Onto Levi Dude

As promised, I am now going to do a post about Levi!
Levi has been so fun to have in our family.  He just turned 5 months on Friday, which is absolutely unbelievable!  He's coming into his own more and more and we are so excited for the fun little boy he is turning out to be.  Here are some of his milestones:
-He can roll over by himself and likes it for about a minute.  Then he gets mad and we have to roll him back!
-He LOVES Ellie.  So much!  Anytime she is around him he just wants to stare at her and smile at her and coo at her.  He totally loves her!
-He loves to bounce, like all kids his age!  He gets the biggest smile when he bounces.  And with those cute little dimples, you can guess how much we LOVE to bounce him just to see that smile!
-He's starting to giggle more and more.  Last night Kenna was doing fishy lip kisses to him and he was giggling so hard.  It was so cute!
-He LOVES getting kisses.  Totally!  He will let me kiss his face for 15 minutes straight!  He just sits there and eats it up.
-He is my cuddle buddy.  Ellie wasn't much of a cuddler but Levi certainly is!  Especially after he eats, too.  He won't let me burp him.  He just squirms and worms his way down and puts his head on my chest and just snuggles right on up.  I cannot tell you how much I love it!
-He is soooo close to sitting up.  Just a few more weeks and he'll be strong enough!
-He wants real food soooooo bad!  It kills him to sit and watch us eat and not get any.  He is on cereal and baby food already, but he wants the good stuff and he wants it now!  The other day I went shopping with Carolyn to the mall and we had Taco Time for lunch.  I had Levi on my lap and he would follow my taco everywhere it went, from the table to my mouth and back.  He started hitting at it every time it went past his face to try and grab it.  One time he got it and knocked it right out of my hand!  I let him have a taste and man that wasn't enough!  He seriously would have eaten it if I had let him!
-He still is a rough sleeper.  If he gets a nap during the day he sleeps pretty good at night, but if it's a no-nap day or a cat-nap day then man, I can plan on not getting much sleep that night!
-He's still nursing!  Ellie was D-O-N-E by 5 months, completely.  Levi is still just content as can be, which means free milk for us!
-His stats at his 4-month appointment were:
             >Height: 26 1/2 in. (up 6 in. from birth)  -  95th percentile
             >Weight: 14 lbs 11 oz. (double his birth weight)  -  60th percentile
             >Head Circumference: 17.3 in.  -  90th percentile
-He is just as fun as can be.  His crying has subsided a lot which has been nice.  I finally feel like we have a little bit of a routine down, which is fabulous!
-He has a pretty good scowly face!  When he does it, it looks like he has a unibrow!
-He has found his voice and he loves to use it.  He will talk and talk and talk!  And growl.  That boy LOVES to growl.

 



We are so lucky and blessed to have Levi in our lives.  I am so thankful that we have a boy and a girl.  They are totally different, but similar at the same time.  Levi has brought so much love with him into our little family and we are so proud to call him ours.  And man is he cute! :)  We love you little Levi Dude!

 Don't mind the pink chair...we forgot to cover it with a boy blanket! :)

Ellie Rose

I've been so worried about catching up on all of my posts that I haven't been able to highlight what's been going on lately.  So today I'm going to do a post on each one of the kids so that we can remember all of their funny quirks.

Ellie is little miss independent.  She loves to do anything and EVERYTHING by herself.  She doesn't like help with anything, especially peeling eggs!  BUT, she definitely got that from both of us, and it is a trait we admire so I guess it's ok! ;)  I'm trying to think of all the funny things she says, but if I forget some I'll do another post soon.
-When she's watching the Real Salt Lake games on TV she throws her arms up in the air and says "Oh my gosh are you kidding me!"
-When you ask her a question her new thing lately is putting her palms up and saying "Um, I don't know!" even if she does know.
-She walks over to the fridge, opens it, and says "What do you want?  Eggs?  Cheese?  Bread?  Juice?"
-She always changes her wants.  One minute she doesn't want something, the next she does.  Like this morning, I was cutting up a pineapple and she comes over and says "Mom, I don't like pineapple."  So I told her she doesn't need to eat it.  Then she says "Mmm, I like pineapple."  Then she leaves, comes back and says "I don't like pineapple."  I ask her if she wants to try it, so she does and says "Mmm, I like pineapple!"  She's so funny.  She does that with almost everything we eat.  Or she'll say "it's too little spicy" and then not eat it after all.
-"I want a piece of drink" when she needs a drink.
-Whenever I cook I have to get out the stepstool so that she can be there helping me and watching me.  She tastes almost everything, including the baking soda, and she always says "Mmm, I like it momma" and she'll put her arm around my waist and give me a little squeeze.  The only time she didn't like something was when she tasted the vanilla.  "Ew, that's yucky mamma." :)
-She knows every single Disney Princess and their songs by heart.  She is such a little singer.  She'll tell you to sing the _____ song (like Cinderella or Ariel), but then as soon as you start singing she says "No, don't sing with me" and takes over by herself.  And she literally knows almost every single word!  And she sings it on key, too.  It's amazing.
-We finally got stars on her ceiling and she calls them "my twinkle twinkle little stars."
-She love, Love, LOVES coloring.  Especially with markers.  For a while she would scribble these little spots all over the page she was coloring on.  Then one day I was feeding levi and she brought a paper over to me and it had smiley faces all over it!  Two years old and she's drawing smiley faces!  Now we know that those little scribbles were eyeballs.  We always thought she was trying to draw something but never knew what until she put it all together.  She is so smart.  It is so fun to see how smart she really is.
-She loves reading and telling stories.  Sometimes when I'm putting her to bed I have to feed Levi so I can't read a book to her.  So instead we tell stories, and they're always the princess stories.  One night she wanted to tell ME the story, though, and it went something like this:  She folded her arms, cleared her throat, and said "Once upon a time Belle fell in love with the Beast.  They got married and they kissed and lived happily ever after."  Fold arms, clear the throat, "Once upon a time, Ariel and Eric, she is a mermaid, she sings 'ahh ahh ahh ahh' and Eric kills Ursula and they get married!"
-Last night she wanted to read her Little Mermaid book to me.  Clint came in her room and asked who that was on the page.  She said "King Triton."  He said "That's right, he's Ariel's dad, huh?" and she said "No, he's King Triton."  "Yeah, he's Ariel's dad, huh?"  "No, he's King Triton."  It was so funny.
-After Ariel we read Cinderella.  She went to the page where Drizella and Anastasia are ripping Cinderella's dress apart, and Ellie says "Drizella broke the necklace and Anastasia broke Cinderella's dress."   She's so smart.  I never have even told her who did what, just that they tore her outfit apart, but she figured it out.
-She knows all of the DVD's that we have, and can find the case of the one she wants to watch before we can, just by looking at the words.
-She can count to ten, ending with fifteen dollars. :)  "One, two, ... nine, ten, fifteen dollars."
-She can sing the ABC song, but doesn't always finish it.
-She loves watching videos of herself and will just laugh and laugh.
-She loves to jump and bounce and sing and dance and do anything and everything that involves moving.
-She is such a big help with Levi.  If he's crying she'll go over and say "It's ok Levi, it's ok Levi dude" and bounce him like crazy.  Sometimes too much:)  Or she'll sing Rock a Bye Baby to him.
-She's finally done with the Binky, both in the day and at night.
-Potty training is still a no-go.  Every time we put big girl panties on her she wets her pants and won't sit on the princess toilet.  So we're still working on it there.  I think she's just afraid.
-She has the brightest smile and can make everybody laugh.
-She would be a princess every day if she could.
-The other day she told dad she wanted to sing the "Grandma Child song."  Clint asked her how it went and she sang "Grandma Child of God" instead of "I am a Child of God."  Clint and I just laughed and she was soooo proud of herself!
-Sometimes when she's not sure what to say she says "But, so, I want to do this..."  "But, so, I do that..."
-EVERY single time we get out of the car she pretends to be asleep.  Usually because Levi is asleep and we say "Ope, Levi's asleep."  Then we see that she is 'sleeping' so we have to 'be really quiet so that we don't wake Ellie up' and then she'll wake right up instantly!
-Gary and Carolyn gave Ellie a Christmas book last week.  They handed it to her and she said "Oh my gosh, it's my favorite color!"
-She will go over to Levi and say "You are the cutest baby in the world!" and give him kisses.
-This is one of our conversations the other day while I was getting ready: 
Ellie: Where's Kenna and Varro mom?  Mom, where's Kenna and Nawarro?
Me: I think Kenna is at school and Navarro is at work.
Ellie: Ok mom.
Me: Do you like Kenna and Varro?
Ellie: Yeah, I like them.  I like Kenna and Nawarro.  She likes her and she likes Nawarro and I eat him. 
:)
We love Ellie so so so much and we are so proud of who she has become and who she is becoming.  She is strong and loving and caring and sometimes wild and we wouldn't change anything about her.  Thanks Ellie girl for being our sweet little girl.  We are so lucky and blessed to call you ours.

 

 

 

Davis County Citizen's Police Academy

Just like normal, here is another blog post that is way behind. I graduated from the Davis County Citizen's Police Academy at the end of October! This class was a great opportunity to learn more about our local law enforcement and what they do to protect us. Many people do not like police officers (except when they need help from the police). Most of the time it is because they did something illegal and got caught. While I have always supported police officers, I have gained a new perspective on what they do to protect each of us. They all go to work each day willing to give their own life to protect each of us. I am very grateful for the protection that they provide to our communities.

Here are a few pictures from our SWAT training and graduation.

 

 

SWAT TRAINING

 

 

This vehicle has been in the news a lot in 2013. While it is armored on the outside, there is nothing but a couple of benches to sit on inside it.

 

 

This is me coming out of the "hot house." It is a building that is designed so that you can shoot live ammunition inside for training purposes. The gun is a fully automatic UMP-40 machine gun.

 

I got to use the "key" to open the door! What you can't see is my team standing just outside of the picture ready to make entry into the hot house once I have the door open. I knocked down the door and then jumped on the back of the team as they ran in past me. There were live suspects inside the house but we were using airsoft guns so no one would get hurt. The AR-15 hanging on my shoulder is an airsoft gun that is built to look and feel like a real AR-15.

 

 

 

GRADUATION

Davis County Sheriff, Woods Cross Chief, Clint, Bountiful Asst Chief, Woods Cross Asst Chief

 

Clint and Davis County Sheriff Todd Richardson

 

 

 

 

Any who lives or owns a business in Davis County can participate in the Davis County Citizen's Police Academy (You do have to pass a background check). If you are interested in taking the course let me know. I will get you connected with the right people.