The Daintys

Leah got her very first hair cut last week. Now she doesn't spend half her waking moments pushing hair out of her eyes! It was very exciting, and very challenging, as it required Leah to sit still for approximately 7 minutes. Didn't Ryan do a good job? (The pictures are in the reverse order, starting with the final results!)

This year we have had a nice long Christmas! We started the weekend before Christmas in Michigan and Grandma R's. We had fun painting ornaments, making pretzels, doing a little shopping, and playing Taboo. We'll put more pictures up of Christmas soon...

Leah has had some new "firsts" lately... We took her to her first movie theatre show the other weekend to see Disney's Tangled. She LOVED it. "Punzel" is one her favorite princesses now, and she often wants to watch the trailer online. She also had her first hot chocolate, and that went over big as well. She continues to make us laugh by saying funny things. Tonight I said, "Okay Leah time to get ready for bed." She said, "Lemme check my email first mama. I gotta check my email." What?!

I can't get these pictures in order for the life of me, so here they are in no particular order... Our recent adventure to find our family Advent/Christmas tree! We went to a local tree farm and cut one down on a beautifully snowy day. Leah did NOT want to be carried, and did a great job trekking through snow and brambles. She has been loving the snow, and especially likes to watch our dog Lucy jump to catch snowballs and make snow angels. (Except she likes to lay on her belly when making snow angels...)

Check out this hilarious rendition of the ABCs.

We have so much to be thankful for, especially our family and friends. This Thanksgiving we were able to see my dad's side of the family in the Chicago area. Leah had lots of fun with her Opa, Aunt, and "Unkies." In case you can't see it, her headdress says "Pretty Fawn."

Leah turned two years old several weeks ago. We sung her happy birthday and all day long she said, "Eets my happy burday day!" We got to celebrate with "Gwammy and Papa" the weekend before and she got an awesome ride-on train. We got her a play kitchen and she's been cooking us pancakes galore. And hiding her sippy cups in the oven. More pictures coming soon!

This was the first year we took Leah trick-or-treating, and we all had lots of fun! Though we only went down one block, Leah collected a ridiculous amount of candy, which I am enjoying at this very moment. Leah was Minnie Mouse, her current absolute favorite. We also got a little visit from Grandma R. So between the Gwammy visit, candy, and Minnie dress, it was a fantastic day for Miss Leah. (Just check out the last picture to see her enthusiasm...)

Other than the current MSU football score, it has been a pretty great weekend so far! Last night we had our first family movie night with Leah. We watched How to Train Your Dragon and had "sbejjie treats," or special treats. Leah watched the whole thing and LOVED it. Today we've had some fall leaf fun, some arts 'n crafts time, some football watching, and we're about to enjoy the beef burgundy stew that's been cooking in the crock pot all day. Mmmm. Practicing her trick-or-treat face. She is singing about climbing in this video if you can't quite make it out over the swishing!

Today, about an hour before dinner, Leah wanted a snack. It would have been her third or fourth snack of the afternoon, actually. She she opened up the cupboard and was digging around finding all the items that had the highest sugar content. I closed the cupboard doors and told her it was almost dinner time, so no snack right now. I expected her to throw a fit, but to my surprise she didn't! How wonderful! "Mommy! Go my woom!" she said. I thought she was all excited to read a story or play with some toys in her bedroom. So she drags me there by my pant leg, points to her bed and says, "Mama, sit* down! Sit down!" I was just about to ask what book she wanted to read and then she says, "Time owd mama, time owd." Then, she closed the door and left. I sat there with my mouth hanging open thinking, DID MY ALMOST-TWO-YEAR-OLD REALLY JUST GIVE ME A TIME OUT?! A moment later she came back in. "Aw done time owd mama, aw done." And she grabb...

A snippet of mealtime conversation with Leah as she was awaiting her brunch...

Fall is officially approaching. Football has started, we dug some fallish clothes out of storage, and the school year is well underway. (We are a month into the school year already... How did that happen?) Ryan's coaching the girls golf team and they are wrapping up their season. I am enjoying my new job as a middle school science teacher. Here is a quintessential summer picture before fall is here full force...

We have a new computer. That is my excuse for another long absence from posting. But, I installed my camera on here, so new pictures. Leah is 22 months old; I can't BELIEVE she's almost two! She is an energetic little goof ball, and we love to see more and more of her personality and spunk emerge as she gets older. Here are some pictures from the other weekend when we took a trip to the local zoo with our good friends... (Leah was enamored with this tiger. We watched him for a long time, and she ran in and out of this little viewing area over and over...)

It has been a long time since we updated our blog yet again!  So, for the sake of Leah's biggest fans, here are some pictures from our recent day trip to the beach.  We went to meet a few of my girlfriends from college and it was so fun to see them.  And, to make the day even better the temperature of Lake Michigan was perfect!  It didn't feel like you were swimming in a recently-melted glacier, yet it was still refreshing.  Ahhh.   Leah had a blast.  She LOVES the water, or as she calls it, "wahbie."  She also enjoyed the sand.  What is it with toddlers and sand?  She buried her own knees and toes, she used it as a condiment in which to dip her peanut butter sandwich, she did somersaults in the sand, she kicked it up in the air, she investigated shady patches of sand to try to figure out why they were so much cooler that the hot sunny sand... Needless to say, we are still cleaning the sand off of her nearly a week later... .

Happy Father's Day to all the daddies! (Especially Grandpa Dainty and Grandpa Rutecki!) We started off the day by going to the early Mass, then Leah helped me make her daddy some banana peanut-butter chip pancakes and cherrywood smoked bacon. Yum! We gave Ryan his gifts. He is holding up his nifty new golf towel below. (Who new a towel could be so high tech!) After breakfast Ryan started working on painting the basement since we're trying to get most of that done before we have new carpet installed. Leah decided to paint as well. She made some beautiful pictures and got very messy. So, of course we had to get out the sprinkler to rinse off. Next it's lunch and nap time! Check out her face in the picture above. She was not crazy about the feel of paint on her hands!