Ready, Set,

Go!

This Mack truck race ramp (from Great Grandpa and Grandma G) has proven to be Levi's "favorite" Christmas present.  He's hardly stopped playing with it the last 6 days.  If only it wasn't soooo noisy!
While Levi has been busy playing with all his new toys, Gabe and I have been busy re-doing the guest room downstairs.  We're hoping to have it finished up this week, but projects around here have a tendency to stay nearly finished for months. My goal will be to share the finished product soon.

Savannah and Sawyer-

Levi  loves the little kitty you made for him.
He's named her Jupers and asks every night, "I can sleep with her?  I can lay mine head on her?"
And as you can see, the original Jupiter is a big fan of her as well.

I have one more play post planned to finish up the year.  Check back for it tomorrow.  I also have a new goal for 2012 I'll tell you about next week, after the holidays are completely over!

The best part of vacation is...

all the extra play time it brings.
Levi and I met our friends (Danelle and Weston) here on Monday morning.
Levi was a little unsure about those big crazy bouncy things at first, but he warmed up to them. I have a video on my phone of him laughing so hard he can hardly jump. It's pretty hilarious. Levi wanted to go down the big slide several times but every time would get scared on his way up and at the top (telling me "I don't like it"). But as soon as we started down the slide he was laughing every time.

We had more friends (Peggy, Zachary and Zane) over to play on Tuesday morning. We only get to see them two times a year so it's always nice to have time to play with them.
For some reason the big boys thought is was fun to play with the old baby Levi toy I got out for Zane.And Levi was pretty infatuated with baby Zane. He hasn't really had much of a chance to be around babies and he seems to love them.
Gabe's been on vacation too since Wednesday. We decided to go to Lowe's to get supplies needed for several small projects we've been meaning to get done. A few have been finished, but Gabe's mom is arriving today so the painting of the guest room will have to wait until all of our holiday visitors have come and gone. Levi got a little project to work on while we were at the store.He was pretty proud of his creation. It's sitting on our mantel right now.
We went to Zoo Lights with Grandma and Grandpa G this week, wrapped all our presents, and came down with another cold. Gotta take the good with the bad.
I'll be back later this weekend to give the full holiday report!

Roughhousing with Dad

Winter is starting to settle in.
And although we haven't had a ton of rain yet this year, it's been pretty cold. We've been a bit limited in our play choices the last few weeks. But we're managing to find new silly things to do. (And I'm preparing for a special year end play post that I'll post as our last of the year.) Levi sure does enjoy roughhousing with Daddy. That's always a fun play time. (And it's good for Levi's development according to this article I found.)

This is going to be a quick drop in today.
Our holiday cocktail party is in less than 4 hours. With the busy last week of school, I've still got cookies to bake, appetizers to prepare and a house to clean. Good thing Levi's already playing at Grandma and Grandpa G's house. I really hate the fact that I have to clean my house before and after a party....

"Mommy, put your shoes on."

This is one of Levi's favorite games.
Put things in Mommy or Daddy's shoes and then tell us to put them on. He loves it when we squeal because there's something in our shoe that shouldn't be there.
On Wednesday morning I was greeted with these surprises in my shoes as I frantically tried to hustle out the door. It made me smile.

Gabe and I have something new to play with.
We bought this today.Christmas came early for the two of us.
I'm sure Gabe is sitting in it as I type. There are lots of new features to play with.

Breakfast Buddies

This little monchichi is one of Levi's favorite things to play with right now. He especially loves sharing his banana with her at breakfast. (But doesn't love it when her face and bib get dirty with banana.) Part of his attachment to her might also be the high pitched voice Mommy uses as her voice when Levi asks her what she's doing. Levi and little monchichi have some pretty exhaustive conversations. Levi always wants to know why she doesn't have any socks on. She assures him that her feet don't get cold because she has a fur coat on.

We're into full Christmas preparation mode this weekend. I'll be back tomorrow, or Monday, to give the full report. I came down with a really nasty cold on Sunday night and decided I couldn't stay home sick at all this week since it was the end of the trimester. (I sure wanted to but I had kids presenting debates.) So, of course, the cold has really hung on. I just haven't been able to shake it. I think the best thing I can do this afternoon is crawl into bed while Levi's napping and see if some extra sleep will finally do the trick. Levi appears to have caught the nasty bug too. Hopefully he'll be over it quicker than I am.

Boys at play

This week's play post is brought out early this week because we're heading down to Oakridge for Thanksgiving. It will be the first year Gabe and I haven't hosted the big day at our house in...I can't remember how long. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. And I have to be honest, I'm a bit sad not to have a big turkey in my fridge and a pie cooling on my counter. But at the same time, this year has been exhausting. I literally feel right now like I usually do in April. I'm so exhausted, and I'm thankful I didn't have to do all the shopping and prepping for the big meal this year.Since I have the week off (unpaid), Levi and I had a chance yesterday to have friends over to play.
I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am to be off this week. I sure am thankful for this little mini vacation. I think it will get me through December!

Hiding

For months now, one of Levi's favorite things to do is hide things. He hides from Daddy every night before bed. His race cars like to hide underneath blankets and pillows. One night this week Gabe and I came home to this lovely mess. Levi decided one whole bin of random toys needed to hide in the space between the kitchen cabinets and his shelf of toys. Levi is so good at hiding things he very often hides them and then can't find them later. For example, his two favorite race cars who are currently MIA. Levi asked for them before bed tonight but we couldn't find them. We were lucky to get his mind off of them and get him into bed. Gabe's not so lucky. He's still searching for them right this moment because we know the kid will ask about them as soon as he gets up. So far we've both been unable to locate them in all of Levi's usual hiding spots.

Unfortunately for Levi, we don't have enough leaves in our yard to hide in them. But he sure had fun "helping" me rake them up this morning. (Figured we better get some leaves picked up, and gutters cleaned, since we had a dry day today. The rain is suppose to be back on Monday.)I'll see if I can convince Gabe to throw a dancing video on here when I'm done. Or tomorrow...if he's still searching for two race cars when I go back upstairs.

Speaking of "Smile"

This is one of the many silly things Levi started doing this week. Apparently this block that goes to his wooden train, is the prefect camera.

He walked around most of the evening on Tuesday telling us to "smile".

I'm telling you, this kid is quite the character. He's got some really funny dance moves we need to show off one of these days too.

I've surrendered

to stickers!
They are literally all over our house. See:

Even Levi's favorite race car has to have stickers on him.Sure, I could make a rule about where stickers go...but parenting is all about choosing your battles right? And this isn't a battle I feel is worth fighting. Especially since we've seen some "terrible two" behavior for the first time this week. Levi's decided he has to cover his face and cry when he doesn't get his way. Like when he's told he can't take 4 race cars to bed with him.

Well, Gabe's at work today. So Levi and I went to Target this morning and then decided this rainy Saturday was perfect for making a fort under the dinning room table.

This is Levi's new smile. I guess it's what I should expect when I say... "smile".

Dodge Ball!

Levi's been taking a sports class at the community center this month on Thursday mornings. It's for kids age 2 to 4 so he's one of the youngest in the class. The first week they played soccer, second week they played basketball, and the third week they played baseball. Well, I got to join Levi and Grandma in class this week because we had evening conferences at school on Thursday. This week we got to play "dodge ball". The coach modified it so it was basically tag. The coach told the kids to throw the ball to get each other out. Levi sure was good at running around the gym, away from the kids with the ball. But when his team had the ball, he didn't really get the throwing-it-at-someone-to-get-them-out idea.
Here's Levi sitting with some of the other boys on his team when they were tagged out. (Along with their coach)
When class is over, they open up the whole gym and have an indoor play park. There's lots of toys to ride on and mats to jump on. Levi's favorite thing?
The scooter!Might have to look for one on Craig's list this spring.

Go Ahead and Jump!

Levi has been working on his jumping for a while and has finally gotten off the ground. He's getting pretty good now we though you might like to see.

If you are into jumping videos, these may also interest you.

Jump
-or-
Jump

-Gabe

Eat it up!

Before I share the photo of the week, I have to share a Levi-ism. He says so many silly things now and I need to be better about writing them down.
One of his favorite expressions is: "Eat it up"! Often followed by naming what he wants to eat up.
Sometimes it's food. Like the big display of pumpkins outside Trader Joe's. Some times it's objects like the trimet bus. Sometimes it's disgusting things like poopy diapers (I think he just says that one because we make a big silly deal about how gross that is). And sometimes it's people.
It reminds me of this book.
The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind
and another
his mother called him "WILD THING!"
and Max said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!"
so he was sent to bed without eating anything.

Well, this was the conversation we had on the way home from running errands this morning.
Levi: Sun is hiding.
Me: Really? Where?
Levi: Behind clouds.
Me: Tell the sun to come out.
Levi: Come out sun.
Levi: Eat sun up.
Me: I don't know about that.
Levi: Hot (referring to the sun of course)
Me: That's right, the sun is hot.
Levi: Daddy blow on it.

Now for the photo. Gabe and I are leaving Levi with Grandma and Grandpa G this weekend. We're going to the coast for the weekend without Levi to celebrate our 7th anniversary. So here's an early photo of the week. We can hardly get this kid to play with anything other than race cars!

Handy Men

Here are my handy men hard at work again.
We got a new entertainment unit a few weeks ago, only to discover that the receiver barely fits into it. So Gabe bought, and installed, a little fan to keep the unit cool. Of course Levi had to assist in the installation.

We might have a little boy who wears big boy underwear here pretty soon. He's gone poop on his little toilet 3 times in the last week or so, and goes pee almost every night before bed. He's excited about getting to wear big boy underwear. Not so thrilled about telling us when he needs to go. That's why we haven't "officially" started the whole potty training thing. This kid has never been too unhappy when he's poopy or wet...we'll see how it goes!

Play with your food

or raspberries at least!More evidence that I'm not kidding when I say this kid is in love with berries. He and I had some really good laugh this week at dinner. He'd put berries on his fingers and then tell me to take more pictures. He is definitely at a very silly stage right now and we're loving his goofy personality.

What I'm not loving is the headache and stomach flu(?) I've been fighting for the last three days. I really hope I'm sick and it's not the stress at work making me sick. I've spent most of the day in bed. Levi and Gabe ran errands without me. Hoping I'll be up to some fun tomorrow. Although I did bring a big basket of work home with me. And, of course, left the most pressing work sitting on my desk.

Keep Away

The only pictures I have this week, come from our trip to the zoo this morning. I've got to get into the routine of taking photos in the evening, but this week was crazy busy (back-to-school night on Tuesday so I didn't make it home until after 8pm) and that didn't help.

As you can see, the elephants were playing a fun game of keep away today. We enjoyed watching them play with their ball, jumping in and out of their pool.

Levi also got to take his first ride on the zoo train today. Here he is waiting in line to board.And here's one of Levi and daddy on the train.
Turned out to be a perfect morning. This was probably the last sunny zoo trip of the year.

Canning

We canned our first batch of tomatoes last week.
And this is the extent to which Levi helped us.Not sure what he thinks this jar lifter is really for...
some sort of back brace perhaps.

We've had a busy week. Lots of birthday celebrations I hope to share about later this evening. And a fun weekend splashing in the creek catching crawdads. I'll try and get some more posts up here in the next few days between more canning, laundry and making apple sauce.

14

That's the total number of pictures I took this week.
Sad isn't it?
With so few pictures to choose from this week, this is the only one I've got that comes with a little story. Along with Levi's continued obsession with skateboards (anyone know if they make skateboards for 2 1/2 year olds? Cause Santa may have to bring this kid one!), he is also currently obsessed with race cars and putting things in neat little lines. This line of cars was complete before Levi decided one ATV needed to take a spin along the edge of the couch. This current obsession with cars also includes reading this book at nap time and bed time. EVERY DAY! Good thing the pictures are so nice and the rhyming is actually done so well. If that weren't the case, Levi would be really upset when the book went mysteriously "missing". (Like I'm about to do with this book...another one of Levi's favorites. But not Mom's.)

Sorry that's all I've got this week. I'm lucky I survived the 90 degree weather in my not air conditioned class room with 35 8th graders. Yes...you heard that right. Class sizes are out of control this year and I have between 32 and 35 students in all 6 classes. I've never taught in conditions like this...I'm hoping for the best.

Time with Grandma(s) at the zoo

Monday morning was cold and a bit wet. But Levi, Grandma G and I still met Peggy, the boys and Grandma Grass at the zoo anyway. It was fun to explore the zoo with the kids and their grandmas.
I thought Levi would love playing on the tractor in the farm/petting zoo, but he really didn't like it. Usually there are so many kids climbing on it he doesn't get a chance.

But Z really liked the big tractor!

Despite the rain, the polar bears decided to come out and play! That almost never happens!
Levi and I didn't get much more play time in this week. Going back to work really puts a damper on our play time...

My last week...

of vacation is almost gone. I go back to work, bright and early, Tuesday morning. Levi and I have been busy having lots of fun this week. Lots of play dates with friends, and we even finally filled up his little pool in the back yard.
Peggy and the little boys are here visiting from LA, so we've been able to play a few days with them this week. Here's Levi and Z playing on the slide.

And I have to include this one of Levi swimming in the back yard. It's just too silly...and cute.

Well, we're off on another camping adventure this weekend. Everything is ready, just waiting for Levi to wake up from his nap so we can take off. I'll try and share some stories and photos when we get back...before I start work for the week. This has been such a fun summer. Sure wish it didn't have to end.

Exercise

(Posting early this week. Gabe is going to try and get home early today so we can take off for our camping trip this weekend.)
Levi's new thing is to "exercise". Which is really him just propping one leg up in the air or on something. That's his exercises. It's actually really funny because he also says the word pretty dang clearly. We think he might have picked up the idea from Grandpa G. I guess Grandpa was showing Levi how to lift weights with his legs on the machine. It sure did make an impression on the kid. He's been doing it all week. Here he is using his bike to "exercise" with.
Also notice the new helmet. He got it for his birthday and he LOVES it! I actually have to keep it in the closet so that he isn't wearing it wherever we go.