Leah's Debut

I feel like as a parent, there I things that I really enjoyed as a child that I would like the girls to enjoy.

But, I don't want to be that mom, so I don't push them into things, even if I think it's something they'd genuinely enjoy!

I was in plays when I was little, so that's kind of my thing and I didn't want to push her into something just because I liked it.

So, even though I've known that Leah would enjoy being in a play, I waited until she was sure she wanted to do it.  

She waffled back and forth and back and forth last summer, and ended up regretting not doing it.  I'm sure a little nudge wouldn't have scarred her or anything.

Leah was ready this summer, though, and had an amazing time with the Missoula Children's Theater!

It was the perfect way for her to dip her toe into the theater world.  They had group auditions on Monday, rehearsed in the mornings until Friday, and performed Friday evening and Saturday morning.  It was a whirlwind of fun!

Leah was a member of The Secret Garden in The Secret Garden.

It's kind of mind bending, but it was a very creative rendition of the book :)

She started out as a plant that was without life,

and ended up as a plant (of the grape variety) filled with life!

Ah, yes, you know me...I'm always a sucker for a good redemption story!

She loved every part of it!  It certainly didn't hurt that some of her friends were in it with her.

She loved getting flowers, too...can't blame a girl for that!

We loved watching her!

The look on Leah's face when she came into the lobby after her first show was priceless!  Joy and excitement and the best kind of pride all rolled into one.

It was her best possible debut :)

If You Thought She Couldn't Get Any Cuter...

If you thought she couldn't get any cuter...

you might be wrong!

I mean, look at this girl!

And a profile view:

yeah, the lettuce is doing great!

Leah and Aaron look even more alike!  Plus, their prescription is exactly the same.

...especially when they are making the silly "grandmother" face!

And Gracie wanted a cute picture with Aaron, too!

So, seriously...isn't Leah so adorable in her glasses?!?!  I'm so excited for her to see better and have a new favorite accessory :) 

Leah's Birthday Recap!

Leah has been 8 for 2 whole weeks now, and we all think that 8 is great!

We celebrated with all the grandparents and Auntie Mindy on the 15th!

Leah chose the cake for her birthday!

It was actually a gluten free cake...so delicious!

Secret Ingredient:  Quinoa!

I over-beat the frosting and it "broke," so I quickly made a chocolate butter cream.  The text is white chocolate.  I "wrote" on a plastic wrap covered cookie sheet and popped it in the fridge.  I arranged the words after it was set.

Leah had fun wearing a present while opening others...

and her sisters were quite an attentive audience!

We had pizza for supper.  I made a half cheese/half hawaiian pizza, a pepperoni pizza, and a half canadian bacon, sugared bacon, pepperoni/half fancy pizza.  The "fancy" pizza had sugared bacon, fried jalapeno, caramelized onions, and craisins.  I didn't tell anyone about the craisins until they ate it and it was delicious! 

I made up a fun strawberry limeade (recipe tomorrow) and we also had stawberries (Leah's favorite) and salad. 

I love this 8 year old!

The 5 of us celebrated Leah's birthday on her actual day of birth :)

She got to open her presents right away in the morning.

Leah was supposed to have school on her birthday, but it was cancelled due to cold or ice or snow or some such thing.  

That was a nice happy birthday from the school district!

Please enjoy this brief sequence of photos:

Gracie was having a hard time getting into the someone-else's-birthday-spirit of things.

Gracie then made Leah's stuffed animal chinchilla pretend to pee on her (Leah...the birthday girl :)) in self defense*.

Aaron gently reminded Gracie that it's not polite to make a chinchilla pee on someone any time...especially not on that person's birthday.

So, there was that (seriously hilarious).

Maggie was happy to watch Leah open her presents and didn't make any stuffed animals do anything inappropriate.  

Lovelies...

Leah really wanted a fleece with thumb holes, and I found one!

She was SO excited and has been wearing it pretty much nonstop.  I feel like I should notify her teacher that Leah is indeed wearing different clothing every day underneath her fleece!

This is quite a resilient fleece, too!  She got sharpie and ketchup on it on Saturday.  I actually got the sharpie out (hand sanitizer for the win!) and the ketchup came out in the wash.  Leah was wearing it on Sunday while cracking eggs for french toast and then dropped an egg and it cracked, getting egg all over her fleece!  So, it's in the wash again, and I think Leah is going through withdrawal.

Aaaanyway, Leah requested hot dogs, cheetoes, strawberries, and cupcakes for her birthday meal.

 

Easiest birthday meal ever!

We had a great time celebrating an ever greater girl <3

In case you missed it, here's Leah's birthday letter!

*Leah did a report/presentation on chinchillas for school (I'll blog about it eventually) which is why we all know about the whole peeing in self defense thing :)  That fact was a huge hit for the second graders, especially seeing as I wasn't about to research and/or have Leah explain how you can tell a male from a female...which is apparently the question each presenter is asked.  Yikes!  ;)

For Leah on Her Birthday

Things have been awfully busy around these parts!  The girls are finally feeling better and we're all getting more sleep...huge bonus!  Now I'm working on my talk for the Women's Day Seminar at church on Saturday.  It's coming together really well, but it means less time for blogging.  Such is the ebb and flow of life, and it's all good.

I'll recap Leah's birthday festivities later, but for now, here's a little letter...a day late :)

Leah enjoying her birthday meal of hot dogs, cheetos, strawberries and cherry limeade
while wearing her new aqua fleece with thumb holes!

Dear Leah, 

You are 8!  Halfway to driving...yikes!

You were born during the winter Olympics, which is kind of cool seeing as they're on right now.  We had a lot of fun joking about Bob Costas when you were born and how we should have photoshopped him into our family pictures from those first few days!

Anyway, I just wanted to share my hope/prayer for you for the upcoming year.

You've come a really long way in terms of being flexible with life which is awesome to see!  But, you are still the firstborn daughter of a firstborn daughter, and I feel like it's fair to say the we both reeeeeeally like knowing what to expect and are less than thrilled when life throws us a curve ball.  Neither of us really love to try something new unless we are fairly certain we'll be good at it.

Risk takers we are not.

My prayer for you this year is that you would be brave and courageous and not afraid of the future.

print we are getting for her room

I want you to walk into the future with confidence and be brave even when you face the little uncertainties in life.

You have plenty to be confident in when it comes to who God made you to be!  You are so incredibly friendly and bright and cheerful and giving and resilient and happy.

But, more importantly than that, I want you to be confident because of Jesus.  

...because you trust Him so much that you know that you know that you know that He will never let you fall.

...because you know that Jesus walked through uncertainty and pain so that He would know what it is like for you to have a hard time.  He is the perfect intercessor and comforter for you.

...because you safely rest in His unconditional love for you even when things don't turn out the way you expect.

...because you are deeply convinced that Jesus' opinion is the only one that truly matters so you don't even worry if you make choices that your friends might not understand.

It's okay to make mistakes, and it's okay to not be perfect.  Those times are just reminders to us of how very much we need Jesus.  You can always go to Him and He will always meet you.

I know that 8 will be great!

Please know, too, sweet girl, that being your mom is one of the most precious gifts God has given me.  I'm insanely humbled by the opportunity to have a front row seat to witness the person you are becoming.  

Let's always be friends and love each other and remember to laugh and point each other to Jesus.

Okay?

Okay!

I love you La-Lee-La!

Love, 
Mommy



Leah's letter from last year with lots of pictures.

My Firstborn Oldest

Yes, the title is redundant.  I did it for emphasis :)

One of the things I love about Leah are her contrasts.

She is ridiculously creative and imaginative and is equally committed to accuracy and rules and a literal take on all the things.

That whole accuracy thing?  She gets it from her firstborn accurate mom :)

For example, I've mentioned Leah's love for all things The Sound of Music.

She loves it with the precision and accuracy of a German Austrian engineer...all the way down to the hair style :)

Did you notice how she's standing with her hands behind her back?  Yep, that's how the Von Trapp children stand...in case you were wondering!

So, you can imagine my delight when she brought this paper home from school a few weeks ago.  It totally exemplifies the way she sees things through the lens of a firstborn child committed to literal accuracy!

Yep, she's comparing herself to the main character in the book.

My very favorite is the one on the bottom...

Yes...Heidi Heckelbuck is in a book.  

Leah?

Not in a book :)

Have a literally awesome day!

Happy Sigh

Nothing quite warms my mommy heart

like the sight of sisters

enjoying a book together

or counting teeth!

Love love double love!

<3

It was a Good Weekend to be Leah

Yes, it was a good weekend to be Leah...and the other girls, too, but Leah had some special things!

Like being in ANOTHER parade!

Leah and her friend, Brian, were randomly selected to carry the banner for their class!  They were so excited!  

On Friday afternoon, Maggie, Gracie, Aaron and I went to the parade, which was only about 20 minutes long, so the little girls were able to still get in an afternoon nap...

...also known as a win for mommy ;)



After school, Leah "did the dishes."

I was internally cheering and patting myself on the back for having a daughter so eager to serve the family by taking care of the dishes.  

Then, I realized that by "doing the dishes," Leah really meant "playing with the water."  

For the record, I was quite happy about that, too!  I enjoy her creative play.

Yes, she washed 3 dishes in 30 minutes.  But, she also very thoroughly rinsed out the empty milk jug you see in the picture :)



On Saturday morning, Leah picked out Maggie's clothes.

She if full of love with all of those hearts!  

Maggie got the small flute/recorder/whistle in a goody bag from school and she asked Leah to give her lessons!



The girls and I went to Hobby Lobby on Saturday morning.  Our friend, Lori, and her 4 daughters came with us.  

Here's how excited my girls were when I told them their friends were coming!

Lots of little girl squealing and jumping up and down!

All of the girls did great at Hobby Lobby!  After Lori and I got what we needed, we wandered up and down the Christmas aisles and the girls looked at beautiful things.  It was pretty fun watching the expressions of other shoppers as our little posse of girls made their way through the store :)

I wish I wouldn't have forgotten my camera!


And, lastly, on Sunday afternoon, we cuddled on the couch while watching a little House Hunters on hgtv.

We love trying to figure out which house they are going to choose!

I also enjoy the opportunity to talk about contentment and not needing to have fancy things to be happy.

I mean, seriously!  Some of the people on that show are ridiculous!  As if you couldn't possibly live in a house without 2 sinks in the bathroom or obviously not being able to cook unless you have granite counters.

Silly, silly.

Not that there's anything wrong with those things, but some people really need to pull themselves together :)



I hope your weekend was great, too, even if you weren't in a parade!



I'm linking up with Blair on Wild and Precious.

If Leah Had a Bucket List

We went to a candy filled parade on Labor Day!

Leah and Maggie had great form when dashing out to retrieve candy.

Gracie wasn't as much of a fan.  She stayed on my lap pretty much the whole time.

I was happy, though!  She's pretty busy, so it's rare to have her on my lap for so long!

Leah had such a great time, that the whole way home, all we talked about was how kids could be in a parade.  

They could ride a horse.  

They could ride in an old car.  

They could ride on a fire engine.  

They could run for political office and buy votes with candy.

You know, the usual!

If Leah had a bucket list, being in a parade would be on it!

I was talking to my friend, Beth, about this and she mentioned that Leah might be able to be in a parade with the construction company that her husband co-owns.

As it turned out, Leah could be in the parade!  And it was this past weekend!

I dropped Aaron and Leah off to line up.

You can just SEE how excited Leah is!

Maggie, Gracie, and I settled in to watch the parade.

Aaron had the great idea to let Maggie use our old camera to take pictures of the parade.  It really gave her something special to do!

Before Aaron and Leah came by, we got to see a goat on a float.

Dr. Seuss would be so proud :)

Then a goat in a car.

And, while that doesn't rhyme, it is certainly worth mentioning.  

I would be terrified that the goat would poop on me or in my car.

Unless there are goat diapers?

We were also reminded that hugs are better than drugs.

You know, in case I would have forgotten.  

Then...at last!

Leah dropped a bunch of candy at our feet!  

And had a great time doing it!

Aaron had fun, too.

I feel like being in a small town parade makes you like a D list celebrity.

Or something like that.

They were pretty tired when they were done.

I think handing out candy at a parade is pretty much reverse trick or treating, and that really wears a girl out!

What a great day!

I'm thankful for friends who help make fun, little dreams come true!

Oh, and in case you missed some of what else has been going on in our life lately, check out our fun first day of school pictures!



I'm linking up with Blair at Wild and Precious!