A Night Out

To celebrate David's Dad's Birthday

Celebrating Life

David's Dad is turning 70 on Tuesday. To celebrate his life, David worked with his Mom to put together a sweet photo book for him.

These were my favorites.




Sarah definitely resembles David in that picture of him as a baby.

The Deck

We are loving the cleaned and stained deck and all the lovely plants. The weather has been rainy and humid and the plants are just exploding.







I love the change from last year. See here and here.

Tooth

Do you see it? Her adorable smile will soon be a huge toothy grin.


She also really loves my spinach popsicles, probably because they feel so good on her swollen gums.

Photographer

Leah's learned how to use the camera. She'll run around saying "cheese." Its fun to see the world from her perspective, and occasionally she'll actually take a pretty good picture.

Two and a half and so much fun

Leah's been picking out her own outfits for a long time, at least since she turned 2. I love this picture of her going through the clothes that her cousins gave her (She LOVED all of them) and carefully picking out the pink dance outfit. She insisted on wearing it to Home Depot, and I let her because it brought her so much joy.

At 2 1/2 Leah is full of personality.

She still makes really expressive faces. My favorites are her surprised and disgusted faces.

She likes really strong foods. I'm guessing that must come from her Mediterranean blood. She loves feta cheese, raw onion (red and white), avocado, guacamole (by the spoonful), banana peppers (she ate a cup full at Subway), pickles.She won't touch peanut butter and only rarely eats bananas.

She loves being outside and has to go out on the deck at least once a day.

She loves all things pink and will promptly say, "because its her favorite color."

She slides down her bed at night and has fallen off the bottom a few times.

She loves music and singing. She sings the ABCs or Happy Birthday several times a day.

She will pick cleaning the bathroom to playing with toys.

She loves to collect little things and hold on to them all day. You will see her looking at every toy so intently to find just the right thing, and then she'll either hold it or put it in her bag of things.

A Lunch Date

She was over the top giddy with excitement to have her friends over for lunch.



They all loved the spinach popsicles (lots of spinach, bananas, pineapple, peaches, mangoes, and some orange juice). Leah eats several a day.

Big Girl

I can hardly believe that Sarah is almost 10 months old. In some ways, she seems so big and in others she still seems like a little baby. Either way she brings so much joy.

She's teething and likes to bite my arm. Ouch! I can tell her bottom teeth are coming in and her top tooth looks like it's going to pop straight out of her gum from the front instead of slowly descending.It looks painful, but she isn't acting really fussy or too terribly uncomfortable.

She pulls herself up on everything, and I often find her in the downward dog Yoga pose with her head on her bunny, her bum straight in the air and her feet flat on the floor. I'll have to try and get a picture of it.

Since she was about six months old, she's only taken one long morning nap from about 10 to noon or sometimes a little longer. It' s nice that she is a predictable napper. As long as we are home in the morning, she sleeps.

She babbles a lot, saying Mama and Dadda. She squeals occasionally.

She is super ticklish and will laugh out loud if you tickle her thighs.

She has been such a wonderful addition to our little family.

Errands

A trip to the store can be quite entertaining with a toddler.





Leah is actually very good at understanding that we have to buy things at the store, and she can't have anything she wants. She will ask to hold things for "2 minutes" and then she usually offers to put it back, unless it's a hot pink bike helmet. That took some encouragement and promises of a bike when she gets bigger before she let it go.

Three Years of Annual Train Festival

Leah and David went to the Annual Manassas Train Festival for the third year in a row. Here she is in 2009 and here in 2010. I love annual traditions.

I stayed home with Sarah so she could get her morning nap.






They had a great time together.

Signs of Summer

It was chilly in the shade, so we swam with no water and a blanket.


I'm always taking pictures upside down on my phone, and then, for some reason, I can't seem to to turn them right again.


I still like the picture upside down, because you can still see that we have the same squint when the sun is in our eyes.