Hi Everyone,

Sorry about the broken link the in previous blog. Leina’s Video Page is now working. Here you’ll have access to all the MPGs we’ve made of Leina from laughing to standing.

Enjoy

Yep, Leina is standing on her own now. She’s been practicing with chairs, sofas and any large objects she can find (including Mom & Dad). But yesterday, much to Chrissie’s surprise, she decided to up and stand on her own. She’s getting better at it and quicker everyday so we decided to get it on video now – while there’s still some suspense to it happening. If standing is like crawling a week from now this will be old hat.

(Click the image for the 3.5 Mb video)

Just in case you weren’t convinced of her cuteness here’s a couple more videos of Leina playing “touch” and dancing to Old MacDonald

(Playing Touch – 6.9 Mb)

(Dancing – 3.9 Mb)

(Dancing some more – 7.0 Mb)

For the rest of her video’s check out Leina’s Video Page.

Leina adores Kevin.

This is his second week on the 2-11pm swing shift and Leina has totally adjusted to life with dad around. She spends most of her day crawling after him, screaming “DA-DA-DA”. As soon as he stops moving she’s right there, using his leg to pull up and reach for him. She is such a daddy’s girl. When he leaves, she crawls over to the front windows, up the imprompto step we’ve rigged there, and watches him get in the car and drive off. She’ll wave and blow big baby kisses at him the whole time.

She is going to be one unhappy girl when Kev goes back to 8-5. She simply adores dada.

At first I liked having Kevin home during the day. He watched baby while I got stuff done. That was fun. For a while. Now, I’m not so sure. I’ve had time to clean, organize, scrub, and get all sorts of drudge work done while Kevin bonds with his girl. So the days of wanting mom are gone. Ah well, I suppose it’s only for another week. Then it’ll be all mom all the time. Yes!

It’s 10am on a Tuesday and both Leina and Kevin are taking a nap.

Now, Leina napping is not that ground breaking but Kevin? It’s very odd to have him home. I keep thinking it’s a weekend. He’s on a 2-11pm swing shift for the next couple of weeks which means my days are all reversed. Add to that the feel of our now empty house and sometime I think I’m in some sort of Twilight Zone episode.

Even though the Walls family has returned to San Diego, they have left their mark. We now refer to the guestroom as “Daniel’s Room” and the computer room as “Sammy’s Room”. In addition, it appears that my sneaky sister instilled a few new behaviors in Leina before leaving. They include pulling everything out of the refridgerator, crawling all the way up the stairs, and yelling. I think she got the yelling part from cousin Sammy but the rest is all Suzy.

Drat her.

So I haven’t had time to post but I’ve got some really good excuses.

First, it is hot. I’m talking unbelievable scorching heat for Oregon. Triple digit heat with no breeze in sight. The mere idea of turning on this red hot furnace of a machine brings dribblets of sweat to my brow. I know, you’re thinking “um, Chrissie, doesn’t your super-duper new home have AC?” Yes, it does, but it also has an electricity bill. As the eldest Terry daughter I am a cheap-o thru and through so during these 100 degree days, I have a simple AC rule that I follow. When the external temp hits 90+, I set the AC to 80. Yes, you heard me, 80 degrees. When I find this too unbearable, I mearly step outside for a few moments and remember what real heat feels like. When I return inside, 80 feels like heaven.

Aside from the heat, I’ve been a busy beaver setting up guest rooms. My parents pull into town this weekend with Suzy, Dan and the kids following close behind. I’ve decided to go for broke and attempt to house Suzy, Dan, Daniel and Sammy under this roof. That would be four adults, three kids, one dog and two cats in a mere 1900 sq ft. I know this sounds like some horrible reality tv show but no, it’s actually just my life! And, since Daniel is capable of climbing stairs, I’ve been going crazy trying to baby proof the upper floor. Thank goodness for closets is all I can say.

Oh yes. On another note, Leina has passed on the title of baby of the family to my sister-in-law Natalie who had her own bundle of joy.

Kyle Edward Norton….welcome to the the family!

Leina continues to amaze.

We bought this house from a family who ran a daycare here so this house came fully baby-proofed. Latches on all drawers, child detering doorknobs (which Kevin can’t seem to open), latches on the oven, and first aid kits mounted on the playroom wall. I thought I had it made.

But of course, life is never this easy. We brought with us a large cabinet that we put in the family room. It houses books and misc. items and, unfortunately, is not babyproofed. Leave it to Leina to try every single cubbard door on the first floor. Imagine her surprise when she tugged on that particular cabinet and the door opened! She was amazed! Squealls of delight issued from her cubby baby body and she spent the rest of the afternoon opening and closing the doors.

Open…Close (slam). Open…..Close(slam). Open….Close(slam).

After about twenty minutes I sort of tuned her out so I don’t know exactly when the slamming stopped. All I do know is that I suddenly noticed all was quiet in the family room. Leina + quiet = trouble.

Sure enough, she had somehow managed to twist off the cabinet knob and I found her with the porceline item jammed mostly in her mouth while she attempted to remove the screw. Calmly, I reached into her mouth to remove the item and replaced it. Once securely replace, she resumed her activities.

Open….Close(slam).

I have about 10 minutes of video footage of her opening and closing this door. The cute part is that she babbles and squealls the whole time. She has so much fun I’ve decided to leave that one cabinet unproofed. I figure I’ll just keep safe stuff in it and let her enjoy herself.

So that’s her latest trick. She seems to develop something new every day. Utterly amazing….