Baby Smiles Are the Best

We went to a going away party for a couple from church today, and I decided to lug my camera along with me since I figured we'd be outside a lot (and there would be plenty of people around to help with the kids, so I wouldn't have to worry about the house burning down while I was trying to get that perfect shot). Jonas has been smiling a lot lately, but I have only caught a few on camera, just barely. I have yet to catch a huge grin on camera, but these sweet little smiles are still enough to melt my heart! He is such a sweet and mellow baby (when he's not hungry, that is).

Meanwhile...


Levi was running around with a bunch of older kids, playing football, and blowing bubbles. It took me a while to convince him to stop and eat a little bit. He saw me taking pictures of his brother's smile and said he wanted his picture taken too, so this is his "cheese" face. Today was almost as hot as yesterday, so by the time we left, he was sweaty, filthy, had been running barefoot in the dirt/mud and his shoes were M.I.A. (one of the older kids finally said he thought he knew where they were and found them for me), and he had grass stains on his knees and his shorts. Ah, boys...

Some Comic Relief

Here are a few Levi anecdotes from recent history. I thought it would be nice to have a happy post after the last one griping about everything!


While drawing with crayons the other day:

• Indigo (our Siberian Husky): *whine*whine*whine*whine*whine*
• Levi: "Shhh! I'm trying to draw!"

While I was in labor with Jonas (a horrible, 40 hour ordeal that desperately needed the comic relief Levi provided):

• Me: *eyes closed during a contraction* Moooooooooooooan...
• Levi: "Mommy's sleeping!" (Oh, how I wished I really was sleeping...)
  

Lather, rinse, repeat about a dozen times.

• Shane: "Levi, Mommy's not sleeping. She's having a contraction."
• Levi: "Contraption? Oh, okay! Contraption!"

Next contraction:

• Me: *eyes closed during a contraction* Moooooooooooooan...
• Levi: "Mommy's sleeping! Contraption!"

A common morning conversation:

• Me: "Levi, what would you like to eat for breakfast?"
• Levi: "Birthday cake!"
• Me: "We don't have any birthday cake because it's not anybody's birthday. And you know you couldn't have cake for breakfast anyway."
• Levi: "Happy birthday, Mommy!"
• Me: "Thank you, Levi, but it's not my birthday today."
• Levi: "No, birthday cake!"

Gotta love the logic of a 2 year old. I think I'd be in my golden years by now if I'd had as many birthdays as Levi thinks I have since my actual birthday last month!

My Awesome Day

Awesome as in, I'm in awe of all the bad, annoying, and just plain weird things that happened.

First of all:


(Pic taken with cell phone - sorry, folks, I don't take the D80 with me everywhere...) Yes, that says NINETY-EIGHT degrees. Um, what happened to spring? It was in the 50s and 60s and then we went straight to 98? Yuck. I'll take some upper 70s with a light breeze and low humidity, thanks.

Anyway, my day started with Levi waking up 2.5 hours earlier than usual. I thought he might sleep a little late since he was up almost 2 hours past his bedtime last night, but apparently he had other ideas. Being the complete fool that I am, I stayed up really late last night like I usually do (my only time to myself when Shane is gone, or ever, really) and could hardly even open my eyes when Levi got up and started whining for me. I could not convince him that it wasn't time to get up yet and he should go back to sleep or play quietly in his room, so I put him in his high chair with some paper and crayons and turned on a DVD for him (if you know him at all, you'll know which one it was). I tried to doze a bit before the baby got up, but was not very successful.

We finally got ourselves together enough to leave the house a bit after lunch time, and headed out to run a few errands. Little did I know that the forecast for "upper 80s" was about 10 degrees off! We went to the first store and they had completely changed it since the last time I went there a few years ago, and I did not find anything that I was looking for

Next store: I pulled into the parking lot and started putting a few things in my diaper bag before turning off the car (and the A/C), when the lady parked in front of me returned to her car. She had a little girl with her that looked to be about Levi's age. I have no idea what that poor little girl did, but this woman (her mother, I suppose) started smacking her. Not a spank on the butt or a slap on the hand (not that I'd feel a whole lot better about that, but it wouldn't have shocked me as much), but just open handed hitting all over her torso. If that wasn't horrifying enough, the lady the got in the car and left the kid standing there in the parking lot crying. By then, I had all my stuff ready to go, but I had to wait and see what this lady was going to do with her little girl. After about 5 minutes of yapping on her cell phone in the car, she got out and had the little girl climb into the back seat with no car seat, no seatbelt, nothing at all, just shut the door and drove off. I got her license plate number and called the local police to report what I'd seen, but I will never know if they caught up with her. I hope so, for that little girl's sake. I felt sick seeing that.

Anyway, after witnessing that lovely series of events (yet another reason for me to be glad that Levi is still rear facing - he didn't have to see any of it), I loaded Levi into our old stroller, which I despise, but I did not want to drag The Beast* out of the van for what was supposed to be a quick trip through one store. So Levi went in the impossible to steer stroller, Jonas went in the Moby Wrap (did I mention that it was nearly 100 degrees out?), and I carried my massive diaper bag over one shoulder, since it is too big to drape over the stroller handle. It took longer than I expected to find what I wanted there, and then it took longer to check out too. As I checked out, the cashier made some small talk and asked me what my boys' names were. So I told her. Then she commented on my Moby Wrap and said that she had one too...for her cat. I wasn't quite sure what to say to that, so I just smiled and said, "Huh."

When we left store number 2, it was getting to be a bit past Levi's normal naptime, but I figured with as little sleep as he got last night, maybe he would fall asleep in the car, a rare occurrence these days. If not, he could still go to bed when we got home and it wouldn't be a big deal. Then I got on the interstate and traffic was awful. There turned out to be an accident blocking one lane, but things were still moving at a snail's pace once I got past that, and the baby started screaming, so I decided that I wasn't going to sit and listen to him scream for who knows how long while sitting in traffic and I pulled over to nurse him, praying the entire time that nobody would slam into my van.

Things seemed to be moving slightly faster once he was done, so I buckled him in again and got back on the road, only to hit more traffic within 15 seconds. The second hold up was people rubbernecking at someone that got pulled over. I decided to just take a different way home so I could keep moving, and thus keep the baby content, and that went well for about 5 minutes and then the baby started screaming again. This time Levi found it highly amusing to imitate Jonas' cries and was shrieking at the top of his lungs. I had my very own symphony of horrors in the back seat! Lucky me!

I was close enough to home that I just kept driving, and then at the last traffic light before our house, the light cycled through twice and skipped my turn! Finally it turned green and I made it home. By then it was well beyond any reasonable time that Levi could take a nap, and he was begging to eat, so after I nursed the baby (and Levi contributed even more to the wreck that is my living room) I stuck him in his high chair to eat. This is the current scene in my living room (um, ignore the disaster in the background, the lack of a shirt, and the fact that it's out of focus, blurry, and just a bad picture in general):


Yes, he is falling asleep sitting up in his high chair - something he hasn't done in a couple of years, that I can think of, anyway. Would I be a terrible mother to put him to bed at 5 PM? Wait, don't answer that... Ugh, I guess I will have to do my best to keep him awake for a few more hours so he won't either take such a late nap that he is up half the night, or go to bed so early that he will wake up before the sun tomorrow. This should be "fun." Tomorrow has to be better, right? Don't answer that, either...

*Behold, The Beast:
I actually love this stroller, but it is pretty darn big and heavy to lug in and out of the car!

(What kind of fauxtographer am I to use 3 cell phone pics in the same post? I'll have to do better.)

So, I'm starting a blog

I've never really considered my life interesting enough to blog about it. I do have two very cute little boys, though, so I thought maybe I'd try doing a photo blog. You can look at the cute kids (and the stories to go with the pictures), and I can practice my photography skills. Everybody wins!

And what good would a photo blog be without any photos in the first post?

This is Levi. He will be 3 in June and he cracks me up every day. He has his "almost-3-year-old" moments, but he's a sweet kid with a whole lot of personality, and just as much energy.

This is Jonas. He just joined us in March. So far he isn't quite as high energy (or high maintenance, thank goodness!) as his big brother, but he is just as sweet!

This is my other half, Shane, with the boys.