Another week has gone by, and a weekend is over. Things are going ok. Leila is getting smarter everyday. This week she has learned to identify the letters A and B. We are going to keep teaching her new letters, it is so cool to see her picking things up.
Tonight she picked up a new book that had pictures of a bunch of animals in it. Most of them are animals that she has seen before and knows, but this book has a donkey in it. She learned that a donkey says Hee Haw, and all evening she has been walking around saying "Hee Haw! Hee Haw!"
On Grandma day this Friday my mom put Leila's hair in pig tails...it was pretty adorable so of course we took some pictures.

Here she is standing next to her cupboard. :)


She loves the toys that Grandpa Carey makes for her, she couldn't decide which one to pull along behind her so she took both.


Leila loves Yogurt, she calls it Yo Yo and she even made up her own sign for it!


And here is my baby girl being very cuddly (uncommon for her) with her mommy. She has started calling Cory and I Mommy and Daddy instead of Momma and Dada. I like the upgrade :)

Small update

I feel like I should be taking the time to write a big update of all of the cool things that Leila is doing these days, but I don't have a lot of time. She is starting to call more people by their names and forming small sentences. She is great at putting her signs together as well as her words. We are of course too proud for words. Ok, until I have some more time, here are a few pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Here she is driving her little car around...please excuse my messy house.


Playing with Grandma Coobs. She had this toy that would throw off little frisbee like things.



Waiting for the toy to "fly"


And a couple of Leila enjoying the flowers in Elkader





Thanks for looking!

Separation Anxiety

When we had to switch daycare providers a couple of months ago Cory and I made a deal. I would work a slightly earlier shift and pick Leila up from daycare in the afternoon, and Cory would work slightly later and drop her off. Every morning I leave Leila at home happy with her daddy and when I go to pick her up she spots me across the room and drops everything to run to me yelling, "Momma, Momma!" As you can see, this is a good arrangement...for me.
Today was a bad day for Daddy. He came to work and found this article about separation anxiety. It described how when babies get to be 6-9 months old, they start to realize that they are separate from you, and that scares them, but they get past it when they realize all the cool stuff they can do on their own. Then when 18 months rolls around and they are now more mobile, they start to get scared of what might happen to them. Leila is at this place. She is constantly torn between running off and trying new things and sticking close to mom and dad who protect her.
The example in the article was about a child waiting for an elevator with his Dad. The elevator comes, the Dad gets in expecting the child to follow, but the door shuts. The author is left standing next to the child. He describes the child's reaction as being like his father was swallowed up, never to return.
Cory sent me the article and I had to respond to him with, "I think Leila and I are going through the same phase."
I am currently terrified that everytime someone I care about leaves my sight, that I will never see them again. It is a sad state when you have to admit that you are in the same developmental phase as your 1 year old, but that is where I am. So, please, take care of yourselves.
Alright, so it seems that lately I have turned mommytolbc.blogspot.com into listentotriciapout.blogspot.com. I hope that years down the road when Leila is reading my thoughts about her childhood, she doesn't think I forgot to love and adore her during my rough spots.
The past few weeks Leila has brought a lot of joy to the Howard family. Here are a few recent pictures of our princess.

Here she is trying on her halloween costume. She loves the costume and she oinks at it, but if you suggest she put it on, she says, "no, no, no!"



Here she is reading a book with Daddy. She is showing Cory where her eye is.



And here she is this morning before school, so cute in her new jogging suit!

A Tree Grows in Tabor

This past weekend my family got together again. I think that we all had this feeling that we just needed to do something, so we did.

My cousin Nick masterminded this project in the Tabor City Park to honor Grandma Dalene. It turned out beautifully, and it gave us an outlet for our grief. We are all still healing, slowly, and trying to be there for one another and for Grandpa. Our family will never be the same, but we can sure put our need to act to good use.

A favorite quote of mine is, "Storms make Trees take deeper roots." This storm has led us closer together in a lot of ways, and here is the culmination of our collective efforts. I hope that it brings a lot of enjoyment to those that use the park in Tabor and gives the Herd of Turtles a place to rest on their walks. :)










Nick had the idea to inlay a letter "H" for our family name across the circle from the memorial stone and Brian and I were laying out the bricks.






Here is the mastermind at work cutting bricks





The finished product






And some pictures from the tree planting














After we were finished up at the park we went back to Grandpa's house and Grandpa took Leila out to see the baby cows. I love this picture of Grandpa with Leila, I think the landscape is so beautiful.




And here are a couple more