sibling love

Do you see that verse in my right sidebar? It's a great one for siblings. I'll definitely be adding it to our memory verse box!

"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and with truth."
1 John 3:18

Come to think of it, it's a great (challenging sometimes) verse for married couples as well. :)

Top Eleven

Levi Bear is 11 months old. He's nearly 12 months, but I'm doing all I can to distract myself from that sad fact. I never commemorated his 11 months because of my camera issues. (If you're lost, I mentioned it here.)

In no particular order, here are 11 things I want to remember about my Levi.

1. He is obsessed with Zoe. His favorite spot in the house is standing, supported by the window sill, at the living room window facing the back yard. I just leave the blinds up all the time now. He's also started barking at her. It doesn't really sound like a bark, but the first time he did it, I was holding him and Zoe barked. Levi looked toward the back yard and made his barking sound. He won't do this on command, so don't even bother. :)
2. His eyes are still blue. This surprises me. Bryan and I both have brown eyes and our girls have brown eyes. Addi was about 8 months old before her eyes changed from blue and Libby was younger than that, so I really expected his eyes to be brown by now.
3. He finally has teeth! Two to be exact. They came in about a day apart and (knock on some very heavy wood) weren't a big deal at all.
4. Levi's a professional crawler! No attempts at walking, standing on his own, or really even cruising have been made by our little boy. But he loves to crawl really fast, pull up on everything, and climb the stairs.
5. He's gone from laughing at "No" to completely ignoring it. The laughing was sort of cute, the ignoring, not so much! Sometimes, he'll shake his head with a look-how-cute-I-am smile plastered on his face if you tell him "No" more than once. That happens a lot. Think he knows exactly what he's doing?!
6. Levi has started patting my on my shoulder when I'm about to put him to bed. The routine is: I hand him his pacifier and blanket, he turns his body and pats my shoulder, then he lays his head down on my shoulder and stays perfectly still while I rock him, sing him a song, and then lay him in his bed. I wish we could keep that up until he's 14!
7. His other obsession is the remote. We have a couple, but he prefers the tv remote. In times of desperation, I've handed him the dvd remote before and it's no good. Apparently.
8. He loves crawling under things. Tables, chairs, beds, you name it! He also loves banging on everything. That is one of the differences I've noticed between the genders - Boys are loud! That and besides the word "MaMa", he grunts!
9. Levi is sleeping a lot these days. He is usually up by 7:15, takes a morning nap at 9, takes an afternoon nap at 3, and is in bed by 7:30. His ideal schedule would probably be to sleep until 8, morning nap at 10, afternoon nap at 2 and bedtime at 6:30, but we can't really make that work with Addi in kindergarten. The past two days he's slept from his afternoon nap until I wake him up about 11 to eat and then he's gone right back to bed until morningtime. Poor Bryan hasn't seen him since Monday!
10. He is still nursing about 3 times a day and I'm trying to cut that down to 2. He's perfectly content nursing and demands it sometimes. He has to be done by April 18th because I'm not taking him to Savannah with me! I'm so thankful I was able to keep it together enough the first couple months to nurse him. He was the first baby that I thought about giving formula. I just didn't know if I could continue with how often he was wanting to eat. I knew if I could get past the first few months, the rest of the year would be a piece of cake.
11. Levi has been the greatest surprise of my life! God blessed our family with an incredible little boy and I know He has amazing things in store for Levi.

I have pictures to post, but because I don't want to deal with re-formatting this post after I add them, I'm going to post them separately below. Enjoy!

27 Day Challenge

A couple Saturdays ago, I opened my mouth before I really thought about the words pouring out.

"Let's see how long we can go without eating at a restaurant! It'll be fun!"

The events leading up to this earth-shattering-great idea included Addi begging to go out to eat at a restaurant almost every day. Once again, on that fateful Saturday, she was suggesting we eat inside a restaurant.

Any of you who've ever had a child know how much fun eating inside a restaurant can be with a baby. Let me tell you, if you don't already know, the more babies you have, the less fun it gets. So, we don't eat in restaurants like Chili's, Outback, or Babe's too often with our family of 5. We're more likely to grab Sonic, Chick Fil A, or McDonald's and eat it at home. What that means is I usually plan to cook 6 nights a week and then plan on pizza or other fast food for Friday nights. That is not close to extravagant, but I never want my children to believe buying yummy, greasy, fattening food is part of life. It is a treat and should, in my opinion, be one of the first treats to go in times of economic crisis. (Not that we personally are, but, if you haven't noticed a lot of other Americans are.) So, eliminating restaurants is easy if you don't eat at them often.

Or so I thought.

We decided, as a family, we would not buy anything from a restaurant for 27 days. NOTHING! That means no Whataburger taquitos for me after I drop Libby off at preschool or Sonic Dr. Pepper during Happy Hour. No treat after school on Fridays. No Freebirds burrito for Bryan if he forgets his sack lunch. No chocolate croissiant or coffee for me at La Madeleine's during my MOPS get together. Nothing!

It is a lot harder than I thought it'd be. Supper is not an issue at all. As I said before, I plan to cook most nights anyway and I really like to cook. The hardest part for me is little snacks while I'm running errands. Not being able to grab a Dr. Pepper and tator tots from Sonic during Happy Hour kills me! It wasn't even something I did that much. It's what I find myself missing the most.

We are not even half-way done with our challenge. Our ability to suceed will come from the accountability we have with each other. Libby isn't too into it and, of course, Levi is oblivious, but Addi is serious. She's a little drill sergeant! I'm sorry to say I've tried to tempt her more than once by pledging her the $1 ice cream sundae from Sonic. She doesn't even hesitate before she gives me a look like she's just caught me coloring on the walls. She's such a rule-follower! :)

We'll let you know if we make it to Day 27 and how yummy our meal in a restaurant is that night!

my hero

Bryan left the house early, early this morning for Reagan and me. Today is her preschool's registration day and he arrived at 4:30 to stake his place in line. Oh, yes, there was already a line at 4:30 this morning. Someone had been there since 10 last night. This is serious business, folks!

So, he sat for 4 1/2 hours listening to all the drama involved when a bunch of people (mostly females) wait to (hopefully) get what they believe best for their child(ren). The ones who follow the rules. The ones who don't. The ones who find loopholes. The ones who want justice. The ones who had no idea they needed to get in line before registration began at 8. The ones who've done this time and time before and sleep in their cars hoping to be first in line. I'm sure you can imagine. Or, then again, maybe you don't want to.

I've only had to imagine, thanks to Bryan. Last year, registration was on my due date so he took the day off in case I couldn't be there. (That was some hopeful thinking, wasn't it?!) This year I was totally planning on going, but then I had to find someone to watch the kids since kids aren't supposed to be there. Without hesitation, Bryan volunteered to go again.

I know it's not fun for him. I know he missed the first few hours of his normal work day. I know he'll be extra tired today. I know he'll have to work later than normal. I know he thinks (and I agree) getting in line at 4:30 in the morning for preschool is absurd. But, he knows Reagan and I love her preschool and he loves us, so he did this for us without complaint.

Reagan doesn't realize (or, frankly, care too much about) the sacrifice her daddy made for her this morning. She never will unless she's in the same boat with her own child(ren) one day. I do, though. It has made me remember what a good man I married.

I appreciate what you did, Bryan. Love you.

This was an inspiring and captivating read.

Make a Smilebox greeting

It was bound to happen.

With 3 kids, I'm surpised it has taken this long for me to have to say,

"We don't eat out of the trash."

wordless wednesday (oh, I do love the ease of wednesdays!)

Reagan Elizabeth @ 11 months

I can't stop with the "Not Me's!"

I did not, for the second day in a row, show up late to pick Addi up from school just because my neighbor has been picking her up every single Tuesday since August and told me last week she couldn't today. If that had happened, I would have had to wake Libby and Levi up, throw them in the stroller, run through the rain in my flip-flops and tell the same teacher I almost lost it in front of talked to yesterday that I needed to find my daughter because I was late picking her up. (Don't you know this will be the same teacher Libby will have in a couple years?!) Oh, No! Once there is a change in my schedule, I promptly type it into my calendar and remember it no matter what curve balls life throws at me.

I'm ready to start over and think I need another Monday to get it right!

And, yes, we have recovered the stroller. Apparently it blew down the alley this weekend when Bryan had the garage door open. A neighbor, not knowing whom it belonged, stuck it in another neighbor's garage. Thankfully, yet another neighbor saw it and let us know. Whew! Did you follow that?? It doesn't matter. We have it back.

Not Me! Monday

I've been a horrible blogger this past week and I'll tell you exactly what I have not done, in MckMama fashion, while I have not been blogging.

Well, to start things off, I really meant to post last Wednesday when Levi turned 11 months old. But I needed some pictures uploaded from my camera and I most certainly did not let my camera battery die only to realize that I have not misplaced my charger. I'm much too organized to let those things happen!

Libby's book order was due on Thursday and I did not wait until the last minute to fill out the form and write a check causing much stress because I could not find the checkbook. Again, I never lose things, so that couldn't have happened! I did not instead use 3 "free" coupons I purchased a previous month only to have Libby's teacher call me because only 1 "free" coupon per order is allowed. Now that would just make me look flighty and I am anything but flighty!

I also did not confuse the dates I needed Bryan to take off for preschool registration or my grandparents to babysit Levi and Libby while I went on Addi's field trip. Someone less together might have done something like that, but that's not me!

Thankfully I did not neglect my one goal of the weekend. I did not waste time on Saturday during my alloted time for planning Levi's 1st birthday party. I have priorities!

Over the past six days I have not started more than one post only to abandon it half way through never to return. I would never start something and not finish it! Not me!

I did not almost burst into tears today while explaining, to some teacher I don't know, why I was not late to pick Addi up and not covered in mud. I mean, what kind of mother would I be if my disheveled and dirty self showed up late to pick my daughter up from kindergarten? And the reason would not have been because as I walked out to put Libby and Levi in our double stroller, it was not where I always leave it. My next move would not have been to call my husband in a "freaked-out verging on hysteria" tone expecting him to tell me where the stroller disappeared to and then I would not have snapped at him when he was clueless. No, no, I am always a loving wife! If all that had happened, I definitely would never then decide to "4-wheel" the wagon through the mud at Addi's school in an attempt to shave 4 seconds off my lateness almost resulting in a call to a wagon wrecker company and more mud on my body than I've had in my adult life. Nope, not me!

What have you not done while I've been away? You can read more about what other's have not been doing at MckMama's blog. Oh, go ahead. It's cheap therapy.

One of Life's Great Mysteries

Why do toy makers even bother providing clothes for Barbies/dolls/Polly Pockets?

Two Silly Kids