9 (and 1/2) Months!

Our little smiley-face is quickly approaching a year old!  She is now holding her own in the 5th percentile for weight- she's a delicate 15 pounds and is 27 inches long.  Leah loves to laugh and her favorite person is her daddy (I think I'm a close second).  She gets very excited and says "Dada!  Dada!" when Steve walks in the door.

She is beginning to pull herself across the floor using the army-crawl method, and although she can't pull herself up yet she loves to stand up holding on to furniture or someone's hands.  Leah is also a pro at picking up the minutest crumb or bit or dirt off the floor-- her fine motor skills are great!  

My favorite thing is her little belly laugh...it sounds just like she's saying "hahahahhaha...heheheheheheh".  Grace and Leah laugh and giggle at each other all the time now.  I love it.

Leah also enjoys picking and eating grass.

 oops, how did Grace get in here?  

She thought she'd climb on the picnic tables while Mommy was busy taking pictures of the little sister.

Love those eyelashes.

She looks so old in this picture.

Coach

Steve, a.k.a. Coach, and the AACS varsity lacrosse team won the MIAA-B Championship Monday night!  It was a nail-biter to say the least.  They pulled it off in sudden death double-overtime!  Steve coached the defense this year.

It was great to watch the game with Mom Deterding, Mom and Dad Wilson, Matt, Grace, and Leah.  There's nothing like sharing several heart-attack inducing sports moments to bring family closer together.  

Good season, Coach!

Story Time

Here's a good one I found with our Easter pictures~  Grace and her friend Abby!

Cute Baby Alert

I got to do a photo session with Brad and Kelli's little girl, Emmalyn!  There are a few pictures up on my photography blog, with more coming soon.  Thanks for letting me spend the afternoon with you, Brad and Kelli, I had fun!

Grace Sings to Leah

What I Saw Today

Another dead stink bug.  They are invading our house.  I'd never seen these bugs before in my life, until this past winter when they invaded for the first time.  Have you ever seen one of these bugs in action?  They're really loud and not very smart-- stink bugs make a noisy buzzing sound as they fly around; then they try to land on a wall (but can't) so they fall to the ground with another loud sound.  We hear them trying to land on walls and falling all the time.  Sometimes, at night, they try to land on the wall right above our bed...ewwww.

We find dead ones lying around all over the place.  If you squish them or suck them up in a vacuum cleaner, they smell baaaaaaaaaaaaad.

Does ANYONE out there know how to get rid of these things?!  I'm not sure why God created them, or what purpose they serve in the local food chain, but we want to be RID of them!

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I also saw lots of azaleas.  I never gave azaleas much thought until we moved into this house and I saw this sight when spring came along: 

If you come to visit us and look out our back windows, you'll only see a wall of hot pink blooms.   And maybe the occasional 7th grader on his lunch break, running past the window while chucking his Capri Sun into the bushes and screaming like a madman.  Grace loves looking out the windows at lunch time!

Pretty:
I also saw Leah today.  Very pretty: