First Steps

Levi took his first steps this week! He's been on the verge for a while now so we were sooooo excited when he finally did it for us! He will walk a couple tentative steps in between me and Eric and Emily texted me at work on Friday and said he walked all the way from the couch to the tv stand by himself! I'm so proud of him! Anyway that's the big exciting news around here. But almost as exciting is that Eric and I bought our tickets to Thailand yesterday!!! We are officially going in November and I'm not sure I could be more stoked. Haha. I already have a lengthy pinterest page going all about Thailand and I'm busy making my bucket list of things to do there and cool places to stay. My parents are just the best and volunteered to watch Levi while we're gone so that will be perfect.

Also Eric and I celebrated our anniversary this week! Some friends of ours watched Levi for us so Eric and I could go out to dinner and go dancing. We went to dance at this fun place right here in Tualatin called Bushwhackers. Apparently they have a live band every Friday night which is pretty cool. It was so fun to dance again, its been a while! We will have to go back again soon.

So, yeah that's what's been happening lately. Here's some pictures from the last couple weeks:

So I went to Costco and came home with this box. While I was putting something away in another part of the house, Levi flipped the box over, pushed it to the stove and climbed on top of it to reach the burner! Good thing the stove wasn't on! He was ridiculously proud of himself for being so resourceful haha. 

Made Levi a green smoothie the other day with banana, strawberry, green leaf lettuce and coconut milk and little man devoured it! He loved it so much he just kept asking for more until it was all gone.

Levi and I went to the park on Thursday and he had fun climbing up and down these steps over and over and watching and pointing at the bigger kids playing. He was so cute! 

He also highly enjoyed playing in the sand which kind of grossed me out more than a little. I mean, who knows what kind of things he might unearth under there! EWWW! But as long as he didn't put it in his mouth I let him play with it. It's good sensory play right? haha. 

Levi loves to stand at the window and watch the rain. 

He's quite possibly the cutest kid on the planet.

We've been working on teaching Levi to use a spoon. He actually really likes it and gets super excited when we help him dip it into something and then guide it to his mouth. But sometimes, when it's something he really likes to eat (like yogurt), he's like, "Forget the spoon Mom! Imma just drink this!" Haha. 

So yeah, that's what's going on in our beautiful life! I wouldn't have it any other way :)

Valentine's Day

My boys and I had a great Valentine's Day! Eric started it off fantastic by completely surprising me and delivering me flowers at work! They were so gorgeous and I felt ridiculously spoiled. :) Then on Valentine's Day itself, thanks to it being Tuesday I didn't have to go in to work so Levi and I got to hang out together all day! We made a valentine for Eric, hung out with a good friend and got to snuggle her new baby, made red velvet oreo truffles, and took some ADORABLE pictures of Levi! I seriously love how well these pictures turned out and I couldn't wait to share them! Full disclosure, the following do not capture: the dirtiness of our porch all around my fake wood floor, all the ridiculous sounds I was making trying to get Levi to look at me, the billion times I pulled the chalk out of Levi's mouth, his many attempts to escape the porch and hang out in the mud instead or the way his lip started quivering towards the end because it was a bit nippy out and I had him out there without a shirt (#momfail). It's (relatively) easy with photoshop to make it look like I have a giant beautiful hardwood floor or that my son wants nothing more than to sit and be my little model but both are so far from the truth. In this day and age, it is so easy for us to compare ourselves to the little glimpses we get into what we think are the realities of others' lives when in fact, those glimpses do not show us the whole picture. It's something I need to remind myself of on the days when everything seems to be going wrong and I feel like a failure. And it also just makes me so grateful for the depth of life and for the richness of our experiences. I love how the messy moments, the tears, the frustration, the loneliness are wrapped up and tangled together with laughter, and silliness and moments of intense love and joy. This life Heavenly Father has given us is truly amazing.

I've been trying to think of anything funny or insightful to share but nothing in particular comes to mind. Things have been pretty good around here. Now that the snow has melted (hallelujah), the sickness has all cleared up (yay!) and our guests are gone for a while (we miss you!) things have settled down into a quiet normal. Levi has FINALLY started sleeping through the night with some regularity! It's amazing. The first night he did it I looked at Eric and was like, "did he just sleep through the night?" and Eric was like, "I think he did!" I felt soo rested. And since then he's started doing it more often. I seriously feel so great. Sleep is a beautiful thing. Haha. Anyway, that's the big news around here. Levi is also very close to walking! He loves to charge around our house with his hands held and he just needs the tiniest bit of support. He can walk holding on with only one hand but he doesn't like to, partially because he likes to go fast and can't when holding on with only one hand. Every day I look at him he seems so much taller and older. I can't believe how quickly my little baby is growing up! In less than a month, he will be a year old! It blows my mind. I feel like I just started this blog and yet, soon it will have been a year ago that I first sat down to write a post. I've changed so much in the past year, I can barely remember what it was like not to have Levi. He is my world and I'm so grateful for him!

Anyway, here's some pictures of what we've been up to for the past few weeks!

We had an ice skating ward activity one of the Saturdays in January. Eric had a lot of fun skating around with Levi in the carrier. Levi wasn't sure what he thought of it at first but then he warmed up to it and had a blast too. 

Levi was so proud of himself that he figured out how to climb on top of the box and then pull to stand so he could really get to his books. The box has since been relocated to a better home but Levi still loves to pull all his books off of the bottom shelf! :)

Levi playing with his friend Riley. We love having good friends in the ward with kiddos the same age as Levi! It's so fun to watch the babies together. Riley is only about 2 weeks older than Levi but she's been walking since December and she likes to come over to Levi and take whatever toys he has, or his binkie, and Levi just sits there and lets her. He has no self-preservation instincts whatsoever. He's just like, "oh ok." One time a baby at church who is actually a couple weeks younger than Levi was getting all up in Levi's face and then ended up pushing him over and Levi literally just lay there looking up at the ceiling like, "What just happened?" He didn't cry or get upset or anything! Haha, I think that's a little bit of his sweet, patient daddy's character coming out in him :)

 

Levi was very interested in the new trash cans with the locking lids we got. I love how he gets all the way up on his tip toes to try to look inside. 

One of Levi's favorite things to do: wrestle with Daddy! 

He also thinks it's just so silly to sit on Eric's head instead of his shoulders haha

Our little man is getting so good at standing! He has stood for 10 seconds without holding onto anything twice! He always gets so proud of himself whenever he does it, but usually he would rather just drop down to the floor and crawl if we let go of his hands. He's like, "C'mon Mom, I've got places to go and things to do! I'm not just gonna stand there!" 

Little man LOVES apples! Any time he sees me eating one, he hurries over and starts begging for it. I let him gnaw on the core when I'm done with it and it is seriously his favorite thing. He still only has the two teeth so he's not really able to break off any pieces of it but he loves to gum it anyway and suck the juice off it. He will contentedly play with an apple core for a good 10 minutes. He pulled this apple out of my lunch bag which I had left within reach and was so proud of himself that he had found it. 

This week Levi discovered how to pull the tightly packed DVDs off the shelf. Looks like they may need to find a new home! 

We went up to Portland yesterday as a family which was really nice. Eric has taught Levi how to do a victory fist. Sooo cute! 

So yeah, that's been our life lately. I'm excited what's coming up in the next couple weeks with Levi's first Valentine's day and then Eric and my anniversary; it'll be a good month!