Taylorsville Days with Levi

Levi and I spent a wonderful day yesterday with Jen and Larry Farnworth and their two boys Shea and Sam. (Backstory: Jen and I were introduced because Larry and my mom work together at Stampin' Up) Sam is exactly 14 days younger than Levi, but just a bit taller. I was very silly and didn't take any pictures until late at night. Only a couple of them worked at all, and I have learned a lesson: to take pictures earlier in the day and be sure to catch our 'playmates' and surroundings, as well as Levi.

We started the day with a parade through Taylorsville that began at 9am. Levi and I had a great time, especially because of the delightful company that had invited us. There was plenty of candy thrown out, but none of the boys was super quick or determined to get to it before it had been picked up. All things considered, though, Levi had more candy than he has ever had at one time in his life. He loved it! He was introduced to Nerds and salt-water taffy and he really liked the peanuts that were thrown out in bags by the Texas Roadhouse restaurant. There were a lot of politicians who rode by on cars and had signs asking for a vote. There were floats with candy and kids in costumes and pretty girls, i.e. Miss Taylorsville, etc. When the Murray float passed us, we cheered and said, "We love Murray!" Jen agreed and told us that they had almost bought a house in Murray instead of the one they're in in Taylorsville.

After the parade, we changed diapers in our cars and grabbed snacks and headed to the car show. The cars that were shown were rusty classics, refurbished classics, and highly decorated newer cars (decorated with flames, etc.) Some of the refurbished classic models had their hoods open so that we could see the engine and the doors open so we could get a good look at the interior. One of the classics made me think of "Foolish Carriage" in Cheaper by the dozen and another reminded me of the car Mom describes having taken family road trips in as a child. She tells us that nobody had carseats and her little sister Ann would often  barrel over the front seat and drop like a bomb on everyone in the back.

By then, the boys were all tired and ready for a nap. Levi and I came home and Levi totally dozed off in the car. We got home just a bit after 12. His nap doesn't usually start until 1pm, and he never makes the carseat-to-bed transfer very well, so I woke him up when we got here and gave him something to drink. He perked up a bit and ate lunch and played for a while. He started yawning at about 2 and went down for a nap, very happily, at 2:30. He slept until 5, hallelujah!

We met the Farnworths for dinner at Rancherito's and then headed over to the park for the carnival and fireworks. Larry's mom was waiting for us there and we set up blanket and stuff, stayed for a bit, bought some glowing swords from a vendor, then went over to the carnival to see if the boys wanted to try anything. Levi was very sad to leave his "light saber", 

(Who has a green light saber? I'll have to ask Nathan.)

(That's Jen on the blanket behind Levi.)

but managed to enjoy the inflated carnival quite a bit. Larry took the boys down the bag slide a couple of times, 

Larry is the man at the top of the slide with a little boy in each arm. Levi is the boy on the left (Larry's right arm) and Sam is the boy on the other side. I was glad Larry was willing to take Levi because I couldn't maintain my balance on the inflated toy, much less climb the stairs to get up to the slide. In case you can't see it, Levi is having a ball.

Next, we had them try the Fun House (just a little two room thing with a little slide and inflated clowns, not scary at all (I hope)). Levi had a great time until I poked my head in for a picture and he caught sight of me. Oh,well. When time was up in there, we had a couple tickets left and went down the big slide again before heading back to Sharon and the blankets.

Fire works started at about 9:50. They were pretty, but loud enough to scare Levi quite entirely. He hid in my chest, peeking out every so often to see the show then ducking away again. I thought maybe he fell asleep, but as soon as the show was over, he was perky and friendly and didn't seem at all tired. He didn't fall asleep on the way back to the Farnworth home, or even in the car on the way back to our house, even though it was about 11:30 when we got home. He cried for his light saber, which I made him leave downstairs, for about 7 minutes and then just dropped off to sleep. Very tired boy.

My Garden today

Tadaaa!

It's kinda hard to see the lettuce because the leaves are red and they blend in with the background dirt.

And next are featured too foreign plants (by foreign I simply mean that I did not plant them).

If anyone has any idea what these are, please tell me. Thanks!

And now, (drum roll) a lot of pictures of my sweet son Levi:

These first ones are chosen from the 40 or so pictures that he took last time he got a hold of the camera. I think that's peanut butter on his face.

Levi does Darth Vader:

Mom bought this mask at a garage sale last Saturday, and it is a hit-and-a-half with the men of this household.

Levi checks the mail:

Levi loves using keys and really enjoys checking the mail. Isn't his outfit cute? The t-shirt has DIGGERs on it and Levi really has a thing for plaid shorts lately.

Levi at play in his PJs:

This slide and table are inherited from the Kaysville Hogan family and are a very popular item among the small people in our neighborhood. Levi often chooses PJs as an outfit for the day.

Garden Update and Levi's new scooter

This is how my garden looks today!!

And this is the scooter, featuring Woody and Buzz from Toy Story, that Mom and I bought for Levi so that he can learn how to use a scooter and so he can "scoot" with Sarah and Abby (2 girls who are the children of  a family living with Mom until they move to Montana next month).

He wanted to put on the fabulous garage sale purchase of a helmet and knee and elbow pads which feature Elmo and friends (note: Levi's favorite movie is "Elmo's Potty Time"), but wouldn't stand still once they were on. Oh, well...

Then he wanted to take them all off...

Then he got the camera and took a picture of Grandma:

Then he set to inspecting his scooter:

My Garden

While Dad was here visiting, he helped me plant my square-foot garden and this is what it looks like after 11 days! WAHOO!!

The following is the view from the north end of the 3' x 6' garden:

The next one is the view from the west.
 

Front and center are 9 Red Leaf Lettuce plant. South (right) of them is a tomato that I started from seed and I'm tickled pink that it is still alive and well. At the back on the right are two tomato plants that I bought at Lowe's. On the left in the back is a Zucchini plant also acquired at Lowe's. In front of the Zucchini are potatoes, planted in 5 square feet (one potato in each, except for the front left corner which contains two potatoes) that makes sort of a Utah shape. Dad prophesied failure for my poor little potato plant because the box is nowhere near deep enough. HOWEVER, my friend Sarah was over and told me that I could just make a box to set over teh top of my little "Utah" potato field and fill it with dirt. They're growing quickly, so I will cover them with dirt this week and hope that it works. tee-hee!!!

Levi likes to help me water the garden and likes to look at and carefully touch the plants. He followed my example of pushing dirt around today, which was kind of scary, but I think he figured out what I was doing, i.e. filling in holes where we'd dumped water too quickly into the dirt.

We're pregnant!!!

(sometime in January)
We had a lovely Christmas followed by a nice quiet welcoming of the new year.

And now the latest is that Levi likes red and orange and yellow peppers, pepper jack cheese, has a bit of fuzz on his head (new year's resolution: have hair by the time he turns 2), and loves taking a bath.

 (1.June.2010)
Wahoo! We are expecting a wee new member to our little family. The anticipated arrival date is November 27th, so I'm kind of planning on something closer to December 10th (I'm currently 14.5 weeks). We'll see. We learn the baby's sex in about 6 weeks and we are very excited. The baby's name is already decided either way, so we're set in that department. If you're interested in seeing the changes in a woman's abdomen during pregnancy, click on this link: http://www.childbirthconnection.org/article.asp?ck=10237  This link contains pictures of how everything in the abdomen moves and squishes as the uterus grows. Very interesting, nicht!?

Levi is doing well. He is asleep right now (11am) and went down about an hour ago. He was so cranky! Naps usually occur at 1pm, so this might throw a kink into the day.

On more interesting topics concerning our little boy: He utters 2- and 3-word sentences now. He proclaims things like, "I did it!", "I love it!", and that's about the extent of his long sentences. His vocabulary is still growing and he absorbs information as if he were a very dry sponge. Dad, Nathan, Levi and I went to Hogle Zoo on Friday. We took a stroller, which served as a pack animal rather than transportation for Levi. He was just too busy and interested in everything. He walked most of the time, and asked Nathan to carry him the rest. We saw giraffes up close, and snakes and lizards behind glass. We were a little disappointed by the tigers because they were sleeping and wouldn't even look in Levi's direction!! (of all the rudenesses!). We took lots of pictures, which Dad proceeded to take home with him before we had chance to download them. Dad (my dad) took Levi for a ride on the carousel, which he had me record on video. Levi and Dad were the only people on the ride for the whole time, but Levi wouldn't ride an animal. Maybe they're a little too high, or something. He and Dad had a lovely time anyway and were very sad when the ride ended. Levi even figured out the open the gate which closed after him when he exited the ride, good thing we kept a good eye on him.