we were sleuths.

Mark and I went out on Friday night to solve the Mystery of the "Murder of the Loaded Librarian." The Cedar Falls library hosted a Murder Mystery play...and we had lots of fun! We even solved the mystery! Well, kind of. We each got a chance to guess at the end and the winners got a prize. We had a couple ideas and each picked one...we got it partially right...but it was just a lot of fun for us to work together on the mystery!

We didn't win the prize, darn :).

We did befriend a funny lady who came alone and wanted to sit with us, she was really nice and we were glad to keep her company!:) And a couple of Mark's ROTC friends even happend to be actors in the play.

What a great night out! I hope they put on another one again soon!

(No we didn't buy the hats...ha ha, they gave them free to everyone!)

sippy cup (and food upate)

Levi has become so interested in what other people are doing. He watches me (and everyone else) do everything! One thing he especially likes to watch is when I eat or drink. He tries to grab my food or my cup. So we decided on Friday it was time to let him try out the sippy cup. He sure looked cute, but I'm not so sure he was too interested...we'll try again, and again until he gets it... Isaiah is such a good water drinker, thanks to Kammy (click here to read more about her), and I'm hoping that Levi will be too... maybe the sippy cup will be a fun way for him to drink water...and like it!

Levi decided playing in the mirror was much more fun than drinking water out of a silly little sippy cup.

As for other foods, Levi has now had several foods:

-Rice Cereal - I've tried to give him at least one serving of this each day, he likes it.
-Bananas - His first "real" food. He loves them.
-Peas - He did NOT like them at first, but ate them just fine the next few times he had them.
-Sweet Potatos - LOVED them!
-Applesauce (Baby food kind) - He liked these a lot too.
-A mashed up "regular" carrot - last weekend my parents made a roast with carrots and potatos...I didn't bring Levi any food, so we thought it'd be fun to try this... I don't think he ended up swallowing any of it, but it was funny watching!

We'll keep introducing more and more new foods to him! and now he'll even get to eat fresh foods because Laura came over today and we made homemade baby food! So I've got a freezer full of icecube trays of bananas, peas, green beans, apples, and carrots. Here's a picture of all of it but one tray of green beans that I realized I forgot to put out...

shoveling the ... water.

It was a BEAUTIFUL day outside today! The sun was shining and the sky was so blue...and it had to have been at least 40 degrees! Isaiah took a short nap today so while Jayda and Jonah slept, Isaiah, Levi and I went outside to enjoy the weather.

Our backyard is currently about half water half swamp which equals lots of fun for Isaiah! Levi and I sat together on the deck while Isaiah had a blast shoveling the water.

When he'd had enough of the water, Isaiah decided to shovel the snow off the slide.

We had another taste of the fun we are going to have this spring and summer...and we cannot wait for more!!!

Levi's first bump :(

Levi has been sitting up all by himself for several weeks now. He is getting pretty brave about reaching for things and grabbing onto things. On Saturday, Levi was sitting up and fell over right onto the bar of his jumperoo. Ouch!! He got his first real bump! Poor little guy...it doesn't appear to phase him any!! He's all smiles like usual!

You'll see it in these pictures if you look by his right eye.

St Patrick's day project!

When I got home from work on Saturday I was ready for some Isaiah time! :) So I decided to see if he was up for a "project." Of course he was excited to do one! So here's what we did...

The supplies:

I cut strips of both shades of green for Isaiah to cut into small pieces.

I have yet to buy safety scissors for Isaiah so I let him use the big ones!! He did really well and was very careful.

After a couple strips he was tired of cutting, so we worked with what he had done...and it was time to glue them on our clover.

Fun with the glue...

Look what he made!

The finished product.

Isaiah LOVED this project...I think it is one of the best ones we've done--he' really enjoyed it, he was able to participate in every step and completely create his very own art. We might have to do it again with Jayda!

binoculars

The other day Isaiah made his very own binoculars. He did a really good job and they turned out great....and he thought they were VERY cool. In fact, he thought they were so great that they HAD to come to Wal-Mart with us later that morning.

We used them to look out the window to see if there were any birds outside, to see all of the houses, and to look for anything exciting! And we did find something exciting!!! Dada getting home from school!

And by the way, don't laugh at Isaiah's shirt HA ha... it's an old shirt from somewhere my dad worked (I think). It was mine when I was in junior high...I'm not sure I ever wore it... My dad put it on him one night when he came over and Isaiah thought it was so fun to wear that he wanted to sleep in it that night so he did. He looked pretty cute! It was the next morning that we made the binoculars.

just another day.

Today is just another crazy day around here...The meter reader guy is coming somewhere between 8 and 10, the dishwasher repair guy is coming between 8 and 12 (yes again!) and the group of realtors is coming somewhere between 9 and 11. Whew!!

So I figured I'd better be prepared to keep the kids entertained (and out of the way) and our house clean (so the realtors will think we are serious!).

First thing in the morning, Mark and I tried to clean, clean, clean while the Isaiah and Levi were still asleep...then Isaiah woke up, Jayda and Jonah got to our house, and Mark had to head off to school. I tried to find ways that Isaiah and Jayda could help me clean... and in the midst of it all, a monster showed up!!!

Isaiah came up to me and said, "A monster's here!!" (this is a pretty regular thing for him right now)

"OH NO! We'd better hide!" I said to him, so we all hid for a minute and then...

Isaiah said, "the monster's gone." so we went back to cleaning....

"A monster's here!!!" Another monster came a couple minutes later.

"Oh no! Let's hide."

"No mama, this is a nice monster. He's a big boy like me!" (so cute!)

By this time it was close to 8:30 and we had our first visitor -- the meter man. He came and read the meter and left...2 minutes later.

Then Levi woke up and decided to do (one of) his daily blowout(s). Jayda and Isaiah helped me change his diaper, onesie, shirt, pants, and socks and wipe him down from hair to feet (yes it reached everything! Just ask Laura, I'm not exaggerating!). As I was wiping him down, Isaiah started chanting for me, "Go Mama Go! Go Mama Go! Go Mama Go!" I started laughing so hard that Isaiah and Jayda joined in. It was hilarious!

Shortly after Levi was all cleaned up, the realtors showed up. I was expecting like 3-5 of them to come look at the house and then leave... well, our realtor came in and said I'm bringing in the troops...and he wasn't kidding at least 15 people came in and looked around our house while Isaiah, Jayda, Jonah and I tried to stay out of the way (by this time Levi was back to sleep on our bed). The kids were pretty cute watching all of these people and I think they all thought I was the mother of 4 really small children (which I thought was funny) and a few even asked about the age difference between Isaiah and Jayda... I quickly explained that they were not all mine... Then the head realtor commented on our dishwasher--he said, "wow that's a really nice brand, I hear those are wonderful." I just said, "yeah." He then said, "my wife would really like one of those. they are supposed to be really quiet." "yeah, it is really quiet," I said. I didn't think it'd be appropriate to tell him that the repair man was coming for the 8th time today to fix it again.

So they left.... and just as the last one was out the door, the phone rang and the repair man was just around the corner and ready to come fix our dishwasher.

So he came... and worked on it. He had to run to his vehicle to get another tool...

and Isaiah says, "Where did that man go mama?" I told him he went to get another tool to keep fixing the dishwasher....and he said, "oh." and the man came back and Isaiah got down on his hands and knees to mimic the repairman. He was so curoius.

Then he left, saying that the wrong part had been ordered for us and the would order another one...and they'd have to come back... maybe I should give that realtor's wife our dishwasher?

Anyway, we had lunch and it was time for a nap...for the kids...

and that was just our morning...