Random pictures Patrick took.

I love when Patrick takes great pictures and I randomly find them. It makes me happy!

Alexander and the Very Best Play Date ever!

Dane came over to play at our house on last Friday. So did Alexander. And it was the BEST PLAY DATE ever! Alexander taught the two boys how to play hide and seek. We would all take turns counting (I would help the two little boys), then we would go find them. Since Levi and Dane loved to hide in the exact same spot every time, they were usually found first. Then they would go to together to try to find Alexander, usually miss him altogether because he didn't hide out in the open like they did, and then get scared out of their wits when he jumped out at them and said BOO!, at which they would shriek and giggle and run and then want to do it all over again. Imagine this for 45 minutes, and you can guess why my stomach hurt from laughing by the end of it.

And yes, Levi is picking his nose in this picture. It's his brand new hobby. Yuck.

Ready, Set, LEARN!

Today I put up all the letters and the numbers 1-25 on the stairway walls. I also put up words under some of the letters. Levi can count to 12, knows his uppercase letters, and knows how to spell STOP, GO, RED. I figure my goal for the next 6 months will be to learn the lower case letters, and letter sounds. It would also be great if he could recognize and spell his own name.
The picture below is pretty bad, but right towards the bottom Levi created the Letter H using 3 straight lines. I thought that was super cool, ESPECIALLY since he told me that he made the letter h!

Levi's 1st Real Snow Day.

When we went to bed last night it was snowing. When we woke up this morning, there were about 3 inches of snow on the ground. The best part? It was WET snow. For those of you who don't live in very snowy areas, I have learned to my horror that there are indeed, many different kinds of snow. The fall into 2 groups. Wet snow, and Good-For-Nothing Snow. Most of the snow in Minnesota is Good-For-Nothing snow. But today, glorious day of all days, we have WET snow. The kind that makes perfect snowmen. The kind of snow that starts EPIC snow ball fights. The kind that you sled on and come home soaking wet. We had a ton of plans today, but we made time to play with snow!

Before heading off to our first playdate, I took Levi sledding for the first time. He was not impressed. While he did want to climb "the big mountain again" he told me he would rather go play than stay and sled more. So we ran off to our playdate where Ben had a mattress on his floor and Levi dived onto it. I played the monster and chased and tickled 4 funny 2 year olds. I had to stop when my belly hurt from laughing at their shrill screams and giggles when I caught them.

After a nap, we went to another playdate and made a snowman!

I might have taught the kids how to throw snow. Oops!

Here is their snowman! Good job boys!

We got our tax return back today! Woo Hoo! I also went to sewing class and made an awesome scarf for my aunt for Christmas.

My dad is also in the hospital today with pneumonia. He should be released tomorrow, but my dad never gets sick so this really sucks.

Mommy's Favorite Dish Washer

Levi loves to help wash dishes. This includes sometimes rinsing silverware, and mostly playing with water.

Our Friday

We had a really fun Friday! Levi had friends come over from 9-12, so they did some really cute stuff together! In this picture Levi is "reading" Blue Hat, Green Hat to his friend. He can't actually read, he just memorized all the words that go with the pictures and says them. It's still pretty cute though!

When Andrea and Natalie came over to visit for a bit, Dane decorated Andrea's shirt with Sesame Street stickers!

Dane and Levi got all manly and started fixing stuff for me!

Last but not least, Levi can now put his shoes on! I have to put the right shoe by the right foot, but he takes care of the rest! What a big kid! Here we are getting ready to visit his friend Elijah! Patrick came home from work not feeling well, so we went without him!

Busy Saturday!

Patrick had some stuff to fix around the house today, so of course Levi got his hammer and helped out!
After a lot of cleaning and getting stuff done, the boys built a train track and made tunnels together!

Levi keeps getting bigger and bigger1 he can count to 12 now, and can is trying to learn how to sing " I Love to See the Temple". He also likes to sing " Down by the Bay".

Last night was pretty miserable for Levi. He was at a friend's house being watched but I had to leave early and come to get him because he kept crying. That is a first for Levi! He never cries, so I kinda feel excited that he might have really missed me. This is the kid that tells me to leave, so I was pretty excited about it! So he was up until about 9:15, and then woke up at 12:30, 3:00 and got into bed with us and kicked the crap out of us, 5:30 , and finally woke up at 7:30. He was a pretty crabby baby by 11:15, so we BOTH took a nap for about 2 hours and it sure felt good!.

My cute kid

My kid loves his cat. Today he climbed on the coffee table, grabbed the cat before he could run away, and cuddled with him long enough for me to get this picture. I distracted him by taking this picture, so then the cat got away.

I am not scared of assembly anymore. Weird.

Ever have one of those moments where you realize you have changed? I had just such an ah-hah moment today when I assembled a storage unit today without thinking twice about it. I used to just wait and wait until I could get some guy to do it for me. I guess I got tired of waiting somewhere along the way and now I just tacke these kinds of things all the time.

Here's what it looked like when I got it!

And here is how it turned out! Not bad!

Valentines Day!

Valentine's Day started off with an awesome red breakfast made by yours truly! It then progressed to making a candy bouquet which we dropped off at Daddy's work via special courier ( aka- Levi!)

Then we had lots of fun friends over for a playdate! Here is Jocelyn!

Then Patrick and I got a babysitter, went out to eat ALONE, played Laser Tag - SO much fun!, and went to a coffee shop and had some hot cocoa for dessert, and then rented Super 8 on the Red box for a movie. It was a great Valentine's Day!

Silly stuff we do on Sundays....

On Sundays, we are pretty silly.
We like to pretend to sleep on couch tops.
We dump popcorn on the couch and spread it around....
Levi could totally be a pajama model. I would totally buy these pajamas after seeing them on him.

The closet organizer.....

Here is what Patrick did on Saturday!

Here is the mess he made to do it.....


Here is Levi having fun "hiding" in the closet by closing his eyes!

Here is my new closet!!

A Man Playdate!

Thankfully, one of the coldest days this season so far today has been today. I say thankfully because we had two little boys scheduled to come over for a playdate. We had Miles, the little boy Levi loves to giggle with and copy, and Dane, a newbie to our house. Dane had a great time playing with our computers and cars and was amazing about sharing! He even tried to lift weights with me when I was exercising.
Dane and Levi were really great about playing together! Dane wore a Batman shirt over- and Levi loves to sing"BATMAN! Dananananananananan BATMAN!" so that was a fun beginning to the day!
Of course Levi and Miles had a ton of fun together as well! They petted the cats, pranced up and down the stairs giggling, and drank smoothies together!

The only down side of the day was changing 2 dirty diapers, neither which belonged to my kid. And one was REALLY REALLY bad. We're talking 20 wipes. I AM NOT KIDDING. Oh well. A small price to pay for Levi having fun, and me being able to get some things done!

Cute things Levi is doing: On the way to church last week, we saw a bull dozer. After it was gone, Levi said, "I want to see another one Mommy!" I told him to keep looking and maybe we would see another one. After a minute he said, " There is a bulldozer - oh no- it's just a tree".

Levi is about 3 feet tall right now. He os over thirty pounds and he likes to read "The Hungry Little Caterpillar" and books on tractors, garbage machines, or construction vehicles, a spooky book from the library, and a book on pirates.

A Baby and a toddler....

Today we babysat Rainee Cowan in the morning. It was really eye opening to have a toddler and a baby at the same time. It was a little eyeopening because I was definitely not as patient with Levi as normal. He really loved Rainee and kept trying to play with her, which was super cute.

Silly Times!

This is what Levi and I get up to when we are at home.alone. Pretty much any silly thing we can think of!

Grandpa Hensley!

We went to see my grandpa this weekend since he had a heart attack. We were really wondering if we should go or not, but we decided to since you never know what could happen. We saw a lot of people we hardly ever see! Here's Aiden! He was really playful this trip!

Here's my grandma and my dad!

Here is my cousin Shane and my niece Scarlett. Shane almost feels like more of a brother to me because I my mom watched him since he was a baby and he always seemed to be around.

Here is my Uncle Gary who I almost NEVER see. He was in a pretty good mood.

And here is my Grandpa! He's an onery old soul, but I think that's why I like him so much!

Traveling Day

Today we traveled to Illinois. My granpa had a heart attack last weekend. The doctors told him that his heart was working at 20% and there was nothing they could do for him. So they told him to go home and enjoy the time he had left. They didn't say he had only a certain amount of time left, but to take it easy. Since he is my favorite grandpa (hahaha my ONLY grandpa) I wanted to come and see him and not have any regrets if anything should happen.

Soooooo.... This morning, I get up and take Patrick to work. I come home and clean, then take Levi to the mall to run around the play hard for an hour since he would be stuck in the car for 6 hours. We met his best bud Miles there and my great freind Natalie, and had fun with them for a while. Then we drove to the library, went home to get lunch, and picked Patrick up and then left.

In other news, sewing night was great! Here is what I made!