Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Wonderful Family Time...

We've had more wacko weather, but luckily it was nice this weekend and we got to hang out outside! We did a little much needed yard work in our flower beds.


Levi wanted to help so bad! He was a great little helper for the most part! I bought him that bucket and shovel for the beach but I guess it works for the flower bed too right? Now every time we pull up to the house he says "mom, help me!" He gets his "me's and you's" confused. :)


This is what Chloe thought about having to stay in her jumper!


Ok Mom, I guess I'll smile!!


Since we've been watching Nathan and Braeden play baseball now, he always says "EI baseball!" (EI is how he says his name, remember?) He wants to play so bad! Daddy isn't gonna waste any time with that!





Oh the many faces of Levi and his tee.





We've discovered this is the PERFECT place to hang out on a gorgeous day!! Sissy is happy because she feels like she's in the action, Mom and Dad are comfy, and Levi gets to run bonkers like usual!


Both of them have been a little under the weather. Levi's just been having to have lots of breathing treatments and Chloe ran a little fever a couple of days ago. Who knows what it is, but I think it has something to do with a new tooth coming through. She's had TERRIBLE diapers and even more terrible diaper rash! Makes me want to cry!! Levi never had trouble with teeth and he hardly ever had diaper rash. It doesn't matter how many times I change her diaper, or how much Triple Paste I use, it's not getting much better. :(

Hopefully spring will come and stay for a while before full fledged summer hits!!

I'm so grateful for these relaxing days with our little family!!

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Friday, April 19, 2013

Chloe is 10 months old!!!

Time, please slow down!!! This little doll has completely stolen our hearts! Her personality is shining through more and more each day. She is busy, busy, busy!
Her smile is absolutely contagious and she knows how to use it! When I sing to her, she bounces up and down with total glee. She also loves to clap for herself. She's already learned that we love to watch her discover new things and she quite enjoys all the attention. :)




Just a few days ago she started walking while holding onto furniture. I'm so glad she's healthy and growing, but I'm not sure I'm ready for walking yet!! (She's got the teeny tiniest feet that I cannot find good shoes to fit her!) She's pretty bad about putting things in her mouth. Levi never really was, he'd pick up something and inspect it very carefully but then when I asked for it he would hand it over. I've pulled who knows how many pieces of dog food and other small scraps out of her mouth! God definitely intervened a couple of weeks ago when I decided to randomly go check on her during a nap. She had pulled out her bow and rubber band (which she NEVER does) and had the rubber band in her mouth! That means I have to fix her hair 3 times day now! Sheesh!




She eats incredibly well! If you didn't catch that from those DELICIOUS cheeks! She has literally eaten everything we have put in front of her. Mimi even gave her raw onions last weekend and she ate a couple of them. Yuck! I am starting to suspect that green beans don't agree with her tummy though. That's sad, bc it's my favorite veggie!




She always wants to be standing now so she will crawl to whatever or whoever is closest to her get herself that way. I'm having to play referee a little more now. Baby girl needs more girly toys because she's always in Levi's and he's kind of getting fed up with it! She'll be 1 in just two short months and I'm sure she won't get any toys at her party! :)




We've had a productive day today. We collected all of their money out of piggy banks because there are a couple of things we're wanting to buy them for the summer. We went to the bank where they helped him count it all!!
Then it was off to get a hair cut, he needed one really bad!




He sat in the chair all by himself today because I had Chloe with me. Trent is usually the one who takes him and he sits in his lap, but he was a big boy today! He was scared at first, but then did great!




His first haircut 2 years ago. :(


So handsome!



Between the bank and the haircut, he scored 2 balloons and 3 suckers!




I love every single day with these two adorable kids! Thank you, God, for providing a way for us to get to be the ones to experience their daily activities and influence their little minds!
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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Mini Vacation!!

I've been wanting to take Levi to the Ft. Worth Zoo for quite a while now. It's been a combination of things keeping us from it, but we finally went and decided to turn it into a little mini vacation! One of the beautiful things about our recent change in occupations is that we have the flexibility to rearrange our schedules and try to go to things like this when they aren't as crowded. I really hope to take advantage of that for the next 3 years while we don't have any kids in school.


We left early Monday morning and hit up the zoo first! Levi LOVED all the animals!


First stop was the "nunkeys."





He flipped out shortly after this when the nunkey started moving towards the glass. It took him a minute to understand that they couldn't get to him.


(I'll spare you from the 200 pictures of animals and try to just include the ones of the kids. :))

Levi and I fed the birds in one of the aviaries. They gave you this stick that had bird seed stuck to the end of it. Obviously these birds are used to this and one of them immediately flew at me! I squealed like a little girl which of course did not help Levi's confidence in there. He did really well though! He didn't get brave enough to hold the stick, but he did watch closely as they sat on my hands. There were some GORGEOUS little birds in there!



Of course the sharks were a hit!!!


Every time we left an exhibit he would say "more sharks!" or "more nunkeys, hippos, lions, etc, etc." You get the idea.

Quick stop for lunch. It's amazing how much the kid will eat when you wear him out! (And feed him kid faves of course.)


We watched the otters, turtles and crocodile for a while.





Took a quick ride on the carousel!


Then we waited on the train to take us back to the front. :) We were laughing at Levi's listening careful face.





After a train ride we headed over to Great Wolf Lodge!


So usually, I can take about 30 pictures and at least get one good one. That has NOT been the case recently. Here they are all ready for day 2 at the "bar park." (I didn't take a single picture the first day there!)


He looks like such a big kid here!!


Chloe was TICKED the first time we put her down in the water. She slowly warmed up.... a little.


This was the little kid area that was perfect for them! We spent most of our time here. (Our adventurous Daddy would definitely have loved for him to go down the big kid slides but he's only tall enough to ride these little bitty ones.) We took turns with the kids so we could do big kid stuff.


Chloe eventually got to where she was crawling around in the water.


That's the "tree house" that's filled with all kinds of falling water.


There's a huge bucket on top that fills up and then dumps over. It makes the biggest "bar fall" ever! Levi was AMAZED!!!





There's no place I'd rather be than ANYWHERE with these 3!!! It was our first little vacation as just a family of 4 and it was a blast! Even if we were only an hour from home, it was SO fun and relaxing!


Watching the giant bar fall!


He loved this silly little circle of fountains!





Once again....snapped 30 of this pose and not a single good one!











Shortly after lunch it was pretty evident they were WIPED out! We had to be out of our room by 11. We didn't have anywhere for them to take a nap so we decided to head home.


Every time we got on the elevator Levi would step over the crack and say CAREFUL! Then he'd grab onto the handle like we were going on a roller coaster. So adorable!!!


Sister was SACKED!


What a wonderful little trip with our family!! There are so many cool things to do in this area so I hope we can do this more often!!

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A very busy weekend!

These are from a couple of weeks ago...these pictures are WAY behind what it looks like now! I've got to go get some more!




We knew the crane would be there putting the beams up this day so we wanted to take Levi to watch.




He loved it of course!!




We started our weekend off with Nathan's baseball game and then the Medal of Honor parade.












Levi clapped and waved the whole time!! There were planes and helicopters flying over throughout the parade (ONE HOUR BTW...) so he was in heaven!




LOUD motorcycles! I wanted to cover my ears too!




No...the ambulance is not driving backwards in the parade....they actually had to come pick someone up during it! How sad, right?




Those are the 10 commandments. Can you imagine how much better off this world would be if we'd all live by them?????




Medal of Honor recipients rode in this little army jeeps.




Sister was over sitting in my lap so she got down with the boys.




Then Mimi, Grandpa Lin, Landon, Diana and Brielle came to hang out and have supper!!
That's his new shark book that he got to pick out last week. He always wants to read it!




Tia watching Chloe scoot around everywhere.




Levi and Brielle played SO INCREDIBLY well together this trip!! Usually we have to intervene in a small way at least once or twice. But not today! They played bubbles and chased each other and played cars the whole day!




Chloe wanted to go run with them sooooo bad!




Levi's favorite game!!!




Little sweetheart doing some handy work. :)




I took about 30 of these pictures and this is the closest I got of a good one! Ha!




Sister telling Tia all about it!




I let him eat a bowl of ice cream by himself for the first time. What a mess!!!




It was a GORGEOUS day and we had such a wonderful time visiting with everyone!!!




Then on Sunday we celebrated Nathan's EIGHTH birthday!! I cannot believe it.




Look at Lucas and Chloe, they were loving all that paper on the floor!












Miss Piggy trying to mooch some of Lucas' supper! (She'd already had her own btw)




Birthday boy requested a cake that was chocolate on top and chocolate on bottom and cookie in the middle. Nana delivered!




How sweet is he?!?!








Happy Birthday Nathan!! We love you tons!!




Those two look like trouble to me!!




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