I pledge allegiance...

I do preschool with Addie at home 3 days a week.  I had initially planned for Levi to do his own thing during this time, but that did not end up happening.  Levi loves to be with people, and never wants to miss out on anything.  So, I found that the best thing to do was just let Levi do school with me and Addie.  That has worked out great!  We start off "school time" by putting up the date on Addie's calendar, saying the pledge of allegiance, and singing the ABC's.  After doing this 3 days a week for about 6 months, I now realized that Levi has caught on to quite a bit!  Here is a video of Levi saying the pledge of allegiance.  He may be a little difficult yo understand, but I think it's pretty good for a 2 and a half year old!

Levi's half birthday

 Last week, Levi turned 2 and a half!  We are a family that celebrates half-birthdays, but we do celebrate them a little differently than regular birthdays.  The half-birthday is generally a secret until after dinner.  It was really fun to surprise Levi with this!

We had just finished dinner and Levi was asking for dessert.  We told him, "Daddy got you a special dessert, so you have to wait until he brings it to you!"  He was so excited without even knowing what it was going to be.  Then, as Daddy brought him his special dessert, we started singing "Happy Half Birthday."  I love that he just went with it.  He didn't ask questions or anything-just ate it up!  

 He got his very own box of gummies!

 Even though we told him these were all his and he didn't have to share (like he normally would), he chose to share with each of us anyways.  Such a sweet boy.

 Little did Levi know there would be more to his half birthday.  After finishing dessert and cleaning up from dinner, we told Levi there was something else he would get for his half-birthday.  This is him waiting (and Addie too, we did not fill her in on what was going on).

 Mommy's coming...

 A present!

 Happy boy

 Puzzles!  Happy half-birthday Levi!

Mostly Levi

I just noticed as I was looking through pictures to put on here, that I haven't taken many pictures since Christmas.  What pictures I have taken, have mostly been of Levi.  I think that is mostly because he has been doing so many new things recently and I usually try to grab the camera to remember whatever it is he just did.  As for Addie, she is still into the same things she has loved for years now: babies and princesses.  So, here are some pics of what we have been up to.

Levi is the artist of the family.  I don't know where he got it from, but he loves to color and draw.  This picture didn't come out great, but one night Levi came out of his room saying he had drawn a spider.  Below is what he had drawn-it actually did look kind of like a spider...better than I could ever draw!

 Levi is also a master at puzzles.  Every time we pick him up at church we are told "Levi is really good at puzzles!"  And it is true.  Levi does the below 24 piece floor puzzle unassisted on a daily basis, and without ever looking at the picture.  He also does the other smaller 24 piece puzzles we have in no time at all.  It just makes comes naturally for him, I guess.

 The kids were invited to a pirate birthday party...these were the costumes we threw together the morning of the party.

 Addie and Levi love to dress up (Addie more than Levi).  This was just a normal day at the house!

One Saturday morning, Daddy was getting the kids dressed as I took a shower.  When I came out, Levi had a mohawk!  Ever since then (about a week and a half ago) he has asked for "gel in my hair" almost every day.  He loves it, and so do we!

 Levi playing cowboy.

 Levi recently learned how to write his name all by himself.  This was my attempt at documenting it.  Not a great picture, but hopefully you can see his name!