Happy half-birthday!

I grew up in a family that celebrated half-birthdays. Apparently, my parents thought there weren't enough birthdays in the year when they only had 2 kids, so they decided to start celebrating half-birthdays. It was generally a surprise-we never realized it was our half-birthday (when we were younger, anyways), but after dinner, my mom would come out with some kind of a cake and start singing "Happy half-birthday to you" and we would hope it was OUR half-birthday. Then, the person whose half-birthday it was, would get some sort of little gift...normally a toy they already had, but hadn't played with in quite a while. So, my mom would take the toy, wrap it up, and we would forget we ever had it before and start playing with it all over again. Or, we would get something small, but exciting. For example, I remember getting my very own pack of gum-I didn't have to share it with any of my siblings! It was very exciting! Anyways, we have decided to continue the tradition of celebrating half-birthdays with our kids. Addie's was on Monday and she got to have a cookie cake and opened some presents she got for her birthday that we had put away in a closet until now. It was a lot of fun!

Here is her grin for the camera with cookie cake on her face:

Time to open presents. She still doesn't understand that concept-hopefully she will get it down for Christmas!

Here they are...all opened up! The sock monkey jack-in-the-box is very scary for her for some reason. When the monkey pops out, she starts shaking and crying and runs away from it. We're not sure why-I guess his big red lips are kind of scary.

Nana got Addie this cute little backpack. It looked so tiny when Addie opened it, but then she put it on and it looked huge! Whenever she sees the backpack now, she wants us to put it on her and then plays while wearing it all over the house. She loves it-thank you Nana!

The kids had doctor's appointments on Tuesday and both are healthy. I knew it was going to be a handful taking them by myself, but didn't realize just how tiring it would be. Addie decided at this visit that she didn't want the doctor to touch her, so that was bad timing since I was already holding Levi-she has never had a problem with the doctor before. But, we all survived and I am thankful for 2 healthy, happy kids! Addie was 31 1/4 in. (25%) and 23 lb. 6 oz. (25%) which is really good for her-she use to always be in the 3%. So, she is growing! Levi was 23 1/4 in. (75%) and 10 lb. 6.5 oz (50%), so he is much bigger than Addie was at his age! Just for an update on Levi, he is sleeping really well. He generally goes to bed sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 and then sleeps for 6 hours or so (sometimes longer, on a good night). He then eats (which doesn't take him more than 10 minutes usually), then goes back to sleep for another 3-4 hours. So, he is doing great! We just need to work on him being able to take a bottle and pacifier-he refuses both at this point.