A few Saturdays ago, the little girls and I headed out to Sanctuary Woods nature preserve for a short hike. It’s a beautiful spot just off the edge of Lakes Macatawa and Michigan, with a few parking spots, but I’ve never seen the lot full. After parking, there’s a short loop around the lower area, with a few bridges crossing a tiny creek.
The blue eyes of summer
A morning with Lele
Leah or Aly II – 18-month edition
How many can you get right?
Aly turns 6 & has a puppy party
Aly decided that she wanted to have a birthday party this year (the first time she’s wanted one), so we tossed around ideas for a while before settling on “Adopt a puppy” as our theme for the big event. Keep in mind that our house is pretty small, and we invited 24ish kids, so we had to plan for both indoor and outdoor activities. Thus, we planned the party for Saturday, but had a scheduled rain date for Sunday, and we ended up needing it, because Saturday’s weather was low 40s, rainy, and windy. Sunday ended up as a beautiful day, weather wise.
A day with Leah in the sun
Leah turns one
It’s been a year already
And a quick one at that. January 18, 2011 brought us the early arrival of Leah Kylie, who is now one year old. She’s doing great and is lots of fun, as you’ll see.
Showing off her one year old reading skills
Leah or Aly?
Happy 1st Birthday, Leah!
We frequently note how similar the two girls look at comparable ages. Other people, however, tell us that they can easily tell them apart in pictures – though they’re usually wrong if they don’t have obvious environmental clues in the picture. Aly frequently gets it wrong herself – often identifying baby pictures of herself as Leah. She then proceeds to argue with me until I open the picture in iPhoto and show her the date.
I thought it would be fun to create a set of side by side images of the two girls at similar ages, in honor of Leah’s first birthday today. Can you figure out which girl is which in these pictures? (Note: as I’m occasionally known to be sneaky, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that one pair of pictures could be the same girl)
#1: Newborn
#2: One month old
Leah’s first Christmas
Christmas in downtown Holland
We had a chance to take some pictures downtown after meeting with Santa, even though it was bitterly cold and windy on this day. No coats on our kids, though – that would ruin the pictures, wouldn’t it?
Note the attractive photographer in the reflection
Stranger Anxiety Pictured
Kids go though interesting stages, don’t they? Leah was very outgoing, even with strangers, until maybe October or so. Leah and I were shopping at the grocery store, she strapped into her car seat in the cart I was pushing. Towards the end of the trip, an old guy came up and started talking to her, and you could see her tense right up, but he kept his distance, so she was fairly mellow. Then the old guy’s wife comes out of nowhere (Leah couldn’t see her coming), pops in front of Leah and tickles her foot. It was instant screaming in terror, which of course caused me to have a good laugh. Here’s best part:
The old lady angrily turns to her husband and says, “Look what you did to that baby!”, grabs him by the arm, and drags him away. We’ve even seen the stranger anxiety thing with people who see her every week – it’s an interesting phase.
