A Trip To The Dells

A few weeks ago I was ambitious and threw my kids in the car on a Saturday afternoon (sans Richard who was working) and drove two hours to the Wisconsin Dells for a 30th birthday party bash for my dear friend Karisa.

Marshall had the time of his life. Can you tell?!

Bridget, on the other hand, not so much. This came as a huge surprise to me as this girl would play in the bathtub all day if we let her. Maybe she takes after her dad.

It was such a fun, fun evening. We went to Kalahari, that is one huge and amazing indoor water park. (I am currently in the process of talking my family into a mini-family reunion there this summer!)

We partied hard with swimming, lots of water slides, and dinner; all in honor of the big 3-0 for Karisa! Those McAllisters sure know how to throw a party!

Marshall is still talking about this fun adventure. Just today he said, "Next time we can take Daddy with us to that huge water park." Yes, that is definitely the plan. Get ready Richard!

Thanks McAllisters for such a fun evening!

Video Antics

Just some short video clips of how we entertain ourselves in the Leake home. :) Never a dull moment.

These next two are fairly similar, but I just love how intently Bridget looks at those little balls bouncing around.

Parenting Woes

When I was six or seven years old I put my mom up for sale. Yes, that's right. Talk about being a wonderful daughter. I put a big sign up in our living room window that read: "Mom For Sale" and below it I had written our phone number.

I do not remember why I was so angry with my poor mother and I don't remember how I came up with the awful idea of selling her, but I did.

It was not long after I placed that paper in our window that my dad brought me the phone. He told me it was our neighbor who lived across the street and that she wanted to buy my mom! At that moment I got the biggest pit in my stomach that I have ever experienced in my entire life. I was as mortified as a little girl could be. My dad made me talk to my neighbor on the phone and I just remember being speechless when she asked how much money I wanted for my mom. I don't recall anything else from the conversation. But, after hanging up the phone I immediately took the sign down and quickly mended things with my mom.

Fortunately, this is now a story I can laugh about with my parents, thank goodness! Years ago, I told this story to Richard and he has never forgotten it. He frequently reminds me of this cruel action and tells me it is just a matter of time before one of our own children does something similar.

Well, that time has come. Three year old Marshall already has a plan to get rid of not just me, but Richard too. When we were leaving Chicago a few weekends ago Marshall was cranky, tired, and upset about something we had done. Here is how it played out...

Marshall: I am going to put you guys in the garbage can and the garbage man is going to come and pick up you and take you away!
Richard: If the garbage man takes us away who is going to take care of you?
Marshall: Tim and Anna.

Excellent. He already has plans for after we have been disposed.

What a kid. What a kid I was!

Unfortunately I'm sure this is only the beginning of things.

Progress on the House

We've now lived in this house for two months. With a vacation, the holidays, and Richard being busy with work, not much had been done around our poor little house to make it feel like a home. No pictures were hung and boxes were still sitting in storage rooms. I am happy to say that we have now made great progress. The basement is almost finished, Marshall's room is almost done, and the living room is starting to come together!

I will get pictures up of of the basement and Marshall's room soon, but here's the living room update.

Before

It was obviously very sparse and very blah.

When we moved into this house I told Richard that I finally wanted a living room that was cohesive. :) With a house and a paycheck I wanted to really invest some thought and money into a nice looking living room. Now, I have zero talent in this area of home design so that is why our living room sat like this for two months. But, thanks to wonderful friends, Anna and Eliza, things are really coming together!

After
This is still a work in progress, but there has definitely been great improvement!

Initially we had planned to sell this green couch. It sat in our garage for two months covered in a tarp. Every time I thought of selling it, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Richard and I don't love this couch and because we have the tan couch we opted to get rid of this one. But, Anna and Eliza suggested that we keep it and that we could tie the two different colored couches together by just using pillows. So, we took their suggestion and moved the couch back inside. It is very, very nice to have more seating in the living room.

That little chair in the corner is actually our landlord's. She let us keep whatever furniture we wanted and I liked the chair, so she left it for us. Now, I do not love the chair, and its colors don't really work for our living room, but for now we will keep it and I think I will eventually either get a slip cover for it or just cover it with a throw and a pillow.

The pictures on the wall is just the start of my photo collage. I stole this idea from my friend Jill, whose new house I am in love with.

Anna found this rug from Target and both Richard and I love it! It ties our living room together perfectly. The green is the exact green as our couch, and its yellow/gold/brown/tan colors coordinate everything else. Thank you Anna!

Still to come are new drapes for the window and the double doors and some pillows. Those pillows are also our landlords and I am not wild about any of them. These things will have to wait a bit though as I pretty much blew through my home budget buying the rug and picture frames.

Oh, and one last picture...

The BYU helmets have finally made their living room debut. Richard is being so good about letting me do whatever I want in the living room that I couldn't say no to the helmets. Besides, they are always great conversation starters when people come to our house for the first time. :)

Trip to Chicago

Oh my goodness, January has practically come and gone with hardly any documentation! I am going to attempt a slew of posts...

A couple weekends ago we took a quick trip to Chicago. We drove down Friday afternoon and stayed in a hotel. I went to the temple that night and Richard went on Saturday morning. While Richard was in the temple the kids and I walked around outside. It was a chilly morning, so we only did one lap, but Marshall loved it. This was his first time seeing the Chicago Temple in person.

After the temple we went to the Kohl Children's Museum. It was awesome! I have always loved the children's museum in Milwaukee, but we have now been to two more this last month in other states and I hate to admit it, but they blow Betty Brinn out of the water. Anyway, it sure was a fun time, both of our kids loved it.

This next exhibit warmed Richard's heart. A little hospital set-up complete with x-rays. Marshall was fascinated with this and spent quite a while here. Since then Marshall has asked Richard quite a few times to "look at bones on the computer". Ah, father and son bonding time reading x-rays.

Such a fun place! We will definitely need to go there again!

Hodge-Podge

Here is a quick catch-up on our last week...

Marshall's first day of Primary.

Despite his memorable quotes from two weeks ago, Marshall's first day in primary couldn't have been better. He woke up excited, willingly walked in, and while he was hesitant to let me leave, I only stayed for about two minutes, and he did just great when I walked out. He has now had two Sundays in there and I've heard nothing but glowing reports and he is loving it.

Last Monday we woke up to our first snowfall, about one inch. Marshall was excited to get out and put a Christmas present to use, his Lightning McQueen shovel. He pretty much shoveled the entire driveway by himself.

I am completely in love with this little girl. What's not to love, I mean really, look at that face.

It really doesn't get much cuter.

At almost ten months Bridget's current loves are: creeping along furniture, clapping, waving bye-bye, blowing kisses, screaming in the middle of the night, looking at books, and spitting out almost all table food we put in her mouth even though she has six teeth.

The other night I asked Marshall to clean up his stuffed animals. When I came back in his room he had not only cleaned them up but wedged himself in the basket.

Bridget's hair is getting long. If she was a boy, the first haircut would have been done by now. This is how her hair looked the other morning when she woke up. Again, I love her face, crazy hair and all.

Favorite Food

Tonight during our delicious dinner of waffles, bacon, eggs, and smoothies (Richard's favorite meal) Richard had a little conversation with Marshall...

Richard: Marshall, what is your favorite food?
Marshall (without a second of hesitation): Grass.

Interesting. Didn't know he had been eating that.