More aunts, uncles, and cousins!

As many of you know, Bob and I both come from big families, which makes for lots of aunts, uncle, and cousins for our kids. However, we do not live real close to any of them, so it takes quite a while for our kids to meet all of the family (in fact, Addie still has an aunt to meet...Levi still has a couple aunts and uncles, and several cousins to meet). This past weekend, though, Bob's sister (Jennifer) and her family came to meet their newest nephew as well as to introduce us to their latest addition. They had Julianne exactly 13 days before we had Levi, so it took a while for us to see each other since neither of our families was really wanting to travel in the early days of having an infant. But, we are so glad they made the effort and came this past weekend. We all had a good time (as far as I know) and we look forward to seeing them again at Christmas!

Here is Trevor (3 and a half) hanging out with Levi. He loved to give Levi kisses and tickle him under his chin:

We all went to the park for a while on Saturday. Addie on the slide:

The babies hanging out in their carseats together. We had several people ask if they were twins, to which we responded "thankfully, no!".

Addie loved the swings the most-I think everyone had a turn pushing her. This is Michaela (almost 7) pushing Addie on the swing:

Aunt Jennifer and Julianne:

The cousins:

The babies:

Uncle J.R. knocked Levi out. I think it was probably easy since J.R. was watching football-I'm sure Levi was bored:

We went for a walk and took a break to sit on a bench by the lake:

Aunt Jennifer reading some bedtime stories. Notice Addie's "bangs"...they are incredibly long, but don't want to get out of her eyes!

Rolling

I've posted several videos of Addie lately, so I thought it's about time I post one of Levi. We don't want him to feel left out or anything. Plus, he learned a new trick! On Monday, I decided to put Levi on his stomach to have some "tummy time"...something I hadn't really done. I know it's important for strengthening the neck and eventually learning to roll over, but somehow had forgotten to put him on his stomach to play each day. Well, I put Levi on his stomach and within 10 seconds, he rolled himself onto his back. I couldn't believe it! Levi is 2 and a half months old. I have no idea if that is early for him to roll or not, but I know Addie didn't roll until she was 4 months old. And even then, it was from her back to her stomach-she didn't roll from her stomach to her back for much longer than that! After he rolled, I called Bob up to see it, but Levi wouldn't do it again-of course. But, it was obvious that he was capable of doing it again-he has such a strong neck and was lifting it up so high as well as pushing off with his arms-he just wasn't rolling. So, we then thought it was kind of a fluke (since he wouldn't roll again) and have been waiting to see if he would do it again...and he did! On Wednesday, every time I put him on his stomach (which was quite a few times, since I've been wanting to see if he can really roll), he rolled onto his back within 10 seconds or so. That means we have an official roller! He is definitely nowhere close to rolling from his back to his stomach, which is a good thing-we don't need that kind of mobility yet! Here he is, showing off:

Another "trick" he seems to have learned this week is sleeping longer at night. For quite a while now (over a month, at least) Levi has been sleeping for 7-8 hours at night, eating, then going back to sleep for another 3-4 hours. The only problem was, he was always ready for bed around 8:00, so sleeping for 8 hours still meant me getting up to feed him in the middle of the night. That isn't so bad, but since he was sleeping 8 hours, I would have like for it to have been 10-6 or something like that, so that I would be sleeping for that long, but that just wasn't possible for him. On Monday night, though, Levi went to bed at 8, as usual, but didn't wake up to eat until 7 AM! It was awesome! He then went back to his "normal" schedule on Tuesday and Wednesday night, then last night, he went for 11 hours again! Hopefully he is easing himself into a new and improved schedule! We are hopeful!

Hoopla and Halloween

On Saturday afternoon, our church had a "Halloween alternative" event called "Hoopla." Basically, there were about 50 different little games set up outside for kids to play, then probably 10 or 15 inflatables set up in a big field, as well as horses to ride, a climbing wall, live music, free popcorn and cotton candy, and more! It was crazy (there were 7,000+ people there), but a lot of fun! Addie mostly played games that had the name "toss" in them-she wasn't a great tosser, though, she just knew how to cheat-and nobody cared! She got at least one piece of candy after every game she played, so she got quite a bti of candy. She really enjoyed playing the games, but did not understand the concept of waiting in line (shocker) or having to let other people take turns. If she had it her way, she would have just kept playing the same game over and over. Daddy worked in a booth while I took Addie and Levi around. But, Daddy was able to play a few games with Addie before and after he had to work the booth. Those are when I was able to take pictures-it wasn't even a thought for me to try to pull out the camera when I had both kids on my own.

Ready to play some games:

Bean bag toss:

Fun with Daddy:

Ring toss:

Going down a big slide with Daddy-and loving it!

Getting tired:

Sunday was obviously Halloween, so I dressed the kids in their Halloween shirts for church and got a couple pictures. That evening, we took the kids to a few houses to go trick-or-treating. We just went to the houses where we knew the people (and they knew us/Addie). People were VERY generous giving out candy. There is no way they could have given as much candy to each of the other kids as they did to Addie...I think it has to do with her being so cute, but I guess I am a little biased.

Our little lion:

Siblings:

Happy kids:

Winnie the Pooh. As a sidenote, Addie wore this Winnie the Pooh costume for Halloween last year and it fit very well. It is size 3-6 months (Addie was born in April). Before we had Levi, we had planned for him to wear this outfit for Halloween, even though we thought it would be way too big since he was born 4 months later than Addie. We were wrong! It fit him well-he is growing so much faster than Addie did!

Ready to go:

He's such a great smiler. Who would've thought it would be easier to get a good, smiling picture of a 2 and a half month old than an 18 month old?

Sitting down in the driveway with her pumkin-not sure why: When we got back home, she had her first lollipop:

More videos

Addie has recently been trying to talk a lot-some of which we can understand, and some of which we can't understand at all. This can be frustrating for her since she obviously knows what she is saying. Hopefully she will become more understandable soon. This video is of Addie saying her new favorite word:"yeah." It may not be the most polite thing, but I think it is pretty darn cute. It reminds me of her cousin (Olivia) when she came to our house to meet Addie for the first time.

As you can see, Addie was a lion for Halloween (pictures coming soon from that). We practiced her lion roar a lot, but weren't sure if she would be too shy to actually roar for other people while she was dressed up. She pulled through, though, and allowed many people to hear "the sweetest lion roar" they had ever heard (I had several people tell me that). I especially like in this video how Addie says "cheese" and grins real big when she notices the camera pointed at her.

On our way home from church on Sunday, Addie was singing and talking in the backseat, so Daddy decided to pull out the camera and take a little video: