Happy 1st Birthday Levi!!

Here is my happy 1 year old boy. Yesterday we had his birthday party. It was definitely a full day. There was cleaning, baking, cooking and decorating to do in preparation for the big event. We did a frog theme for his party. Guests were greeted with lily pads leading up to the door and a sign on the door that said, "Hop on In!"




When they came into the diningroom, they found streamers hanging from the ceiling (to give the feel of a swamp) and a sign that said "Hoppy 1st Birthday Levi!" He was napping when we did the decorating and was completely fascinated by the streamers when he awoke.




For dinner we served frog legs(breadsticks), frog food (veggies and dip), swamp drink (punch made from lime sherbet and 7-up), fettucine with green alfredo sauce, Italian beef sandwiches, pistachio salad, grape salad, and chips and dip. For dessert, there was a frog cake and flies on a frog ice cream (mint chocolate chip). My mom always made us these great cakes in the shape of something for our birthdays and I have tried to carry on that tradition for my children until they got too old to want that kind of cake. I even have the book my mom used. Thanks for sharing it with me mom!



When it was time to have cake, we put him back in his high chair. He was fussing about gong back in until everyone started singing "Happy Birthday" to him. Then he stopped fussing and his face looked like this:



He really enjoyed the frosting on the piece of cake that we frosted for him. He was a little bit thrown off by the size of it and by the fact that I had put it on a plate. Once we took a smaller piece off and put it directly on the tray, he dug right in and squeezed the cake between his hands.






In between eating cake and opening gifts, Levi decided to sneak away for an excursion upstairs. He got as far as the landing and decided that he didn't like having anyone else around and started to let us know it. You would have thought that with all the people that we had for the party, someone would have seen him starting up the stairs but no one did. I could laugh about it because praise God he didn't fall down the steps in the midst of climbing up them.

After opening gifts, the kids played outside for a little bit before heading for home. Levi kept going to the door wanting to play outside with the kids. It was cute! Maybe next year he can join them outside.





He must have been really tired out from the party because he went to bed about 8:30 and slept until 7:50 this morning (and some of you thought he wouldn't sleep after having some swamp drink and cake with frosting)! When I went in his room he was sitting at the far end of is crib with the biggest smile on his face. I picked him up and started singing to him and his smile got even bigger (if that is even possible). All morning getting ready for church he was just so giggly and goofy and happy. Then, when it came time to go to church and we put him in his car seat facing forward, well, that was just the icing on the cake!!

After we got home from church he was so tired out because he didn't nap, so we didn't get to give him present number 1 until he woke up and just before taking Rachel and her friend Amber to camp. Of course, he loved playing with the ribbon. After we got home from taking Rachel to camp, we called grandpa and grandma in Wisconsin and they sang to him as well. When he heard them start singing, he started smiling. It was so cute! I'm not quite sure he understood everything but I certainly think he enjoyed his first birthday!!




Oh, and in the midst of getting ready for the party, we went looking at two cars for Rachel and ended up buying one. She is over the top excited about it. It has a sun-roof and cruise!!

Meeting Michigan Relatives

On Tuesday night my sister-in-law and niece arrived from Michigan to visit for a couple of days. This is the first time they were able to meet Levi. They absolutely loved him and he definitely showed off for them. Last night he opened his birthday gift from them because they have to leave tomorrow and he was rather comical. He worked hard getting off the ribbon and then was more than content to play with that and not go any further in the gift opening. He carried that ribbon all over the place - got it stuck between his toes a few times - and was rather upset when we tried to take it away from him.

Tonight we went to a local Chinese restaurant. It is a small restaurant and the woman who owns it is very friendly. I think she must work every hour it is open. If you looked at it from the outside you might not go into it, but it really is worth going to because the food is good. Tonight my mother-in-law was introducing her to everyone and told her that Levi was her new grandson that was adopted from Vietnam just 3 months ago. She told us that she could tell by his eyes that he is a smart boy. I found that very interesting as an older lady in Vietnam told us the same thing. He watched her the entire time we were there. It was as if he felt a familiarity with her. When she turned on some Asian music, his feet and legs and his whole body seemed to come alive and move with the music. It was truly an amazing thing to watch.

Remembering Great Aunt Lucille

On Friday night, my husband's great aunt Lucille passed away. She was his grandmother's sister and the last of the three sisters still living. Since Rachel started working at the nursing home last summer, she had grown quite close to her great, great aunt. She would make it a point of stopping in to visit with her every time she worked. At Homecoming, we stopped by the nursing home to show Lucille and some of the other residents her dress. It was then that we took this picture.

On Tuesday when we went to the visitation, Lucille's daughter and son-in-law made a point of telling both Rachel and I how much those visits meant to Lucille. They told us that Rachel's visits put a sparkle in her eyes. As a mother, it did my heart good to hear those things. I am also grateful that Rachel had the opportunity to get to know her great, great aunt. As she said, she was kind of like a great grandma to her as her great grandma (aunt Lucille's sister), was not well for most of Rachel's growing up years and diesd several years ago. We gave this picture to Lucille's daughter and 2 granddaughters.

I attended the funeral while Rachel stayed home with Levi. It was a beautiful funeral and a wonderful trivute to a woman that I wish I would have had more of an opportunity to know better. She was remembered as a gentle, quiet and dignified woman who loved her family and loved flowers and birds. She could probably ell you the name of every flower in the bouquets at her funeral. She was someone who knew what it meant to be slow to speak and quick to listen. She loved to travel and as the minister shared, she was even just recently planning another trip with a fellow resident and friend - an "escape" from the home!

In Matthew 6:25-30, Jesus tells us not to worry. He tells us to look at the birds and to consider the lillies of the field. These were two things that great aunt Lucille really liked and Jesus used them to teach us a lesson. He tells us not to worry because the birds of the air do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet our Heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't we more valuable than they? The lillies (or any other flowers) do not labor or spin and yet even Soloman in all his splendor was not dressed like one of them. Again, if God will do this for the flowers which are here today and then wither and die in a short time, will He not also do it for us? Aunt Lucille seemed to have learned this lesson well. I think that I too need to learn this lesson. How about you?

3 Months Home

Today marks 3 months since we arrived home as a family of three. Technically, we arrived in the States on Saturday the 7th but Rachel wasn't with us until the 8th, nor did we arrive at our house until then. As I look back at those 3 months I am amazed at how far my little man has come. The day we came home he started crawling. And now he is walking all over the place - he doesn't even need anything to help him stand up. If he falls, he just gets right back up and away he goes. Needless to say, I get nothing accomplished while he is awake.

He has such determination, which I do love most of the time. Today he got mad at me because I blocked him with my arm from getting the TV remote from the back edge of the couch. He just took my hand and moved it away with a look to match. Rachel and I just laughed at him. The other day he was trying to push something and I had it anchored with my foot so he couldn't move it and hurt himself. So, he started trying to pull it instead.

He has adjusted well to nap times and bed times and rarely ever throws a fit about going to sleep. That is such a change from the screaming we did early on for naps and bedtimes.

He has gone from just drinking formula to eating all kinds of foods. We have been gradually introducing him to table foods (or so they are called) as opposed to baby food. He does like most of what we have tried.

I can hardly believe that it has only been 3 months. It seems as if he has been with us forever!

Hey!
This is Rachel
:D

Hugs and Kisses

This morning I got the best present from Levi. He slept in until 6:50 and then when we sat on the couch together, he kept leaning in to hug me and then leaned in on the other side and gave me not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 open mouth kisses on the cheek. It was the sweetest thing ever.

Thank you to those praying for Rachel. She is still a little sore this morning but that is to be expected.

As I was working on this post, I decided that I needed to have a picture to go with it. As I was about to stand up to get my camera, Levi stood up without anything to pull up on and started walking. He then proceeded to do it over and over again so I know it wasn't a fluke. Now I am really going to have to watch him!!

Oh, and I wasn't able to get a good picture of him yet. He kept moving too much!

Officially Summer Vacation

Hooray! Today at 10:00 summer vacation officially began for me! Rachel was on summer vacation as of 3:00 Monday but I still had to finish up all of the myriad of paperwork and cleaning necessary to close out a school year. I was just starting to get back into the swing of things so it was hard to make a u-turn to end it. Let's just say that it took me a lot longer to do things that other years didn't take me so long to do.

To start out the summer, we all got haircuts. This was Levi's first one.


Levi and mommy with the cape on ready to start the haircut



He was rather squirmy during the haircut so we had to help hold his hands and his head at times so that Kat could get it cut nice.


Here's my handsome young man with his new haircut that makes him look so grown-up.

After haircuts, my friend Sue babysat so that I could take Rachel to have a cyst removed from her back. She did really well! The doctor said that it was quite deep. I thought that I heard him say that he could see muscle it had gone so deep. I hope that she doesn't have any pain the next couple of days when everything wears off. The doctor told her to be careful because if she puts too much stress and pull on it the scar will be bigger. Right now it should be just a little one. We will go back in 2 weeks to get the stitches out. That means I will have to pick her up from camp to take her there and then take her back to camp when finished.


Last week Levi started drinking from a sippy cup. At first, he would laugh whenever you put the cup to his mouth. After a couple of times, he finally got the idea and stopped the giggling. The only problem then was that he would get mad when you would take it from him, which you had to do after awhile as he would begin to bang it on his tray. Then, just this week, he started making this funny face as he wa drinking from his cup. This picture doesn't really show you just how funny it is. It certainly makes us laugh!