Thursday, May 24, 2012

Baby Dylan

Addisyn has been waiting for the arrival of her baby brother for a long time.  He waited until a week past his due date to come out, but thankfully he is healthy!  Meet baby Dylan!

Addie loves babies very much.  So much, she actually smiled and looked at the camera while holding Dylan-that never happens!
Our four kids together (Levi, Addisyn, Addie, and Dylan)
Addisyn is a great big sister!
Sweet kisses for Dylan
A close-up of the newborn.
We're glad you are finally here, Dylan!

Summer's Birthday Party!

Last Saturday, we joined Summer and her family at the Mountain Play Lodge to celebrate her 3rd birthday.  We all had a great time.  Happy Birthday, Summer!  Addie is so excited that Summer will now be in the 3-year-old class with she and Addisyn on Sunday mornings at church.

Levi playing with baby Zane (Summer's little brother)
Train conductor, Levi
The girls going for a boat ride
Picture with the birthday girl!
All four kiddos (Addie, Levi, Summer, and Zane)
Ready to slide!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Health Adventure

 Last Friday evening, a local children's health "museum" opened up its doors to our church (Biltmore Baptist) for a free night for all preschoolers!  We hit it up and had a blast.  It was our first time going to "The Health Adventure" but I'm sure it won't be our last.  If you're ever in Asheville and need a fun place for kids to go (young or older), The Health Adventure is definitely worth trying.

Levi, our climber
 Crawling through an artery
 Doctor Addie
 He's a musician!
 Playing in the rice (much better than sand!)
 Going for a spin on the biggest sit and spin ever!
 More spinning, but this time in a crazy chair
 Daddy took a turn too
 Levi loved the balance beam
 Measuring Addie's vertical leap
 Gone fishin'
 Riding in the boat
 Time to pedal!
 Levi trying to hit the ball floating in the air
 One of Levi's favorite things to do it any and all play areas...hang from whatever he can grab onto
 Close-up of his latest boo boo.  He was running on concrete and tripped over his own feet.
 Alligator kisses

Friday, May 18, 2012

Making the most of it


 I knew we were going to be stuck at the house for the majority of the week this week since Levi was contagious.  And then, when I looked at the weather Sunday night and saw it was supposed to rain all day Monday, it looked like it could be a really long start to the week (we are outdoors people and Sunday had already been an indoor day!).  However, when I looked out the window Monday morning, I realized it was not raining (and the sun was even peeking through some).  The ground was so wet, so we couldn't do our normal outdoor activities, but I realized splashing in puddles might be just what we needed.  Turns out, we all had a great time!

Addie and Levi both have rain boots, so they put them on, and off we went on a walk to find puddles to splash in.  They weren't hard to find!  Levi was definitely the best splasher (no surprise there), and Addie was not wanting to be in pictures, so these are mostly of Levi.
There she is.  Oh, and the mail lady happened to drive by while we were out there.  She gave each of the kids a lollipop-even better!
 Only pic I got of both of them looking at me.
 Found another one!
He would run in between puddles...always looking for more.
 Having a blast!
 Most fun we've had on a Monday morning in a while!
 Parading through that puddle!
 It never got old.
 Once we completed our walk, we decided to try out the lagoon in our back yard.  Addie didn't like it-she said it was scary-big shocker.
 Levi, however, couldn't get enough-even when he was in water up to his knees!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day.  Although I was not able to go to church due to a sick child (Levi has hand, foot, and mouth disease), Bob and the kids still made it a special day for me.  I woke up to breakfast in bed, was given a gift card to go get a massage sometime soon, and didn't have to cook one meal.  Sounds like a great day to me!  I am so thankful God has entrusted us with two children.  Being a mom definitely isn't the easiest job, but I wouldn't want to be anything else.

Levi whipped up some raw eggs.
Addie helped scramble the eggs.
I love how this picture shows the way our kids are in the morning.  Addie is yawning: she is not a morning person; takes a while to really wake up.  Levi is cheesing it up here.  He wakes up and immediately runs a fun laps in his crib before we even have time to get in there and let that boy out.  He definitely wakes up ready to go.
 Breakfast, a gift card, and cards made by the kids!
Sweet kisses from my kiddos.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Updates

 I realize I haven't been doing a lot of blog posting recently, but when I just went to upload lots of pictures in order to catch up, I realized I haven't taken hardly any pictures the last few weeks!  Oops!  I need to get better about that.  Anyways, here is what I've got.

We had a few hail storms in April-all of which happened either during nap time or after the kids went to bed at night.  The only time the hail bothered either of them was when Addie was awake during nap time (had never fallen asleep).  She just wondered what was making such a loud noise.  Other than that, neither child seemed to hear it.  And believe me, it was LOUD, and lasted quite a while each time!  Both kids LOVED eating the hail, though, which is what they are doing here:
 It was beach night theme at Awana last week.  We went with it!
 We had some friends over to play, Abigail and Madilyn:
 I mentioned above how Addie did not fall asleep for her nap one day.  That is our new normal.  The days that Addie DOES fall asleep during nap time are extremely rare.  Thankfully, she is proving that she can handle it, and doesn't have meltdowns too often before bedtime approaches.  However, Addie still has to have "rest time" in her room for 2 hours each afternoon while her brother naps.  She obviously stays pretty busy in there, as you can see in the picture below.  That particular day, she had taken most of the shoes out of her closet and put them in her bed.  She also opened her top dresser drawer and took out lots of hair rubber bands, brushes, nail clippers, sunglasses, and nail polish-not good since she decided to pain one of her own fingernails in bed!  There were also lots of baby dolls in bed with her as well as plenty of jewelry.  At least I had 2 hours "off"!
Even though I don't have the pictures to prove it, we have stayed fairly busy.  I took Addie with me on a day trip to Charlotte for my soon to be sister-in-law's bridal shower in late April.  It was a really fun trip and I'm glad Addie was able to come with me-she was very shy (as expected) but loved every minute of it (except when we stopped at Chick-fil-a to eat and there was not only a person dressed up as a cow, but also a dog mascot and a clown-not good for my daughter!). 

I also took the kids strawberry picking last weekend, and really wish I had a picture of that.  I thought the kids would have a great time picking strawberries since the plants are easy to get to and they love strawberries.  I was wrong.  They love to EAT strawberries, not pick them!  When I first started picking, the two kids just watched me.  They didn't seem interested in picking.  Then, I asked if they wanted to try one.  Yes was the answer.  Once they realized they could eat them, that's all they did.  I have no idea how many strawberries each of them actually ate, but it was a lot.  Levi really went to town.  He never actually picked a strawberry off of a plant, though, he would just eat them straight out of the basket I was attempting to fill.  With how quickly he was eating them, though, it took a while to finish!  We had a blast and will be back next year, though!

Updates on the kids (for anyone interested-there are no pics here):

Addie is growing up so fast, it seems.  She has picked up on little sayings she hears and ends up saying some really funny things these days.  For example, on our way home from something the other night she told us, "I'm really tired from all this daytime."  Or, when Daddy cleaned her up with Levi's rag she said, "That's really confusing Daddy."  We were recently talking about her friend, Addisyn, and how her baby brother will be coming soon.  I asked Addie, "Do you think baby Dylan will have hair?"  Addie's response: "Yes, do you think he will have eyes?"  I replied, "I sure hope so!"  Addie still talks about heaven a lot and who she can't wait to see when she gets there.  She also thinks every Friday is Good Friday (ever since Easter).  I guess that's not such a bad thing since we end up talking about Jesus dying on the cross pretty much every Friday now.  Lastly, Addie has somewhat of an understanding of the days of the week.  She will ask what day it is, then she relates that day to something.  For example, if I say it is Monday, she will say we are going to the library (story time is every Monday).  Or on Wednesday, she knows she gets to go to Puggles that night.  Every day makes her think of something.  We better stick to our schedule!

Levi is our sour patch kid (that is Bob's description, but I think it's a good one!).  He can be pretty sour, but through that sourness, he is so sweet.  You just have to get to it.  Levi is EXTREMELY opinionated.  He knows what he wants and if he doesn't get it, he lets you know he's not happy about it.  He is very grateful when he does get what he wants and never forgets to say thank you.  Levi is still working on the whole talking thing, but is getting much better at mimicking what we say.  He is even starting to count (I think he made it to #6 the other night).  Bob and I might be the only ones who realize he is counting, but that is okay for now.  He still signs some, but not a whole lot.  He loves to play outside, and one of his new favorite things is to water the garden.  Hopefully our plants will grow soon! 

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Addie's new haircut

As you may or may not have noticed in the last post, Addie got a haircut!  I cut a good 6+ inches of her hair off a few weeks ago.  I had intended to give her a haircut, but not planned to go that short.  It's definitely tough to get a 3-year-old to sit still long enough to get everything even (or at least close)!  I had a hard time getting used to the new 'do, but it is growing on me.  It's really too bad it isn't long enough to fit into a pony tail anymore, though.
And since everything Addie does, Levi MUST do as well, here is a pic of him I took right after the pic of Addie.