15 Months

Leah's 15 months old!  She's chatty and happy and has recently started to tell us when she pooped.  I love each and every thing about her, including her perpetually snotty nose.

In the waiting room: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is the best thing ever!

Silliness at Leah's check-up

15 month stats: 23 pounds 6 ounces and 31.5 inches; 75th and 76th percentile, respectively!

Daddy love! <3

When Mom's Away... aka Julie Gets Married!

I spent last weekend in Houston for Julie and Stuart's wedding.  It was a beautiful wedding, both because of the amazing glittery details and the insane amounts of love.

There was some serious sparkle which I LOVE, and it was the best kind of sparkle- classic and glitzy all at once.  I was pretty much in awe.  The sliders and milkshakes at midnight were pretty awesome, too!  It was great to spend time with my family, including cousins that I haven't seen in a while, and Julie was the most gorgeous bride!  Her smile was permanent and contagious :~)

Me and Sara at the rehearsal dinner

The bros at the rehearsal dinner.  Missing you, Brian!

Family

Dana/Ari selfie: pre-wedding

Dana/Ari selfie: post-wedding

Yup, Bo and I snuggled!  1) Don't tell Johnny, he'll be jealous.  2) Don't tell Mom, she'll be mad :~/

Leah's adding to her Julie sunglasses collection 8~)

 When Mom's away...

Daddy "turned around for 2 seconds" and look what happened!  Brian assures me Leah was smiling, talking, and sharing her enjoyment just before this video was taken ;~)

"Traffic in Vegas is bumper to bumper" -Brian

Missed these two

A million mazel tovs to Julie and Stuart!

I want this. 

Please, and thank you. 

Kittens

Leah, in her new classroom:

Favorite part of the day, lunch!

Leah's the only one with her hand in her face, but at least she made it into the picture!

Aye aye aye, the thumb!!

Happy Monday!

Gonna Live and Die for N-F-T-Y!

NFTY was such a HUMONGOUS part of my life in high school.  I am so happy that those years are behind, but when I look at all my years behind me, I am so happy those are there.  NFTY, GFC, those friends, those weekends, those summers, those memories made me who I am today.  So you can just imagine how stupidly excited I was when I got an email saying our temple was hosting a NFTY social action weekend and they needed congregants to house participants.  It was like a crazy dream come true!

So yeah, I had four junior and senior boys at my house for the weekend.  They were super polite and friendly and all from Arizona.  As Brian put it, nothing changes.  They make the same bad jokes and have the same awkward moments with girls as he did when he was in BBYO.

It was a good weekend, but I have a TON of leftover junk food at my house right now that I don't want or need, so I guess that means we're ready for more visitors!

Girl time while our house was invaded by boys

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

My dad spent this past weekend with us and it was such a great visit!  While spending time with him is certainly one of the top things on my favorite things list, it was fun showing him around Vegas and including some of his favorite things on our agenda.

Raindrops on roses?  Whiskers on kittens?

More like snow and The Beatles!

Leah and Grandpop

Our Snow Bunny

Who knew Las Vegas has snow?!

Happy, cold girls

Flying like a snowflake in a blizzard

Family pic

Best selfie

Fun in the snow

My sweet pink marshmallow

Mama and Leah

Daddy and Leah

Me and my daddy

Didn't get a chance to see the show this time, but spent some time at the theater and store

The 5th Beatle?

 
Also on everyone's favorite things list was watching Leah and Grandpop spend some good quality time together (or in their case, spending good quality time together).  There were lots of tickles and kisses and giggles, for sure!

Girl does not sit this still when I try to read to her, but she'd sit for Grandpop all day long!

Two of my favorites

<3

Daddy, it meant so much to me that we got to spend time together this weekend.  Thank you for coming in.  I loved every second, and I love you!  Oh, and nice football picks :~)

Johnny loves you too!

Big Girl

2015

Oh, hey 2015.  You certainly got here mighty fast, and I doubt you'll stay long.  People say life goes faster as you get older; I never knew how right they were!

We rang in the new year with a taco dinner (yum!) with some friends.  They left to put their daughter to bed, and Brian and I poured ourselves some sparkling cranberry juice to watch the ball drop and ring in the new year with New York.  Sadly, I was on the wrong channel and we missed the ball, but celebrated anyways.  I proceeded to fall asleep on the couch and Brian woke me up just before 10:00 to see the ball drop again- this time with the central time zone folk.  Welllll, somehow we missed it again.  So I gave Brian a new years kiss and a goodnight kiss and I went to sleep.

And that's how this year will be- making the most of every moment, even if that means foregoing the fireworks and using those moments to catch up on sleep if that's what you need.

Wishing you and yours a very happy 2015!

Sharing toys with Presley on NYE

Checking out the sights at Bass Pro Shops on Jan 1- it was TOO COLD to actually go outside!

70 degrees, lunch with Brian, and Jamba Juice that was "accidentally made a size bigger than you ordered, I hope you don't mind!" Nope, I don't mind at all. 

Good day :~)

Salsa (Cousins #3)

It's been a dreadful week... I mean, how on earth can you follow a week like the one that ended our 2014?!  That week was anything but dreadful.  It was THE. BEST. WEEK. EVER.

Samantha, Isaac, Evan, and Emma came to visit us and words cannot describe how wonderful everything was.  Samantha is one of my best friends [family who is familiar with our antagonistic childhood may insert jokes here] and just being able to spend a week with her would have been perfect.  However, she was nice enough to travel here with her family (the flight is only 2 hours and 10 minutes from Bellingham!) and that was the icing on the cake... or the onion (cilantro, if you like it) on the salsa*.

Hanging out at the Palazzo

Urban hiking through the Palazzo

Sleepy Leah!

Konikoff family pic!

Evan and Emma at the park

Seeing our kids meet and interact was so cool.  Leah doesn't exactly spend a lot of time with other kids at home, so she became slightly possessive over toys that she didn't even know existed until Emma wanted to play with them.  Yes, there were a handful of aggressive non-sharing incidents, but they loved each other and had the best time.  Evan and Emma gave her the best hugs and kisses and shared toys and taught her new things.  They shared pancakes and frozen peas and peanut butter sandwiches and lots and lots and lots of giggles

Playing with Playdoh

Cousin love

Bathtub paint

This is my favorite picture from the entire week

<3

Emma, Johnny, Isaac, and Leah in the playroom/Evan's room

Sweet girls

Love <3

We rooted for ASU together (yup, even Isaac) and ate ice cream and cake for lunch.  We went to Africa and saw dinosaurs and just enjoyed a carefree, busy week!

Who looks more fierce?  The boys or the bears?

Daddy and Leah in the yellow submarine

Evan in the African hut

Evan lifting water buckets in Egypt

Pharaoh on the top, oppressed Jew on the bottom

Shabbat dinner with homemade challah hiding under Evan's challah cover

Isaac eying his lunch aka red velvet cake

Mmmm... frozen mint hot chocolate!

Leah's first chocolate chip cookie, double fisting it with some toast

Brian totally hit it off with both Emma and Evan.  Emma only snuggles when she feels like it, and she snuggled with Brian.  Word on the street is that she still talks about going to Brian's house and going to see Brian.  She loves him!  Evan and Brian had an ongoing joke that is showing no signs of stopping.  It's one of those hard-to-explain things if you weren't there, but basically, Brian made it his mission to get Evan (Mr. Picky Eater) to try salsa before he left.  Evan didn't try it, but he did join in on the constant salsa references* and was totally good-natured about the whole thing.  In fact, on their last day at our house, a salsa book even showed up on our doorstep addressed to Evan!  And then, a week later, a salsa book showed up on our doorstep addressed to Brian!  Salsa, it's the gift that keeps on giving :~)

The best snuggles

Salsa!

I love you guys so much.  I will share a bedroom with Leah any day if it means Emma is back in Leah's room and you are back at our house.  I appreciate what helpful, easy, fun visitors you were and hope to see you again soon.  We'll eventually make it up the coast to the great Pacific Northwest, but probably NOT in December.  Shout out to Isaac- wishing you a very happy birthday and I promise you steak next time you're here.  Love, love, love to the Konikoffs!

Johnny making friends

Best cousins, best friends.  And we match!

Love you all so much!