Kayaking with Daddy

While I was away for the weekend Jeff and Leana had a lot of fun adventures, including Leana's first kayaking trip on Lake Washington.

New Skills

Leana has 2 new skills she loves to practice at the playground:

climbing any of the ladder type items...

...and swinging

The Deuce!

Probably not news to anyone who reads our blog (or Facebook), but officially I have yet to announce that I am pregnant again, due in early October!

We just found out last week that we will be having a boy! Jeff and I were pretty surprised, since we both come from same sex sibling families we just assumed we would have another girl. But of course we are excited to see what life with a little boy will be like. Leana is very excited about having a little brother. OK, maybe she doesn't get it at all, but she really loves her "Just me and my little brother" book so we are taking that to be a good sign.

According to the ultrasound technician we have another "mover" on the way...we will have our work cut out for us!


Baby Boy Collins at 19.5 weeks


Baby at 11.5 weeks

Mother's Day Weekend/Leana 21 Months

We spent the weekend in the beautiful Methow Valley (a popular cross country ski destination). We stayed in a very secluded cabin up in the hills that was a perfect place for exploring. Leana has a new favorite activity: turning over rocks and looking for bugs. The look of anticipation on her face before flipping over each rock is priceless.

While at the secluded wilderness cabin with minimal cell phone reception, Leana got her first bee sting. Good thing she is not allergic. A few tears and she was over it, more interested in checking out the next thing to explore. We did a trail marathon relay event, where we would drive to each transfer station and wait for the next runner to take off. Between the wild sunflowers, spiders, rocks to turn over, ponds, and trails to walk on, Leana could not have been happier. Jeff and I each ran a portion of the marathon which was very scenic, mostly on hiking trails.

Looking under rocks with Daddy outside our cabin. Anything good under there?

Going on a Meadow Walk to the "Fairy Circle" In the Fairy Circle

On mother's day, Leana also turned 21 months old. 1.75 years old, the last nice round number before 2. At 21 months, she is still focusing on her "active" side rather than her "verbal" side. She has pretty much replaced walking with running and she can walk up and down stairs unassisted, climb up ladders and kind of dress herself (ok , really just shoes and pants although the shoes often go on the wrong feet and the pants almost always end up with two legs in the same side). As far as her talking is concerned, she now has one official word that she says with some consistency and in the right context: trash. Yes, trash. My daughter's first and only real word. She likes to put things in the trash at home, and likes even more being the good samaritan who picks cigarette butts off the ground during our walks. Luckily, Seattle is relatively health conscious and there are not too many cigarette butts lying around on the ground in our neighborhood.

Leana continues to torture the cat (while picking her nose) Leana now sits in the "big girl chair" and eats dinner with mom and dad. Leana the Runner