The Big 3-0!

Last Saturday Dave turned 30! He hit this big milestone without much of a protest claiming that he was feeling pretty good about his life and where he is in it. Well said Dave! He has accomplished so much in his 30 years and has had a ton of fun doing it. We got to celebrate him a little bit on his actual birthday and we're going to celebrate some more this weekend with a little over night trip to San Diego. Last Saturday he woke up to a happy baby (who slept through the night!), banana pancakes and homemade lattes, a quick shopping trip to Santa Monica and dinner at the Union Cattle Company with a great group of friends. We had Levi in tow so we wanted to find a restaurant that could house a big group inside (it was supposed to rain) and be loud enough that the kids wouldn't make a scene. Success! We had great food, lots of laughs and we made it through our first restaurant meal with 5 kids! It was an adventure!

The birthday boy and his little man looking good!

 With a group of 22 of some of our closest friends, Levi to feed and corral, and the excitement of the evening, I only took three pictures. They're not even that good. Oh well. You'll just have to put up with my feeble attempts to document the dinner and just realize that the fewer the pictures = the greater the fun!

Ben, (Amy who is hidden in this picture), Brandon, Tim, Jonathan & Lacey
All listening to Dave tell a very funny story!

Matt and Wes
I'm sure this was something witty that I said. Haha, ok it was probably Dave again!

Proof that we had the kids! (Minus the Souders who had just left)
Alison & McKenna, Krista & Abigail, Me & Levi, Becky & Kylie.

It was a great night and we really appreciate all of our friends who came out to help us celebrate Dave's birthday. These are the people that make the South Bay our home and we love living life with them. I think I can speak for Dave in saying that he is very blessed in this life that he leads, and we are very blessed for getting to live it with him! I love him very much and so does Levi! Happy 30th Birthday Dave!!!

Next up, our first night away from Levi and another celebration in San Diego! Woo hoo!

Long Beach Aquarium

Two weekends ago we went to the Long Beach Aquarium with our good friends, the Smarts. Levi loves fish (thanks to Uncle Charlie's really cool fish tank) and it was definitely a hit. He loved all the tanks that had the bright colored, salt water fish and was fearless when it came to trying to touch things in the sting ray tank (don't worry Grandma, he didn't actually touch any fish just some cold water)!

Kylie & Levi

He wasn't too sure of this big guy.
(Thanks for this great shot Becky!)

Family Photo in front of the sea lion tank.

Watching the sea lions with Daddy.

Waiting to make his move on the sting rays.

All boy!

It was a really fun day and some place I'm sure we'll be back to many times to entertain the kids. Thanks Smart family, for the great idea and a fun afternoon!

6 Months

Levi is 6 Months Old!

20 lbs.

28 inches

90th percentile across the board.

This little tank is still growing! He's had a pretty great month despite having his first real cold. His reflux seems to be getting under control, he's mastering the art of solid foods and is sleeping a little better. He is on a pretty good schedule these days (that he seems to have come up with himself) and it is making our days a little more predictable. He has figured out how to roll wherever he wants to go and is still using that as a mode of transportation. We think he's about to crawl any day now, but after spending two weeks up in Modesto he didn't get much time on the floor to practice! He has figured out how to pull himself up on the bumper in his crib so when I went in to pick him up from nap times I could see his little head poking above the rail. Needless to say, we moved his crib down to the lowest setting. It didn't seem to phase him but it definitely makes it a little harder on his short mom. He is squealing at everything and I'm constantly thinking that strange people are smiling and waving at me only to realize it's the little flirt in my arms. He's eating three solid meals a day and still loving his apples. I'm making most of his food and have found it to be fun and pretty easy to do. We also picked up some Gerber puffs and figured it was a little early to start him with them but he picked them up with his two chubby little fingers and proceeded to feed himself... guess he's ready! He has had a couple of weeks of great sleeping (10+ hours a night) and then he goes back to bi-nightly wake ups. I think he's just that child that needs some extra attention in the middle of the night. Thankfully, he usually goes right back down after a quick snuggle or a quick feed. It definitely could be worse. He is getting more interactive every day and my favorite time with him is when he first wakes up and is super smiley and talkative or at the end of the day when we get to lay on the floor and roll around and wrestle with Daddy.

It's hard to take a picture (or do anything Levi related) without Hannity wanting in on the action.

Auntie Sarah came to visit for the afternoon and helped get these great pictures!

Auntie Sarah trying to entice a crawl out of our little mover.

From sitting to all fours. He's got the rocking back and forth motion but so far no forward movement.
(Also notice his little bandaids from his 6m shots yesterday :(. )

So close! Any day now and he'll find something he's interested in enough to move for. My guess is it will be the dog!

Valentines Surprise

Dave and I had been apart for the past two weeks so it was fitting that our first weekend back home together was Valentines Day weekend. It was so nice to see him and give him our tile surprise but my favorite part of getting him home was watching how excited he was to run upstairs and look at Levi in his crib. I put Levi to bed before I picked Dave up at the airport (my Dad and brother were still in town to watch him) and so Dave missed out on seeing his smiley face. So he quietly crept into his room and picked him and cuddled him for a few minutes before he was ready to come back downstairs. I just melted! 

On Saturday we just played catch up around the house--laundry, cleaning, relaxing, enjoying each other's company. I had some leftover cleaning to do from our demo and in the very back portion of my cabinet I found my old espresso maker (thanks Mom & Dad for christmas circa 2002!) and crepe maker! We figured out how to work it and enjoyed quite a few (too many) homemade lattes. We've been together long enough (this was our 8th V day) to know the way to each other's hearts... For me= the bright red tulips that were sitting on our kitchen table when he got back from running errands. For him= the chicken cordon bleu I made him for dinner that night. That's LOVE! :)

We went to church on Sunday which is always nice when we've been away. The ladies in the nursery were excited to see Levi and he seems excited to be there. After the service they gave us this craft that all the kids made:

A lovely little Valentines Day poem...

And then what we can only assume was supposed to be a picture of his hand???
We think his chubby little foot is cute too, but it doesn't make much sense like this! :)

I knew Dave had also made surprise dinner plans. (I wasn't snooping, it was cryptically written "dinner" on our shared google calendar!) My sister showed up Sunday afternoon to babysit Levi (thanks again Sarah!) and Dave told me we had to be dressed and out the door by 5:15. (Which, btw, I was a little concerned that we're getting so old that we had to have dinner reservations at 5:30 on a Sunday night!) He told me we could walk to where we were going so as we walked down our street he kept trying to get me to guess. I was doing a horrible job guessing so we just enjoyed our walk together and then all of a sudden I looked into a storefront window and saw people we knew! Our friends Krista and Dave were standing inside the place that offers cooking classes. For a split second I thought "coincidence" and then three more couples arrived and we knew our men had been in on the planning together. It was such a fun night of laughing and eating and even a little cooking. We learned how to make breadsticks, a salad, this fantastic eggplant dish, shrimp scampi and a chocolate dessert. What a great idea guys!

Dave was an expert chopper!

All the girls:
Krista, Megan, Becky, Alison, Sheri 

The whole group.

Home Improvement

While Dave was out of town my Dad and brother came down to help update our kitchen tile. It was about 30 years old and looked like it! We got into town on Tuesday at 3pm and worked until Dave got home on Thursday night. It was a TON of work but I'm really pleased with the results. 

The Before.
Old, off-white tile, rusted sink and faucet with calcification on it. No amount of scrubbing made this kitchen sparkle.

All wrapped up and ready for demo!

We demo'd into open cabinets and had to start from scratch.

Working the power tools! 

Finally starting to tile.
(Someone told me that it isn't really work unless someone is wearing their Carharts!)

Bryan came just in the nick of time to be our expert tile cutter.

A shiny new sink and faucet.

Did I mention that Levi "helped" too?!

The finished product.

The best part of the whole remodel!!

Thanks Dad and Bryan for all your hard work to get this done before Dave got home-- he was so surprised! 

Work Travel

While Dad's on work travel, Mom and Levi get to play at Grandma and Grandpa's house! Dave was out of town for two weeks and we went to stay with my folks for the week. We got to see Uncle Charlie and Auntie Christina's new house, we hung out with Grandma and Grandpa Lockridge, we took lots of walks with the dogs, turned 6 months old and enjoyed our time in Modesto.

We checked to see if Levi could use the headphones in the car. (We were getting a little tired of his kids worship music!) Turns out that he liked the headphones and even gave us a little thumbs up!

Playing with cousin Ashley. She found a basket of balls and decided he could fit in it. She's about the become a big sister to a second baby brother so she knows all about what little boys like!

Aunt Sharon and Uncle Lance's house is always fun because they have so many toys. Here's Levi checking out the swing for the first time. He has the basketball ball in hand because he's ALL boy!

Dad may have been gone but we made sure Levi watched his first Superbowl with Grandpa!

Visiting with Mom, Grandma and Great Grandma.

Grandpa rode back to LA with us. Here was our impromptu lunch at the Flying J truck stop in Bakersfield. Levi did so well on the ride home!

We came home a few days early to do a little surprise home improvement project for Dave... Pictures to follow!

Happy 1/2 Birthday