I *hope* I bought our last container of formula last night... Levi has done so well on it, but yikes, it's not cheap! Hoping the transition to milk goes well - after not giving him any dairy for awhile, I have just lately let him have some cheese and it seems to be okay.
What crazy weather we have been having! Rain, rain, and more rain. Lots of flooding in the area. And, now it's snowing out!
Last Saturday I had another 5k race. This was an all women's race in Grand Rapids. It was chilly and there was some snow falling then, too, but really that's worse for the spectators. :) I had to be there fairly early in the morning and it was cold, so Mike just stayed home with the kids. Kind of a bummer to go to a race all alone, but it was for the best - it would have been miserable with the kids!
Also got to see my big sis and my niece last weekend! They make the trip out each spring with their church for a big quiz competition with other churches. It's a quick trip, but nice to see them.
I had a nice birthday. It was actually a decent day weather-wise, so I took the boys out for some fun. We went to the dollar store where they each got to pick out a toy (well, not Levi, poor guy), and then we walked over to the grocery store to get donuts and it was nice enough to sit outside to eat them! (Levi didn't get to pick out his own donut, but I DID share mine with him.) In the evening we had dinner with the other families that we just took our parenting class with - it was kids included and that was pretty interesting. :)
Some sort of sickness has invaded us here again. Caleb has been sniffly/sneezy/coughing the last couple days, and I feel like I'm headed down that path. :(
Friday, April 19, 2013
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
11
Levi hit the 11 month milestone while Mike and I were gone! REALLY hard to believe. The last year has been a bit of a blur... I just love watching all the development that happens - the changes that occur in the first year are just amazing.
Levi has 5 teeth, with the 6th very close to peeking out. He won't do the sign for "more" - he'll grab my hands and do it, but not do it on his own, so I'm pretty sure it's a "won't", not a "can't". :) He's great at cruising around and walking while pushing something - his walker, his music table, a chair (you should see how my dining room gets rearranged...). But, he hasn't walked on his own yet and he doesn't stand without hanging on to something. I don't really encourage the walking, but I guess it doesn't make much of a difference, he's quite fast crawling and can still get into plenty of trouble!
Levi loves to see what is going on, and doesn't sit still much. When he finishes his bottle, he twists around and gets off my lap instantly. I could use an extra hand or two when changing his diaper - his wigglyness combined with trying to turn and see what the other boys are doing makes it quite a challenge.
Levi isn't saying any real words, but he's definitely very vocal (um, hello, that's a necessity to survive in this family!), and I have so much fun interacting with him! He'll make a noise, I'll copy it, and he'll say it again and we'll keep going back and forth. It is getting to the point where sometimes he screams and it sounds like one of the other boys...I'll be in another room, hear a screech, start to holler at the boys not to scream in the house, only to then realize it was Levi! Another one in the mix, oh my!
I am very curious to see how all three boys interact as they get older. From the time Levi was only a few months old and Caleb was making him laugh I had visions of them getting into trouble together. A week or two ago when we actually had some slightly decent weather I had Levi in the swing outside and he LOVED it. When Caleb was pushing him he was laughing and laughing, but then when Logan pushed him he got quiet. Hmmmm...
Levi loves watching Sadie outside, and he also likes to wave at Mike when he gets home from work. I CAN'T WAIT for the weather to get nicer so we can be outside more! It's going to be a challenge for sure with Levi at this stage, but I'm getting pretty sick of being cooped up in the house. We went to the library today for the second time (went for the first time last week), and it's actually pretty manageable now. Caleb and Logan can be quiet enough, and they have fun looking at books, and there are puzzles and things Levi can play with.
Levi has 5 teeth, with the 6th very close to peeking out. He won't do the sign for "more" - he'll grab my hands and do it, but not do it on his own, so I'm pretty sure it's a "won't", not a "can't". :) He's great at cruising around and walking while pushing something - his walker, his music table, a chair (you should see how my dining room gets rearranged...). But, he hasn't walked on his own yet and he doesn't stand without hanging on to something. I don't really encourage the walking, but I guess it doesn't make much of a difference, he's quite fast crawling and can still get into plenty of trouble!
Levi loves to see what is going on, and doesn't sit still much. When he finishes his bottle, he twists around and gets off my lap instantly. I could use an extra hand or two when changing his diaper - his wigglyness combined with trying to turn and see what the other boys are doing makes it quite a challenge.
Levi isn't saying any real words, but he's definitely very vocal (um, hello, that's a necessity to survive in this family!), and I have so much fun interacting with him! He'll make a noise, I'll copy it, and he'll say it again and we'll keep going back and forth. It is getting to the point where sometimes he screams and it sounds like one of the other boys...I'll be in another room, hear a screech, start to holler at the boys not to scream in the house, only to then realize it was Levi! Another one in the mix, oh my!
I am very curious to see how all three boys interact as they get older. From the time Levi was only a few months old and Caleb was making him laugh I had visions of them getting into trouble together. A week or two ago when we actually had some slightly decent weather I had Levi in the swing outside and he LOVED it. When Caleb was pushing him he was laughing and laughing, but then when Logan pushed him he got quiet. Hmmmm...
Levi loves watching Sadie outside, and he also likes to wave at Mike when he gets home from work. I CAN'T WAIT for the weather to get nicer so we can be outside more! It's going to be a challenge for sure with Levi at this stage, but I'm getting pretty sick of being cooped up in the house. We went to the library today for the second time (went for the first time last week), and it's actually pretty manageable now. Caleb and Logan can be quiet enough, and they have fun looking at books, and there are puzzles and things Levi can play with.
Monday, April 8, 2013
trip
Here are the boys all dressed up for Easter... No time for a pic before church, and after church everyone's a little disheveled, and Levi's tired and cranky and ready for a nap!
We enjoyed eating at Chick-fil-A a few times.
We had dinner with some of Mike's family at the VanBeek's. Nice time with family, and the kids had a little egg hunt. It was nice that there were separate hunts for the babies and big kids. :) Levi did pretty good! Mike and I were fairly impressed that he kinda sorta had the hang of it.
Last Tuesday night Mike and I were able to go on a date! Pretty inexpensive one, too. :) Our babysitter is working off some of what she owes for me doing her engagement photos, we won a gift certificate to Carrabba's at our parenting class that we just finished, and we still have movie tickets to use that our babysitter gave us at Christmas. It was fun and I especially enjoyed sitting in the middle of Mike's new truck (something I haven't been able to do since he bought the Dodge when we were dating...). :)
Thursday evening Mike and I headed out on an adventure! We dropped the kids off at VanBeek's, and my mom brought us to the airport. We flew down to Florida, got in late, spent the night with Mike's grandparents, had breakfast and a little time to visit with them in the morning, then headed over to Lakeland to get my grandma's dog and van. We picked up the dog from the ladies that were watching her over the past week while my grandma was already back in Michigan - oh my. Sweet, sweet ladies, but they were something else! So anyways, Friday afternoon we started making the trek back to Michigan. Drove a few hours that day, almost 12 hours on Saturday, and then a few hours Sunday morning. Not exactly a relaxing vacation, but it was nice to have time together without the kids, and we really didn't mind the dog either.
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We enjoyed eating at Chick-fil-A a few times.
Our BRIGHT blue rental car - the pic doesn't do it justice.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
run
Saturday, Mike and I ran in a 5K in Hudsonville. We were both pretty excited about it - it was my first race since June 2011, and Mike's first since May 2012. Mike is much, much faster than I, but we were both pleased with our finish times - we definitely want to improve before the next one, but we did decent for now. I am signed up for a 5K in mid April, and we are both signed up for the River Bank Run 5K in mid May.
Running has been great. I still don't like it, and I haven't improved as fast as I'd like to, BUT I keep going because I feel so good. Most of the time I am super energized all day after I run, and I actually want to eat better usually (except today, for some reason I just want to snack, snack, snack...and after the race on Saturday I wanted to eat like I ran a marathon even though it was only a 5K...). I am completely enjoying being more of my own person than I have been in a very long time - it's such a freeing feeling to not be trying to get pregnant, pregnant, or breastfeeding. I keep trying to figure out how I'm going to keep up with running once Mike gets into his busy season, and I don't know how that's all going to work yet, but I definitely don't want to stop or it's going to be that much harder to start back up again next winter.
Friday night we went out for pizza as a family. I really wish I had videoed it to look back on about 15 years from now. I have visions of all my boys being teenagers and each needing their own large pizza. For now, Caleb usually won't eat pizza and it even took some coaxing to get him to eat a bit of a cheese breadstick (which he has eaten many times no problem). Logan did eat about half a piece of pizza and sometimes will eat quite a bit. Caleb definitely has a strong will and has completely dug in his heels about not eating at suppertime. We've been trying various approaches and so far we are making no headway. :) One thing that has become very clear over the last months that we've been dealing with this, is that it is an obedience issue and not a food issue. What's also frustrating is that overall he is really doing well with obedience in other areas - he's just decided to be stubborn about this one thing. I really, really hope that someday he can use that strong will for something super good and awesome!! :)
Levi continues to become more and more interactive. He LOVES watching his brothers and often wants to be in on what they are doing. For the most part they are still really "in his face" and love their little brother, but I'm starting to see some frustration when he goes after some of their toys or messes up something they are playing with. As he's gotten mobile there's been more incidents, too, where he's definitely learning to be the tough little brother - ex: he's crawling for the bathroom, and one of the boys pulls on his leg to drag him back...
It is such a joy to watch Caleb and Logan observing the world around them and asking questions. I DO get tired of some of the questions, and many of them stump me, but I love it that they are paying attention to what's going on and thinking about it. We had communion in church Sunday, so of course there were some questions about that. Randomly today Logan told me he didn't want to get baptized... Hmmm.... We'll work on that. :)
One thing I have to make a note of for when I read this stuff years from now, Caleb and Logan (esp. Caleb) are into Rescue Bots right now. They love watching the show on tv (thank you, Netflix!), and often when they are playing on their own I will hear Caleb saying, "Rescue Bots, roll to the rescue!" We have been trying to use a Rescue Bots toy as a motivator for Caleb to eat (I'm not ready to call it a bribe....), but so far it hasn't worked even though he clearly wants it SOOO bad.
Another quiet time is done already - gotta run!
Running has been great. I still don't like it, and I haven't improved as fast as I'd like to, BUT I keep going because I feel so good. Most of the time I am super energized all day after I run, and I actually want to eat better usually (except today, for some reason I just want to snack, snack, snack...and after the race on Saturday I wanted to eat like I ran a marathon even though it was only a 5K...). I am completely enjoying being more of my own person than I have been in a very long time - it's such a freeing feeling to not be trying to get pregnant, pregnant, or breastfeeding. I keep trying to figure out how I'm going to keep up with running once Mike gets into his busy season, and I don't know how that's all going to work yet, but I definitely don't want to stop or it's going to be that much harder to start back up again next winter.
Friday night we went out for pizza as a family. I really wish I had videoed it to look back on about 15 years from now. I have visions of all my boys being teenagers and each needing their own large pizza. For now, Caleb usually won't eat pizza and it even took some coaxing to get him to eat a bit of a cheese breadstick (which he has eaten many times no problem). Logan did eat about half a piece of pizza and sometimes will eat quite a bit. Caleb definitely has a strong will and has completely dug in his heels about not eating at suppertime. We've been trying various approaches and so far we are making no headway. :) One thing that has become very clear over the last months that we've been dealing with this, is that it is an obedience issue and not a food issue. What's also frustrating is that overall he is really doing well with obedience in other areas - he's just decided to be stubborn about this one thing. I really, really hope that someday he can use that strong will for something super good and awesome!! :)
Levi continues to become more and more interactive. He LOVES watching his brothers and often wants to be in on what they are doing. For the most part they are still really "in his face" and love their little brother, but I'm starting to see some frustration when he goes after some of their toys or messes up something they are playing with. As he's gotten mobile there's been more incidents, too, where he's definitely learning to be the tough little brother - ex: he's crawling for the bathroom, and one of the boys pulls on his leg to drag him back...
It is such a joy to watch Caleb and Logan observing the world around them and asking questions. I DO get tired of some of the questions, and many of them stump me, but I love it that they are paying attention to what's going on and thinking about it. We had communion in church Sunday, so of course there were some questions about that. Randomly today Logan told me he didn't want to get baptized... Hmmm.... We'll work on that. :)
One thing I have to make a note of for when I read this stuff years from now, Caleb and Logan (esp. Caleb) are into Rescue Bots right now. They love watching the show on tv (thank you, Netflix!), and often when they are playing on their own I will hear Caleb saying, "Rescue Bots, roll to the rescue!" We have been trying to use a Rescue Bots toy as a motivator for Caleb to eat (I'm not ready to call it a bribe....), but so far it hasn't worked even though he clearly wants it SOOO bad.
Another quiet time is done already - gotta run!
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
snowy
It's the first day of Spring and it's cold and snowy here - I guess that's a little more normal than how it was last year. I am definitely ready for it to warm up a little and make playing outside easier. We're getting cabin fever over here!
Last week Caleb and Logan had their first dentist appointment. It was early in the morning out in GR, so Levi spent the night at Grandpa and Grandma's. :) The dentist was awesome and the boys did great. Logan especially was a little shy/scared at first, but he watched Caleb go first and then did great when it was his turn. The dentist did a wonderful job of getting the boys at ease and interested in what he was doing - they got to push the button to make the chair recline, turn on the light, press the pedal for the toothbrush, squirt the water thingie, etc. As much as we liked him, I'm not sure if we'll go back or not - it was quite a hike, and not cheap either. It was a great first introduction to the dentist so at least so far they're not scared of it, but maybe now we'll find someone closer to home and hopefully more reasonably priced.
Friday night and Saturday I had the opportunity to go to our Ladies Retreat at church (Thank you, Honey!!). It was right at church, which made it easier to go, and it was a really nice time. We had fun with a scavenger hunt to get things kicked off Friday night (our team won!), and Saturday I had the privilege of teaching a couple photography workshops. I team taught with my friend who is super crafty and talked about things you can do with your photos. We had a great speaker who taught a few sessions, and they had some great door prizes. I won a 1 hour massage! Can't wait to use that. :)
Then Sunday afternoon I had fun shooting our babysitter's engagement photos. Sad that we'll be losing a babysitter this summer, but happy for her. :) It's a rather short engagement, so she's rushing around trying to get a bunch done, and her fiance is in school on the other side of the state, so this weekend was pretty much our only opportunity to get engagement photos done! It was super sunny and pretty cold, but we found some nice shady spots and toughed out the cold. :) Either I'm too used to photographing small children who won't sit still, or the two of them actually are very photogenic. :)
Monday night was our second to last parenting class that we've been taking this winter. We've been meeting since October, so it's been a long time, but so worth it and we really enjoy the other couples in the class.
We've been dealing with our first sickness since the holidays - I can hardly believe we've made it that long!
Levi has gotten pretty good at climbing the stairs - still have to stay right behind him, but he loves to do it and heads for the stairs every opportunity he gets.
Last week Caleb and Logan had their first dentist appointment. It was early in the morning out in GR, so Levi spent the night at Grandpa and Grandma's. :) The dentist was awesome and the boys did great. Logan especially was a little shy/scared at first, but he watched Caleb go first and then did great when it was his turn. The dentist did a wonderful job of getting the boys at ease and interested in what he was doing - they got to push the button to make the chair recline, turn on the light, press the pedal for the toothbrush, squirt the water thingie, etc. As much as we liked him, I'm not sure if we'll go back or not - it was quite a hike, and not cheap either. It was a great first introduction to the dentist so at least so far they're not scared of it, but maybe now we'll find someone closer to home and hopefully more reasonably priced.
Friday night and Saturday I had the opportunity to go to our Ladies Retreat at church (Thank you, Honey!!). It was right at church, which made it easier to go, and it was a really nice time. We had fun with a scavenger hunt to get things kicked off Friday night (our team won!), and Saturday I had the privilege of teaching a couple photography workshops. I team taught with my friend who is super crafty and talked about things you can do with your photos. We had a great speaker who taught a few sessions, and they had some great door prizes. I won a 1 hour massage! Can't wait to use that. :)
Then Sunday afternoon I had fun shooting our babysitter's engagement photos. Sad that we'll be losing a babysitter this summer, but happy for her. :) It's a rather short engagement, so she's rushing around trying to get a bunch done, and her fiance is in school on the other side of the state, so this weekend was pretty much our only opportunity to get engagement photos done! It was super sunny and pretty cold, but we found some nice shady spots and toughed out the cold. :) Either I'm too used to photographing small children who won't sit still, or the two of them actually are very photogenic. :)
Monday night was our second to last parenting class that we've been taking this winter. We've been meeting since October, so it's been a long time, but so worth it and we really enjoy the other couples in the class.
We've been dealing with our first sickness since the holidays - I can hardly believe we've made it that long!
Levi has gotten pretty good at climbing the stairs - still have to stay right behind him, but he loves to do it and heads for the stairs every opportunity he gets.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
behind
I'm a little behind in posting! Nothing major happening, I guess. Just the normal, everyday chaos of life with three little boys. :) A couple weekends ago we had a great sledding day with the cousins. Even Levi got in on the fun. He wasn't too thrilled when I was pulling him on the sled next door, but he did fine riding with me in the sled behind the tractor. Of course Caleb and Logan had tons of fun sledding with their cousins, and Caleb would have kept going all day if he could have! Part way through there was a small incident where he fell out of the sled, got a little hurt (could have been much, much worse but thankfully wasn't), and he was more afraid that we were going to make him stop and go in the house! :)
Last weekend we were busy helping put on a dinner for our friends who will be leaving for the missionfield soon. They are going to Italy, so of course we had an Italian dinner! It was a fundraising dinner to help with their expenses for travel and set-up - we had a great turn out, everything went well with the food and such, and the Lord really blessed them financially! It's exciting to be a part of something like that, and I really hope it's not too long before we can visit them in Italy... :)
Levi is like a whole new baby on this formula we've been giving him. There is almost no spit-up - I even dare go to another room without a burp rag, something that would have been unheard of a while back! I do believe there is a dairy sensitivity - I tried yogurt and that didn't go well, and I don't think he was feeling too well after he ate a bunch of mac'n'cheese either. So, none of that stuff for now, but he practically inhales lots of other stuff! I have a hard time keeping up with him. He loves banana, apple, pear, pumpkin, carrots, peas, squash, avocado, black beans... He's making lots of new noises, it's so fun! Can definitely tell that he's trying to "say" something.
Caleb and Logan continue to be full of questions. All. The. Time. They just want to figure everything out! The snow has been fun to play in, but I think I'm ready for nicer weather so that it's easier to go outside and play. Going just a little stir crazy in the house all the time. They don't get outside much during the day now because it takes such an effort to get dressed for it, and it's hard with Levi. They have both been doing very well in church - not perfect, but I'd say pretty good for three-year-olds. :) Logan was pretty sad the other night when we were watching the kids choir sing and he wanted to be singing up there with his friends - it was pretty cute. If we choose to do it that would be in Kindergarten, I believe.
We've had some food battles with Caleb lately that really wear me out, but we'll hang in there. :) We're not asking him to do anything crazy, just has to try one bite, but he really digs in and gets stubborn....wonder where he gets that from??
Last weekend we were busy helping put on a dinner for our friends who will be leaving for the missionfield soon. They are going to Italy, so of course we had an Italian dinner! It was a fundraising dinner to help with their expenses for travel and set-up - we had a great turn out, everything went well with the food and such, and the Lord really blessed them financially! It's exciting to be a part of something like that, and I really hope it's not too long before we can visit them in Italy... :)
Levi is like a whole new baby on this formula we've been giving him. There is almost no spit-up - I even dare go to another room without a burp rag, something that would have been unheard of a while back! I do believe there is a dairy sensitivity - I tried yogurt and that didn't go well, and I don't think he was feeling too well after he ate a bunch of mac'n'cheese either. So, none of that stuff for now, but he practically inhales lots of other stuff! I have a hard time keeping up with him. He loves banana, apple, pear, pumpkin, carrots, peas, squash, avocado, black beans... He's making lots of new noises, it's so fun! Can definitely tell that he's trying to "say" something.
Caleb and Logan continue to be full of questions. All. The. Time. They just want to figure everything out! The snow has been fun to play in, but I think I'm ready for nicer weather so that it's easier to go outside and play. Going just a little stir crazy in the house all the time. They don't get outside much during the day now because it takes such an effort to get dressed for it, and it's hard with Levi. They have both been doing very well in church - not perfect, but I'd say pretty good for three-year-olds. :) Logan was pretty sad the other night when we were watching the kids choir sing and he wanted to be singing up there with his friends - it was pretty cute. If we choose to do it that would be in Kindergarten, I believe.
We've had some food battles with Caleb lately that really wear me out, but we'll hang in there. :) We're not asking him to do anything crazy, just has to try one bite, but he really digs in and gets stubborn....wonder where he gets that from??
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