Levi: 2 months old!

My little Leviathan is already 2 months old! This second month has flown by, much more than the first. Yet, at his size, what's harder to believe is how young he is, not how old. Especially when everyone assumes he's at least six months. The first time we dropped him off at YMCA childcare, at 8 weeks old, we wrote his age on the sign-in sheet. The lady who took him glanced at the sheet and, without any hesitation, wrote "8 MONTHS" on his ID bracelet. Ha! We love our little "Chunks," as his big sister likes to call him.

This month Levi's become super-smiley, especially in the morning when he first wakes up and right after he eats (when he's still awake after eating, that is). Daddy claims he saw the first smile at 2.5 weeks, but these days the smiles are much more consistent (and undoubtedly legit). He's also cooing a lot and even giving what definitely seem like giggles. There is pretty much nothing better!

He's still a gassy little guy, but he's not as perturbed about this fact as he was a month ago, when we were pulling our hair out trying to figure out how to deal with it. Gone are the days of him being awake in the middle of the night, crying about his tummy hurting, and we're so grateful for that. He seems to have simply outgrown it, as nothing that we tried seemed to help particularly. I will say that he still gets hiccups almost every day and definitely is not a fan of those. I've never seen a baby cry about the hiccups before, but when I think about it, I don't really enjoy them either, so why should he?

He's not *quite* as mellow as he seemed in those first several weeks, but still, overall he's definitely still a mellow guy. He's got a much stronger preference for being held than he used to, but there are still many times when I can lay him down in his bed and he just goes to sleep (or stays asleep), which continues to feel miraculous to me. Annabel would pretty much never put up with that, unless she was in the swing.

It's pretty normal these days that Levi actually "goes to bed" around 10 and sleeps for about 4 hours before his first wake-up call, and that is completely new for me. I love it. Sure, he's still up every two hours after that, but it's still so nice to get that time at the end of the day (however brief) when both babies are actually in bed. Annabel didn't "go to bed" until 8 months old.

And now, because I simply can't resist his intense sweetness, here are some more pictures from the past week.

The smile we're loving these days. (This smile is slightly bigger than the one above, and this is actually the picture I intended to use for the two-month one, but I was completely finished before I realized I'd used the wrong one, and I was not about to redo it.)

The sweet & contemplative expression we see most of the time. Plus a cute hedgehog.

Trying to solicit those smiles.

...To give you an idea of scale. He's already filling up his bouncy seat.

 I mean, really. At least try to be cute.

We love this guy more all the time. I am still totally enjoying his babyhood, no matter how big he is. I love having a little guy who can't totally hold his head up and whose needs in life are so simple. I am totally soaking up this last month when he's still a *little bit* newborny, because I know it will be over in a matter of days. Love, love, love.

matchy matchy, Part 1: Robotica

In the weeks leading up to Levi's birth, I was MIA on my blog. Ironically, during that time, I was on a crafting rampage.  (Ironic because normally crafting productivity + blogging frequency go hand in hand for me.) My creative energies were all diverted toward nesting, which, since I live in my parents' house, primarily took the form of making things for Levi. (Had we been living in our own place, I probably would have spent a lot more time organizing, purging, and decorating his room.) All my crafting left no time for blogging.

In any event, I did my best to include Annabel in all the creativity because crafting is actually a great source of bonding and quality time for us. She loves doing "projects" with me, and a favorite one is making shirts together (like this one and this one). Before Levi was born, she was also really excited about us acquiring all the necessary baby accoutrements. She would routinely see things at the store (blankets, hats, toys, etc.) and say, "That would be perfect for my baby boy!"

So, what would be the perfect intersection of my nesting, Annabel's nurturing, and my desire for more quality time with my daughter? Making brother/sister matching shirts together, of course. At least, that was my solution.

I give you the fruit of our efforts in two chapters. Our first endeavor: Project Robotica.

The happy couple. Levi might look mad, but really he's happy. Promise.

I found this awesome robot image on Etsy, screen-printed onto a onesie (for sale here). I commandeered it with my Silhouette program and cut out a freezer-paper stencil (okay, probably not totally legit, but I'm not planning on making any money off of this). I had originally intended to only make one for Levi, as robots would typically be boy-friendly fare. But then, I thought, why not make a pink one for Annabel? I proposed the idea to her and she loved it. 

Using freezer paper stencils with kids is SO much fun. If you leave plenty of extra paper around the actual stencil, when you iron it on the rest of the shirt is protected by the freezer paper. This allows them to paint away without fear of the paint getting in the wrong places. Plus, there's the fun of the "big reveal" when you peel the stencil off, revealing the finished shirt. No pictures of this process...I'll leave that to the many other crafty bloggers who have well-documented this process. In any event, we had fun.

Annabel sporting her new shirt, well before Levi was born. {excited about the shirt, but not so much about me taking her picture.}

Annabel picked out all the colors she wanted for both shirts (though it did help that I gave her limited options - and also that she has firm (and socially congruent) opinions about "boy colors" and "girl colors"). But I have to say, I loved the colors she picked.

Annabel's robot, up-close. She painted it all herself!

I saved sharing the shirts until now so I could have the fun of a matchy matchy sibling photo shoot. This was their first one. 

You'll all not be very surprised to know that by the time we actually got around to taking these photos, at 5 1/2 weeks old, Levi had already outgrown the 0-3 month onesie. It was definitely not going to snap. So, we just tucked it into his pants and called it good.

I feel like Annabel should be singing, "We're off to see the wizard!..."

I know, I'm so yummy that you just want to eat me up.

...I didn't mean LITERALLY. (We will never shield him from such exuberant sibling "love." :D)

Pure robotic sweetness.

I love my matchy-matchy robotica twins! Annabel consistently asks to wear their matching shirts. It's a bummer that he outgrew his so quickly. I'm tempted to cut out the robot and applique it onto a bigger onesie. Or, maybe upcycle them onto cute accent pillows for their shared room someday. We'll see. 

Stay tuned for Part 2: Big and Little!

atlanta dreaming (and a new BFF for a-love)

Last week our whole family made the trek to Atlanta, Georgia. 

In my mind, the barn is supposed to clue you in that this picture was taken in Atlanta. Just go with it.

For those in need of catching-up or clearing-up regarding our life plans, Atlanta is where we will be moving. Sometime. Hopefully sooner than later. Our ministry's headquarters is there, and it's where we need to be. We're currently living in Minnesota with my parents while we raise our support. We don't plan on any other income besides our monthly support (made possible by viewers like you), SO we'll be in Minnesota until we make enough to live on. Our goal is to be able to move by this fall. We'll see what God thinks about that.

In any event, we needed to go check out this place that will soon be our home, so last week we did. We've been there before, but it was our first time visiting since we decided we'd be moving there, and so we were definitely viewing it with a different set of lenses. Lenses like school districts, and neighborhoods, and the nearest Target. (Well, maybe that last one was MY lens.) And also lenses like ministry opportunities, and overlap between WDA's needs and our gifts, and potential friends.

We had an awesome, vision-inducing trip on all of those fronts. Many of the things we're now dreaming about will surely appear on our upcoming blogs and newsletters. Community-building, church-planting, house-buying dreams. But I'd say a major highlight of our trip involved that last lens: our potential Atlanta friends.

I'd have to say Annabel has found a new potential BFF:

Ahh, the love. 

This beautiful boy, Mr. Judah David Dukes, is the offspring of two of our new (or maybe not-so-new) favorite people, Keight and Jesse Dukes. The truth is we've been internet-stalking them for over a year, or at least I've been stalking Keight, since Nate had actually met both of them and I hung out with Jesse at last year's staff conference. Jesse's dad Bob is the president of WDA, and Jesse's on staff with us. (Here's where I should be putting a picture of the two of them, but I guess while we were hanging out we were too busy taking pictures of our kids and failed to get any of the grown-ups.) Keight's blog is a personal favorite and happens to be THE blog that got me into this whole Christian-crafty-mama blogging subculture. I shall be forever grateful. If you appreciate my blog at all, you should definitely check out hers, as she was my initial inspiration. Plus she's got even less of a TMI filter than me, which always makes for an honest, refreshing, and entertaining read. (She's also all three of those things in real life.) We loved our time with these guys and look forward to hanging out and doing ministry with them for years to come.

Keight, Levi, and Judah - who happens to be the sweetest baby-wrangler ever. He was so tender with Levi.

Like I was saying...

...the sweetest, most tender little boy ever. (Judah, not Levi, though my baby is certainly yummy.) I kind of wanted to keep him. (Maybe Annabel can help me out with this one day? No pressure...)

As much fun as we grown-ups had, I think our two eldest enjoyed each other even more. You already saw the spontaneous hug up above (which was not posed, by the way - at least not the initial spontaneous embrace, though there may or may not have been a bit of "Wait wait! Let's take a picture!" to capture the magic). Annabel & Judah spent most of their time doing this:

In perpetual motion. Happy as clams endlessly chasing each other back and forth, and hugging upon collision.

And a little of this:

I SO hope we get to use this against them both in the future. Nice stretchy Cars butt, Judah.

...And a whole lot more of this:

The newly-enamored pair, with cheeks bright red from running after each other all night.

Yes, yes; good times and greasy burgers were had by all. Miss Layla, their beautiful terminator of a 15-month-old, slept through most of this action. In future hang-out times I'm sure she'll be in on the love too. 

Friends like this make us even more super-stoked about the day when we can actually pack up and move to the good ol' South. Annabel and Judah definitely need some more quality time.

look mom! no hands!

I miss blogging.

I have so many posts, complete with pictures, that I've written in my head over the past 8 weeks since Levi was born. Unfortunately, it takes two hands to (efficiently) create a post, and most of the time, I find I cannot meet that minimum requirement. It would sure be handy (oh you know I punned that on purpose) to be an Octo-Mom with [at least] eight limbs. Then I could nurse Levi, acquire princess-fairy-godmother accoutrements for Annabel, work the remote control, eat tortilla chips, and type blog posts all at the same time. But for now, two's all I've got, so usually the first two items on that list are all (or sometimes more than all) I can accomplish. This is even taking into account a generous amount of "Go ask Papa to help you with that."

And man, I miss it. Blogging, emailing, sewing, ...any and everything I used to do when I had two hands free at the same time.

Right now, the only reason I'm sitting here is because Annabel is watching a movie in her room and Levi is upstairs in the swing, being supervised by my dad. I expect to have about 8.5 minutes before one of the two needs my attention.

I guess this is the reality of two kids, right? When I had Annabel, the day-to-day felt infinitely more exhausting and complicated than life without her (even though I would never have sent her back). Life sans-child seemed far easier, simpler, and more peaceful as I remembered it.

Now, at the birth of my second child, I find that it's life with one baby that I'm remembering as remarkably easier, simpler, and more peaceful. I think about having only one baby to wrangle and I think, "No sweat. What could I have possibly been complaining about, with a two-on-one caregiver to child ratio?" ...And yet I know that, when Annabel first arrived, that one-child life felt just as overwhelming as this two-kiddos life feels right now. And that's because last time, I was comparing life with one child to life with none. And now, I'm comparing life with two children to life with one. And no matter what way you slice it, both transitions have been equally hard. Just different. VERY different.

When Annabel was born, I had changed about 1.5 diapers in my life. I had never breastfed, or comforted a baby, or used a car seat. I had virtually no baby exposure prior to her birth. ALL of it was brand new, not to mention the whole identity-renovation of becoming a mom and the radical redefinition of our marital relationship to include the joint care of this tiny, helpless, and profoundly needy person. That transition rocked my world and I don't think I fully recovered until, oh, maybe a few months before Levi arrived. (God's good timing, I guess.) No matter how much I loved my daughter, and despite the fact that I had always wanted to be a mom, finding my groove as a mama of one was a long and conflicted process. But, this past August or so, I finally felt like I'd kind-of-sort-of found it. I finally found myself enjoying motherhood more than I ever had, and more in the way I'd wanted to all along.

Then came Levi. Aaaand the process has started all over again. Just like Annabel, I can barely contain my love for him, my protective instincts, the joy that wells just from looking at him. And yet, this being a mom-of-two thing feels like the hardest thing I've ever done. Bar none. There's suddenly twice as many needs to be responsible for, twice as many cries to respond to, twice as many needs for my two hands (and arms, and legs, and attention, and focus, and emotional energy, and and and....).

And no matter how much of a groove I thought I'd found being Mommy to one, it just doesn't cut it with two. Those margins I worked so hard to find (margins that allow for things like blogging, sewing, keeping in touch with friends) have suddenly disappeared again. And I'm back to the drawing board, figuring out how to make all of the things in my life find their places again.

But, just like I was after Annabel, I am determined to do it - to figure out how to make room for the things that are important to me, the things I feel compelled to do. Momming definitely is coming first, and it's taking more time, energy, and just more of me than it ever has. That's okay. I think "me" just has to expand to make room. Somehow. (And hopefully not in the physical sense, since I am definitely hoping to go the opposite direction in that department.)