So what with Easter and my birthday, the last few weeks have been pretty awesome! Also I feel like Levi's learning has been growing exponentially lately, especially his grasp of language! He started saying two new words this last couple weeks ("shoes" and "nana"- (banana)) and his comprehension is getting amazing! He knows what to do when I ask him to sit down or to put something away or bring me something. And just yesterday he started being able to point to his nose or his belly when we ask him where they are! Still working on ears and eyes though as he tends to get those mixed up haha! He also has started putting his hands up in the "I don't know sign" when I ask him where something is and he doesn't know. I really need to start teaching him some more signs though because he is still getting really frustrated when he points to something and we don't know what he wants. I think the next sign should probably be "help"!
We celebrated Easter last week with a couple friends of ours and their kiddos who are both within a couple weeks of Levi in age. We had a little Easter egg hunt for them and Levi rocked it. He totally got the concept of picking up the eggs and putting them into the basket! Then we had a big Easter dinner which was delicious. It is so fun to be able to have good friends in the ward who are at the same stage of life as we are. It's a big blessing for us!
Levi, Riley and Lincoln with their baskets of eggs! It will be so fun in a few months to see these guys in nursery together!
Since Easter, Levi has taken to carrying his Easter basket around the house and collecting his valuables in it. As of a few moments ago it contained bananagrams, a ball and his sippy cup. Last night it also had several shapes, a little wooden person, and his binkie clip but he has since removed those. Haha
So yeah, Easter was a blast and then the next day was my birthday! Eric found a babysitter for Levi and then he took me out on a date :) We went to a fun little chocolate boutique and got to buy some fancy schmanzy chocolate (mine was rose hips and berry chocolate and Eric's was lemongrass chocolate). He then took me out to a nice dinner at Obas. It was delicious. The appetizer, fundido, was AMAZING! Haha. Eric also made me a chocolate cake with thick peanut butter ganache and a super yummy chocolate frosting. It's pretty rich and we still have like a third of it in the fridge and I feel like Moana-"it calls me!" Haha! Every time I bust it out I let Levi have three bites and he has started doing this super cute little happy dance when he sees it!
Yesterday was Earth day and so to celebrate, I used some of my birthday money from my fabulous parents and in-laws and I started reclaiming our back porch! It's something that I've been meaning to do for a while and I'm super excited about it. I got some super cute lights at half off from Michaels and Eric strung those up last night and then I got some cinderblocks and cedar planks and made a couple shelves which I put potted plants on! I'm going to spray paint the cinderblocks an awesome sea blue color so I'll post pictures when I'm done :) I definitely deliberated a lot on the plants and tried to find ones that would 1) do ok not getting a ton of sunlight, 2) repel mosquitos and other pests and 3) be sturdy because I totally killed the last plant I tried to put out there! After much Pinterest research and also wandering around Home Depot's garden center I settled on mint, thyme, hosta, begonias and a lily. I love them. Haha. I'm also going to take our very dirty looking patio chair and side table to a car wash and spray them down and I got a new cushion for them. I'm determined to make this back porch a cute little place I'm proud of before I'm done! I figure if we're going to be here for another year, I would much rather spend the year in a place that I think is cute rather than one that I can only see problems with. Eric and I have been studying stewardship in our companion study this week and I really think that appreciating and taking good care of where we live now is an important part of being good stewards for what we have. I feel like it shows Heavenly Father that I appreciate His blessings to us and that I will take good care of whatever He chooses to send us in the future. Also, if I can't take care of a little apartment, how will I be able to handle a whole house! Haha. But that's part of why I also got us brand new bedding (which I love!) and made a super cute wreath for our front door. The little things make a big difference.
Anyway, so those are the big things that have been going on around here. Here are a couple other pictures that are snippets of our life of late.
Levi and I on our walk early one morning. Levi has been even more interested in going outside lately. This little man just can't stand being inside for very long! As soon as he wakes up in the morning one of the first things he does is point outside and go "eh?!" He has taken to bringing me his shoes and sitting down for me to put them on him whenever he's bored or I'm busy doing something like dishes that he doesn't want me to be doing!
Levi was sick a couple weeks ago for just a couple days. I ended up staying home from work to be with him and this is how we spent most of the day. He literally slept on me for hours that day. Sweet baby loves his momma cuddles even when he's burning up with fever. Thankfully it came and went quickly so by two days later you would never have guessed that he'd been sick!
There's this Little Tykes car that lives in our apartment complex and is kind of a communal toy. I think it's actual owners abandoned it here when they moved so all the little kids here just take turns playing with it. Levi LOVES it. He finally figured out how to climb inside of it and shut the door this week. As you can see, he's very proud of himself. He still hasn't figured out how to make it go anywhere once he's inside of it though!
We had a ward service project cleaning up a local cemetery yesterday. We put Levi in this little rain suit that Emily gave him and I'm super glad we did because it was raining off and on and this kiddo got muddy from head to foot! He had fun helping to scrub the gravestones though and I have to say, he looked pretty adorable even though he kind of reminded me of a little walking traffic cone!
So yeah, that's our life of late. It's busy and can be a bit stressful and exhausting, but I love it!
Oh also, side note: Levi's mischievous trick of climbing onto the coffee table has progressed to climbing up onto the kitchen table! I was making dinner the other day and I look over and he is just sitting on top of the table! He knows he is not supposed to be up there so he does this excited squeal whenever I catch him in the act.
