She Walks

These pictures were taken a few weeks ago when Leah was starting to walk. She's much more stable on her feet at this point (13 1/2 months old) but she'll still resort to crawling when she needs to move faster than her little feet can handle.

Some other things she does:

Leah loves to flip though books. Several times a day, I'll find her sitting by the basket of favorite books in the playroom. Every single book is strewn on the floor around her and she examines them one by one.

Leah can say some new words like "drink", "Grace", "eat" (she says this a lot while repeatedly pointing to her mouth. The little peanut wants to eat constantly!), and some others that we catch her saying here and there. She's also answering some of our questions with "yes"!

Leah still loves to hug and cuddle with her mommy and daddy. There will be much mourning going on around here if or when she ever decides she's not interested in cuddling anymore. That being said, Leah is also having a hard time leaving us. She suddenly doesn't like being left in the nursery at church, and as good as it feels to have your child stop wailing the second she's in your arms we're looking forward to the time when there's no more tears!

I don't know if this has to do with Leah being my our second child/Grace's "baby sister", but we feel like she should remain in the baby stage forever. I am shocked to see her growing towards toddlerhood!

Tomato Invasion

They started sprouting out of the compost, and there was no turning back.  Not that anyone around here is complaining (we love tomatoes), but cherry tomato plants took over our flower beds this year.  You can see the huge tomato bush in the picture above.  It's choking out my new lavender and rosemary plants, but we decided to let it grow-- no sense in all those tomatoes going to waste.  It was a good decision, I think, because most of the tomato crop at the farm where we purchased our CSA share was killed off by some sort of blight.

Grace always helps me with our daily harvest.  She reminds me to "only pick the RED ones, Mommy".  Usually any red tomatoes Grace finds end up in her mouth,  but on this particular day we managed to get a whole bowl full into the kitchen.  Where Grace washed them.  Then ate them.

Here's my new favorite way to eat cherry tomatoes, for those of you who are interested:

In a baking dish, toss a large handful of whole cherry tomatoes and some sliced hot peppers (like Anaheim) in some olive oil.  Season with sea salt and ground pepper then pop them into a 400 degree oven until they're soft and starting to char a teeny bit.  While the tomatoes are roasting, put a thick slice of crusty french bread in the oven next to the roasting pan, just until it's toasty.  Now you're ready to assemble the most delicious lunch ever~  rub a piece of fresh garlic over one side of the toast, spread the toast with goat cheese, then spoon a big helping of roasted tomatoes on top.  Garnish with chopped fresh basil.  It will smell and taste so delicious that you won't even bother to put it on a plate or grab a napkin, you'll eat it right over the sink like I did.  Then you'll make a second helping.  

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More pictures of Grace and Leah in their new skirts are here!

Twirling

Steps!

Today Leah took her first independent steps.  A whole new world has opened up to the little gal.  And her parents officially have their hands full.

This picture was taken last week in our back yard.

Just kidding!  Wouldn't that make a nice back yard view, though?  We were actually at Jonas Green Park here in Annapolis.  Leah was practicing her walking with her Mom Mom.

Look Who Wandered By

I caught this guy sniffing around our yard yesterday.  After cautiously approaching him and discovering that he was nice, I tied him up to our porch railing and waited to see what Grace would say when she woke up from her nap to find a dog sitting outside our door.

Grace was speechless at first, and then lovingly referred to him as "my puppy" for the rest of the night!

He didn't have a tag on his collar, so after a family walk around the neighborhood asking around to see if he was recognized by any of the humans-- he wasn't-- we ended up calling animal control to come pick him up.

It was fun having a dog for a few hours.  Of course, we didn't have to feed him, clean up after him, or vacuum up his shed hair...

I think I would have named him Mr. Darcy.