudy wouldn't be too busy. Boy, were we wrong!!!

As it turns out, half the county population age 6-14 was also there that day (or so it seemed). I've never seen it so crowded there before. After going down one of the slides, we were both too cold to stand in line again. So we floated around the lazy river and hung out in the wave pool surrounded by tons of teeney-boppers. It was much warmer in the water. But before long that was too cold too, so we gave up and went home. Since we have season passes, we didn't feel like we had to stay all day to get our money's worth.

After we got cleaned up we took Leah and Ross's mom with us to dinner at a Thai restaurant. This was also the restaurant that we went to with my parents about three and a half years ago when Ross officially asked for my hand in marriage. The food was yummy and we even splurged for some mangoes and sticky rice for dessert (one of my favorites and SO good!).

Overall it was a really good day, mostly because Ross and I got to spend so much time together, something that doesn't happen as much these days.

These past three years have been some of the best in my life. I'm so glad that Ross and I found each other and I look forward to many more years (even eternity) together. I love you, Ross!!!

Leah's 1st Birthday

Our baby girl turned 1 last week! It's amazing how fast a year can fly by! We had so much fun celebrating with our little girl. On her birthday, she went all over with me running errands including a visit to her daddy at his work. It was the annual 6th graders versus teachers kickball game, so we got to watch Ross play for a bit.

That evening we had our parents over for a birthday dinner. Leah loved having her grandmas and especially her grandpa there for dinner. She was quite a ham for them. After dinner, she opened presents. She was pretty good at opening the bags, but I expected her to be much better since she LOVES to pull out and empty things.In classic Leah style, she made a mess of things.

Then we had cake and ice cream. I had practiced blowing out candles with her. She has blown a couple out, but that night she wouldn't blow until after the candle was already out. Oh well.

She was a little timid at first, only eating the candy flowers on top. Then she crumpled up the cupcake and dug in.

By the time she was done she was in a grand mood and kept squealing and laughing with delight. Since it was her birthday, we let her climb on the table while we were all still visiting and she had the time of her life walking back and forth to everyone at the table.

On Saturday, we had a little party for her at a local park with some other family members. She got some great presents but still wasn't all that into opening them.

Look at that loot! Thanks again everyone.

Here she is with a couple of her cute party goers...Kylie and Makynlee. These two girls are both almost 1 too!

Here's a picture I snapped of the two of us.

We went over to feed the ducks, but they wouldn't eat any of our bread...weird. They must have been too full already.

A cute picture of Baby J. Love this girl!

Here's Leah and her "favorite aunt MoMo" who took her over to play on the playground.

We were so grateful that the weather was so cooperative that day. We have had A LOT of rain and cold weather here lately. But during the party it was dry and wasn't windy. It wasn't very warm, but was comfortable and everyone seemed to have a good time.

For anyone interested, we did get a video of her eating her cake.

Here is a little video of her being silly after eating her cake. Most people think that she is so quite and reserved because that's just how she is when she's around people she doesn't know or remember very well yet. But this is how our little Leah really is nearly everyday at home...

See Leah Grow

 

She's Vertical!

Leah has actually been walking for about three weeks now. But since I haven't posted in a while I thought I'd post this video of her walking. It is fun to watch her get more confident and better at it each day.

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!