Can’t Sleep…Again!

I seem to find myself wide awake in the middle of the night all too often. I have been awake for almost two hours now and I cannot seem to get any sleep. So I might as well take advantage of this opportunity and catch up on my blog! Let me just start by saying, “holy cow I cannot believe that November is half way over!” Time seems to be flying, and I have no idea where it is in such a hurry to

get to.

Thanksgiving is the week after next, and I am so excited! We have some of our closest friends coming over to have dinner with us. We are going to smoke a turkey on our Traeger, and I know that it is going to be amazing! I have practiced making grandma’s famous rolls, and they turned out awesome. I have a few adjustments I still need to per-fect, but I have full confidence that I will get it down. This is going to be my first time cooking Thanksgiving dinner and I am really looking forward to it. I feel like such a grown up! I will miss being with family, but I am really grateful to have such awesome friends to share the holidays with, I could not imagine settling in to Texas without them.

Levi is starting to crawl….kind of. It’s more of a forward scoot and roll. He is able to get to any destination he seeks, and lately he seems to be attracted to my scrapbooking stuff. It does not matter where on the floor I set him he always seems to end up with both his hands in my scrapbooking bins. He must be excited to get into scrapbooking. He likes to play with Penny more and more every day. Every time Penny walks by he grabs her fur and smiles. He also spends a great deal of time talking to her. He must have a lot to say. Penny is starting to really warm up to him too. Whenever Morgan and I walk in to the door we are always greeted by lots of jumps and kisses from Penny, she is always just so excited to see us. Well lately she is having that same reaction with Levi. As soon as we walk in and I set Levi down, I cannot get her to stop kissing Levis head. I am sure that many of you find that disgusting, but he will have a stronger immune system for it. I am also running into the problem of keeping Penny’s toys separate from Levi’s toys. It would be easier if Penny was not constantly bring Levi her toys and dropping them on his lap. This will be a fun puzzle to solve. Levis favorite activities still consist of watching me vacuum and wash the dishes. It does not matter how tired and fussy he is as soon as the vacuum or sink turns on he goes silent. This leaves me with a pending excuse to always be cleaning.

Best Friends!

I have also been doing a lot of baking. I think it is safe for me to say that I have mastered buttermilk bread! I am going to try to get into the habit of making my own bread instead of buying it at the store. It just tastes so much better when you make it yourself. Morgan is very excited for this decision. Every time he comes home to anything homemade he just gets so excited. It makes me feel good and appreciated. This keeps me excited to cook things that he likes. I am really enjoying having the extra time to cook and bake.

I have to take a moment to get on my soapbox to complain about all the stores that are opening on Thursday for black Friday. I hate that I am going to have to choose between going shopping which I love to do, especially on black Friday, and sitting at the table and enjoying Thanksgiving dinner. I just hate that stores are opening earlier and earlier every year. It is sucking the fun out of black Friday. It is not enjoyable when you cannot even get a couple hours of sleep before leaving for a long stretch of shopping. I am just starting to realize that my black Friday days may be coming to an end if they do not stop this selfishness.

Last, me and Morgan have been talking about the possibility of adding the second addition to our family sometime soon. I am over whelmed by the idea of having two kids, but I really want to have them all close together. I can’t decide if I want to wait for Levi to be 25 months when the next baby is born, or 18 months. I just don’t want to completely over whelm myself, but I think the closer I can get them in age then the easier it will be in the long run. I will keep you updated with that if there is any news to share.

Well I am going to go have a piece of homemade toast with a heaping glass of chocolate milk, and then maybe I can sleep.

Sweet dreams!

This is my new favorite pic of Levi

Keeping Busy

Last time I posted I was talking about Levis weight so I thought I would start with an update. He is still in the second percentile, however he is growing consistently. He has moved up to the 28^th percentile on height, and is head is in the 70^th percentile (probably due to his big brain!). I was super concerned with how small he was, so I decided to call my mom and ask her about how I grew. She said when I was born I was a HUGE baby! I was 9 pounds 9 ounces, I was at the top of all of the charts, I was the biggest baby in the family, but once I came out I just stopped growing. Doctors want babies to double their birth weight by the time they are six months and triple it by the time they are a year. I however barley doubled my birth weight by the time I turned one. I dropped off of all the doctors charts; I was way lower than the first percent tile, and it stayed that way for a long long time.  It wasn’t till I was in middle school that I finally started to barley creep onto the charts again, my mom got so excited that she called the whole family to tell them that I was back on the charts! Its crazy that I was the biggest baby in the family, and now I am by far the smallest.

The doctor’s charts are good to help keep babies on track, but they shouldn’t dictate your piece of mind. Every baby is going to grow different, and there are hundreds of factors that are going to play into the way children grow. I have decided that Levi is growing the way he is supposed to and I am going to stop stressing about it. I am just going to trust that he is growing the way that is perfect for him. It makes sense that he is small, especially when you look at his mom and dad.

In addition to his growing Levi is advancing in many ways on a daily basis. My favorite thing he started to do is he reaches for me. When I go to pick him up he will throw up his arms for me to get him. It is so sweet! He also rolls all over. I have to watch him every second to make sure he is not getting into any mischief. I will leave him on one side of the living room, and before I know it he has rolled all the way across the floor. Penny has loved playing with Levi to. She is constantly bringing him balls and toys. She will bring all of her toys to Levi and drop them right on top of him, and then of course Levi will pick them up and attempt to put them in his mouth. I know gross! So I am always supervising the two of them in order to make sure that they are swapping germs minimally. They say that babies that grow up around dogs have a stronger immune system, I am starting to realize why! lol! Levi also loves to laugh and smile. That is my most favorite, I am glad that I have such a smiley baby, it helps to keep me in a good mood. I mean how can you not be happy seeing that smile all day long!

I am glad that it is finally November because that means that Christmas is next month, and I love Christmas! There are so many things that I love about Christmas, but the thing I am most looking forward to right now is all the Christmas movies I am going to start watching. I want to have a huge Christmas movieathon and watch everything from Elf to It’s a Wonderful life! I have already told Morgan that I want to get our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, but he is concerned that the tree would dry out before Christmas. I don’t care if it gets kind of dry, I just want to enjoy for as long as I can. I have already ordered Levis ornament off Lenox, it’s a cute blue elephant that it says his name and the year. I can hardly wait for it to get here! I don’t know why but I can just feel it in my bones that this is going to be a truly special Christmas! Morgan’s whole family is going to be coming and staying with us for ten days! So I am really looking forward to that. I love company, and I especially love seeing our family! I am excited for the start of the Holiday season!

 This is Levi right when he got out of bed! He loves the mornings!

 Penny and Levi are going to be life time friends!

Visiting Daddy at work! 

Cutest Batman on the planet! 

My boys! They are the loves of my life!

He is so cute in a baseball hat!