9 months

How in the world is my little man 9 months old?!? It seems like the days are going faster and faster. Levi has changed so much this month!

• He started clapping his hands when he's excited or we say Patty-Cake.

• Some of his favorite things: cords, shoes, books, whatever Lily is playing with, and any toys that play music.

• He's "talking" a ton! He only says things when we aren't paying attention to him though. If we tell him to say something he just giggles. So far we've heard him say "Ma-Ma and Ba-Ba" but he jabbers a lot too.

• So far he has 2 teeth on the bottom and 1 of his front teeth on top. The other top tooth is partly poking through, so it should be fully cut in a couple days. I'm so thankful teething tablets are back on the market! They have been a lifesaver (sanity saver) with both Lily and Levi.

• Levi is a very compact little guy. He weighs between 17 and 18 pounds, but just wears 6 month size clothes. He also has tiny feet! From everything I've heard, he's just like his Daddy was when he was a baby. 

• Levi's newest favorite thing to do is pull up on everything! He isn't very steady, so he's constantly falling and bumping his head. He is so much more of a "baby" when he falls than Lily ever has been. I don't know if it's a boy thing, or what, but he screams like he's dying whenever he gets even a little bump. Poor little guy!

• He's eating great and sleeping much better at night.

• I found him eating dog food off the floor today. Yum!

• He loves to scoot/crawl into the bathroom and Lily's room.

• He is ticklish all over his body!

He's a precious little boy and we love him to death!

Picnic in a tent

Right now Lily just loves tents and picnics, so one night I decided we would make a tent and have a picnic for supper. It was on a night when Jacob had orchestra, so it was just me and the kids. Our evenings without him often get long, so I try to do fun little things to help the time not drag by.

 Lily was thrilled with the tent!

The food - homemade pizza, grapes and carrots for me and pizza, peas and bananas for her.

 It cracks me up how she eats pizza - just like I did when I was little.

 Lily has recently started crossing her ankles and saying that she's sitting like a lady. It is so funny!!

Levi enjoyed the picnic too by chewing on a carrot stick.

We are definitely going to have to have more indoor picnics! Such fun memories!

The County Fair

Last Friday night we headed to the county fair! The evening was cool and the air perfectly crisp. For the 3rd year in a row I didn't get to ride any rides (because of being pregnant) - although I could've ridden a couple, like the ferris wheel.

Jacob is definitely way more into rides than I am, so he really enjoyed all the crazy ones! 

Lily liked the carousel pretty well, but it went around really fast and I think she got a little dizzy. She started looking kind of scared towards the end.

Levi napping. This nap made him a happy boy for the evening!

Taking in all the sights and sounds.

The kids enjoyed the petting zoo especially. Uncle Judah carried Levi around and showed him the animals, which was really nice!

I don't think Uncle Ernie realized he was going to have two little ones to share his funnel cake with! Lily and Ridley were chowing down on it!

Lily's favorite part of the evening was the kiddie tea cups. She is still talking about the ride and asking to do it again! 

Priceless!

A bunch of our family went, but I only managed to get pictures of my kids with Judah. Oh well.

It was such a fun evening and a great way to start the weekend!

Growing Up

This week Levi has grown by leaps and bounds! He is now pulling up on everything! He's still pretty unsteady, and is constantly (it seems) falling and hitting his head. Wow, I can't believe this child! I guess he feels like he needs to be able to run after big sister.

Levi also learned Patty-Cake this week. He is so cute clapping his hands along with us. I'll try to get a video of him.

Funny Story (mainly a memory I don't want to forget) - You know the picture of Levi's guacamole face in the last post? Well, we brought home the leftover guacamole and I fed it to Levi for lunch the next day. About two hours later I was changing his diaper and he was laughing when I noticed what appeared to be a hole a little smaller than a dime in the roof of his mouth. I nearly had a heart attack! I was scared to stick my finger in and feel it, but I was thinking how in the world did a hole in his palate just show up? They did a CT scan to make sure the palate was intact. Obviously my mind was racing. I finally got brave, pried his mouth open, stuck my finger in, and realized it wasn't a hole, but a piece of jalapeno pepper from the guacamole! I was so relieved I started crying (thank you, pregnancy hormones!)

Lily is doing great! She is feeling 100% better, or at least acts like she does. Her favorite thing to do, as of today, is to brush my hair and pretend to put make-up on me. It is hilarious! She gets my hairspray, lotion, mascara, etc, and pretends to pour each one on a make-up brush and then wipes it on my face. This kept her occupied for at least 30 minutes this afternoon. She doesn't try to open the bottles, so I'm really glad about that!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Weekend Highlights

These pictures are definitely not the greatest quality. I was just using my little camera with no flash, so they are kind of blurry. Oh well. It's the memories, not the picture quality, right?

Thursday night is the only evening Jacob has free each week, so we like to go out to eat and have family night. We got Mexican last week. Levi loves guacamole! We had to keep shoveling it in his mouth or he would start yelling. Silly boy!

Lily still wasn't feeling 100%, so she didn't really eat much. Thankfully she's back to her normal self now! It's so hard seeing your baby sick.

I made this Pumpkin Crumb Cake to take to my in-laws for Sunday dinner. It is seriously amazing, and super easy! I got it from Christy Jordan's cookbook, Southern Plate. If you haven't checked out SouthernPlate.com, you definitely should! Christy is one of the most inspiring people I know, and she has amazing recipes! She also lives like 30 minutes away from me! :)

I have to tell you the sweetest unexpected blessing I got on Saturday. I packed up the kids and headed to the grocery store early Saturday morning, hoping to beat the crowd. Of course Auburn was playing a game at 11, so both stores I went to were packed. Anyway, I was leaving the second store, pushing the buggy with the kids in it, and pulling the buggy with the groceries in it. (Side note: I don't push and pull two buggies through the entire store, it's just easier to put the bagged groceries in another buggy than to try to fit them all around the kids.) So, I was nearly to my car, and this nice-looking man shows up out of nowhere and asks me if he can load my groceries into the car for me. I nearly started crying! It was such a blessing!

We had a fellowship meal after church Sunday night, and while I was getting my stuff cleaned up and ready to head home, two of my brother-in-laws were entertaining my children.

It was 9pm, so they had to get pretty creative to keep them happy! LOL

16 weeks

16 weeks with Baby #3

Here is a baby belly shot for those of you who have asked! :) I hate that I haven't gotten around to getting pictures earlier because I want to remember these special weeks.

So far everything is going well with this pregnancy! I had some morning sickness (mainly just queasiness) in the first 13 or so weeks. Raw meat still grosses me out, but other than that, I'm really feeling good. 

Levi has been waking up pretty early in the mornings lately, so I feel like I'm tired all the time. I'm hoping I'll get some more energy here pretty soon.

One thing I'm really struggling with this pregnancy is getting my workouts in. I truly believe that my consistent exercise helped me have endurance for my labor and delivery with Lily and Levi. I can't do my workout while they are awake because I don't want to step on them, so I try to do it during naptime, but lately I've had so many other things to do during naptime. If I wait until the kids go down at night, I'm completely out of energy. I'm hoping that chasing after two children counts as some sort of exercise! Lily will do squats with me and stuff like that, it's just the cardio on the dvd I'm not getting everyday like I did in my previous pregnancies. Now that it's getting cooler, I'm planning to start taking the kids for walks around the neighborhood. Pushing a double stroller definitely gets your heart rate up! 

We'll be finding out the gender of the baby in about a month! I'm so excited!!

Little Monkey Man

Levi uses his feet to hold everything. It's so funny!

Midweek Randoms

Lily is feeling much better, praise the Lord! Thank you all for your prayers! She fell asleep on the couch this morning while watching a dvd. After not getting the antibiotic down her last night, I called the doctor's office this morning to see if they would call in a different antibiotic. They didn't get back to me until late this afternoon, and by that time Lily was fever-free and acting like she felt great. I've been giving her a bunch of herbs and immune system boosters, so I guess they worked! I told the doctor not to worry about calling in anything else since she was doing so much better.

My sweet hubby got these flowers for me today. I love them!! He rarely gets me flowers (because I tell him not to spend the money on them :), so it's really special when he does!

Levi is doing great, except that he's putting everything in his mouth. He's choked badly 3 times in the last few days. The first time he swallowed a hairclip, the second time it was a piece of grass/bark (once it came up it was unidentifiable), and the third time it was a boxwood shrub leaf. We got the hairclip and grass/bark up, but I couldn't get the boxwood leaf up. I called poison control, and they said that one leaf is ok, but it is poisonous when consumed in larger amounts. I think this child is giving me more gray hairs everyday!

Happy Wednesday!

My Poor Girl

On Saturday night Lily woke up with a fever of 103, and was a pretty miserable little girl. We gave her motrin and some gatorade and rocked her back to sleep. She woke up a little while later, so we brought her to our bed and she slept the rest of the night.

Daddy reading Bible Stories before he left for church.

Yesterday, I stayed home from church with the kids, and Lily's fever went up and down all day. She didn't really act like anything else was hurting - no sniffles, she was eating and drinking fine, and she said her ears didn't hurt (but I put garlic drops in just for good measure :). 

I took her to the doctor this morning and found out she has a urinary tract infection and most likely a virus. Her ears have fluid in them, but they aren't infected. Poor little girl, I just hate seeing her sick! 

I'm giving her motrin to help keep her comfortable, and she's on an antibiotic. She just hates the taste of both, so it's a struggle to get them down her. Ugh, not fun for this mama to have to force meds down her little girl. Breaks my heart!

Precious Moments

PawPaw came to visit the other day. I treasure the moments my children have with him. Both of my grandfather's passed away when I was younger, so Jacob's PawPaw is the only great-grandfather my kids have.

 Lily is a little shy with PawPaw at first, but she always warms up.

I love this picture!

Uncle Jer

Last week my brother, Jer, headed back to college for his senior year. He is studying Accounting, and has plans to go to Seminary after graduation. We miss him so much! Can't wait to see him at Thanksgiving!

Feeding Baby

When I put Levi in the high chair to feed him, Lily likes to get up on a stool and "talk" to him while I get him meal ready. I couldn't resist snapping these pictures the other day

I love these kids!

20 months

After eating a chocolate chip cookie

My girl is getting so big!! I can't believe in just four short months she will be two! 

Here's what she's been up to lately - 

• taking 1 nap each day and sleeping 12 hours or so at night.

• eating super well, as usual. Her favorite things right now are raisins, broccoli, bananas, peanut butter (she loves to eat it off the spoon just like her mama), cheese, peas, and pancakes.

Dancing and eating lemons in the booth at Ruby Tuesday

• being a great helper! Whenever Levi is done with a bottle, she goes and throws it in the sink for me. She also helps unload the dishwasher, do the laundry, put dirty clothes in her basket, throw diapers away and help me with whatever cleaning I'm doing. It's a blessing to have her help, even though she still needs lots of guidance. I love to see her willing spirit.

• reading books is still one of her favorite things to do. She currently loves Curious George and Raggedy Ann books. 

• playing with Levi. She does pretty well playing with him, although when he tries to grab what she's playing with, she'll hit or kick him. We are working on sharing!

• playing with ice cubes! She will sit and play with them for the longest time!

• being a girly girl! She loves getting all dressed up, wearing bracelets and necklaces and hairbows. She also loves shoes!

• loving showers, baths, sprinklers, pools and splash pads. She just loves water!

• playing at the park is another favorite thing! She will go down the slide over and over, and swing for a long time. We're hoping to get a swing set soon (one of Jacob's aunts is giving us their swing set since their grandkids are older now. Jacob just hasn't had time to move it yet.).

• getting excited about the new baby! The last few days she's been putting a ball up her shirt and saying "baby, baby." It's hilarious!

• getting her first slush at Sonic!!! 

We love you sweet girl, and thank the Lord everyday for you!