Levi scooting in the kitchen

Levi is working really hard at figuring out how to crawl. He's making steady progress and here he is making his way across the kitchen floor.

Family and a Riding Mower

The following pictures are from the last week. Not much ties them together except that they are mostly of family...

Below, my guys...aren't they cute?



Levi and Aunt Erica



Grandma Schmidt and Levi



Levi is on the move these days, going after anything that catches his attention. Speed and coordination are still coming around, but he doesn't lack determination.



Ben borrowed Doug's riding lawn mower to get our lawn cut quickly and Noah was thrilled for a new mowing experience.

Church friends

Noah is finely at the age where he understands that we go to church and that when he's there he gets to go to Sunday School and see his friends. It's terribly cute to listen to him rattle off all the names of people he can remember from church. Plus, he associates church with snacking - don't all kids do that?

Below are his some of his church friends, Jake Flaming and Cambry Duerksen. They're having a snack in the nursery during church. Gotta love Goldfish crackers in cups - notice that each of them is eating with a play utensil. :-)





Below, Pastor Mike hanging out with Levi.

Noah directing and "singing"

Noah often imitates what he sees the song leader at church do. In this video, he is holding his book, directing and "singing" - I hope we sound better than this when we sing in church!

Levi at Breakfast

Here's Levi just after eating breakfast - Noah's in the background jabbering (as usual).

Noah and Levi singing

Noah has started singing his Sunday School songs around the house. It's great to hear him sing and in this video he's even including Levi in the fun.

All Sorts of Images from our life

This evening, I turned on our camera and wondered if I had taken any photos since the last time I posted some on the blog. To my pleasant surprise, there were a bunch of photos! So, here they are...



Noah wrestling with me before work one morning. He really like to wrestle - good thing Uncle Andy and Aunt Sara are coming next week!



Good Morning Levi!



The following three photos are from the Dyck Arboretum. They have HUGE turtles! And, I'm not shy about admitting to my fear of animals, and these turtles freaked me out. I think I hid it from Noah pretty well, but these were the biggest turtles I've ever seen. YIKES! I know the photos are not the best, but it's hard to photograph things in water and keep an eye on wandering Noah.







Levi at breakfast.







OK, so yes, I realize this is a photo of a ceiling fan. But, this is not just a ceiling fan. It's the fan I have wished for ever since we moved into this house (just about a year ago), and just today it was installed!!

New Tractor

Noah has a lot of tractors, and plays "parm" (farm) a lot. Ben and I thought it would be fun to get him a big tractor, one that would be easy to push all over the house and outside in the grass. So, on Saturday we got one. Noah spends a lot of time pushing his "new tractor" around the house, outside and all over the place. These photos are from Sunday when he first got a chance to play with it.

Slow and steady progress

Levi has been on the verge of crawling for a while now. Daily he seems to make a little more progress towards actually being up on all fours. He can travel around a room, but usually gets tired and frustrated before he gets too far. Ben took this video tonight of him. He's getting closer!

Chomping

Levi spends a lot of time chewing on anything he can find, which leads to gallons of drool. This video is short, I almost didn't post it. Here he's hanging out in his chair while Noah finishes up eating supper. Noah's laughing in the background.

Sing, sing, singing

Noah has started singing, a lot. This video does not do it justice, but as soon as he sees the camera he gets weird and usually stops. But, on this occasion, he was busy eating and singing and I actually caught him. He's singing "Deep and Wide" and eating a pretzel. He often combines songs, which is pretty funny. Maybe I'll get a better video soon.

July 4 gathering

July 4 was a fun evening at Pat and Amy Flaming's house. The number of kids way out-numbered the adults, but it was still a ton of fun. Thanks Mandi and Megan for these photos!



While all the other kids ate, Noah took the opportunity to play with whatever toy he wanted. He hopped from one thing to the next and once everybody else had eaten, he came to me and Ben to mooch off our plates.



At one point, all the kids were piled into the back of Doug and Vanessa's truck.



Who knew that one little turtle full of water could be so much fun?!





Gazing up at the fireworks.



So cute, all in a row!

Scrub-a-dub-dub

It's classic, little ones playing in the bathtub together. Levi has graduated from his baby tub, to simply sitting in the regular tub, which makes taking a bath with Noah a possibility. Levi is not a strong enough sitter yet to fully trust him in the tub, so his time in there with Noah is highly stressful for me. Noah enjoyed pouring water on Levi's head and just like so many other things, Levi smiled at it.

Wheat harvest wrap-up

Wheat harvest for my dad took a bit longer than usual due to some rainfall in the middle of harvest. So, on July 4 they wrapped it up for this year. Ben had a great time driving truck for dad during the harvest. Noah is still jabbering about riding on Grandpa's combine, daddy's truck and Austin's tractor (my cousin drove tractor/grain cart). Levi got one ride on the combine this year. Noah is already anticipating milo and soy bean harvest this fall.

Just too tired

Courtney, our summertime babysitter, snapped this photo of Noah one day AFTER his nap. He took his regular nap, got up, played for a little bit, then fell asleep on the floor.

Morning Hangout

Our bathroom is usually quite full in the morning while we get ready for work. Levi and Noah are usually both in there, still in their jammies, just hanging out. The other morning, Noah was giving Levi some love so I rushed to grab the camera in time to catch a few shots of the two of them together.



Somehow, each of them has more energy than Ben and I combined in the morning! It seems like that should be just the opposite - parents with more energy than the children.

Wrestling...already

I realize that as the mother of two boys and the wife of a former wrestler (yes, Ben was a wrestler back in the day) that wrestling is inevitable. I didn't expect it so soon, nor did I expect that Levi would smile while being toppled over by his brother! It's hard to see, but in both of these photos, Levi is smiling or at least grinning. How can that be? Big, scary Noah just plows him over, but still, unless a part of his body is being pinched, Levi will smile. Oh me oh my, I do believe there is a lot of wrestling in my future.

Levi at 6 months

Levi turned 6 months old on June 28. I know everybody says this, but that must be because it's true - time just flies when you have little ones. They grow so quickly, they change every day and before you know you've gone from mothering a tiny helpless infant to mothering a strong giggling baby.



He's showing more personality, laughing and interacting with others - it's great to watch him grow.



He chews on everything, and therefore slobbers on everything, too.





He might be pooping in this picture, without the sound it's hard to tell.