Slowest blogging year yet...

I have not done a very good job of keeping up with our family blog this year!  In fact this is the slowest blogging year yet. I had better do something to change that.  Summer vacation is just around the corner and I promise to bring this blog to life!

Its hard to believe there are only 11 1/2 days left in the 2011-2012 school year.  LeAnne has learned a ton this year.  She will be graduating from Preschool on June 13th. She's a reader, writer and an amazing artist. She's started telling us jokes like " A phone with toes", we wonder where the punch line is but she's cracking up. LOL!! My student has grown so much this year.  He's one awesome kid!!  I look forward to chaperoning him and another amazing young lady to Huntsville, Alabama in September to attend Space Camp. 

This summer I plan to do a bit of summer school with LeAnne, participate in a Scholastic reading program, and I am hoping to take LeAnne to some U-Pick farms to pick blueberries, raspberries, apples and pears.

I am so looking forward to having my guy working days this summer!! I am very proud of him for going back to school.  He is working towards earning his Bachelor degree in Criminal Justice at Washington State University.  

I would like to challenge myself to take more pictures by participating in a June Photo a day challenge.

Stay tune for more Life with the Leonard's!!!

National Infertility Awareness Week April 22 - 28, 2012

 

Don’t Ignore this Week

April 22-28, 2012 is National Infertility Awareness Week®, a nationwide campaign intended to educate the public about infertility and the concerns of the infertility community. Since 1989, RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association has led efforts to celebrate this special week by hosting events and activities designed to encourage grassroots advocacy and motivate the infertility movement.

This year’s theme is “Don’t Ignore Infertility.” We chose this important message because every voice that speaks out about the realities of infertility, and every act that acknowledges infertility as a medical condition with far-reaching social and emotional implications, helps tear down the wall of ignorance and silence that surrounds this devastating disease.

During NIAW 2012, we are calling upon everyone in the infertility community to commit to some act – large or small – to show that we won’t ignore infertility. Together, we can educate millions of people about a disease that is often overlooked and misunderstood by healthcare professionals, the government, insurance companies, the media, and even friends and family members.   
It’s time to make our voices heard!

For more information check out this great website 

My goal this week is to share my journey with infertility, facts about infertility and how to love someone on their infertility journey.  I am having a rough time getting started so today I want to share with you an excellent blog series about How to love people dealing with infertility.

 

Easter Dress

Grandma Marcia sent LeAnne this beautiful Easter dress along with an adorable little lamb and some yummy chocolate. :-)

Grammy & Grampy's visit & Easter fun!

We had a very nice visit with Grammy Sally & Grampy Ron during Spring Break!  LeAnne was napping when they arrived, so when she woke up I told her they were here and she came running out of her room squealing.  Then continued to run over and give them both hugs and kisses! :-) I love watching LeAnne cuddling with her grandparents. Another cute moment was listening to LeAnne an Grammy having a conversation while I was making dinner. :-)  Grampy spoiled us with cinnamon rolls & donuts from the bakery. Grampy also took a shining to our cat Charlotte. We are so thankful Grammy spoiled our little princess with some new Spring clothes!  She's going to be one adorable girl this Spring in her new wardrobe! :-)

On Friday afternoon LeAnne, Grammy and I colored and decorated Easter Eggs. 

We also went to the Easter Egg hunt in our city park. LeAnne was so excited.  Not wanting a repeat of last year I showed her where the blue rope was and said don't cross it.  In the excitement  of the hunt she went under it anyway. LOL!!  When the hunt was done she kept saying " that was fun"! 

Family trip to Palouse Falls

Our Spring break started off with LeAnne getting sick, next was daddy and I. We had to cancel our trip to Western Washington because LeAnne had spiked a fever and was one sick little girl.   Today we all were feeling pretty good so I said come on we've gotta get out of this house and enjoy the beautiful day!! We took a  short 30 minute drive to see Palouse Falls. This was John's first time seeing the falls and he was impressed.  Amanda, LeAnne and I had lunch there the summer of 2007 and explored the falls then.  With all the rain we've had lately the falls were raging.  When we asked LeAnne was she thought of the falls, she said "awesome"!

We are all on the mend and looking forward to a visit from Grammy and Grammpy! :-)  

A quick hello and some pictures

Hello family and friends!! Its been way too long since I've posted and need to get better at keeping y'all updated!  All is well with our family.  LeAnne continues to be our busy, bouncy beauty!  She is doing well in school learning sight words, color words and they've just begun learning word families. I love our morning tradition of listening to Jana Alayra's CD Totally Transformed.  We start with the song Change (Totally Transformed).  Here is a video of another family singing the song and I try to video tape us soon. Its such a blessing to hear her praise the Lord and sing of his love!  We have been working on the motions too. 



We have some awesome news to share... John was approved for vocational retraining through the Department of Veterans and will be going back to school.  He is in the process of researching schools where he can get his AS and BS in I.T.  He's always been very good with computers and the jobs are in demand and pay well.  

Love her style

Helping daddy put up the new mailbox

Our New Mailbox!

LeAnne showing off her shirt from a friend that now fits her!

Her class is doing a unit on Family

This is her view of our family.

LeAnne & I were playing with effects on my camera phone.

Our little engineer and our Tinker toy creations

Time to get ready to take the school kids to ski at Bluewood for the day.  It's a great experience for them. I am praying the day goes by quickly since out I have a cold and feel like I've been run over by a train.  Stay tune for more frequent updates. :-)

Snowdays are snow much fun!

January 18, 2012

I felt like a kid again as I peaked out our upstairs window this morning because I saw lots of beautiful white snow!!  I've been rather upset because Western Washington has been getting hammered with snow and we've had nothing but cold temperatures.  It was snow much fun to watch the snow falling this morning.  As soon as it was light LeAnne and I bundled up and went outside to play and take pictures!! She played in the front yard while I shoveled snow off the side walks then we went out back so the fur kids  could play.  Gracie loves running and jumping in the snow.  Bella stayed under the picnic table.

Looking down our road

Once LeAnne had turned into a popsicle we came inside to warm up and do a bit of fun learning.  She has been missing school and I thought I think I'll start teaching her a sight word a week.  So today we worked on the word see.  I typed I see a and a period on the computer, printed them out, and had her cut out pictures of things she liked.  Then I put together the first sentence together then had her tell me how to put together the next three sentences.  Next I found a I see book online, printed it, she read it to me then colored.  It was sentences like I see crayons, I see books and I see friends.  She LOVED it!!  I love teaching my little girl. I love her hunger to learn!



Then we went back outside to play in the snow again and I shoveled another few inches of snow.  We had snow much fun!!!

The next day wasn't nearly as fun because our snow turned to sleet and freezing rain.  Everything was covered with a thick layer of ice.  I will shovel snow any day over scrapping ice off side walks in the freezing rain.  I stayed home from work even though our school was the ONLY school open in the region.  My husband said the roads were really scary.  I later heard 12 kids came to school. I hate not being there for my student.  LeAnne and I spent the day learning more sight words (Can and My).  I saw a cool idea on Pintrest where a mom put the sight words on pumpkins.  So I found a cute butterfly pattern, pasted it into photoshop,added the sight words in the middle, printed it, we colored and hung on LeAnne's wall.  This weekend we are going to get out the paints to make hand and feet prints to to us in My book. (My feet, My hands, My house...)

Sight Word Butterfly Decor

Our school is running 2 hours late today and I am going to brave the roads and see how it goes. Preschool is also running late but I am going to have LeAnne stay home with daddy.  Doesn't make sense to take the chance of getting into an accident for 2 hours of school.  I am really hoping this mess melts away this weekend so we can have a normal school week.  I LOVE the snow and hope we get more this winter but don't love the ice.