Catching Up

Here begins our blog catch-up!  My, how time flies.

May 2011

June 2012

We had wonderfully fast and functional internet in Houston, but then we moved to central Illinois and the internet was not fast.  Therefore, I did not have the patience to blog for the last year.  We are now in Alexandria, VA and have again the wonderful internet connection speed required for Sloan to take the time to chronicle the parts of our life that we want to share with the world.  So, enjoy!

2!

Levi turned 2 on April 28th. We did a Go, Diego, Go! theme this year...last year was balls. He watches Diego and Dora in the mornings and then Diego again, right before bed. He loves the animals on the show and interacts when questions are posed by the characters. We've probably seen each episode a handful of times now, but that's okay.

I had a hard time finding Diego toys in stores, but Ebay had no shortage. So, I was lucky enough to use a Groupon for $15 (I paid $7 for that) and then $20 out of pocket, for what I consider a pretty good selection of animals, Diego figures, a few vehicles, and the rescue center. He plays with them each day and could care less that the items are used.

I offered to make a Rescue Pack or Click the Camera cake, knowing those would be the easier options, and he chose Click the Camera.

We didn't have a party, just mom, dad, and Grandma Shawn. It was enough though. He understood that it was his birthday and why he got presents.

If you ask him how old he is he will say 2 and hold up 5 fingers since he can't only hold up 2. He tries though. ;)

We had a pancake breakfast, a happy meal for lunch, and pizza for dinner...all favorites of little man Booth.

He got his very own laptop, the Leapster Leap Top, clothes, books, a bath toy, tools, a puppy suitcase, a Diego tricycle, and much more. He was a happy birthday boy.

Let him eat cake!

We discovered that Levi LOVES cake! We had extra frosting after his birthday, so we made a Mother's Day cake, too. He was in cake heaven. I think he likes the icing the most. I didn't like icing when I was younger, so I'll say he gets it from Josh. :)

Shapes!!

Levi is a shape-sorter extraordinaire!

Star Day

Today was Star Day at our house. I decided on Valentine's Day to institute shape days so we could have some more fun learning shapes. Levi loves stars, so we had some fun with stars this morning. He enjoyed a star cookie that we made yesterday afternoon, but didn't try the pbj star or cheese star I served at lunch. He did eat the star Gerber puffs though.  We colored the star sheets, but he just wanted to play with the crayons instead of coloring...mom did most of the coloring.  :)

We went on a star hunt. Instead of taping cut-out stars to the walls as decorations, (because I couldn't find the 2 rolls of scotch tape we have in the house,) I hid them in obvious places in Levi's room, play area, pocket wall hanging, and on some furniture. He enjoyed finding them.

San Antonio

Josh had his final Spring Break last week, so we took 2 days to visit San Antonio. Its a 3-hour drive from Houston...we're so glad we invested in a portable DVD player. Levi didn't do too bad...he just had a hard time falling asleep in the car.

We went to the Alamo when we arrived. It was hot and sunny and I think Levi needed to burn off too much energy after being in the car all morning, so we didn't get to see too much, but he enjoyed the cannons. There isn't much organization to the Alamo tour and it was so busy, so it was hard to grasp what we were seeing. We enjoyed dinner at our favorite steak house, Longhorn. There isn't one in Houston, so although there are countless well reviewed restuarants close to the Riverwalk, we just decided to get what we know is good and can't enjoy often.

Day 2 was centered on the Riverwalk. We didn't have much of a plan, which is a little unusual for us, so we enjoyed our riverboat ride, walking around, stopping for ice cream, and wandering the mall a bit. Levi was happy there were so many stairs around. The sky was overcast most of our time on the Riverwalk which was very pleasant.

We ended up getting back to Houston at 5pm, so to avoid sitting in traffic, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for a yummy dinner and Levi enjoyed rocking and playing checkers. It was a pleasant evening. It was a mini-vacation, but just the time away we needed.

Build-a-Bear

Friday was simply a marvelous day. The weather was beautiful and we just had fun. We got a coupon for a free build-a-bear animal, so we headed to Memorial City Mall to put it to use. After looking around, Levi chose a puppy that we named Murphy.

Here he is walking out of the store with his new friend.

He wanted to open his friend while we were in the mall, but I encouraged him to wait until we got to the car. We opened the box right away and he enjoyed his friend for the first 3 minutes of the ride, before tossing him aside. Later, he was very excited to show dad his new friend.