*

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Sunshine Mountain

This weekend Levi spent a lot of time pretending to be a "mountain climber who also climbs trees too." He put on his trusty tool belt (the one he got for his second birthday, if you scroll down you can see him wearing it for the first of hundreds of times) and boots and grabbed his rope and bungee cords.


He tried over and over and over again to get his bungee cord to grab onto a small branch.

"I did it!"

Milo didn't have much interest in climbing.  He's been filling various containers with water and putting the landscaping rocks inside.  I went to tip that large rubbermaid container last night and could barely budge it.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

March 13, 2010 and July 21, 2012

Today Milo is 2 years, 4 months, and 8 days old.


That's exactly how old Levi was when Milo was born.


He's my baby but Milo seems older than Levi did at this age. He has learned a lot having a big brother to watch.

Even though Milo has only been here for half of Levi's life, he can't remember not having a little brother around. 

After all, life is more fun having a brother to make mud puddles with!

Friday, July 20, 2012

Flashback Friday- Happy Birthday Luke

Happy Birthday to my dear, handsome, clever, funny husband. I'm crazy for you.  Here's to another great year! (Let's make it slightly less eventful than we did three years ago when the morning of your birthday I took a home pregnancy test and called out to you from the bathroom, "Well...I've got some birthday news for you...)

Here is Lucas at two years old:

And here is Milo this week:

2007

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Party Time

Saturday we celebrated the first birthday of our friend, Chloe. Here she is in all her cutness:


We went to Monkey Bizness (it pains me to type that spelling) for the party.

The kids had a ball.  Levi especially enjoyed this giant inflated slide.


He never stopped going at top speed the entire play time.

Me with Gwen and Claudette.  I very much like these gals.  Also, it appears this is our favorite pose together.  Check out this one from her baby shower (scroll down to the bottom of the post.)

My boys were of course thrilled to also get to play with their buddies- Daniel, Micah, and Daria.

One of their party favors were masks.


Milo especially was in to his.

Bring on the cake!

Sunday, July 15, 2012

BIG Mud Puddle

I was standing a mere 10 feet from the boys, busy with scrubbing down the patio chairs. Somehow I missed that they were creating this gigantic mud puddle.  They had so much fun and got soooo dirty.
 




Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Nature

This morning the boys and I had our first visit to the Ernie Miller Nature Center.  First course of business:  Levi immediately found a stick.


Looking at the pretty birdies.


We had lucky timing, arriving just as they were starting the special bi-weekly story time.  In addition to listening to stories and singing song, they got to meet an owl.


Levi feeling some brotherly love during the story-time.


Milo seemed to misinterpret this, lunged backwards, trying to take Levi down.


"Wake me when the owl comes back out."


They also got to see a tarantula up close. 


It kind of put into perspective the spiders I've seen around here lately.

Let's find the turtles!

"This bridge is nice and all but we are starting to get hungry!  How 'bout some lunch?"


When did his legs get that long?

Sunday, July 08, 2012

Friday Snaps

On the way home from the grocery on Friday morning, the boys and I stopped off at an estate sale and snagged this much needed shoe shelf for our front closet. They boys were the most adorable picture of teamwork carrying it out to the car together.  It prompted me to pull out my camera so that I could document such a sweet moment. As soon as I went to take the picture they started an angry tug-of-war with the shelf. Oh well.

"I want to carry it by myself!"  "MINE!!"
Later after Daddy got home, they studied under a magnifying glass some spiders they had caught and killed.


I don't really have many other shots from the weekend.  You'll just have to imagine us all red and sweaty.  Ugh.  Kansas in July.  Lovely.

Friday, July 06, 2012

Big Boy

Milo discovered the thrill of wearing a cape and running so that it billows away from your body. He was so adorably serious about it and ran and ran and ran.



Resting Brothers

A cuddly start to rest time. Milo could barely keep his eyes open. I picked him up after I took these pictures and carried him down to their bedroom for a nap.


Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Red and White and Blue

Happy Independence Day! We celebrated at home joined by Joel, Kelly, Ruby, and Ben. First on our agenda was helping the kids decorate their bikes and scooters for the annual neighborhood "Popsicle Parade."  The degree of cuteness going on and the temperature were bothvery, very high.


We finished decorating about half an hour before the parade was to begin so the kids took a lot of practice laps around our cul-de-sac.
They were all pretty excited.

There was a large turn-out for the parade and the kids clearly enjoyed themselves. After they were finished everyone was treated to lemonade and popsicles.


Look how sweaty the boys got!  It was quite a little trek for Milo.


A firetruck complete with a huge ladder and firemen were on hand to talk to the kids.  Look: the wheel is taller than Levi.


Yay for cousins and popsicles!

The kids all got a turn up in the truck. 

After the parade there was some wrestle mania going on with Uncle Joel.

He was dealing with all four of them at once at one point.


The kids also took time to write notes and drawings then stuff them into envelopes and deliver them to our neighbors.  The first stop was to give Happy Birthday cards to the lady across the street who had helped organize the parade.

No 4th of July would be complete without a little time spent reading about sloths.


We had such a fun time.  After grilling out for lunch the kids rested, (a teeny tiny bit), and Joel and Luke took care of a few projects around the house.  I can't wait to share pictures of one of them- let me just say that I now have an 11 foot long table in the dining room.  I'm so excited! 

We couldn't help reminisce about last years Popsicle Parade.  We had just moved into the house days earlier and then took a whirlwind trip to Chicago.  We arrived back home late on the 3rd all camping out in the master bedroom, Milo's crib in the closet.  That morning I dug through boxes to find clothes for the boys and we took cold showers as the hot water did not work yet.  So much has changed in a year!

2011
2010 here (little did we know it would be a full two more years after this before he really talked!) and here
2009
2008