1 Hmm...

I thought this pose reminded me of something...

2 We've got another tooth!

Leighton's other bottom front tooth popped out today! I just felt it tonight. I hope that explains why she didn't nap one time today.

It was NOT easy getting a picture of the tooth. I tried by myself with no luck. When Chad got home, he basically had to hold her down and pry her mouth open. (Sorry, Leighton.) She wasn't happy, but we got our pictures!

This is actually how I also look when I go to the dentist (even though my dentist is my dear daddy). I'm a wuss!
I had plenty of these shots, where Chad is trying to get her mouth open. She held out for a good while! Tough kid.
This is just a picture of the complete mess we make every day when we go through her bookshelf and take all the books out of the cabinet. She really does read every single one.

0 Zoo

My mom came to Houston this weekend to hang out with me. Unfortunately, we all got sick so we didn't get to do everything we had intended to do, but Saturday morning we did manage to make it to the Houston Zoo. Leighton doesn't totally "get" the zoo yet, but it's a fun outing and I think she's reasonably entertained. My mom got her this adorable little dress with animals all over it, and I thought it was the perfect outfit for the zoo:

Leighton wanted out of her stroller much of the time we were there. Is this what happens around this age? Are the days of her happily sitting in her stroller gone?

Do you see that bird to the right? I thought it would fly away as we got closer and closer. But it was a very calm bird!

Leighton thought the sea otter was pretty cool. I did too! We sat and watched it swim for a little bit.
Can you see the sea otter right there to the right? It was hard to get Leighton to look at the camera with that excitement going on.
I took some pictures of the cool animals we saw at the zoo. Like I said, Leighton (from what I can tell) could not care less about the animals yet. But we enjoyed them.
We ride the carousel every time we go to the zoo. Leighton doesn't like it, sadly. Chad tried to put her up on one of the animals to ride and she would not have any of that. So they sat on the bench while my mom climbed on.

I told Leighton these were big kitties...cause they look an awful lot like Ferdie when they sleep.
I forget what these little guys are called. They were in the primates area. Pretty cute though. The one on the right had a little baby whatchamacallit tucked in there.
Now this was cool. Obviously some kind of monkey. Neat coloring. We watched him for a while. And he eventually went to the bathroom right there as we watched. Chad took pics of that, but I thought I'd spare you all from looking at it.
We don't often get a picture of the three of us. And even then, we are't all looking at the camera and smiling. Here's the best we could do.

3 Kitty and the bath

This is becoming a nightly ritual: I start Leighton's bath water, and Ferdie comes running in to stand on the stool I should be sitting on. Then he proceeds to lick water off the side of the tub. Leighton just loves having him in there and when he licks the water, she starts sticking her tongue out too. It's pretty hilarious.

1 Hukt on fonix, wurkt 4 me

Lately, I've been letting Leighton take all the books off the bookshelf in her room and we spend a while reading them all and playing on the floor. She really does love books! She gets very excited when I get her a new book and she loves turning the pages and pointing at what's on the page. I'm so proud that she enjoys books already. I've really put a lot of effort into reading with her, so I'm pleased it's working! I took a few pictures tonight of our book session. (Oh-the reason for the no shirt/pants situation is that I was also getting her into her jammies at the same time.)




Ok, I don't know who it was who compared Leighton's hairdo to the 80s band Flock of Seagulls, but hello, you are so right! Check it out!


On a different note, it's my goddaughter Mary Louisa's 4th birthday today. Even though she's not a blog reader yet, I am wishing her a very happy birthday!

0 Stairmaster

While we were in Dallas, Leighton got lots of practice with going up and down stairs (or a single stair, rather). After a few faceplants going down the stair, she finally figured it out.

0 We have a tooth!

Leighton's first tooth FINALLY arrived on Valentine's Day! It's the bottom front tooth on the right. So that DOES explain all the funky behavior last week. (Whew.) I discovered it Saturday afternoon and I was pretty giddy with excitement. Being a dentist's daughter, I might have a special place in my heart for everything dental.

We headed to Dallas Friday afternoon to visit Nick and Barb and their two kids, Ryan and Grant. (Grant was born just 5 days after Leighton.) The ride up was smooth: Leighton slept for about half the trip and she was pretty happy for the other half. We were so anxious to see the Bomersbachs because we hadn't seen them since my baby shower way back in November of 2007! So it's been a while. Grant is already walking, so I think Leighton was fascinated watching him stumble around. And Ryan just made her giggle and smile. Leighton really enjoys being around other kids now.

Ryan was so sweet to Leighton the whole weekend. She kept giving Leighton her toys to play with if she didn't have anything. So sweet! Ryan herself is quite funny to listen to. I guess 3-year olds have vivid imaginations because we heard some amazing stories.

Nick and Leighton:

So there was a brief amount of time on Saturday that I was at the house alone with Grant AND Leighton. I got a taste of what it would be like with twins. Yikes! Actually, it wasn't too bad. I tried to get them to play together as much as I could. This basically meant they would grab toys back and forth from each other.
I got out a book and that was a hit! That bought me a good 5 minutes of time with them turning the pages and pointing things out to each other. It was so cute, as you can tell in the pictures.



Ryan was so helpful with changing Leighton's diaper. Ok, not really helpful, but she entertained Leighton. Barb said "For the record, I did not pick this out" when Ryan came out of her room wearing this ensemble. Pretty funny. No, it doesn't match at all, but it's very colorful.
We had another major milestone on Sunday: We turned Leighton's car seat around in the car so she's now facing forward. I think she really likes it too. She rode that way back from Dallas to Houston. (Another easy trip: she slept a lot of the way back.)

We had a great time in Dallas, but I do have to say, it's a whole different kind of visit now that the kids are all here. We got up at the crack of dawn and were in bed by 10 each night (which I suppose isn't a bad thing). After all the travelling we've done so far in the new year, I think we're going to stay put for a while. We're beat!

1 Baby cook

I bought this handy little thing from Williams Sonoma last week. I wish I had gotten it about 6 months ago! It steams and purees food...all in one place. It's so easy to use that I've actually been making a lot of Leighton's vegetables in it. I'm having a lot of fun--yesterday she had cauliflower (I mixed some cheese and milk in it too) and today she's having mashed potatoes. I'm thinking about making broccoli for tonight!

It makes me feel good to make her food, and it's so fast that I don't see why I shouldn't. Plus, I have that cookbook from Jessica Seinfeld--the one that has sneaking vegetable purees into your kids' food--so I know I'll continue to use this in the next several years. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to play in the kitchen and make their own baby food!

2 Teething?

So we had that whole nap situation on Thursday. Thursday night, Leighton VERY uncharacteristically woke up at 3 in the morning, sitting up in her crib and crying. Chad and I had no idea what to do because she never does this. So there was some scrambling. I went in and got her up and rocked her a little bit until she started to fall asleep again. I put her back down, and she immediately woke up and sat up and started crying again. This is when operation TOUGH LOVE kicked in. Chad and I sat up and watched her on our video monitor for a good 45 minutes. She stopped crying, but she was still sitting up in her crib. We hoped she would eventually figure out how to lay back down, but she never did. After all that time, Chad finally went in and helped her down and she went right back to sleep. Yikes!

No nap again on Friday...same song and dance with the sitting up in the crib. We headed to San Antonio Friday afternoon and I was dreading the whole weekend because I had no idea what to expect from her. Thankfully, she slept through the night both nights and even took a long nap yesterday. Today we noticed two big lumps in her bottom gums, so now I'm thinking we have a teething situation going on.

Before we left Friday, Chad's Uncle Walter and cousins Lance and Leighton stopped by. Yes, you read that right. Chad's cousin is also named Leighton. Can you believe it? Such a unique name to have in both of our families. Leighton had never met Baby Leighton, so it was a big day!

I think Leighton had a great time in San Antonio. I know we did. Saturday morning, Chad and I headed off to the spa to get massages that Brad gave us for Christmas. It was AWESOME. I think from now on, I only want gifts that involve a masseuse. Leighton stayed behind and played with my mom and dad.

My mom was singing that song "Peas porridge hot" and Leighton just giggled and laughed and thought it was so fun. I tried it on her and it didn't have the same effect.
Why do I feel this is an expression we will see much more of in the years to come?
So I haven't mentioned it, but we hired a new nanny at the beginning of the year. It's been a tough adjustment for me having someone here so much, so I've been waiting until I could summarize the whole thing. In any case, the nanny has taught Leighton a trick. When you say "where are your manitas?" here's what Leighton does (manitas means little hands):
Brad came by to see Leighton crawling. I think he was pretty impressed with the distance she's covering in the house.

My mom got Leighton this cute little chair I've been wanting for a long time. Leighton LOVES it. She was grinning from ear to ear playing with it. And she even STOOD UP from the chair. Of course, I grabbed her right away cause she can't really stand on her own yet, but I think she'll be practicing this more.

Leighton and Travis made friends while we were there. Leighton gets REALLY excited for kitties, but she seemed fairly interested in the dog too.

I have to give Travis props for letting Leighton ride him. She seemed to be very excited about it.


She was so tired on our way back to Houston and I took a couple of pics of her sleeping in her car seat.