Two Years

According to my friend Brittani, it's been two years since I updated this blog.  Also, according to the calendar, Levi is almost two! Time for an update!!! I keep this blog not for others, but for myself.  It is a place to keep track of my kids and our family's growth. Over the last two years I have randomly made notes about Levi so I wouldn't forget how he was when he was small.  I am going to paste those random notes here, then pick up with present day.

Sleeping through the night (12 hours) at 2 months

3-4 months: Squeals a lot. Smiles at every body. Sleeps a ton.  Long naps.  All night long. Loves for Mallory to talk to him.  Laughs and smiles at her.  Giggles when he gets naked. Loves for daddy to help him stand.  Can go from sitting to standing if you hold his hands. Eats a 6 oz bottle 5 times a day.  Started baby food on 9/12/12.  Had carrots first.  Over the next few days tried squash and green beans.  Liked squash best.

9/21/12: realized yesterday that Mallory has not once expressed frustration with Levi.  Not out of jealousy or when he cries or for any other reason.  She sings to him when he gets upset to calm him down. One day both kids were crying in the car but she sang twinkle twinkle to him through her own tears.  She’s the best big sister.

10/3: Been sick for several  weeks.  Finally better.  Had pink eye and an ear infection so took antibiotic.  Went back for 4 month shots and was told the other ear was severely infected.  You didn’t cry or not sleep or have fever.  Who knew?  After a week on a stronger antibiotic, I can tell you feel better because you have started talking.  Mostly growling and gargling.  You are so happy all the time.

10/23: You are eating baby food like a champ and started have baby food at daycare this week.  You have just started to grab your feet and talk a lot more.  You are trying so hard to say a word!

12/13:  You are a great sitter and leaner but you can’t even think about crawling yet.  You drool like crazy but still no teeth.  I think if we let you you would lay on your back and chew on your feet all day long.  Apparently yesterday at daycare some baby was crying so you rolled over to him in the walker and started laughing.  Not sure if you were trying to make him happy or make fun of him.  You are the happiest guy.  Nothing gets you upset.  Plus you are super cute all the time.  The ladies at daycare all say you are their favorite. You LOVE Mallory and she LOVES you.  You two spend all the time you can laughing and making noises at each other. She also sits by you at the table and puts baby food bites in your mouth while I cook dinner.  She’s a great sister. I think about 90% of what she says to you  is “Le! Hey!” Over and over in a squeaky voice.  J I still don’t recall a single time that she has been frustrated because of you.  She is very patient. You are 6 months old but wear 12 month clothes. You are in the 95 percentile in height and about 60 in weight.  You weight almost 19 lbs.   

1/25/13:  You started crawling last Friday.  You are already all over the place. We had to lower your bed yesterday because you learned to go from laying down to sitting up and almost immediately started trying to pull up and climb over things. I turned the video monitor on 3 mornings ago and your face was in the camera smiling.  So cute.  You also eat everything you are given.  You ate almost a whole hamburger at school last week. Won’t be eating any baby food soon.

2/11/13: Two teeth!  Both bottom teeth are in.  You eat a lot more than Mallory.  I find myself putting larger portions on your plate at dinner than hers because I know she isn’t’ going to eat it. You try to pull up-you keep putting your feet under you.  You can easily get on your knees and play with taller toys.  You love to grab Mallory’s hair and squeal and pull her face to your mouth.  You slobber all over her and she loves it!  She giggles like crazy.  You also follow us all around the house.  You just want to be where your family is.  I feel bad when you finally get to a room and we leave it again.  Ellie is your favorite toy.  You pinch her and pat her and put your mouth all over her.

3/25/13: Four teeth! Top and bottom.  You still sleep all night and take 2 good naps a day. Have meals, snacks, and 4 bottles. Starting to drink juice from a cup. Trying to climb on everything! You move so fast and try to move your feet to begin walking. Sometimes I can get you to balance for a few seconds to stand on your own.  You say Dada and make lots of blowing and clicking sounds.  Making a “th” sound often. You love Mallory so much! You are sad when she isn’t around to play with you.

4/12/13: You got tubes in your ears this week.  You have basically lived with a constant ear infection for the last 6 month.  When they put the tubes in, the doctor said the fluid in your ear was so thick is clogged their machines up.  You can finally hear correctly! You immediately started trying to talk; I know you feel so much better!  You clearly said “daddy” yesterday and I think you try to say
“dog” and “ball.” You don’t care about your bottle very much anymore, so starting today we are cutting one out and just getting a cup with juice or milk instead. You are the happiest, cutest boy! I think you have a fifth tooth now but you don’t like for me to look in your mouth. You absolutely love the dog.  You stand up next to her and put your hand on her neck or face to balance and she calmly stands still and waits for you to move on to something else. The day after you got your tubes you started to try to stand without holding on to anything.  I think your balance has improved.  You are so close to walking on your own!

7/22/13: It’s been a few months…still no walking.  For the past two weeks you will take steps on your own, but still prefer crawling.  Two nights ago you took 13 steps! You eat like a champ and weight 26 lbs.  It’s funny because Mallory is 2.5 years older and weighs 32 lbs.  You talk a lot, but mostly in your own language.  You say “daddy” “dog” “door” and “tan tu” for Thank You.  You still won’t say “mama.”  Most of what you say starts with a D sound. Sometimes I can tell you are singing and I’ve heard you whistle several times.  You like to push a toy shopping cart down the hall while whistling. You recognize patterns to events.  When we get to daycare, you reach to push the buzzer then reach for the door to open it. You love to feed other people.  You and sis like to wrestle on my bed.  You love to imitate loud noises.  If someone screams or makes a loud noise on TV you immediately do the same. You love Ellie Mae.  You climb on her and pet her and lay on her bed. You also love to help me with the dishwasher.

 

4/16/2014: You are a month away from being TWO!  Since we moved into our new house on Mallory's birthday last September, the two of you have really become good play buddies. You and Mallory play in your playroom or her bedroom together a lot.  Sometimes you accidentally hurt each other or make the other one upset, but in general you get along great.  It's obvious you love each other a lot. You can say everything and sing songs from the movie Frozen all the time.

 

Here are some pictures from the past year.

First Day of PreK-3 (where the last blog post left off)

Levi the angry Chicken at Halloween 2013

 

 

More pictures to come...

 

Look at his cute face!

Levi was born on 5/17/12 at 3:04 pm. He weighed 8lb 4 oz and was 20 inches long. Big sister loves him!  Every time, and I mean EVERY time, I sit him up to burp him Mallory squeals, "Looks at his cute face!" She really loves him. I know because she tells me often. :) She says sweet things like, "Don't cry Levi, I love you.  It's me, Mallory."

Last night he spent the night with my parents and she was very concerned about his absence.  I thought she would be relieved to have the crying, needing baby out of the house for a few hours, but instead she kept checking his room and asking where baby brother was.  It was sweet.

Levi is almost 5 weeks old already and is starting to coo and gargle.  He doesn't do much other than sleep, eat, and toot, but we love him and are excited to watch him grow.  Mallory asks me often, "is he going to crawl today?"

Our summer has been pretty fun.  Mallory swims two days a week with a babysitter while I keep an eye on the baby.  She is doing awesome!  She goes down the big water slide with her floaties on her arms then swims to the ladder and does it again.  She will even go down without floaties and Annie, her babysitter/swim teacher, helps her learn to swim on her own. I get to swim with her a little because Levi usually hangs out in the stroller the whole time!  Thanks, Mr. Buddy.

 In other funny Mallory news, she has been calling me "honey."  "Honey, I need a towel."  "I'm ready to get down, honey."  Wonder where she gets that?  She has such an imagination and all of our conversations crack me up. She woke up yesterday and said, "Mommy, I love your blue eyes!"  She also keeps talking about her birthday party (which is months away).  She keeps telling everyone who will listen that it is "at the bounce houe place" and then she will say "guess who's coming to my party?  Spiderman!"  She's getting ready to start Pre-K in August.  We cant wait!

Just a Girl

This weekend we said goodbye to our friends the Alfords.  They moved to North Carolina, but not before having McKenzie's 2nd birthday at WonderPlace.  Mallory and Parker had big fun playing with Danny in the sandbox.  Barney was there for someone else's party, and Parker was ecstatic.  Mallory just kept saying, "I don't love Barney" and running away from him. There were really good snacks at McKenzie's party too!

Mally also turned 2 1/2 this weekend. She told me she's not a baby, just a girl.

Saturday afternoon while sitting outside eating snacks I must have coughed or something because she said, "What's wrong, Sweetie?"

Yesterday after church she refused to take a nap so we went outside to clean the cars and the yard.  Mallory's helping = locking BJ's truck and having to have a locksmith come - TWICE!  The afternoon ended with her passing out on the floor for at least and hour and a half during which time she wet her pants and her blankie but somehow not the rug. Good day.

Now it's Monday and as Mallory says about everything these days, "I don't like it!"

Aliens and Blankie

Daily Funny:

• A fire truck went by and  Mallory said, "What's that? Aliens?"

• I said, "Mallory are you bossy?"  Her reply, "Yes, Levi's bossy too." (He's not even here yet and she is trying to rope him into whatever trouble she is in)

• Her precious white blankie got left at school.  She realized it was gone and I told her she would have to sleep with pink blankie that night and see white blankie the next day.  She threw herself on the ground and cried, "Go back and get it!"  Luckily Daddy was able to stop by and pick it up so I told her Daddy had it and was bringing it to her.  When he pulled in to the drive way she saw white blankie and yelled, "Daddy, does have white blankie!"  When he walked in the door she said, "Daddy! You have my blankie!  Thank you, Daddy.  Oh, Thank you, Daddy."  The tone was desperate like he had just saved her life.

Bye, Bye Car!

Well...we had to say "bye, bye" to our car this week.  A car pulled out in front of us Tuesday afternoon while Mallory and I were driving down HWY 10.  We weren't hurt, but the car was totaled.  Luckily the inurance company valued the car a lot higher than we expected so we aren't in a bind. We acutally may end up being able to save the money each month that was going to the car payment! 

Mallory's funny moment surrounding the car wreck came the next morning when she said, "We had car wreck. We're ok. Mommy's car has balloon!" It didn't dawn on me that she would think of the airbags as balloons. She also managed to make it out of the wreck and onto the curb with french fries still in her hands. :)

Poor car.  Poor stiff neck.  Poor Mallory for her brief scare (though she quickly got over it). Poor Coach purse that is now covered in a frosty from Wendy's that I never got to eat.

Pretending

Mallory has really started to pretend and imagine.  She likes to pretend there are snakes around and tells them to stop coming at her by saying "para." She learned this spanish word from Dora the Explorer.

Daily funny:

• My parents have been painting their living room and two couches are pushed together in the middle of the room.  We went by there on our way home yesterday to see their progress.  Mallory purposely walked between the couches, sat down, and yelled "I stuck!  I can't swim!"

And We're Back!

So the Lafferty's have been crazy busy with work, school, graduate school, holiday's, and preparing for baby brother.  I decided yesterday that between now and when brother is born in May, I will post daily funnies.  Here are a few from recent days to get us caught up:

• Mallory is taking a nap and so is BJ.  I'm not at home.  After two hours BJ wakes up and goes to check on Mallory who is still asleep.  She has on no pants and no pullup (nudity).  He ask where her pullup is.  She says it's dirty.  She says it's in the trash.  She had woken up, opened her door, gone to the bathroom, taken her pullup off and thrown it away, gone back to her room, closed her door, and gone back to sleep.  He was oblivious.  True story.

• Song lyrics: "Ba ba black sheep have you any wool, yes sir, yes sir, bean bags full...one for the little girl who lives down the drain."

• As indpendence mode heightens, I am told to NOT do more and more things. Such as, "Momma, you no say 'meow meow' and 'roar' and 'ribbit ribbit.'  This is followed by her making these sounds.  I am not permitted to play along.

• Apparently tigers say "roar," bears say "roar," and lions say "roar."  See the difference?

• Sometimes when you are not quite 2 1/2, you insist on getting your hair styled a certain way.  Sometimes it's a French braid, sometimes it is flat ironed straight.