Levi...1.5

No freaking way!!!  That's what I found myself saying yesterday...and it wasn't from the patriotic overload.  As of yesterday, my sweet baby boy is officially 18 months old!  In some ways, he seems  older to me only because I genuinely can barely remember life when we were just a family of three.  He really does make our little family feel complete.  But when it dawns on me that my baby is really no longer a baby, well that just about freaks me out.
Luckily, I am completely in love with the little boy that Levi is becoming.  He is so different than his big brother in a lot of ways, and it is fun...and challenging at times...to parent a new kind of child.  Where Colton is hesitant and shy, Levi is wide open.  He will give just about anyone a hug, high five, or smile. And boy, does he give the sweetest hugs and kisses, sometimes grabbing your whole face to plant a good one right on your lips...I melt!  I have a feeling he just may be the life of the party one day!
 Just as Levi tends to have bigger positive reactions to things than I can remember Colton having, he also has bigger negative reactions!  Colton really never went through the tantrum phase, but Levi has begun...and I have a feeling he is still saving his best for us!
Like his older brother, Levi is active, active, active.  The boy does not stop.  He climbs things he shouldn't be able to climb, runs laps around the house, and chases his brothers with a vengeance, cracking up the whole time.  Levi is a much bigger talker at this point than Colton was.  His current favorite word..."no!"  But he does it with the cutest shake of the head and most emphatic tone that it cracks me up every time...probably going to regret that later on.
He's also starting to finally discover the iPad...much to our delight (see above about him being so active...this at least sits him still for a few minutes).
Levi is a real lover!  He lights up when his big brother is around (at least until he takes something away from him).  And I'm not being biased when I say the boy has a real special love for his mommy.  It may be because we have pretty much spent every moment together since he was born, but my boy doesn't let me too far out of his sights.  Obviously, sometimes it gets a bit tiresome, but I know it won't be like that forever and I try to cherish every moment!
I remembered doing a little picture with "loves" of Colton at 1 1/2 and thought it would be fun to do the same for Levi.

And just as a real quick comparison, here is Colton's 18 month photo

                               

I was going to mention how different they are, but actually it's amazing how similar they are.  Especially because I can't believe I forgot to include Levi's dee-dee as one of his loves and I probably could have done climbing and books as well!  Oh well, either way, they're both pretty special boys...at least in our world!

Snip Snip: My Baby Grows Up...

Last week Colton was in desperate need of a hair cut.  Obviously, Levi would be in tow, and considering we are heading to Ft. Lauderdale very soon to see the boys' Big Papa (my grandfather), I figured it may not be a bad idea to go ahead and get our baby boy all trimmed up as well!  Honestly, I went back and forth on doing it for weeks...it really wasn't that bad yet, but he had a lot of messies that could use a cleaning up.
But as soon as we got to the salon, one of those adorable kid places with airplanes and things for chairs, Levi was all about it!  So, I figured why not let him get in on the action.  As you can tell from the pictures, he was completely chill and content in the chair...

And Colton thought it was pretty cool that Levi was getting to get his hair cut too...

When it was all said and done, Levi's hair cut was a big success.  He looks so freaking cute and totally grown up...AAAHHH!

My "baby" is getting so big!

Stuck Inside?

As we headed into winter and the impending colder temperatures, I knew the boys and I would be forced to spend a lot more time inside.  In fact, when I compiled our winter to-do list, I planned accordingly and included a whole bunch of activities that would take place right inside our humble abode.  Good thing too because last week was completely nasty here in Va. Beach...no fun snow or anything (unless you count the few flakes that supposedly fell over night and caused massive mayhem on our news stations), just 4 straight days of cold rain.  And to top off the misery, Levi was pathetically sick one of those days, keeping Colton and I inside for an entire days as well (a rarity around here as we usually get out to go to the gym or something at least!).
So how did we keep ourselves entertained?
Well, we made snow globes.  In case you're curious, we just used washed out spaghetti sauce jars, added some water, glitter, and a few tsp. of glycerin (available in the baking section at any arts and crafts store).  I hot glued some figurines (my boys chose dogs because they're both big fans!) to the lids and voila!

And we drew on the windows with dry erase markers.

                                     

We brought out some whipped cream for a little fingerpainting/alphabet practice on the counters.  OK, it turned into a lot of finger licking, but still...

We did some bathtub painting.  Again, in case you're curious, each color was made with about 5 pumps of baby shampoo, 1 tbsp. cornstarch, 2 tbsp. water, and a few drops of different food colors.

And we even got C.R.A.Z.Y and whipped out some classics...a little board game action.  Colton is now a huge Candy Land fan.

                                       

If you're paying really close attention, you probably noticed we didn't do all of these in one day, although we did do 4 out of 5 of them on that one sick day stuck inside (if you now an almost 3 year old's and one year old's attention span, you're probably not surprised to learn each activity lasted about 3 minutes!).  

When the day started and I realized we weren't going to be able to leave the house, I honestly had a little panic attack.  But you know what?  The day was actually really enjoyable (well aside from the fact that Levi clearly didn't feel good).  It was nice to spend a low-key day with my boys watching them discover, play, and learn.  

Winter OneDerland: Favors, Activities, and Anything Else

I'm going to try to finish up my posts about Levi's Winter OneDerland party today by including any left over details! (If you missed the posts about the decorations or food, just check back from the last couple of days.)
Let's start with the activities shall we?  I am a big believer in having optional, varied activities at parties so that guests can choose if/what they want to participate in. Even though there we had a good number of adults in attendance, I figured they would mainly want to eat, drink, and watch football (which I was right on all accounts), so I focused my activity planning on the kiddos.  The highlight of the party was our "snow" (ordered from www.sno-wonder.com).  We contained the stuff to one of our inflatable pools, and the kids had a blast playing in it.  To be honest, I don't know if it feels exactly like snow, but to a bunch of Virginia kids who really don't know what snow is it was awesome!

Considering it was in the mid-60s the day of our party, the kids ended up spending the bulk of the rest of their time just playing in the yard.  I had some snow glue and the game Don't Break the Ice out on the back patio in case they wanted more options, and they did try out both.  Colton got really into Don't Break the Ice towards the end of the party and is now OBSESSED!

In case the weather hadn't been as nice, I had also purchased Happy Feet to have on inside, so the kids would have stuff to do inside.  We didn't end up using it, but it was a nice plan B!

While we didn't really have activities for the adults, I had made a short video of Levi's first 365 days and had it playing for the first half hour or so of the party (my dad kept trying to turn it off to watch the football game, though, so it didn't last long!).  And like we had done for Colton's first birthday, we asked guests to bring an item for a time capsule in lieu of typical presents (although people didn't listen and brought gifts anyway in addition to the time capsule stuff).  Levi did end up with some pretty cool stuff for his time capsule, though: t-shirts from Va. Beach landmarks, video of "Gangam Style," and even a picture of Virginia Beach's new Target (my new home) which should be pretty fun to look at in 18 years!

As for favors, we did a kid version and an adult version.

The adults got jars of "snowman soup" (hot chocolate, marshmallows, a few Hershey Kisses, and a miniature candy cane.

                            

And the kids got the snowman bags (created by me) filled with some snowman goodies (bubbles, a lollipop, pencil, and notepad) from Oriental Trading and a packet of hot chocolate.

The tags on the goody bags, which read "Thanks for making my party onederful. Love, Levi," were designed by me along with all the other signage from the party.

And I think that may finally conclude my report on Levi's Winter OneDerland.  I had been mentally planning this party from the day he was born, and it was so fun (and a lot of work!) to see it all come together just as I had seen in my head.  And luckily the birthday boy seemed to enjoy his big day as much as I had hoped he would!  So once again, a very happy first birthday to my baby boy!

Success

Well, another party is officially in the books.  And this time it was a big one...our little boy's first birthday Winter OneDerland bash!  Although we were on pins and needles all week wondering if my niece's arrival would happen to occur on the same day as Levi's party (which it didn't and she is now scheduled to be induced today so hopefully by this time tomorrow, Miss Riley will FINALLY be here), the party went off as planned.
With Levi being born in January, I had figured from day one that his party would have a winter theme.  Therefore, from the day he was born, I began mentally collecting ideas for the bash (and then allowed myself to formally pin things about 6 months ago...couldn't look crazy by doing it too far in advance...).  Of course I, then, spent hours and hours planning and executing every last detail of Levi's party.  And while I will no doubt bombard you with photos/explanations of all that over the next few days, the real mark of success for this party was just how much fun Levi (and his older brother) had in celebrating it.  So today we'll focus on the real star(s) of this party: our sweet Levi Shane (and all the friends, family members, and especially his older brother that helped make his day so special).