A Mere Six Months Ago...

Jared and I were just looking through old photos on my computer, and came across this gem. Had to share it again...don't know whether to laugh or cry...

Lil' Goofball

Levi is so silly. He loves getting a reaction out of us, and will copy or repeat anything that makes us laugh. He went through about a week-long phase where he made this silly straining sound/face...it cracked us up, but we were also afraid that he might explode.

Christmastime at Legoland

Thanksgiving Baking

Levi got to lick the spoon when I made pumpkin bread for Thanksgiving :)

A Few More Thanksgiving Shots...

Thanksgiving 2011

I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving! We spent the last few days down in San Diego, enjoying time with family and a big, bustling meal at Dee and Niki's house on Thanksgiving Day. The kids came home exhausted today, and both took long naps to recover from so much activity. We've had leftovers twice already, and have enough dessert in the fridge to last another week :) Thank you to Dee and Niki for all of their efforts and hard work, and for hosting such a lovely party in their home for all of us.

Dee modeling my first sewing project

Levi experiencing his first turkey coma--he literally fell asleep in his high chair at dinner! Too funny. He kept falling asleep in the strangest of places the whole time--maybe all of the new people and places tired him out?

Parker and Mimi

Alex treated us all to a musical performance

Parker was so busy running around with the other kids all afternoon that I was barely able to snap any photos of him. Here is one of the few. For some reason, he kept giving me this look whenever I saw him. Oh, how I wish I knew what really goes through that head of his.

Levi really bonded with his straw cup 

Dessert time--Jared and I compared notes, and apparently this was Round One for dessert for Parker--neither of us are sure how he snuck a Round Two in. I tried my best to micromanage his dessert intake, but I guess he slipped some by me...on a side note, Rainbow Fish accompanied him throughout the day. Maybe dessert Round Two was Rainbow's idea...

Levi peeking in on the guys watching the football game in the "Men's Room"

Grayson was really into this Pokemon book...he kept showing me different pages and having me take pictures of them...

My First Apron

Made the apron, bought the boots :)

Happy First Birthday, Levi!

Happy First Birthday, Levi!!!

Opening presents from Ian, Krista, and Forest

Pointing to his birthday banner

A one-year photo collage retrospective (we were planning to have a party for Levi's birthday, but both boys ended up getting sick, so we had to cancel. I had already made decorations, so we had to just go ahead and enjoy them ourselves!)

I learned how to use Jared's sewing machine to make these birthday decorations. I really enjoyed making them, and am now on kind of an obsessive mission to sew a bunch more projects. As long as I don't get too frustrated/discouraged, this might become my latest hobby. Warning to all friends and family: you might be on the receiving end of some of these projects...sorry! ;)

Pumpkin bread cupcakes after dinner to celebrate--Levi loved his!

Walking!

Levi took his first real steps a few weeks ago, but in the last two days he has just been taking off! Since yesterday he has been taking more and more steps at a time, and practicing his new-found walking skills frequently throughout the day. It started with him taking 15 steps in a row out in the front yard yesterday, and went from there. I tried to catch a video of him showing off his new skills--you have to manually focus the lens when shooting video on our DSLR, which I'm not very good at, so it goes in and out of focus a lot, but you get the idea! This was just too cute to miss--Levi walking across the kitchen, fresh out of his bath and snuggly in his pjs, while waving a magic wand! Perfectly adorable and exciting on the eve of his first birthday :)

Happy Halloween!

Heading to school for Costume Day on the Friday before Halloween. Parker was pretty into all of the decorations that people put up in our neighborhood, so we put up a few of our own this year. We started off small, but he was excited by our ghosts, spider webs, and spider! Here he is in his pirate costume...

Having his picture taken in his classroom.

Our pirate in the costume parade with his classmates.

Parker and Levi getting ready for all of our trick-or-treaters on Halloween. 

Levi absolutely loved playing with all of the little candy packages! I think he crawled around with a mini wrapped candy bar in his hand for quite a while before I finally pried it out of his little fingers.

Grammy found a perfect costume for Levi--jammies that look like a cowboy outfit! Considering that he was totally oblivious to the entire occasion, it's nice that we will be able to have a good pair of pj's for him to wear after the fact! He managed to keep his cowboy hat (which we got for Parker in Oaxaca, Mexico when he was 10 months old) on for about 30 seconds so we could snap this photo. I really should have cleaned the lasagna off of his face first, though...

Pirate Mommy and Pirate Parker

My mom and dad came over after dinner to celebrate Halloween with us this year--Grammy held down the fort for us and passed out candy while we were out trick-or-treating, while Grampy joined us and pushed Levi in the stroller. Our neighborhood gets super busy for Halloween--each street feels like a block party. There are people everywhere, and it is so easy to trick-or-treat up and down each street. This was the first year that Parker was really excited to go out trick-or-treating; we didn't have to twist his arm to get him to walk up to the front doors and knock and say trick-or-treat. There were a few houses that were a little too scary for him, so we just passed on those. He was perfectly content to do just a few blocks before heading home to "organize" his candy. Overall, I think Parker had a pretty fun Halloween this year.

When the kids a sleeping

Rumble rumble rumble. What can she be doing up so late? I stumble out of bed and find her concentrating on the small details that will make this project wonderful. I hope she's proud, I am.



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