Category: Miss Leyba

Little Bear and Birthday Soup

Someone’s obsessed with Elsa Holmelund Minarik and Maurice Sendak’s Little Bear books!

So obsessed that she pretends to make birthday soup in the kitchen sink during her daily water play:

So obsessed that she’s been calling her baby doll Lucy after the doll in the book Little Bear’s Friend.

So obsessed that she knows the story word for word:



Video: Reading Little Bear Book from Carrie on Vimeo.

Oh, that ending! We’re all about keeping it real over here. “I hate this book!” is what happens when I ask her to read it three times in a row so I can get a movie of her storytelling. I don’t blame her for being pissed at me. I’d hate it too after reading it three times.

Although if last night is an any indication, I’ll be reading it five times to her before bed tonight.

But that didn’t stop me from just adding the books to Miss Leyba’s book wishlist. That way we’ll get to read them over and over again for years.

Baby Doll Visits the Playground

We have two baby dolls: one that’s strictly an inside-the-house-girl and one that gets to see the world.

Wow is Miss Lebya’s doll dirty! Clearly this is NOT the house doll.

Miss Leyba loves to take baby doll everywhere. Before the doll stayed in the car when we went out, but then we realized that her friends were bringing their baby dolls to the park. We needed to join in the fun.

See, baby doll has a buddy! She needs social time just like we do.

The girls love taking care of their dolls and ensuring that they enjoy their trip to the playground. We don’t want anyone to feel left out.



The past few weeks have been all about going to the park. We’re trying to fit in as much outdoor time as we can before the winter rains set in.

This past week was no exception: we visited three different parks with three different sets of friends.



Oh, the fun! Oh, the giggles! (Oh, the exhaustion afterwards!)

How does the youngest one get to the top? (When she’s not busy directing her friends up the climbing wall that leads to the slide and taking her turn last. Really. My daughter, the field marshal.)



Climbing up the slide to the top is the more challenging, fun way!

There she goes again, running the show and directing everyone off! I can’t imagine where she inherited that sort of behavior. ;-)

Letters Everywhere

Everywhere I look my two and half year old is practicing writing her letters.

And, no, I haven’t taught her this. She’s figuring out how to write them herself, only occasionally asking me for assistance.

She’s known the names of all lowercase and uppercase letters for about a year now. She’s constantly calling out from the back seat of the car, “Mom, I see a really big S!” (When she isn’t busy backseat driving, saying instead, “Stop, Mom! STOP! The light is red!”)

She’s slowly learning to recognize some words. She reads her name. She knows “Mommy” and “Daddy” without hesitation.

For the last month or so, she’s been constantly play writing with zig zags on the paper, as I wrote about just last week.

But rather suddenly it’s morphing into something else.

On pieces of paper, on the front porch in chalk, she’s practicing her letters.

H (“for Hana,” her friend)
D (“for Daddy!”)
O (“It’s a circle!”)
i (“With a big dot!”)
etcetera

And so it begins…

Camping Friday

Another post in our First on Friday series where we try something new!

David and I used to camp together.

We camped across the country:

David outside our old tent in Texas Canyon in 2003 on our way home to New Mexico from the east coast

We camped in our backyard for several nights after our wedding as a mini-honeymoon before the big honeymoon several months later:

With the wedding decorations still up in 2005 (ugh, pardon the blurry photo)

We camped in beautiful places:

At the Great Sand Dues in 2006

And then we had a kid. Since this event we’ve slept in a tent a total of one night IN OUR BACKYARD. LAST YEAR. TO TRY IT OUT. I know, pathetic. To say it was time to try it again was a bit of a understatement.

Yesterday we headed out to a State Park close to home for a one-night trip. Luckily when you live in Northern California you don’t need to go far to find someplace absolutely beautiful. Less than an hour away may not sound terribly exciting, but we’ve been feeling giddy over it and loved our trip.

Here’s how it went down:










All three of us enjoyed being in nature, doing something new together, and getting away from the fray.

Our getaway was so needed, so restful, such fun… and I am so looking forward to doing it again.

The best part though is that it’s Friday and we have the whole weekend ahead of us! Have a good one!

Toddler Writing

Like Mama, Miss Leyba loves to make lists.

Shopping lists.
To-do lists.
Book lists.

Like Mama, Miss Leyba loves to write stories.

She has even been known to say, “I need to do a blog post.”

That was a direct quote. I even twittered it for her.

Like Mama, Miss Leyba loves to write letters.

“Dear Momma, I’m glad I love you so much!”

“Dear Dadda, I love you so much! I’d like to do this again!”

While I never seem to find the time to write letters, Miss Leyba is very good at making the time for this favorite activity.

Unfortunately she still has to wait on me to mail the letters.

Right now we have two letters to mail internationally (one to France, one to Afghanistan), waiting for me to take them to the post office to get the right postage.

Sigh. I’ll get to it eventually. Sigh. I mean soon.