June 28, 2013

I had Luke's 9mo checkup at the beginning of the week: he weighs 19lbs, 4oz, which is a crackup because that puts him in the 39th percentile, and he's not exactly teeny weeny, so 61% of kids his age are bigger than he is?!  Levi weighed that exact weight at 9mos but was an inch and a half longer so he seemed a little skinnier.

So far this week he has dabbled with blueberries, string cheese, vanilla yogurt, and banana bread.  Faves are the yogurt and banana bread, of course.

My soul is singing because the weather is so beautiful.  We play outside most of the day every day.  I put the baby monitor in the window while Luke naps and Levi and I do yard work together.  I fill the kiddie pool while the boys sleep and the afternoon sun makes it like bathwater, and I just strip Luke and plop him in after nap time.  Levi pulls out Matt's lawn mower, Luke splashes, I weed, Molly prances...we are all happy. :)

Living a little piece of crunchy dream: crazy garden, laundry flappin', and a naked baby.

I love the look of baby neck and ears from behind.  It's just cute. :)

Our neighbors loaned Levi a little four wheeler.  He calls it his "Jeep" and he LOVES it.

"Here, Mama.  I brought lou a sammich." (a cake of dirt and dried grass)

No, Matt is not trying to channel Britney Spears.  Highlight of Levi's day: helping Matt drive the car into the garage when he gets home from work.  Luke usually wants in on it too.

Amazonian garden.  Who knew watermelon went wild? (stringier-looking plant on the right foreground)

Our toy baby.  He LOVES toys.  He really got into Levi's lawn mower tonight and kept pulling the "start" pull-thing over and over again. Just like Levi does.  It makes a loud revving sound that delights all who play with it.

June 21, 2013

Sorry, a bit of a photo dump here.  I'll be brief with each one.

Our gardens.  Are slightly out of control.  I have done nothing but water them.  It's kind of scary.

Luke mowed the lawn with Matt and fell asleep. :)

 

 

 I almost hate to broadcast this because I'm selfish and want all the chicken for myself.  But Kapenga is up and running again, and Levi can't stop talking about going to the chicken farm and playing on the tractor (even though he didn't actually play ON the tractor).

The other night after dinner I made strawberry banana "ice cream" (frozen strawberries and bananas, a little bit of coconut milk and a little bit of vanilla in the food processor) and we ate it on the front porch.  Very fun.  Unfortunately, Matt had to work in the evening so it wasn't as fun as it could have been if he were there. :(

 

Hilarious moment: Luke was standing on the front step holding onto me.  Levi said, "I'm going to teach Luke how to walk."  He stands up.  "First, you get up.  Then you go like this." He walks down our front walk and turns around. "Then you go back."  He returns to the steps.  It was just that easy.  Surprisingly, Luke didn't catch on.

 

Levi finally painted.  He's painted at Josiah's before, but never wanted to paint for me at home.  He finally agreed to paint a (very late) Father's Day picture for Matt.

 

Josiah came today!  We walked to the park (clarification: Josiah and Levi ran the whole way).

 

If only my pictures could capture their giggles.

 

Levi: "I don't like this. I don't like this."

 

Me: "Levi, look at me thru the hole! No, thru the hole!!  Josiah, look at me!  Levi, come back!  Look at me thru the hole! Josiahhhhh - smile!! Levi! Ugh, never mind." *click*

 

Bruvvers.

 

June 17, 2013

Well.  Here we are again.

Luke turned NINE MONTHS OLD last week!!!  This age where they start to morph from little babies to little toddlers is riotous.  He finally got his crawl on - starting with a jumping spider technique (walk hands forward...hop both knees forward simultaneously...), and now he's a pro.  He pulled himself up to standing at the window today, and has designs on the stairs.  With his crawling came his vocabulary burst - and mounting frustration that now that he has a taste of freedom, he wants MORE. Lots more.  And he's very inclined to let you know. ;)

He's starting to catch up with his brother's feeding moxy, and is starting to be interested in putting food in his mouth. The other day I gave him blueberries and coarsely chopped pear and he was pretty pleased with those.

His nightly sleeping pattern is slightly less turbulent.  We really can't complain. He sleeps like a rock star during the day, goes down wide awake and plays himself to sleep, goes down without a peep at night, and when he wakes at night he really wants some food in his tummy and about 99% of the time goes right back to bed wide awake without a complaint.  We're just kind of tired of feeding him at night, but that too shall pass.

Luke gives amazing hugs.  When we pick him up he wraps those chubby little arms around our necks and hangs on for dear life. He loves to laugh at his brother and play with Levi's toys.  Levi's okay with sharing sometimes; he does pretty well if I tell him it's okay to not want Luke to play with something in particular as long as he offers Luke an equally cool toy as an alternative. So far he goes along with that plan most of the time.

His personality is certainly more....assertive.  He's not fussy-fussy, he just knows what he wants, when he wants it, and will crawl-chase me around the house to let me know in no uncertain terms that I am not with the program.

He loves his bath.  He splashes so hard that I usually end up drenched and so does the rest of the bathroom. :)

I pulled out the kiddie pool the other day. Levi can take or leave the kiddie pool (I bought it last summer under the guise of a good time for a toddler...really it was for me to park my miserably-hot, pregnant keester in it while the toddler played with something else).  Luke LOVES it.  Big hit.

Not an uncommon look:

Poor, tired baby. :(

I didn't get a good picture of it, but the other day Levi woke up with a *perfect* faux-hawk.  He takes his bath at night, so wakes up in the morning with some pretty gnarly looks, but this one beat all.  And it was STRAIGHT UP.  There was no putting it down. So I put some product in it to make it look like it was done on purpose.  I am not one to style his hair, EVER, but this was nearly an emergency. You can kind of see it in this picture.

June 7, 2013

What good is a dirty garden if you can't play trucks in it?

I don't mean to brag...but...isn't my garden cute?

Rainy morning fun: pretending you are a tug boat and using Mama's resistance band to drag a ship (er, the dog) into harbor.  He came up with that, I did not plant it in his head. He does have a Little Critter book about a tug boat, maybe that's where it came from.  Molly was not clued in to the game plan and wasn't terribly cooperative.

 

Soooo....he found another 'ship.'  His basket of books (thankfully, a heavy old milk bottle basket).

 

Yes, he did pull it as far back as he could. And yes, he did let it go.  And yes, it was funny.

 

Back to the dog.  Moving targets are more fun.

 

June 3, 2013

If we had girls, I doubt that a morning of playing outside would involve insisting on pulling out the trash can, tipping it over and opening it to say, "Look, Mama!!  I brought you some garbage!  See?"

But I could be wrong.

Matt converted Levi's crib to a toddler bed this weekend, and Levi loves it.  So far I don't think it's occurred to him that he can get out and mosey around, and we're sure not letting the cat out of the bag.




And Luke finally, finally figured out how to crawl. He looks like a little jumping spider when he does it, and man is he ever happy that he has forward motion!!

That's about all I have to report today. :)