So hungry!

Levi got a present in the mail from Uncle Nonner and Aunt Danica yesterday. He decided that he wanted to eat the box. It was rather cute. Notice that Levi, Daddy and the box all match. We were going to take a picture of Daddy and Levi, but Levi pooped through his clothes before we got back from looking at the wild flowers. We left him with my parents. Next time he wears the outfit we will have Daddy wear his shirt and take a nice picture.

Update: Last night Levi slept until 3:10am and then did not get up, after staying awake for an hour until 7:00am. That was really nice and probably our best night of sleep in a long time. The night before he slept almost as good. We are hoping and praying his sleeping will continue to improve. He still is weezing, but at this point I do not really know what to do.

Pray Request: Please pray that Ryan can enjoy his job and have confidence in his job skills.

Birthdays!

Sunday was my mom's birthday and it also was Ryan's birthday. It has been fun having them have the same birthday. I joke to people that it is the only reason I married him, as I am older than he is. So, if he did not have the same birthday as my mom and was younger than me I would not have married him. Just kidding!

We end up getting a lot of milage out of their birthdays, as we have events with my brother and his wife, his parents, my parents and us. This year was a little shorter than normal, as Ryan had to work in the afternoon. It was sad to see him leave, but I was grateful he got to go to church with us and spend a little of is day with us.

Ryan, thank you for being a great husband and father to us. We appreciate all of your hard work and think you are the best. We hope that you get enough rest and look forward to the days and time that you are home with us.

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In our family we have a number of duplicate dates.

• Ryan and my mom, Shelley have the same birthday (March 8th).
• Danica, my sister-in-law has the same birthday as my Grannie (mom's mom), which also happens to be Christmas.
• Eric, my little brother was born on my in-laws' anniversary, which also happens to be our Grandpa Ray's birthday (June 29th).
• I believe that my future sister-in-law, Megan was born on my parents' anniversary (April 4th).
• My brother-in-law, Joseph and his fiancee, Megan are getting married on my sister-in-law, Sarah's birthday (August 8th).

We joke that Eric will have to marry someone that has the same birthday as one of our family members and that she will have to be older than him, as Danica and I are both older than our husbands. We will just have to wait and see....we have a few years.

Baby feet

It appears that he has Ryan's feet. Ryan was hoping he would have my feet. Either way, I still think they are way cute!

Levi is 5 months!

Levi - 5 months

It is hard to believe that Levi is now 5 months old (a little over that). He now weighs 17 pounds 6 ounces. I often wonder where the time has gone. He is a cute baby and we enjoy him a lot. Things he has been able to do recently are:

• Talk, as he found his "voice" last month and during some portion of each day he talks and talks. It is too cute.
• Grasping more objects. He enjoys pulling things to his face. He likes to have his face covered. It looks like he might take after his Mama. He has always had a strong grasp, even from birth, if he was able to grab something. It is neat to watch him now do things with purpose.
• Been out of state. As you see from the last post he went to Arizona. He was a good traveler and always seems to be on road trips. We hope he stays that way.
• Been in the snow (in Arizona).
• Not quite sitting (I think his tummy gets in the way), but holding his head rather sturdy these days and looking around at everything.
• He still loves a pacifier.
• I am sure that I am missing a few things, but this is a start.

We feel blessed to have him as our son. We a grateful for him. The more I have reflected on him these past few weeks I have come to feel like he has brought some healing to my heart over the loss of graduate school and other disappointment I faced these past 5 years or so. I am thankful for His gift and remind myself often Levi is His first and that he was gracious in giving him to me. I am truely proud to call him my son.

NOTE: Levi is sick with bronchiolitis for the FOURTH time. We have been unable to get many answers regarding the reason he as been sick so much in the first 5 months of his life. This is often discouraging, especially as he is currently not sleeping much more than 2 hours at a time at night. We would like some answers to his problems, as we never really found any answers to the reason he breaths so fast. If you think of him could you pray for an answer to his troubles and/or healing. We would appreciate it, especially the Mama, as it makes a mama tired.

Grand Canyon!!!

Okay, so you can tell by the title that we went to the Grand Canyon. I always seem to have trouble moving the pictures around in my blog. I deleted one and tried to add it back and now it is at the top of my post. I am going to have to live with the disorder (hard for a firstborn) until I figure out how to fix it or have Ryan fix it for me. So, these two pictures are really suppose to be at the bottom of the post with the other pictures. If you know how I can fix it please let me know. Thanks.

A cool picture Ryan took of my parents while I was holding a sleeping baby in the lobby.

Me, Nick and Eric at the cutout in the trail that goes down into the Grand Canyon.

On Thursday we left for the Grand Canyon. We spent the night in Williams, Arizona. The next morning we took the train to the Grand Canyon. Our train guide, Morgan was really nice. She made the trip there and back very enjoyable. Once to the Grand Canyon we got onto a bus that took us to two different lookout locations. It was neat to see the Grand Canyon with snow, as when I went before we were at the other rim and there was no snow. I learned that during the winter months the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is closed, as there is too much snow due to the over 1,000 foot elevation difference between the two sides of the Grand Canyon.

Ryan had not been to the Grand Canyon before, so he enjoyed his time. He wished that we could have stayed longer. I was just happy that he was finally able to see the Grand Canyon. He would like to return to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. On Saturday we attempted to hike down into the Grand Canyon a little ways, but forgot that the trail would be snowy. My dad went down a short distance before changing his mind, as he was carrying Levi. My mom made it a little further before stopping. I hiked down a little further with Ryan and the boys. We stopped at a little cut out in the rock for the tail and Ryan continued on. He gave his wife a heart attack almost when he went out of view. Thus, I decided to hike back up to the top with to boys to keep my mind off of the fact I could no longer see Ryan. The trip up was much easier than the trip down. Ryan would like to return maybe in October with Andrew and Danica to hike to the bottom. My mom has offered to watch Levi, so we will see where we are in a few months.

Levi was a good sport for the whole trip. He traveled very well in the car both ways. The cold weather did not seem to bother him too much. He did get wind burn on his face though. He had a hard time at night though. This is not really anything new, as he has been waking a lot at night since he got sick about a month ago. So, this mommy is not getting much sleep these days. I am hoping he is going to start sleeping more soon. We were down to getting up once or twice (seldom) each night. Now we can be up as many as four times. It is rough at night, but I check and each morning he still finds a way to melt my heart. Who could be made at such a cute boy?

Below are some pictures from our trip. We hope you enjoy and Ryan might post more later, but he is at work right now.

Levi with his Mama at Hopi Point. One of the stops on our bus tour.

Levi trying to keep warm with the help of his Daddy. The hat he is wearing was worn by Ryan when he was a baby. Kind of cool.

You can see that ll loved the Colorado River down in the bottom of the Canyon

like I did when I went when I was in grade school.

Nick, Eric (Uncle Junior), Shelley (Mama/Grannie), Levi (Big Man), Doug (Dad/Papa), Heidi (Mama) and Ryan (Daddy) at another lookout during the bus tour. Oh, I also call my dad Boss for some reason, so I guess he gets three other names.

A Few More Pictures

Doesn't Levi look warm?

Levi and Mommy out for a walk after dinner with six other children (2/5). I had told the kids we would start walking, so they could ride their bikes and the scooter. Well, we finally made it happen. It was a fun little trip and we should walk more often.

Cool kicks!!

Here is Levi wearing the Uggs that his Mommy purchased for him with the money that his great-grandma Isabelle gave him for Christmas. Right after Christmas I saw a woman in Target with her son and he had a pair on. I asked her where she got them and I went on a hunt. I thought they were too cute to pass up. Yes, I am silly. I don't own a pair of Uggs, but my son does. Oh well.

Levi & the babes..

Here we all are after Christmas. This is our four generation picture on my mom's did. Heidi (Mommy), Shelley (Grannie), Levi (Big Man) and Carol (GG...great grandmother). Levi's eyes are close, but he is still cute.

Our cute family!

I believe this is our "Christmas" picture that was taken after Christmas. It just didn't seem like we could find a time to take a picture for Christmas this year between children, odd work hours and holiday commitments, but this will have to work.

Note: This picture was taken on 1/9/09. Yes, our tree was still up. I told people we kept it up, as we put it up so late. I think our tree was only up a week before Christmas. The last two Christmas Seasons I have not decorated very much at all. Two year ago we moved on the 1st of December, which I highly would not recommend. This Christmas we had a new baby and had just taken in two new foster children. I am hopeful for next year, but at the same time we will have a 13 month old boy on our hands....we will have to wait and see.

Notice the pretty quilt?

This is Levi sleeping in his bed for the morning (1/6). This is the first and only time he has slept in his crib his Leach grandparents and great-grandmother Isabelle purchased for him. He currently sleeps in our room still, as the foster children occupy our other three rooms.

If you look at the picture the quit was made by his Grandma Jane. It is very cute and she worked really hard on it. It is a Noah's Ark theme with all different animals on it. We were very excited to receive it as a gift. Thank you Grandma Jane for all of your hard work. If I think of it I will post a picture where you can see the whole quilt.

Catching up..

Levi - 7 days

Levi - 1 month

Levi - 2 months (with cousin Isabelle)

Levi - 3 months

Levi - 4 months

Updating again....Where has the time gone?

Proud new van owners?

Well, last Saturday (2/7) we drove to the Stockton area with my parents and came home with the above purchase. I have said all my life that I would never be a van owner. Why is it the things you say you would never do you manage to do later in life?

You ask why the purchase??? Let's see, at the current count our household consists of 9 people. There is the mommy and daddy, Levi and 6 foster children. We have Destiny (14), Nico (12), ReyAnna (7) and Larissa (2). They are all siblings. Then there is Noah (11) and Larissa (7), who are brother and sister. Yes, we have TWO...count it TWO Larissa's in our home. Makes the adventure even more adventurous.

Baby Jesus!

Levi and I were in the Christmas Musical at North Fresno Church the middle of December. I played Mary with Levi playing Baby Jesus in the first service, as the original Mary who sang in the program could not be there for the second half of first service. In second service she held him the whole time. He slept through both of his performances as Baby Jesus. It was rather nice, as the Mama was kind of worried. He did great!