Jackie Laughing

While she's still at the age where her laughing sounds a little like indistinct grunting, it is so fun that we can get Jackie to laugh now!  Even Violet was getting big laughs out of her today.  Here is a video I got of her tonight when we were all hanging out on the front porch:

Easter egg hunt and Easter Sunday!

So, I'm way behind on blogging, but rather than try to catch up, I'll just start with Easter!

We've been is CA for the past few Easters, but this year Easter happened during our break while we are in AZ!  (We're still here for another week and a half.)  My parents' neighborhood always has a giant Easter egg hunt, and it was so fun that Violet got to do it this year.  This egg hunt is supposed to be for 4 year olds and up, but Violet didn't want to do the little kid one, and I was so proud of how bravely she ran down the hill with all the big kids.  She mostly found only half eggs that had their candy taken already, but she she didn't mind.  (Total win-win.  All the fun of an Easter egg hunt, and she didn't even get any candy so I didn't have to worry about how much she ate!)

Violet eating her doughnut with verve:

With Grandpa:

Heart-warming daddy-daughter pic:

Easter Sunday was lovely, and we even managed to fit in a little photo shoot before church:

She's here!

If you didn't already know, our new little girl arrived 10 days ago!  And if you follow me on instagram, you've already been bombarded with pictures of her, so bear with me.  I have no plans for the post beyond posting glamour shot after glamour shot of this cute baby girl.  

Here she is!  

Jacqueline Leona LeSueur - born February 11th at 11:45 pm.  She was 7lbs 6 oz (so small!  I didn't think I would ever have a little baby!) and 20.5 inches long (exactly the same as Violet). She looks a lot like Violet did when she was a baby, and I think in a few years I won't be able to tell which girl it is from the baby pictures.  

She has been such a good baby.  I don't know if it just her personality or if it is because I'm not such a rookie at taking care of a baby, but she been lower maintenance than Violet ever was.  Speaking of Violet, she's been the best older sister you could ask for.  If she's been gone for a while, like at the park or museum with my mom or Glenn, the first thing she asks when she gets home is, "Where's my baby sister?" or "Where is Jacqueline?".  She is really gentle with her, and when I nurse Jackie, Violet brings me her book of fairy tales and asks me to read to her.  She seems pretty happy.  I was afraid she'd feel like we suddenly didn't give her any attention, but the truth is, Jacqueline sleeps so much that I've still been able to give Violet plenty of attention.  I'm glad newborns sleep so much at the beginning, because  I feel like it is easing Violet into our new life.  By the time Jacqueline takes more of my time, Violet will hopefully be used to her being here.  A few shots of the girls together:

(watching Dora together; why is this picture so funny to me?)

I should also mention that my mom came to stay with us for a week!  It was a huge blessing that she could take that much time off work, and I'm so grateful that she wanted to come here and work so hard for a week!  She almost never stopped cleaning when she was here, and every day she took Violet out to do something fun.  Also, we lucked out with the timing of her coming out here.  She has had her bags packed in the trunk of her car for weeks (Baby Jackie was 9 days late, in case you don't remember all my complaining a couple of weeks ago) so she could leave work whenever I called to say I was in labor.  Well, I started having contractions around 3 in the morning on Tuesday, but I was reluctant to tell me mom to come in case they stopped and it wasn't really labor.  I told her I was in labor around 1, and she left right away and got to our house by 7 that evening.  By 8 o'clock the contractions were pretty serious and Glenn and I left for the hospital.  The baby came pretty quickly after that!  

Here are some pics of Mom and Violet's time together:

At the park:

At the museum:

(same shirt as at the park, but a different day.  Vi got this shirt for Valentines' Day, and looooooves it.)

At the zoo:

And one last picture.  The two Jackies together!

Photo dump - the last days of 2013

You guys, I'm due in ONE week.  We are getting pretty excited, but I don't feel anywhere near having the baby.  But before this blog gets taken over by pictures of the new baby, I figured I'd post the last few I have of our trip to AZ, even though it was a while ago. 

Our LeSueur family pic!

Picking oranges:

at the park:

Snuggling with Grammy:

At the zoo:

Last, my mom made Violet some really creative snacks and lunches while we were there, so I took some pictures!  Believe it or not, it actually convinced Violet to eat a lot of things she normally wouldn't!  Aren't Grandma's the best?

(lady bug sandwich)

(reindeer pancakes)

(happy girl)

Maggie and Violet

I had so many good pictures of Maggie and Violet together, that I decided to dedicate a whole post to them!  Maggie is Violet's only cousin on my side of the family, and before this trip, they'd only met one other time, last Christmas, when Maggie was only a month old.  However, we facetime with them pretty regularly, and Violet recognized Maggie as soon as she saw her this year!  

We stayed at my parents' house at the same time as Kenny's family for about a week, so the girls had lots of time to become friends!  I think it was the beginning of what will be a life-long best-friendship!

The girls took their baths together:

They took a walks in the stroller, and the wagon several times, with Grammy:

They had matching Christmas dresses!

Violet taught Maggie how to throw coins in the fountain: 

(and also wore Maggie's clothes on more than one occasion, like this black skirt, for example.)

Also, Violet taught Maggie a lot about how to tease her dad!  Violet decided early on that Uncle Kenny was good to wrestle.

Last but not least, there was a toddler-sparkler-sword-fight that was, while closely monitored, as dangerous as it sounds.

Cousins forever!

Family Pictures - 2013

I still have a bunch of pictures of our vacation to post, but my mom just sent me the family pictures!  I decided I couldn't wait another day to share them.  I love how they turned out!  Violet smiled for almost every picture, and she even hugged and kissed Maggie on command.  Additionally, Glenn looks handsome every picture (of course) and my black shirt hid my pregnancy better than I expected!  So all in all, it was a family picture success!

We also got family pictures taken with Glenn's family and so I'll share those pictures when I see them!

Christmas 2013

We had such nice Christmas this year.  We spent Christmas Eve with Glenn's family, and Christmas morning with mine.  Glenn's family's tradition is to spend Christmas Eve at his Grandma Audree's house, and we always do a nativity with all the grandkids.  And Glenn always ends up participating too...

Violet was more aware this year that Christmas morning was exciting.  It was fun to watch her run out to see the tree and her presents!  Also, Violet and I had matching pajamas that morning, and matching outfits for the rest of Christmas day.  I loved it; I'm going to be hopeless when I have TWO little girls to dress up!

We went over to the LeSueurs' for part on Christmas morning and Christmas lunch.  I think Violet had everyone in the house read her this Frozen book at some point.

That evening we had dinner with my family, and we did a pinata, and sent off lanterns!  It was such a fun, festive end to Christmas day.  I'm sure I've mentioned that Violet is obsessed with Tangled (although recently that has taken a backseat to her obsession with Frozen) so she definitely recognized the floating lanterns and thought they were very cool.

Our Vacation - Pre Christmas

We did so much and took so many pictures over our vacation that I can't fit it all into one post!  Here's what we did in AZ before Christmas:

1.  The triathlon - We left for AZ on a Friday afternoon, and on Saturday morning, I did a triathlon with  my mom and Courtney!  We were a relay team, so we each did one leg.  Courtney was amazing at the swimming part, and my mom did really good at the biking, and I was able to run the whole way without stopping, which was my goal.  Also, I had the lofty goal of running faster than 30 minutes (it was a 5k), but I knew that would be tough because I'm so slow right now.  And then the second half of the course was uphill!  However, I was surprised to see that my time was around 30:30, which was faster than I felt like I was running!

2.  The trampoline - Can you tell what Violet's favorite thing to do at LeSueur Grandma and Grandpa's house was?

She wanted to jump all day long!  I actually loved it, because most of the time she just wanted us to come on the tramp with her, but hold perfectly still while she jumped.  I would just bring out a blanket and relax for half an hour while she tired her self out!

3.  Our anniversary - Five years together!  We went on a date and saw the movie Frozen (which we loved) and then to dinner at a new place in Mesa called Republica Empanada (which we loved even more!) 

4.  The park with cousins - One morning, we went over to Freestone Park for Violet to feed the ducks, and her Redd cousins met us there.  This ended up being one of my favorite days of our trip; the kids had so much fun playing together, and Glenn and I always love a chance to hang out with Cheeri and Dustin.

New Years' Resolutions - 2014!

I'm excited to post all the pictures from Christmas and NewYears', but I want to make sure I post about my resolutions before I forget!  I liked how last year I felt so accountable for my resolutions since I'd posted them here and you all knew about them!

In review, for 2013 I had two resolutions:  Write in my journal everyday, and read 50 books.  I did write in my journal almost everyday.  I think I probably missed about 5 days throughout the year, and those were all in the first part of the year.  I haven't missed a day in months.  So I think I can say that I have successfully developed that habit!  

My other resolution was also very close to being a success.  I read... 48 books.  I pretty much stayed on track all year.  The problem was, when it came to crunch time at the end of the year, we were here with our family and I never felt like shutting myself up in my room during nap time to read!  If you are interested, here are the 48 books I read:

Looking back over all of them, some of my favorites were anything by Jhumpa Lahiri and the new Lemony Snicket series.  My least favorites were probably Austenland and Night Circus.  If you have any recommendations for me, I love to hear them!  I'm always looking for books to read.  Also, I got the new Jhumpa Lahiri for Christmas and I'm so excited to start it!

Here are my new resolutions:

1.  Read my scriptures everyday (so far I'm 3 for 3!)

2.  Go to Goodwill once a month to donate stuff.

That last one is because I want to have a little stuff as possible to move in a year and half when Glenn is done with school, and I figured it would be good to start de-junking now.  

5 Years - A timeline

Today is mine and Glenn's fifth anniversary!  To celebrate, I figured I'd recap the last five years - briefly :).  But with lots of pictures.  Here is what's been going on:

YEAR 1 - 2009 (We got married in 2008, but obviously at the very end of the year, so I'll start with 2009)

This was the year we got married and went to ASU together for the spring and fall semesters.  We have such good memories of those semesters being in school together.

(engagement pic)

(in Belize for our honeymoon)

YEAR 2 - 2010

This was the year we graduated together from ASU.  My last semester was student teaching, and it was a very stressful experience, and I was SO blessed to have Glenn along for the ride with me.  Also, that fall, I started teaching for real.  And also I got pregnant.  And Glenn get accepted to USC for dental school!  It was an eventful year.

(My first day of teaching!)

YEAR 3 - 2011

I finished my first year of teaching, and a few weeks later we had Violet.  And a few weeks later we moved to California for dental school!

(Glenn's first day of dental school!)

YEAR 4 - 2012

Lived in Cali and loved it!  

YEAR 5 - 2013

And continued to live in Cali and love it!  I guess there isn't much to say about the last couple of years beyond that.  Uh, I guess this is the year we realized we somehow ended up with the sassiest daughter ever, but also the smartest/prettiest/happiest one too.  Also I'm pregnant again, so that is a big deal.

Anyway, Happy Anniversary Glenn!  It's been the best five years I could have asked for!

"I'm a Reindeer"

I am behind on blogging, but here is a quick video to get you in the Christmas spirit!

Old Man Glenn Turns 28

Glenn's birthday was a couple of weeks ago!  His parents came to visit for the weekend; they've actually come to visit for every one of his birthdays since we moved here!  It is a nice tradition that has developed.  We had a great time, and Violet was especially happy to have her grandparents around.

They got here Friday night, and we spent the whole day on Saturday doing fun things.  We went to Griffith Park in the morning.  Violet rode the ponies again.  This time she kept her dad close and her eye on the man with the blue jacket, and reluctantly allowed him to put her in the saddle.  After that she had a great time!

Violet also got to ride the carousel, and afterwards, we had a picnic and played croquet in the lawn near the carousel.  This carousel is super old, and the fastest one I've ever seen!  Violet was a little shaken after getting off!

Saturday evening, Glenn and I went on a date!  We went to eat at La Barca, a Mexican restaurant very close by that we'd heard good things about.  It was delicious!  The best part was taking as long as we wanted.  We usually rush through dinner if we go to a restaurant with Violet.  Even if she is being really good, it's like we are scared she is eventually going to get bored, so we hurry through everything.  Since it was just us, we waited a little extra long to get a booth instead of a table, and then the waiter had to come back twice before we ordered because we were really taking our time deciding.

On Sunday, Glenn's birthday, we all had breakfast together.  Glenn didn't have any meetings before church, which was a nice birthday present!  Violet helped Glenn open his presents, of course.  I think she was as excited about some of the presents as he was!

Here's where I made my big mistake:  I didn't make the cake until Glenn's parents had gone.  They left to drive home right after church, and I made the birthday cake in the afternoon.  Well, Glenn ate one piece, and I was too full, so we were left with a giant cake in the fridge and no one to eat it!  We took it to our institute class a couple of days later and it was gone in about 5 seconds, so it all worked out.

Big Girl Bed

My parents had a bed they were willing to give us for Violet when she was ready to move out of her crib, so when Glenn's parents came into town last weekend (for his birthday!  A post on that coming soon...) they picked up the bed from my parents and drove it up!

Violet was SO excited about it.  She loves to play with it:  jump on it, read on it, hide under it, etc.  However, if you ask her if she wants to sleep in it, she answers, "Um...maybe when I'm bigger."  Which, incidentally, is also her answer if you ask her if she wants to use the toilet.  We aren't pushing too hard for her to make the switch because it might actually be nice to have a free bed for my mom to sleep in when she comes when the new baby is born.

 And now I will overrepresent this small step in Violet's life with too many pictures because I love them all so much:

Field Hockey in Santa Barbara

Glenn started practicing with the field hockey team at USC last week.  He was surprised when after just two practices, they asked him to come play in their game on Saturday!  They asked on Thursday, and the game was in Santa Barbara, so we made the last minute decision to head up there this weekend.

I'm glad we went, because it was a good thing for Glenn to get involved with the team, but I would rate the three main components of the trip as such:  the drive: terrible, the hockey: slightly disappointing, lunch: amazing. 

The drive up there was actually lovely.  We made it in less than an hour and a half, and it is a really pretty drive.  The problem was the drive home.  Ugh, we were in traffic for so long.  It was one of those drives that just makes you very single-minded to how much you hate LA.  (and I actually love LA, but the traffic is really something.)  I think it took us over two and half hours to get home.

It was fun to meet Glenn's team, and they were happy to have Glenn there.  But...turned out they didn't have an extra jersey for Glenn in the right color, so he had to be the goalie the whole time.

It was pretty warm, and I was glad I had my umbrella for shade.  Violet made her own shade.

Then for the best part of the trip:  Lunch!  We tried the place- El Super Rica Taqueria- the first time we went to Santa Barbara a couple of years ago, and loved it.  We hadn't been back since, and knew that is where we should eat this time.  We remembered that the best thing we had there was the chile relleno, so that is what we got.  I took a picture:

Violet chowed down on freshly made corn tortillas that had so much natural sweetness from the corn that they made your hands sticky.  Mmmmmm.

There was also sword fighting:

It was a good enough lunch to make the trip to Santa Barbara worth it!

Violet's Halloween Costume

I just wanted to make sure I documented Halloween before I miss the chance.  I don't have much to say, besides that Violet was the cutest Rapunzel-from-Tangled-post-haircut that you've ever seen.  I actually took the pictures on Tuesday, when Violet got to wear her costume to the library for story time:

On Halloween night, I let Violet trick or treat at one house - the sorority house of one of my friends from our ward.  I think her whole haul was three pieces of candy.  Then we went to our ward Halloween party!  Glenn and I had a great time, and Violet was very good and sweet even though she was the only kid there and seemed a little bored the whole time.

(I just realized that some of you might not be as familiar with the movie Tangled as we are [do you think Violet will EVER want to watch a different movie?], so here is a picture of Rapunzel - post haircut - for reference.)

Pumpkin Carving

We carved our pumpkin yesterday!  It was Violet's first time, and she thought the whole process was pretty cool.  Although in the days leading up to it, every time I told her we were going to carve our pumpkin, she would say, "We are going to cut it up and EAT IT?".  So she was probably kind of disappointed that that didn't happen.

I asked Violet what kind of face she wanted our pumpkin to have, and she was actually pretty decisive. She definitely wanted a "big smile, not a scary mouth" and "triangle eyes".  Also, halfway through she decided we should include sharp teeth, and fortunately it wasn't too late to oblige.

(She would absolutely not touch the pumpkin guts with her hands)

Underwood Farms - The pumpkin patch!

There is a farm about an hour away from us called Underwood Farms that is a pretty big deal.  They have u-pick every season, like strawberries in the summer, etc.  Their biggest thing of the year, though, is the Halloween Festival, and we went this year!  It was a pretty big deal for us to go, because it is a long drive there and back, and we wanted to stay for most of the day since it takes so long to get there, so Violet didn't get a nap.  She had a great time though, and was so happy the whole time!

I took about a million pictures, so I'll just tell you a little about them as we go to give you an idea of how fun the day was.

We went with a group of moms and kids from our stake, and our group had scheduled a hay ride together.  Violet loved it.  She was completely enthralled the whole time.

These are our friends, Jenica and Ryan, who we drove up to the farm with.  Unfortunately, this is the best picture I could get of them on the hayride together.  I got some better ones later though.

The hayride dropped us off at the pumpkin patch, where we each got to pick a pumpkin!  Our admission price was $6 each, but it paid for everything, including the pumpkin.

A good one of Ryan and Violet together:

I told Violet to make a scary face when she was looking through the vampire.  This is what we got.  I'm definitely scared... more scared that she is going to mug me than that she is actually a vampire...

Violet loved climbing on this wagon, and got all the way to the top by herself!  I heard a 5 year old boy tell his dad he needed help getting up there, and then Violet displayed her impressive upper body strength and pulled herself up!

We all brought our lunches and ate them at the picnic tables, and afterwards the little girls had an impromptu dance party.

There were lots of cool animals, including this emu.  

There were also goats, cows, pigs, chickens, bunnies, turkeys, and peacocks.  It was as good at being at the zoo for Violet!  This morning I wanted Violet to tell Glenn about the animals she saw, and she said, "I saw a BEAUTIFUL peacock!".

A hay bale pyramid:

Ryan and Violet really enjoyed each other's company the whole time.  They play so well together, and I'm glad we've become friends with them recently.

I wish I could remember everything!  It was just such an amazingly fun day.  There were corn mazes we never even got to, a farmers' market where Violet and I picked out some really delicious tomatoes, and a squash stand that had every kind of edible squash I've ever heard of.  Also, there were pigmy goats that walked all over the beams above the play areas, which was hilarious.  Like this: