christmas day

Christmas Day was so precious with our little Leah. She has really helped to explain a lot of things about the Christmas story. Thanks to Auntie Holly-hol for taking these adorable pictures!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our kiddies to you!!! We hope you have a blessed holiday!

seriously

Sometimes I don't want these precious moments to end! (can you see the matching chins in this picture?)

facial expressions

favorite place

So many cute pictures, how do you choose which ones to post ....oh, just post all of them!! GOTCHA! :)

1st Christmas Program

We had the pleasure of attending Leah's first Christmas program last night for her school. This is Leah taking the stage. You can also see that her good friend Logan is following right behind her.


She had a very active role in the program "be as relaxed as you can". She played it to a "t". She was absolutely mezmorized by all of the lights!

Here is Leah performing with a lot of the kids from her class and the class that's the next step up. They have these "uber-strollers" that they use to take the little 'uns on walks every day. Who knew they could come in handy for events such as this!!?

The program was absolutely precious! Tara's neice was one of the cutest angels I have ever seen. I can't imagine Leah being old enough to play one of these roles...but it's bound to happen!

What a GREAT way to start the holiday season. Merry Christmas everyone!

RubyLu ShoutOut!

I want to give a shoutout to my good friend Beth....she has a photography business RubyLu Photography and Leah had the opportunity to get her 3 month pictures done a few weeks ago. Beth did a FANTASTIC job and I LOVE all the pictures....here are a couple of my favorites! Thanks again!

Friday

How did I find the strength to leave this cuteness today? I have NO idea! :) Leah's new thing is to bat at things like a cat...the toys hanging from her car seat make cute little jingle noises when you move them. She is fascinated by them!!

Oh Christmas Tree

A momentous event happened over the weekend at the VB house....I put up our Christmas tree! Many of you readers know that I didn't like to bother with those "formalities" of the Christmas season...but this year I felt that we needed to start a tradition with decorating for the holidays and measure Leah's growth in front of the tree each year.

I am also quite excited about getting a stocking for Leah's first Christmas. She looks quite thrilled (as you can see) when I explained to her how Christmas worked.

baptism

This past weekend was very special to our new little family. Leah was baptised and she met her Aunt Rosemary for the first time! She looked extra precious in her little dress and sweater! It seemed she was quite comfortable and took a bit of a nap during the service.

Pardon my red face - it was 800 degrees in there, I am SURE of it!

Here's a nice action shot....

Then, on Sunday we had a special family dinner with ALL family members - even Bubba, Corrie's dog.

Since Leah has arrived family time has taken on a new meaning and is now even more special.

Also, thank you to everyone that came to church this weekend and showed your support for us and Leah on our special day. We are so blessed for such a great circle of friends and family!

Cozy Weekend

We had a great weekend! Saturday night we went over to the Dykstra's house, where Tracy was DYING to get Leah into D's 'Bumbo' seat.
I was delighted and saddened that Leah was able to sit up un-assisted in it. And I quote from Tracy "I'm going to love it, and you're going to hate this!". She was right. Leah looked so grown up sitting all by herself in the seat, where does the time go? She kind of looks a little dazed herself!

Sunday was Leah's first snow. She needed to wear a cozy and warm outfit for the occasion. This was the first outfit that we received as a gift from Tara when I was probably 10 weeks along. I could wait to put her in it...she sure was snuggly all day in it!!(We've all decided that we're getting adult versions of it) Thank you TA!

Trick or Treat

The VB's had a new experience this Halloween - trick or treating with the little one! I never got into Halloween and never really understood why other people did....now I get it! HA! Leah was a snuggly pumpkin. I laugh every time I think of her in the costume.
We went lots of places 'trick or treating' this is Leah with her buddy Deacon, the Kangaroo.

We stopped by Aunt Heather's to say hello and pose with her cousins who were getting ready for their Halloween party. We had a great day and went a bunch of other places and got nice little treats!

watch out boys!

Mooowwaaahhh haa haaa haaa

This is Leah's best attempt at a scary Halloween face. She was trying to get into the 'holiday' mood before school this morning.

Then she thought her scary face was funny. (either that or she was laughing at me laughing at her!)

P.S. if you lift up the ghost, there's little boxers under there. You gotta keep Halloween rated G for the young'ins. Happy Halloween!

Tagged By Heather

I was tagged by Heather to post the 4th picture in the 4th folder of my pictures. This was taken on our first trip to Key West, in 2007.
Rachel, Laura and I were at Margaritaville for refreshments. Ah, good times!

2 month checkup

This is one of Leah's favorite poses. She constantly has her arms up by her face or just laying back and chillin'.

Too bad she had no idea what was in store for her. She might have been a little less-laid back. We went to the Dr. for her 2 month check up yesterday. That is translated in to FIRST SHOTS! She got an excellent report card from the Pediatrician about her overall development and growth. Leah is 10 lbs and 14 oz's and 22 1/4 inches long. I could have sworn she was MUCH heavier, but hey, what do I know!!?

She is in the 25 - 50th percentile for her height, weight and head circumfrance, so she's on the smaller side, how cute and delicate!

We also discussed the non-dairy diet and the doctor feels that it would be harmful to Leah to even cheat (any more than I started to) until she is at least 9 months old. I think Vitale's business is starting to suffer from this diet!!

The shots were much more traumatic for me. 1 in her right leg, 2 in her left and one was an oral medication. She cried, of course, and of course, so did I...but she recovered quite quickly. Mommy did not. We spent the afternoon snuggling with me apologizing for the owies, but she seems to have forgiven me. We are now looking into buying stock in Children's Tylenol.

9 weeks

Leah received a whole bunch of fun onsies that have little sayings on them. I believe Auntie Rosemary sent this one to her. They are smart little buggers aren't they?

purple goodness

There are so many reasons why it's difficult to leave for work in the morning - let alone on time. Today for instance, I couldn't NOT take a couple pictures of the purple goodness!

I've become a fan of shopping - yes folks, it's true. I LOVE shopping for little Leah clothes. The beauty of her growing so fast is that we have to constantly hunt for cute outfits! Gee, darn! I picked this little number up at a local consignment shop the other night. We have ALMOST captured the evasive smile in this photo op, it will come, I promise!

snug as a bug

It was super cold this morning when Leah and dad were leaving for school. We anticipated the low temperatures and went out and bought a 'Bundleme' cover for her carseat last night. It is AMAZING and super soft and warm. Rick made the comment about how we should put a pea in the bottom of the car seat to see if she would be bothered or not. He's too funny! Leah looks pretty comfy!

8 weeks Old!

Today is Leah's 8 week birthday. She is doing a lot of very fun things - such as smiling almost every day and she has become much more vocal over the past couple of days. She responds to silly voices and faces with her own little noises. It is PRECIOUS! She is also following people and objects with her eyes, so I am convinced that she is a genious! She is currently getting over cold # 2, but she is recovering nicely. I am now on a mission to capture the SMILE on camera...we will see how it goes. It will be worth the wait, I promise!

rub a dub dub

Bath time is always a fun adventure at the VB house. Leah seems to love them - you can't tell, but she's really happy in this picture! She is starting to smile and coo almost every day. It melts my heart every time!
Her baby acne seems to be clearing up a bit, so now she's even cuter - is that possible?

first day at school

Yesterday was the first day that Leah went to "school". Our daycare center likes the kids to call it school - because it's a much more positive term - and the kids learn a lot there!
This is a picture of Leah when she left for school with her daddy. Our routine is hopefully going to be that he drops her off in the morning (giving me time to actually take a shower in the morning!) and then I pick her up at the end of the day. It worked out very well yesterday, and we hope it continues to go smoothly.
As you can see, the eyes were not open when she left. She was a little perturbed at being up by 6:30 and out the door by 7:15 - ah, paybacks for all the sleepless nights!

This is a picture of her when we got home - notice the different outfit...she went through 3 outfits yesterday - mommy only packed 1 extra set of clothes and 2 onsies - but she made sure to break in her teachers on her first day! They put her in an extra outfit that they had. I didn't know where she was right away when I went to pick her up because I didn't recognize the clothes. Anyways, she did VERY well and she is making new friends already. There are 11 other kids in her "class" under the age of 1. I am sure they will all grow up to be good friends! If you have to send your kids to daycare, I would say that our place is the best choice and it makes it so much easier to be back at work knowing she's in good hands.

Jeans

Leah had another first this weekend. I went up north with 8 of her girlfriends over Saturday night - so she got to spend lots of quality time with her daddy!! They both did SO well
(except a crying spell for a few hours). They even made a trip to Crane's Orchards with my parents for lunch on Sunday.
Today is Leah's first day wearing Jeans!! I believe that these are hand-me-downs from her friend Kennedy ...they are SCRUMPTIOUS! She looks like she's pretty happy in them!

Gentle Winter

Well, that was FUN! As mentioned in the last post my mom got Leah a session to get her colors done. This is achieved by draping a series of different colored clothes to see what works best with Leah's skin tone, eyes and hair color. She did SO well and seemed to enjoy the interesting colors and possibly tried to eat some of them. She made a wide range of funny little faces, some of which we captured on film (or memory card). It was determined that she is a "gentle" winter and we have a whole booklet of colors that are in her "pallet". It didn't take very long so then, Leah, my mom and I headed over to Russ' for a non-dairy brunch. I opted for a salad and the waitress looked at me like I had holes in my head when I requested no cheese. Yes ma'am, I AM insane. :) HA! What a great adventure. Leah is all tired out from such a fun day. Thanks again Ima!

chillin'

Hello! Today is Leah's 5 week birthday. We are celebrating this birthday by going to get her colors done! What a fun girlie thing to do! That was a shower present from my mom - how thoughtful - we will always know what colors to buy her!! (More pictures of that later!)
This is Leah last week with her new friend Owen. He lives across the street with his parents and older brother and sister. He is about 3 months older than Leah, so they will probably be in the same class. How fun! Don't they look thrilled to be getting their pictures taken? I recall a little flirting just before we snapped the photo.