Levi is 18 months

Levi.. You are already 18 (or is 19?) months old! Time is flying by! I cannot even believe how fast you are turning into a big boy, and less of my baby. I took you to the dr last week, (you hadn't been since you were 9 months old! Call it a blessing, or call it a forgetful, busy momma of almost 6!) you were in the 90% for your height and 40% for your weight:) tall and skinny and pretty much perfect:)


You are on a great schedule.. You go to bed around 7:30 and sleep until 7:30-8:00 in the morning. Even when you wake up, you rarely cry to get out. You just lay in your bed patiently and read books, or throw out everything you can reach onto the floor. Naptime for you everyday is 1:30-4:00... No exceptions! You will be a bear without at least a 2hour nap. I usually have to wake you up at 4 or else you would sleep longer.


You LOVE Adalyn and have a great relationship with Josiah! You also love your momma but are pretty friendly when it comes to letting someone else hold you. You love dogs, yo gabba gabba, being outside, match box cars, and wearing sunglasses. Especially on top of your head. You love any type of ball.. Football, bouncy ball, baseball.. You name it. You will play fetch by yourself or just hold it and walk around all day. You aren't the biggest eater but you love whole apples, clementine oranges (you could eat 4 in one sitting), cheese, white cheddar Cheetos, goldfish, gummies, any kind of meat, green peas, green beans, salad, and waffles! I'm sure there are more, but these have been your favorites this week:)


You love to shut doors and are heartbroken when we shut the fridge, front door or bathroom door without your help. You have a pretty good vocabulary, and we are working on using our words instead of whining and crying:) you almost always have 2 fingers in your mouth and the other hand down your pants. I hear it's a "normal" habit for you to have, and it seems to be here to stay. We love you, Levi. You are a joy and we are thankful that God has entrusted you to us! There is no other "Him", "Wise" or "Bubba" that we would rather have:)

Christmas 2013

We had a wonderful Christmas! It was busy busy, as usual.. But fun nonetheless!

We have been blessed with great families and friends. My kids pretty much came home with a toy store after they opened all of their presents from the grandparents.


Look how much Adalyn and Miley favor... Crazy huh? She begged me for this straight hair!


We have enjoyed looking at Christmas lights and searching the neighborhoods for baby Jesus. This particular night, we found a neighborhood where one of the houses had snow shipped in from virginia. It was 60 degrees out and my kids looked like ragamuffins but we enjoyed throwing a snowball or two:)


We are thankful that Jesus came to us one starry night in bethlehem, destined to die for us.. Wretched sinners without hope. Let us never forget the reason for the season!


Josiah and Ella Kate bother memorized Luke 2's version of the Christmas story. It brings tears to my eyes every time that they recite it.











On another note.. Not related to Christmas.. Ella Kate called Bill one afternoon at work. We don't have a landline and only use cell phones. Well, this particular day, bill didn't answer his phone and I could hear that his voicemail picked up and I didn't want to deal with her leaving a message so I shouted to her, "just hang up the phone., Ella Kate! We'll call him back later!" She ran to me with a puzzled look on her face and asked, "hang it up, where?!" Ha! I guess I should start saying to press the red END button:)

I was sitting at the table eating lunch with my kids yesterday when they we're asking question after question about Christmas... Mostly presents. I looked at Ella Kate and said, "what if the ONLY thing you got for Christmas this year was only a pair of panties and some socks. That would still be good, right?" Without skipping a beat, she smiled and looked off in space while saying, "sure! I definitely need some more of those!" Sweet girl:) the kids then , proceeded to ask me what I wanted for Christmas. I told them I couldn't think of a single thing that I wanted, but I thought that having some sweet kids for Christmas would be nice:) Miley got extremely excited and shouted, "well, it's a good thing you already have us! Cause WE are your kids and we are the SWEETEST!!"
:)

The car was silent. The kids weren't making a sound. It was dark and everyone was enjoying looking at Christmas lights out of the windows, when out of nowhere from the backseat, Adalyn shouts, "this girl is on FIRE!!" :)


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Crack, snuggles and toots!

Miley and Adalyn were helping me crack eggs for supper one night. They love to help and I am trying to be more patient and let them:) Miley let out a big sigh while she watched Adalyn do her last egg. She said to her in her best mothering voice, "Adalyn, you are doing a good job, but you got crack ALL IN the bowl..." :)


Adalyn was laying in my bed with me one night talking about disney world. She wants to go SO bad. Then she started talking about all of the animals that we would see.. Pigs, sheep, tigers, snakes... I told her I didn't want to see any snakes because they scare me. She snuggled up close to me and said, "day not scare you.. I'mma stay wiff you!" Melt. My. Heart.


A few months ago, I asked the kids to think of a few words that make them think of daddy. Miley shouts out, "Christmas and toots!!" :)


The kids saw the Elf on the Shelf movie this weekend and have been hoping that one would magically appear... Well, thanks to nana nan, Jingle is here!

Here are 2 Facebook posts that I wanted to remember...

New bits and pieces:)

Back story: The kids full names are Ella Kate, Josiah William, Miley Noel, Adalyn Grace and Levi Nicholas. So while we are driving down the road one day, Ella Kate tells me, "Hey mom! During Christmas time, we can call Miley and Levi, Noel and Nicholas! Because those are Christmas names!!" Josiah smiles and chimes in, "yeah, and you can call me Will because, 'peace and good WILL toward men!' " :) so funny! Ella Kate is also not thrilled that her name is short, so she has convinced herself that her 'real' name is Elizabeth Kaitlyn and we just call her Ella Kate for short:) I don't have the heart to burst her little bubble, so I just go with it. Kinda like how I just went with it when she convinced Josiah and Miley that she was born in China. She even made up some words in Chinese to further convince them and they totally bought it!! Little stinker.. What is it with big sisters??



Adalyn is in love with sleeping beauty. She has never seen the movie and only has one little people doll of sleeping beauty. But she is her favorite. She also has Ariel and Eric, but "Shake a booty" as she calls her, is by far her favorite. We have our little people nativity set out for the holidays and all of the kids LOVE it! I was watching Adalyn play one day and she had brought Mary to the princess castle with sleeping beauty and Ariel. Only.. She thought Mary was Jesus. I watched her little mind go to work and she had imaginary conversations with the dolls that went something like this: "oh, hey shake a booty! Oh, hey Jesus! Whatcha doin'? Wanna play wiff me? Ok, shake a booty! I play wiff you. Hum on, Jesus!" Precious!



Adalyn has also started stuttering.. Or stammering. Not sure which is the correct word. But she takes FOREVER to say some things. Instead of saying " we we we we we we wevi." For Levi.. She now just calls him, Him. For instance, she will shout to Levi in the car and say, "HIM!! Hold a hand!! Him, talk a me!" They are the best of buddies.. Their relationship might be my favorite bond between my kids. They love each other. They will play and jump and read books in his crib together for the longest time. They destroy my house and tag team their poor momma all of the time. They sneak candy and hide behind beds together and giggle on a weekly basis. I am thankful that God blessed me with kids and I am thankful that he saw fit to send them to me like stair steps, because they make the best playmates:)



Levi has mastered the word, "no." I knew this day would come.. But it doesn't make it any easier to handle. I ask for a kiss, he tells me no and runs away. I ask him to come and let me change his diaper, he stands just far enough away from me to where I can't reach him and with those smiling brown eyes, he looks dead at me and says, no! After playing outside all morning, I tell him that it is time to come inside and he runs as fast as he can in the opposite direction and says, no! ((Sigh)) consistency doesn't get any easier with the more kids you have. We are working on, "yes ma'am!" But the key word here is, 'working'.


I fixing Miley's hair one morning and she looked at me through the mirror and explained to me that she was never gonna get married. I asked her why and she said that she was afraid to kiss! I hope she stays afraid for a VERY long time! But, I know my Miley and I'm afraid she will outgrow that fear before I want her to:)



Josiah has also talked about getting married and having kids one day. In fact, he told me this morning that when he is a dad, he isn't going to spank his kids. If they forget the rules or disobey, he will just remind them and never get them in trouble. He also said that he was going to buy his kids lots and lots of prizes! .... I'm not sure of he was trying to tell me something?!