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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Levi Loves the Park!

Dad's Night

Parker and Jared attended the annual "Dad's Night" at Parker's school last week. The dads and kids all enjoy ice cream and check out the classrooms and meet the teachers and listen to stories. To be honest, I think this event is rather overwhelming for both Jared and Parker--it tends to be really crowded and hectic--but I know that it is a special thing for both of them, too. I know Parker was really excited to have his dad come to school with him, and it's nice for Jared to have a chance to see where Parker goes and what he does and who the other kids are in his class; now Jared can picture the scene when Parker gives us the scoop on his school day at dinner :) 

Parker was so excited for Jared to get home so that they could go to Dad's Night; he drew this sign with directions to the school and taped it to the wall next to the front door so that they would be sure to make it there.

Well, he definitely got the favorite food and the bike riding right :)

Storytime

I think maybe we need to thank Mimi for sending a new Highlights activity book and Halloween book! They arrived in the mail a couple of days ago, but didn't say who they were from :) Am I right? Parker loved both books; here we are reading the "Heebie-Jeebie Jamboree" at bedtime. 


Parker still loves being read to, while Levi so far is so different. I read to Parker a lot even when he was much younger than Levi is now, and Parker always seemed to enjoy himself--he would sit quietly with me and pay attention to the books for long periods of time. Levi, on the other hand, can't seem to be bothered to sit still at all! He just grabs the books, tears them out of my hands, and doesn't give me a chance to read a page. He gets very physical with the books; in fact, the only books that he has shown interest in so far are the "interactive" ones that have things to touch and feel on the pages--he loves those. So if he reaches out for the picture on a page in a regular book, and realizes that there aren't any fun 3-D objects to grab or scratch or pet or poke, he's over it! 

Monster Truck!

Parker's eyes really lit up when we drove by this "monster truck" today--wow!