Rain or Shine

I've been slacking in my blogging. Thus this blog has a lot of pictures since we have done lots of fun things this week! I also have been slacking because I keep hoping that February would last longer, but I should know that it always goes fast; especially since it is the shortest month out of the year. I am, however, just not ready for March to come even though tomorrow will be March 1st. In March we have a lot of traveling planned and Lenna turns 1 and with the coming of March I have to admit my baby is turning into a toddler right before my eyes! I am grateful Lenna is growing up but it is really hard for me to admit that my baby is going to be 1. It makes me feel old and I feel like this year just went by so fast!!!

However this little gal is having more and more personality every day. She is still a toothless girl. I really think she is going to hit 1 and have no teeth! But they will come eventually. Lenna has also been napping extremely well! On Wednesday she took a 2.5 hour morning nap followed by a 3 hour afternoon nap. Which basically after a quick stop at play group and grocery shopping made my day super duper easy! Since her afternoon nap was so long she was up to have dinner with Jared and I which was great because Lenna rarely gets to eat a meal with all of us. Since she slept so well, I gave her some brownie as a reward. She thought it was just okay. She loves cheese and Gerber puffs much more!
On one of my Target runs awhile back I found this headband in the dollar section. I thought it was just too funny not to buy. (So yes it was definitely an impulse buy, but really how often do you have silly flower headband on your errand list?) Well to get Lenna to let me have a picture I bribed her with the camera case. She loves playing with the camera case.
Doesn't she look silly?
This is Lenna's new hair do. Her hair is really getting super long and into her eyes. So I put it in a pebbles to keep it out.
We have had some rainy days and some sunny days this week. Both on the rainy days and sunny days we went on walks. On the sunny day baby Weston came over and since he is much younger than Lenna we went on a walk so Lenna would stop picking on him.

Another day it was rainy but we had walks to go on. Here is Lenna at Golden Gardens. It was actually my first time going in the rain since this is more of a favorite park to come to in the summer.
This park is located on the sound, and you could see the peninsula.
The water must have been fairly warm (for Seattle) because it was kind of see through. Ahh this picture makes me want to go on a cruise in the Caribbean.
I tried to get "Hi Dad" written in the sand but the picture just didn't turn out. Once in Hawaii my brother Matt and I wrote "Hi Mom" in the sand and my mom could see it from our hotel balcony, plus she took a picture of it and it looks just like a postcard. Well that didn't happen this time around. Maybe next time I will do better in making it big enough to read.
Lenna enjoyed all her walks and I enjoyed taking all the walks with my friends. If I went on a walk with you this week; I want you to know I really had a great time and we should do it again soon!

Lenna loves to get out of things. She is working hard on her dismounts from people's laps. She turns around and slides off you so she can crawl away and explore. Here she is plotting how to get off the chair in her room.
Saturday Lenna and dad were matching. We tried really hard to get Lenna to look at the camera but she was just too busy.
So dad let her go and explore. See look at her hair it is so shaggy!
Today is another sunny day. We headed out for a short walk, and while outside we noticed Lenna's tree is blooming!
My coworkers gave me this tree because it blooms near Lenna's birthday. It was definitely one of the most memorable baby gifts we received. I told Jared when we move he has to dig this tree back up and we are taking it with us.
Luckily for who ever ends up buying our house when we sell it we have another one just like it on the side of the house. I didn't even know we had this tree before today. Actually I hardly ever look at this side of the house. I should probably pay more attention! You would think after living here for 3 years I would have paid more attention to the things that grow all over my yard but I don't.
Wow I just realized in this post alone I have pictures of all 3 of our strollers. I never thought I would actually own 3 strollers at one time. I really thought I could keep it down to 2 strollers. But I like all of them for different reasons. And Jared puts up with them being all over the house or my car because each one serves a different purpose.

Other happenings of this week. Jared got sick today so I got to go to church by myself. Wow what a difference going to church without a kid makes. I could listen to the speakers and I didn't feel as rushed. It was really actually nice. Hopefully Jared will get better soon though cause I would rather him feel better than sick. On a funny note though since he watched Lenna while I went to church he got Lenna dressed for the day. The fluffiness of Lenna definitely comes from me. He put her in jeans. That is it. So she had a white onesie and jeans on. No socks, no bows no nothing exciting. If her white onesie didn't have small white bows on it she could almost pass for a boy. I just find it funny how we dress her different. It will be exciting to see how Lenna will decide to dress herself in the next few years.

Still afraid of the outdoors

We have been busy girls this week. We have been playing and cleaning and organizing stuff in our house. The funniest part about organizing and cleaning out was I finally decided it was time to get rid of wedding cards, unless I loved them and HAD to keep them. Well in the process I ended up finding 100 bucks! Sadly and funnily only 20 dollars of that was in cash. The other sum was in a gift card that says it has expired (I might see if I can still use it though next time I am in Logan) and the other was a check. I thought out of the 250 cards I went through on Saturday I did pretty good for only missing 3 items. So I don't feel too bad. Actually going through my cards made me feel overwhelmed by the love and generosity of people. It is amazing to me how many people gave us things specially the people we didn't really even know.

Anyway all the other organization has been pretty standard and I think our garbage and recycling are going to be very full this week.

On Sunday Lenna sported her new plaid skirt. From watching GMA while I run they say plaid is the new hot trend. So Lenna I guess is trendy!

She still loves to play with her links.

And every time she gets to play I find her at the fridge playing with magnets and things that are within her reach.It is near impossible to get Lenna to sit still for pictures anymore. I have to try and catch them on the run.But really this is how I feel about trying to get a good picture of Lenna nowadays.

She got new white shoes. They are cuter in person, but the flash over took the whiteness and it is hard to tell.
Yesterday I let Lenna play in our backyard. It lasted a total of maybe 5 minutes. She was really cautious and concerned at first.
And trying to figure it all out.
Then I ran inside to get her ball cause I thought she would like it and then the crying and screaming commenced. She was fine if I was right next to her holding her on her feet, but she would scream if I tried to move. One day Lenna will love playing outside; I think she just needs some more practice.

In other silly news we ran up to Walmart this last weekend to get Rubbermaid storage containers for a buck a piece. While we were up there I saw that the newspaper was already available. Jared laughed but I was so excited to get the Sunday paper. Mainly for the ads. Actually Jared read the whole paper and I read all the ads and the comics. I think I will try more often to get the newspaper. Jared thought it was quite funny that I was so excited though.
Happy Wednesday!

Wagon Rides and Preztel Outings

Yesterday Lenna got to go on a wagon ride with one of her friends named Leah. All the pictures were so cute that I couldn't decide which one to post so I will post them all!

I love they way they both look in this one. They both have such fun personalities!
I think they really loved snacks!Overall I think Lenna really enjoyed herself. I know I had a great time!Today we ran up to Alderwood and got our free pretzel! It was yummy and we definitely love free things!
Lastly one adorable picture of Lenna sleeping. She hates stuffed animals and will push them away, all but this one. She loves this bunny and loves to sleep with it. At night I hear her wake up and just talk to her bunny. I wish I understood what she was telling the little guy.
Ahhh I love this girl!

Sunshine!

This whole week Seattle has been blessed with sunshine! The best part is we have had some rain too, so that means everything is super green and feels like spring!

Yesterday regardless of the sun was one of those days where nothing seemed to be working out for me. We all have those days, but yesterday was almost comical. It all started off at 3:47am where my sick husband decided to cough right in my face and wake me up. Then he woke up early at like 6:30am and his waking up early woke up Lenna. Since it was early I woke up a grumpy woman. Have you ever had those days where you just wake up super grumpy?

Well I tried to solve my grumpiness by retail therapy. We headed to Target and found some great Valentine's day clearance items. When we got home I looked at my loot and was excited for all the things we got, but still grumpy! Lenna took a good morning nap and I ran like normal on the elliptical but I was still grumpy after my run. Seriously isn't working out suppose to wake you up and make you happy? In the afternoon I decided I would take a short nap during Lenna's afternoon nap to try and cure my grumpiness. However, Lenna decided that she would not have an afternoon nap! Since it was sunny we went on a walk and tried to enjoy the weather. We stopped at the park and did some swinging!
PS I was still grumpy on our walk since I really wanted a nap! After getting home and waiting for daddy to get home we got a text message from dad telling us he had missed his bus. So Lenna got put to bed without seeing dad =( She was really tired since she didn't have a nap. In the end what solved my grumpiness was a 20oz bottle of coke not having to make dinner, and Jared picked me up some of my favorite flowers. Do you ever have days like those where sometimes you wish you could just hit the redo button? In short though I can't really complain I was just tired and with a good nights rest everything is back to normal!
Other events of this week. Lenna is getting into everything!Jared and I decorated and ate sugar cookies (we didn't eat them all in one night).I organized our pantry so I can easily fit more of the deals I find at the grocery stores.
Before
After
I also have take a lot of videos. Since I uploaded them and didn't pay attention to the order I uploaded them I don't know what order they are in. But I hope the Grandma's can enjoy the collection. They include:

Lenna with her pink blanket she loves playing underneath blankets. She thinks it is a super fun game.

Lenna on a wagon ride with her friend Leah! Leah always has fun activities to do.

Lenna playing with her bead necklace G. Princess sent up! She likes that is makes noises when she shakes it

Lenna playing the piano. She thinks she is a big girl now that she can reach it.

Lenna playing with herself in the mirror.



Have a great weekend and Happy Friday to everyone!

The Joys of the last week

This last week has had some really exciting days and then not so exciting days. But that is better than all very boring days. One day we were over at a friends house and Lenna loved playing with his giant balloon! Actually this friend gave Lenna a red one of these. I just have been to lazy to blow it up. I should probably get on that.
Also recently I have been trying to have Lenna eat from a bowl. I think it is because I want her to learn that at restaurants we should eat from the plate and keep the plate on the table. It isn't going so well. She mainly just picks the bowl up and dumps the stuff out. Luckily she dumps it out on her tray and not the floor. I am going to keep trying though and one day it will click to leave the bowl on the tray.
Since it was Valentine's this last week we decided to celebrate as a family the day before. Lenna turned 11 months old on Valentine's day. So when we were out on our adventure we went to gas works and got a picture of Lenna with the skyline. Jared was kind enough to haul the chair into the park even though some people gave us funny looks. But I like how it turned out with the skyline being more grayish and Lenna really colorful. I am getting better at my photo editing skills and I am starting to actually really like photo editing so much that it is becoming a hobby. I am not so much into taking pictures but just editing them, sadly you have to take pictures so you can have something to edit though. Regardless I really like how this picture turned out.For our exciting family Valentine's adventure we went to Trophy Cupcakes. I gotta say that I still like Cupcake Royale more. But it was still a fun trip.
Lenna seemed to enjoy herself.
Later that day when Lenna went to bed Jared and I had a fancy dinner at home. We made salads, sweet potatoes, asparagus, other sides, and steaks. It was very delicious. And at the end of it I was stuffed. I actually didn't know if I would like doing this even though it was my idea. But it was so fun to cook together and eat fancy at home. I think I even liked it more than the last two years of going out to the Palisades. Gasp! I know you are all shocked because I tend to like to eat more.
On Valentine's day Lenna gave daddy her gift to him. Which was a book so he could read it to her.Plus we are lucky to have such great family and friends who mail us cards. Here is our spread! Oh and my lilies finally started to open they smell so nice! It is nice to have fun cards on the table and not just bills.In this video you can see that Lenna likes to "read" her books. You can see the Elmo Valentine's book we got her and the big purple ball. She loves balls so I had to get her a ball for Vday. Anyway her new skill is to blow. She will just blow air all the time during the day. I think it is cute. It is at the very end of the video.

Lenna's other new skill is she finally learned how to suck through a straw. Thank you to my friends who suggested the juice box and for Melinda in providing the juice box. After giving Lenna straight up apple juice in the juice box she can now successfully drink from her sippy cup that has a straw! Hooray!

A few days early

She just keeps getting more fun and cuter every day!