19 Months!!

19 months old- already! Leah is losing all baby-ness about her and definitely an active toddler! She is adding a few words a week to her cute little vocabulary such as mommy, stuck, duck, shoes, toes, bubbles (which she confuses for water), da-da, woof, and makes a "vroom" sound for motorcycle. We are starting to try and play with a baby-doll during playtime to try and get her used to having a baby around. We use words like gentle ALOT and hopefully she will be fully "big-sister" trained by the time the new baby arrives this fall. Leah is learning some new habits such as climbing and standing on furniture. How can you be mad when you turn around and see her sitting so nicely on this kitchen chair, paging through a magazine? She is up on the Hollywood news for sure! She definitely has an idea of what she wants to do. It mostly involves the word "Elmo or Bob". Although Leah will NOT sit down to watch a movie on the tv, she WILL sit in front of Youtube watching little video clips of Veggie Tales or Elmo's World. When we are finished or say, no to her requests, she throws quite the trantrum. Hopefully this phase will pass...a strong willed child is a GOOD thing, later in life right?

We have added a new toy to the VB house - a play kitchen for Leah! This is with hopes that she will extend her attention span to more than a few seconds and also maybe it will teach her valuable life skills. I know that I have probably spent longer playing with the new kitchen than making real food in my own. Whoops.

I apologize for not posting a bunch of pictures lately...as many of you know, Leah is BUSY. She doesn't sit still for more than a few seconds and it makes picture taking very difficult! Her friend Rogue comes over about once a week to play and we have tried many times for that "perfect" photo op. This is Rogue running away from the chair and Leah is doing summersaults on the chair. They are EVERYWHERE. They have HILARIOUS dance parties and I promise to get a video to post of moshing 1 year olds.

I was delighted and a bit saddened when I picked this pig-tail girl up from school yesterday - her teachers LOVE to style her hair and she kept her pig tails in all day long! They say that she twirls them around her finger. We're all convinced she will be a girly girl. She also steals jewelry from who ever she can and walks around very proudly displaying it.

Leah is certainly a ball of energy, we try to come up with new ways to exert this so she will sleep well at night - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I especially like her exibiting the baby sign for "more" when I tell her to jump more. She is picking up more and more signs - some are a bit skewed, but we eventually figure out what she is trying to communicate.

Pnemonia

We had a little pnemonia excitement last week in our house and had to visit the doctor. Apparently, Leah was worried about catching a chill and had to keep her hat on.

This is a good summary of how we feel when Leah is sick, she must have felt the same way. We are thankful for a speedy and full recovery back into normal life!

Opposite

This picture just shows how Leah's parents are teaching her to be well-rounded and cultured in lots of things. Last post showed her tough side, this post, however shows the complete opposite. This is the soft, pink, cuddly girly side of our little lady! She really enjoyed playing around the house Saturday in her jammies + tutu that she received for Christmas this year.

Tough Kid

When Leah was still baking in my tummy, Rick decided that he didn't want Leah to be ALL girly. So, in trying to keep up with that dream for her, he has to make sure she has a "wild" streak. The first pictures of of her sweet mohawk and the second picture is Daddy and Leahs' "tough" faces while sporting their matching wife beaters. They make me laugh constantly!

Weekend

We're still here! We finally had our 15 month well-baby check up last week. Leah weighed in at 23 lbs and 3 oz. (up 3 ounces from 12/8/09) and 31 3/4" inches tall (up 1 3/4 inches since 128/8/09). She is in wonderful health and for that we are very thankful! Leah decided to experiment with drinking her yogurt the other day..it was almost bathtime, so I figured why not?! Well - this is why not. She tried her luck again the next morning with her oatmeal. We're going to stay away from running foods for a while in hopes that she forgets that trick.

We had a productive weekend and replaced a toilet. Leah enjoyed climbing in and out and reading her favorite book of the week - Brown Bear Brown Bear. She hasn't attempted to do this with any of the fully functioning toilets...yet. She is SUPER busy all the time and makes us laugh constantly. Our lives would be boring without her, that's for sure!

Lastly, Leah learned to give kisses and it melts our hearts every single time!

Christmas 2009

The VB family had a great Christmas this year! We are thankful to have such a great family and everyone is healthy. Christmas Eve was spent with Rick's family, and Leah REALLY enjoyed playing with her cousins. She hardly sat still the whole night - so much fun!

My parents gave Leah her very own rocking chair for Christmas and she LOVES to sit and rock in it. She even learned a new word "weeeee" and says it while she rocks.

She also discovered a new favorite spot to play - we are in the process of getting a new dishwasher (YAY!) and she found the new cubby such an exciting new place to play! Needless to say, plug covers were put in almost immediately after her discovery. She is growing so fast and seems SO tall lately! She most definitely makes us laugh a lot throughout the day!

Utensils

Leah's getting pretty crafty when it comes to climbing and retrieving toys. She is also climbing on furniture very well. Thankfully, she is a bit of a clumsy child so she has perfected the art of falling without getting hurt (usually). There may be a career in stunts ahead.

Ho ho ho Merry Christmas!

Leah gets a report card on her activities everyday from her teachers at school. It has categories such as nap times, meal times, diaper changes and activities...this week, we got a report card home and a specific box was checked "used utensils without help". While I was crying inside, I decided to test this report out to see if they were pulling my leg...please enjoy the video.