12/30/07 So Levi had a fine 3rd Christmas, with lots of family gatherings and celebrations of Jesus' birth.  

12/9/07 "what's that called?" It's not quite the "why?" yet but it coming. Its a big deal to know the name of something and he delights in telling you. It is wonderful to watch him absorb and learn and respond back.

Today was our christmas tree day and this year levi was able to help. I am just noticing that I haven't got any snow pictures up yet but he likes the snow and is big enough to get around in it to sled and make snow persons.
11/30/07 Levi has discovered the piano, He likes my Mom's, and last weekend he was able to play with his second cousin.
11/15/07 Time to winterize, so Levi wanted in on the action
11/4/07 So Levi got some raking in this fall, but is currently studying to be a mechanic. He has started to "play pretend" as we would call it, chatting away with whatever he is playing with at the time. It is going to be challenging to get cold weather gear (in a small enough size) for him that he can actually have some dexterity with, to do fun stuff outside this winter. Last year he was content to walk around, so the Michelin Man look worked fine. They just don't make taped seam - thinsulate - Gore-Tex gloves in XXXsmall

10/24/07 This picture is back from last month, it just hadn't gotten posted.

Levi is fully interacting in English, memorizing song lyrics, books, and generally acting like a very vocal parrot. His understanding continues to blow us away. I think that he is happy to be able to make himself understood.
10/8/07 I have some other stuff to get posted but all I have time for now is is this video clip of Levi doing his ABC's with Mommy. As you can see, he probably is not ready for kidnergarten yet, but it's pretty cute. Levi ABC's Video (Real player, 2 megs)  
9/23/07It's apple season up here, which we are excited about. Levi and Mom went on his first orchard trip which was pretty exciting. Levi was afraid of the tractor loaded with kids and parents so Mom had to pull Levi in his very own wagon. Levi thought that was awesome and Mom did to until she had to pull Levi plus two full bags of apples back UP the hill out of the orchard.
9/10/07 So we have a Levi cycling video (3Megs) for you. The clips are from the 3rd of this month. It took him about 4 days to figure the bike out and now he motors like crazy. Since his legs are so short we took the origional seat off and made a lower one so he is all set. He went on his first actual bike outing Saturday with his Grandma and Mom and they had a great time. So is he in the terrible 2s? I would say yes but not more than is to be expected. He is often speaking in completeish (he's not getting all the small words in there) sentences like "go see cows?", "put helmet on"," have cereal now?"  
8/22/07 Some people might think that we are pushing it a little bit as we got him his first bike today for his birthday present, but I say why wait until next year. This is just a push bike as he is too small to pedal I think. Yes, Levi is now 2 years old.
8/9/07 So Levi and Mom went to the beach last week but Grandma took all the pictures so I don't have anything to show but they all had a great time. He loves to point out the different animals he sees in books and give us samples of what they say, especially monkeys.  
7/25/07 So Levi continues to learn at a fast pace. We can usually understand his speech as long as we have some context (pointing out airplanes, what do you want for breakfast? etc.) but when he launchs into a story, only he knows. He is into throwing anything he can lift, occasionally busting out an overhead throw that may or may not go in the direction he is looking.
7/4/07 Levi carried around his first chicken today, he was pretty proud of that. This also roughly coincides with his figuring out how to catch (balls, not chickens).

6/21/07 Sorry it's been a while, we are around. The first picture does double duty as he don't have a recent picture of Johnny's dog Ila on the site yet.

6/3/07 here is our annual lilac sniffing picture. He is all into it this year.
5/28/07 Good times for Memorial day, Levi got a good swim in at his Grandparents. It continues to amaze us as he continues to figure out what is going on, note his planting of the pansies.

5/22/07 Levi is 21 mo old. We have some new chickens on the farm. Little things with lots of energy. Today when Levi and I went in to pet them they were very hungry. In order to get back out of the door with out all 50 (yes, 50) following us out the door we had to feed them. While I had my head in the feed bin one of them decided Levi made a good post from which to watch me get the feed out of the bag. It few right up and landed on his head. Levi panicked trying to get it off. Served him right for picking another up by the wing. He has been watching Mommy pick them up so decided to try it too. The problem is he wants to pick all of them up therefore he has to chase them which, of course, is lots of fun. Meanwhile Mom is trying to keep chickens out of the path of the toodler and not squish any herself.

A few new words: One, Two, Look at that!, Ila (the dog), hey guys!, two more minutes (learned that one from nap time) He is popping out so many these days I forget what he says on the same day he first says them.
5/9/07 I just realized that we hadn't gotten any pic's or vid's of levi reading to himself posted yet. This one is from March 31st. Levi reading (2.3 Megs)  
5/2/07 Here is another chicken photo, He will walk from the house all the way out to dairy house by himself to see the chickens. He likes to pick some grass and feed it into them as in the photo.
4/25/07 Levi is in full vocabulary expansion mode: yes, no, mommy, upagain (one word),applesauce,toast, juice, etc. and he will repeat lots of others . He keeps track of multiple verbs and their order in a spoken sentance. He likes to read to himself when he can't get anyone to do it for him.  
4/11/09 So we are taking back that part about spring. Levi missed out on winter in December so he's getting more of it now. This picture is from today and we may get 5 more inches tomorrow.
3/28/07 Spring has arrived and Levi is enjoying getting outside without being all bundled up. In this picture he is hanging out on the porch. He loves sitting in the big people chairs.
3/21/07 Our big event today was going to see Levi's new cousin Avaley at the hospital. He wasn't too keen on it, but he settled down OK after all the various grandparents went home. Today's picture represents his love of eating. He has eaten so much he can now fit in the pantry where the food used to be.
3/11/07 It's good to have our buddy Levi back, his cold lasted a solid week in which he was pretty much a wreck. We are up to speed now as these pic's attest.

3/6/07 So as has been mentioned on another page, our internet deal dragged on for close to 2 weeks total. I think we are back for real. So Levi is having his first real cold (coughing/ sneezing/ fever/ runny nose etc..) I stayed home with him today so Carmen could get out of the house(and to recover from my own cold which he gave me). I'm not giving you any pictures of his boogers but if you've seen a kid with a cold then you know. It looks like he is coming out of it, he has been sleeping a lot today.

A couple weeks ago his new favorite word became "NO". He liked it so much he would say it 3 or 4 times for emphasis. He liked it so much he he would say "no" when he meant yes. Now he likes yes or "yeah" which is is making conversations much easier.

  
2/28/07 People say that Levi smiles a lot, I don't have a lot to compare it to but one of the pictures in this series shows his crinkly nose smile. There is lots more stuff to put on here. but our internet went down (Comcast was takeing over for Adelphia and they couldn't figure the problem out) for like 5 days just before I was about to post some stuff, so I'll be back soon.

2/11/07 Sorry its been a while, we have had no big drama to report, and time justs slips by. Today we finally had the combination of warm enough weather and good snow (and daylight to do it in) so that we could take Levi out on XC skis and make some turns. Th backback is getting heavy but he enjoys looking around.

He has gained a fondness for exciting words like Ka-boom and Ahhh-Chew. He may not say Mommy or Da Da but if you need to sneeze he knows just how to say it.

1/17/07 Levi has his own toy corner now that he has toddler toys, thanks to lots of family and friends. It's very interesting that his understanding of the English is way above his speech use. For instance, I was counting to three to Levi, I started by saying " one..". Levi said too then tee, so he had usage and pronunciation but he won't say it again for a long time. Since he usually gets his point across by gesturing and grunting there isn't much incentive to use English.

Now this video is hilarious, you can tell when he notices that the camera is rolling, it's 0.7 meg and in Real player format. Let me know if you have trouble playing it, as I haven't used this format before. levi on football.
1/10/07 So its a new year and we are changing up the format a little bit to make for easier archiving. Since we still don't have any snow Levi has been able to keep walking all around the place. Sometimes he prefers a hand to help with the rougher terrain.