9 mo

Had to do the normal 9 month picture with all of the previous months. Gotta keep with trend!

3 going on 16, and 9 months old!

So, a few weeks ago we got to have my friend Katie Smoak come and take pictures of the kids again. What better than to be able to hire a friend to take pictures of your kids?! They actually smile!!!! (Plus she's just really good! :) )

This was last month, so Levi was 8 months old, and Madilyn was 3 (as of April.... so 3 yrs and 2 mo.). 

1 of the first family pics! I was laughing at Levi trying to put just his head up. I was like, he could have pushed himself up a bit more, or we could have had him sitting... but this was just too cute!

Another good family pic! I was excited to get some good ones of the four of us!

My 2 sweet babies. I feel beyond blessed. I just never imagined how amazing it would feel to have such precious children. After having a miscarriage before Madilyn, and having friends who have struggled to get pregnant, or lost their babies, it makes me beyond grateful. I just hold them tighter and try to treasure the moments I have with them, even when they are driving me crazy. I try to remind myself just how blessed I am. I mean, look at my children!!!! Crazy cute right?!

Levi... woah is he busy! I have a 9 month appointment scheduled, so I'll have to post his stats after the appointment. I THINK he's about 20 pounds. He is STILL nursing 5-6 times per day, plus snacks and 3 good sized meals. He's a hungry and growing boy! He is crawling too. He's doing the army crawl, plus when he's ok with going a bit slower, he gets up on his hands and knees and will do normal crawl. If he's in a hurry though, he keeps with the army crawl. He's into EVERYTHING!!! He tries to pull lamps off of tables, and cords out of the wall. Anything and everything that could possibly be dangerous or electrical he tries to put it into his mouth. Things that I thought I got off of the floor he somehow has in his hands like 2 seconds later. HOW?! :)

He takes 2 good naps every day. One around 9:30 or 10a, and one around 1:30 or 2p. He sleeps between 1 1/2 to 2 hours for each nap. He is doing good with foods too! We've moved up to stage 3 with a lot of things, and he's learning textures. He eats cheerios, rice krispies and puffs. He loves toast with jam. He eats all sorts of veggies and fruits with his cereal. His favorite is the Sprout brand bananas and brown rice. He just smacks his lips the whole time when I feed him that. It's so cute! He is now is size 3 diapers. He is in mostly 9 month clothing, or 6-12 mo. clothing. I'm not really sure what size shoe he wears because I don't really put any on him at the moment. He's not really interested in trying to walk with me holding his hands or anything. He's a bit bow-legged and just doesn't really care! :) I think he may wear a size 2... I think. I'll have to check.

As far as talking, he's still just making noise. He says the baba, dada, mama, papa, etc. He waves hello and good-bye.

That's what I can think of at the moment! Gotta make sure I get it all down!

Now, as for Madilyn... my sweet little girl who thinks she's ALL grown up. 

She is looking less like a baby, and more like a little girl every day. I looked at pictures and videos of her just last year, and I'm realizing how much of her baby looks she's lost. It made me so sad!

She's getting quite independent. She likes to dress herself, undress herself, go potty by herself... you're getting the theme here right? When she wants a snack, she gets the chair, brings it to the pantry, and gets it... yup, herself! 

She has had some dance lessons last month, and this month we have put dance lessons on hold for some swimming lessons. Being that we live less than a block away from our community pool, I knew it was going to be important to get her into swimming lessons, and quick! She's timid around water (which I find kind of nice) and scared of getting water in her face. She's taking lessons from a very sweet lady named "Ms. Joy" who has grandchildren around Madi's age, and is very very good with Madilyn. She's very patient, and great at getting Madilyn slowly comfortable with swimming. She is currently having lessons 2 times per week. Madilyn really looks forward to them!

Her favorite food is: Pizza! No surprise there! It has been pizza for... as long as she's been able to eat it. She loves tacos, pasta with pesto, carrots, peas, doughnuts (duh...), goldfish (she'd eat just this if I let her), cheerios, peaches, mandarin oranges, hotdogs, tomatoes... the list could go on! She's a pretty good eater. She is very good at trying. She will usually take at least 1 bite. I've worked hard on that, and I am glad that she will at least try new things. We've also worked very hard on manners. I want to have a little lady, you know? She is getting better at her pleases and thank-yous.

She has also started to ask to pray out loud. She likes to pray for our meals, and at bed time. It's so precious! I don't always understand all of it, but I know God is smiling! I love to see her curious about God, and asking questions and wanting to talk to him. The other day we were sitting out on the front porch while it was raining and all of a sudden she told me she wanted to talk to Jesus. I said "ok, we can do that". So she yells "JESUS!" at the top of her lungs! Then she told me that He didn't hear her! :) It was so neat to try to explain to her that Jesus is always with her and can always hear her, even if she just talks to Him in her head. She's so smart and inquisitive for just being 3! She also has such a tender heart. She doesn't understand why people would be mean, for no reason. Now, she's not always incredibly kind when her little brother starts to suck on Lightening McQueen (her favorite toy car), or suck on her barbie Tinker Bell, but she really is so tender and sweet with him. Other people too though. Like, the other day she thought she might have accidentally hurt her Grandma, and she had to call her and make sure she was ok. She would not stop talking about it until she made sure Grama was ok. I hope she never loses that sweetness and love for others. I also love how when we go to places like the park, or pool, she asks me if friends will be there. Now, she doesn't necessarily mean her friends that she knows, she means any kids. Any and all kids that  will be there, at any age are her friends. Automatically. :)

For preschool and kindergarten at the least I have decided that I am going to be homeschooling. As the kids get older, I can look into other options, but at the moment, I've decided that's what is going to work best for us. There are such great homeschool coops in the area where I can get involved and Madilyn can interact with other kids her age, and I can get to know other moms that homeschool. I am excited! I also just felt like I wasn't ready to entrust my child into peoples hands that I didn't know. I don't know... it might also be all of the news lately about people in authority positions that we are supposed to trust, who hurt children. I know I need to trust God with my children, but there is free will. And because there is free will, and we are not puppets, there is evil in the world. And, as a parent, it's my job to protect my sweet children from evil as much as I can. As they are still so  little, I am feeling a bit like a momma bear who still thinks that I need to keep my cubs in the cave. :) Hopefully I won't be that mom who has bars on her windows when they are teenagers and keep them cocooned in their room to keep them from skinning their knee... I'm working on it! I just love them too much. :)

So... that's my "catching up" points. I seem to only have time to blog about 1x per month now that I have 2 little ones running around here! At least I do though, I love that I will be able to look back at this and remember this time.

God bless!