First Day Photo Shoot

Dear Abby,
You have no idea how much I am going to miss your preschool self. I am going to desperately miss the moments when I ask to take your first day of school picture and you run off to make sure all of your favorite blankets and baby dolls are in the photo. Please, please, please stop growing. It's gone by too fast! And I only have one more year until you leave me everyday. You simply must do your best to slow down.

Love you,
Mom

Viva Lost Wages!

We had a more than exciting weekend! Starting off with the least exciting was our recent flood. We had a plumber come work on our house to repair a leaky pipe in the wall while we were doing our renovation. Well, he made the leak a lot worse. Apparently, it has been leaking for a while, but thankfully we had some guests in town this weekend which made our water use go up and it made the leak bad enough to really notice. If they hadn't have been here, it would have probably completely ruined our floor and caused a huge mold problem. Thank you for thoroughly flooding my house, Hales! I couldn't have done it without you :)

We have had these airport sounding blue fans blowing in our house all weekend long. On the bright side? I finally get to get rid of the gas station tile on my downstairs bathroom!

3 month old paint, dry wall, base mold, wood floors and doors...gone...sniff! Never been happier to be married to an attorney than I was when the plumber who did the work showed up to see what had happened...it was so very People's Court/Judge Judy/World Wrestling Federation/Pride and Prejudice. He is so my Mr. Darcy!

Now on to the good parts! This is Brandon and I at the Bellagio...and since we're from Las Vegas, we have a lot of pictures of us at the Bellagio...but none taken by the Hales family!! Our BFFs from Florida (the ones who fed us, held my hand through my first year of mothering, made us laugh, took us to the best restaurants ever, and taught me kanasta) were out on a tour of the west and stopped by to see us.

This is Abby and one of her favorite baby sitters ever- Brianna!

The Hales family! Thanks for letting us show you around our sleaze hole of a town! Glad we could do all the classics....the sign, the fountains, the buffet, the porn stuck to your shoe and the reaffirmation that we are truly on the top of the food chain of humanity.

Friday was Abby's final cheer leading performance. Proud of you little cheer star! Your teacher says you are a natural...and you know I thought you were the best!

I promise the church is still true...

Maybe I don't want to post this in the off chance that a significant number of members from the South Pointe Ward will read this...but it's probably my duty to warn (thus preventing me from future tort litigation). But yes, above is a picture of my daughter at 3pm, in her pajamas, sprinkling her bathroom cups all over our upstairs hall like they were rose petals. Intermixed are puzzle pieces, various toys, and yes, a basket of dirty laundry. For those of you keeping score, the ratio at my house is still 1:1, and yet we are able to achieve that kind of mess every day. As the new Primary President of the South Pointe Ward, you'd think I'd get my act together. Lets hope my leadership is a bit better than my laundry, eh?

In less overwhelming Leavitt Family News: Happy 4th Birthday, Abigail!!! I was so thrilled to spend such a festive week with you. We had family parties, went to dinner, opened presents from all over the country, and had the best little tea party (by little, I mean 8 sweet princesses, which is a much bigger number in reality than theory)! I'm still recovering and drinking plenty of fluids...I don't think I suffered any permanent damage. I posted pictures of the week's events below! I can't believe you're 4 already...and I can't believe you pray every night for a baby sister. Maybe if you clean up your bathroom cups? I'm just saying...

Abby's Birthday Week

Where do the months go?

I can't believe it's been an entire month since I've updated this. It was busy...not extraordinarily, but busy enough. And it seemed like we were missing blog-able events. So just a brief update on our month: Brandon started his new job (so all of you unhappily married people in Las Vegas, give us a ringle-jingle!) and loves it. Abby had a cheer leading performance that was just the best! I have mixed emotions about her being in cheer leading. She, however, does not. She walks around at least twice a day going: "Hold up! Wait a minute! Cheer Stars put some BOOM in it!" She also had swim lessons which was probably the most tortured Abby has ever been. No amount of bribes or threats would get that kid to dip anything above her chin into the water. For me, I finished my first full chapter for the book I'm co-writing/editing. It's nice to have a job again (I mean other than the one that pays me in macaroni noodles and kisses, which is still my favorite).

We also had a various amount of family events, birthdays, and family fun...and here are just a few pictures we took this month:

We finally started to hang some pictures on our walls. We also painted our gas station bathroom, but I don't have pictures of that yet....It's starting to feel like home.

We hosted an Eclipse dinner party for 20. (Team Jacob!) I had a lot of help from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law and I think it was a lot of fun. Here are our "mock-tails." (Hint, it's not really blood, it's cranberry-pomegranate juice.)

Here is shot of our table with Christmas lights above. Having a largely empty house is turning out to be not such a bad thing. Maybe I will never buy furniture?

Brandon went to work with the men-folk in his family at his grandfather's cabin for the weekend. Abby and I had a big girl's weekend while he was gone. We saw Toy Story 3 (which I found a little dramatic...Abby woke up screaming that night that the trash man was coming to get her...I think you all know what I'm talking about if you've seen the movie). We ended up sleeping together in my room both nights, which was nice. This picture was taken on day 2. After swimming all morning with our lady friends (Becky and Emma), we ramped up the estrogen and got all gussied up for a trip to the strip! We both put on dresses and Abby put every bow she owns in her hair. We headed to the Mandalay Bay to visit the Shark Reef aquarium. It was lovely. We then headed to Zabas for dinner. F-U-N.

We spent some time with Brandon's cousins...there's a few of them.

And of course there was father's day. Which was grand! Brandon got a couple of tools so that he could more efficiently hang the rest of the pictures in our home. I call that synergy...gift for him, gift for me.

July has some big things in store. I will try hard not to be so spotty and sporadic. Are spotty and sporadic the same thing? I think so. Happy 4th of July (which I also missed blogging...sheesh, I AM both/either spotty and/or sporadic)!

"I'm going to Disneyland!!!"

My life is awesome. My life got overnight awesome-ified! We have had a lot to celebrate. And where does everyone apparently go to celebrate? Disney! Here are some pictures of our incredible (and all too short) trip to the Happiest Place on Earth:

Abby spying on Princess Ariel. The line to meet the princesses was so long and slow, that I took her around the back to the exit while Brandon stayed in line with all the little girls.

Two little Mouseketeers on their way into the Magic Kingdom. Notice the banner says "Celebrate Today!" It was a command to celebrate and we obeyed.

On our shuttle ride from our car to the park. Abby was super jazzed and so were we. Taking a kid to Disneyland is awesome!

We stopped to smell the flowers.

Our hotel. We loved it. It was so modern (which is my thing lately). And, every time there is a free breakfast I fall in love with a hotel. Not like one stale donut and a box of Frosted Flakes breakfast...but like BREAKFAST. It happens to be my favorite meal of all times and I never leave myself enough time to eat anything but cereal. Oh, and don't worry, that shirt of Brandon's was left behind in the Hyatt's trash can. You can't tell from this picture, but it's basically a badly laundered belly shirt.

Carousel. This is the same ride that Brandon, when Abigail's age, broke free from his parents to ride for hours. His poor parents had lost him and he was playing cowboy.

Small World boats. Love it! It's so culturally sensitive!

The lovely (and I believe Hispanic with a spray-on tan) Princess Jasmine and Princess Abigail.

Princess Sleeping Beauty signing Abby's WAY over priced but COMPLETELY worth it autograph book.

This Snow White was a class act. She was completely believable and even got my super-shy daughter to say, "My name is Princess Abby and I have seen you on a movie."

We stayed from 9am-10pm. The last firework went off and literally half a minute later Abby fell into a coma. We got back to our hotel and declared that as an entire family we have never smelled so bad in all of our lives. We were ripe after a full 13 hours of sweaty, theme park fun!

The next day we hit up the LA Zoo! Thanks for the tip Chatwins!

This little girl loves the zoo!

I'm not a National Geographic photographer...but not bad, right? The animals at the LA Zoo are awesome. I thought I would spare you my incredible flamingo and rhino pics. You are welcome.

"Dad, why are giraffes so tall?" Best vacation ever! I know I just realized there is seemingly no pictures of me, but I promise! I was there! And I had a blast!

Brandon takes the oath of attorney...

We were all super proud of Brandon, especially Chad!

Free at last...Free at last...

Thank you Judge Hoskin for making it extra special!

One happy family! It looks like I'm hunched over but I'm really just limp with relief.

See the shoes? Not too over the top, right? And yes, that is quad. Brandon was sworn in on the bible and the book of mormon, smooth, right?

Thank you friends and family who came!