a celebration of Leannora

(i have a few things to fix and add on this, but i need mark's help. so since it's actually leannora's birthday today, here's the preview.)

a look at our little lady Leannora's 3rd year:

happy birthday to you, Leannora is 3 now instead of 2!

We celebrated Leannora's 3rd birthday at the Fenwick family campout at Kim's Uncle Joe's farmette.

She helped frost the cupcakes and decorate with sprinkles.

The summer that Leannora was born we missed the campout because she was only a few days old. It was fun having such a memorable celebration.

summer fun and a snack in our garden

The children all love Little Bear. In a Little Bear movie that we have he and his friends take a trip to the moon and and go moon jumping. Little Bear wears a box on his head. So Leannora is pretending to be Little Bear here. The boys assure her that he is not a girl, but she has made up her mind to join in the fun with the boys.

Leannora LOVES her brothers. This bedtime pajama picture was taken when Leannora had decided that Owen was her special buddy. The two would play together in everything. It was a wonderful little window of a special bond between brother and sister. Of course, all the children are good buddies and love to imagine and pretend in all sorts of adventures together.

We made cowboy cutouts for all the children at the end of the summer. It was kind of a kickoff for our first official year of homeschooling. Each child had an outline of their body on newsprint roll paper and we printed out enlarged pictures of their faces. Then we drew cowboy outfits unique to each of the children. Leannora was the cutest cowgirl in the place. Instead of a gun, lasso, or lariat, Hogan thought his sister should have a basket of flowers. Here's cowgirl Leannora times 2.






A sweet elderly woman from church requested some pictures of Leannora specifically in piggy tails. This was one of the photos we sent her along with some Leannora doodles. She kept them on her refrigerator. She went home to be with the Lord this winter. We were so blessed to be a bit of encouragement to her as she suddenly battled and lost a fight against cancer.




We surprized Grandma Sara with this dress one time when they came to visit. Sara's mother made this dress for Sara when she was a little girl. She remembers wearing it over many years as it was a favorite and could easily take out the hem a bit to add length for a growing little girl. She was so tickled to see Leannora in this adorable dress.

This is Daisy, Grandpa Bill and Grandma Sara's dog as a new puppy. We've started calling her crazy Daisy because she's so full of energy. I guess we must have momentarily worn her out with all the energy of little Milligans.

A BIG lego tower constructed by Nikao and Leannora.

Great Grandpa and Grandma Milligan came for a visit just a few days before Able was born. They brought all sorts of treats and treasures for our family. Here Grandma and Leannora are having a special time reading some new books.

Aunt Nina and cousin Bobby came for a quick delivery. . .

of chicken george for supper. I guess it's a well known thing among the nurses in Dixon that chicken from the Candlelight Inn and BBY help induce labor. We really enjoyed their quick visit.

Unfortunately the chicken didn't work it's wonders in our birth situation. But a baby boy was born evenso. When we announced to the children that our baby had been born, Leannora asked, "Is she a her?" She was not thrilled that "he was a him" and answered, "Awww, I wanted a baby sister." In a short time her disappointment disappeared and she said, "I love Able Arden!"

a bunch of movie watching milligans

The glory of raking leaves on a beautiful autumn day is jumping in your work pile! As soon as the first few leaves begin to fall from the trees, the children beg to rake. Our three small trees in the front yard are our only leaf producers, so the poor children have to wait till we've got a good bunch on the ground before we play. Then we push them off the curb and watch the city trucks load 'em up and move 'em out. We do save some for our compost pile and a fun jumping spot in the back yard too. The neighbors even kindly (for real, in kindness - I'm not being sarcastic here) share their leaves with us for bigger piles!

Oh GIVE THANKS to the Lord for He is good, His love endures forever! We have had the honor of hosting the Hartzell family Thanksgiving meal in our home for the past 2 years. Great Grandpa Hartzell was touched by the day together as a family.

Cousin Adam! Buddy Becky! They were living near one another in Chicago for a while. So Becky rode along with the Mardauss family and then Adam and Becky took the train back to crazy Chicago after our Saturday Thanksgiving celebration. It was fun having Becky as a part of our family for the day.

O Christmas tree! We got to add some of our homemade decorations to Grandpa and Grandma Strub's tree one Sunday after our church meeting.

I think you might call these winter indians.

Winter wonderland of 2008. We broke Wisconsin's record of snowfall this winter. Oh was it fun! Snowmen, sledding, we even made a snow cave and trails to walk around in our backyard.

This is Leannora's first haircut. She was so excited to share in haircutting night for the first time. She wanted 5 inches cut off and held up her 5 little piggies with such exuberance. Daddy said only a couple - we're just trimming those lovely locks little lady.

We had enough of our cold blue family room and warmed up the wood burning stove room with red! Leannora helped us keep the work rolling along.

A jammie morning! Everyone gets so excited about these simple things. (Able really was happy, he just blinked at every flash of the camera. For a few months we couldn't take a picture of him without that funny look on his face.)

Since we have 5 children, the puppy priority is pretty low on the totem pole. So the children take turns playing "baby puppy." This is Bruiser, sometimes called Bean, Teddy, and also know as Snowflake. He is our best puppy. He will sit, stay, and has the cutest personality. Leannora is a very good puppy trainer.

Craft time! Oh, how Leannora loves learning time! She does not let me forget that she wants to learn along with her big brothers. Hogan snapped these 2 shots with his camera. He has the best way of capturing our family candidly from a child's perspective!



"my dancing dress!" A friend of my mom's used to teach dance classes. She was getting ready for a rummage sale and gave Leannora this BLUE dress!

The children all had their jammies on one evening. Papa hadn't seen Leannora's dancing dress yet so we put her dress over her pjs and let the children jam and jump and dance around.


happy birthday to our 4 year old little lady leannora
august 25, 2008