Leia Week 76: Showing Patience and Determination - 12/10/2014

Leia has added a few more two word phrases to her repertoire this week: "Mommy Sick" (that was from before), "Mommy/Daddy shit" (aka, sit), and "More Happy" (aka, please play the song "If You're Happy and You Know It" again and again and again)!  She loves dragging Josh and I around the house to certain locations, patting the floor and telling us where to "shit", and then having us watch or participate in whatever it is she's doing.  It's so funny!  The good news for us is that both of us are always so tired, so we are happy to oblige her in all this sitting!  She also loves clapping her hands and stomping her feet to the If You're Happy song, and it does not ever get old.  Sometimes we can sneak a few other songs in there to entertain her for a bit, but it always goes back to More Happy pretty quickly.

Also this week, I watched Leia playing with some building blocks, and I was completely blown away with her patience and determination.  She was trying to build a tower out of 4 different sized (and shaped dowels) on a wobbly carpet surface.  I thought the task was hard enough for an adult, much less  Leia, who hasn't quite mastered all of her coordination, so I tried to tell her an easier way to do it, but she wanted nothing to do with my ideas.  She had the design of this tower in her head and that's what she was going to do, by golly.  I didn't think she'd ever succeed, but she stuck with it for quite awhile and finally got it.  Later Josh saw this picture of the tower and didn't believe that Leia did it herself, until I showed him the video as well.  Quite impressive!  She's so advanced!!

Showing off the cute PJ's from Auntie Biby and Uncle Ryan…sadly this was the last wearing because she's already too big for all her 12 month clothes and even most of her 18 month stuff too!

So proud of her tower…it took so much persistence (not to mention time)…can't believe she stuck with it so long!  And do you see how that fat one balances on the skinny one?  I didn't think it was possible, but she proved me wrong!

Leia's Patience for the Perfect Tower from Katharine Transue on Vimeo.

She just figured out she can play Peek-a-Boo out the back of her stroller!

A little Budweiser and PBJ for lunch…yum!

Fun to trade bikes with the neighbors…2 wheels no pedals!

Fun afternoon exploring at Squaw!  She's getting so good at climbing everything…took one look at the Locker Room Roof and decided she wanted to climb to the top of it!  I actually had to pull her off!

Rub-a-Dub just relaxing in the tub!

Megan and her new baby Audra…Congratulations!

Getting snuggly with a soft blanky and a good book!

Leia Week 75: Thanksgiving and Snow - 12/3/2014

Leia has a lot of fun these days…whatever she's doing, she absolutely loves.  But she's also very independent, so she gets pissed and frustrated when she doesn't get what she wants.  So as much as I can captures great smiles and fun, my world is also full of screams and tantrums!  But we are all learning from this, and when she's not pissed, which realistically is most of the time, she's such a joy to be around and play with.

Loving her new Dora Blanket from Cousin Jordan…Thanks Jordan!

Little Miss Risky Business loves hanging out in sunglasses all the time!

So fun to take them on and off!

Yeah cool girl!

Last minute Thanksgiving Dinner prep in her new dress, courtesy of Maria Sr.

Spice Towers!

She loves her "Ba-by Emmie"!

Emmett chillin' with his Nana.

Now that's a good looking family portrait…The Langes!

Leia was not interested in our family portrait…yelling at the camera man, witches broom in hand!

Emmett says, "Enough with these pictures, hands up, let's spar!"

Checking out the results of our second snow storm…not so scary this time.

First time experimenting with homemade play dough on Daddy Day…Josh has been waiting for an excuse to do these things for so long!

Fun with hats!

First Snowman!

Leia Week 74: More Fun with Dad - 11/26/2014

Leia finished off her Daddy week on a high note, with a bunch of really fun adventures and good FaceTime sessions with me.  But the biggest news was that she hit another milestone - first 2 word sentence: "Mommy shit" (aka: Mommy's Sick…I had been really sick before I left on my trip, and apparently she noticed)!  Very cool.  She's also been going around the house and finding little pieces of garbage, picking them up, announcing them as "trash", and walking to the trash can to throw them away…it's been a great help with my house cleaning and sweeping efforts!

Our little bag lady out in force again, and really looking the part today!

Hey Mom, put away that camera!

Selfie with Dad!

She loves finding new shoes to try on, even if they are too big!

Leia Week 73: Daddy-Leia Week - 11/19/2014

Josh got home from his work trip and then I left on mine.  Poor Leia, just when she thought things might get back to normal, her world was in turmoil again.  This was the first time ever that we were apart, and man was she upset!  Well, at least, that's what Josh said.  But looking at the pictures, you could never tell…those two have so much fun when they are together!  Leia has been experimenting with many more words these days: "cop-ter" (learned from watching and hearing the helicopters doing the logging at Squaw), and "ass-hat" (learned from a desire to go "outside"), among others.  It's really fun to watch her vocabulary and communication skills grow!

I spent the week in Cleveland, OH at a training course for the new CT Scanner that will be installed at our hospital not soon.  It was a great class though; I learned a lot and I'm very excited for the new machine, if it ever gets finished.  But more importantly I got to see lots of my family.  I spent the weekend in West Chester with the Kolpeks, and had a quick but fun lunch with my cousin Lynnie, who I haven't seen in many years.  It was a bit of a whirlwind visit, but really fun to see Maria's newish house, and catch up on the activities of the kids.

Our little bag lady roaming the streets again.

Watching the helicopter logging project at Squaw.

Check out the "Cop-ter"!

Chillin' with Dad.

All bundled up…such a cutie!

Playing my old Evil Knievel Pinball Machine at it's new home in the Kolpek Game Room.

Awesome high score…haven't lost my touch!

Watching the "mini's" (aka really young kids) trying to do their routine at Jordan's Cheer Comp…so cute!

Jordan's fan club: Kole, me, Maria, Carter, Maria Sr., and Jim.

Jordan on top of her tower.

Jordan's cheer team.

Leia loving her some Cooper!

Only 17 months old and already loves mountain biking…so advanced!

She loves putting on Daddy's hat.

Awww, missing my cuties.

A little Daddy-Daughter-Steelers bonding.

Leia is getting so good at feeding herself with a spoon!

Leia Week 72: Major Mommy/Leia Time - 11/12/2014

With Dad out of town all week, Leia and I had a long week of intense bonding.  It took her a bit to get over the shock of Dad being gone, but once she figured out that we could still FaceTime with him everyday, she calmed down and started behaving nicely again.  So then began a week of very intense Mommy and Leia playtime.  She was in charge and told me exactly what she wanted to do, where she wanted me to sit, and kept grabbing my hand and dragging me to other rooms when it was time to change it up.  It was so funny!  We did have a great time.  Then on Sunday we opened a package from GramGram and Grandma, and Leia got her first Tea Set.  After that, she didn't want to do anything else but have tea parties.  She doesn't even know what tea parties are, so I guess she really just wanted to play with the cups/saucers/spoons, etc.  It was really cute.

Usually can't get her to cooperate with putting on shoes, but she LOVES her new boots and is happy to put them on whenever!

"I don't know why these spices were under my bed mom."

Happy little goof.

Very intrigued by the whole concept of a tea set.

Dance and tea party.

She's not sure if she likes it when I match it all up...