Fun with Levi!

Little Levi has been a busy little boy this month and Christmas hasn't even happened yet! We are all very excited for Christmas to come, just watching Levi play with the wrapping paper when I have been wrapping presents is priceless. This weekend should be a good time.

We started out the month with Levi's second cousin Ellie's first birthday party.  There were a lot of people there for him to see and he liked playing with new toys that were not his. :) Ellie may not have been as excited as he was to share these toys!



Not so sure I want to share....




These taste good!




I want one of these for Christmas, but in blue please!


That was on Saturday and then on Sunday we went to help Grandma and Grandpa Schmidt pick out their Christmas tree at Hampton Hills Tree Farm.  Levi did great! It was pretty cold out, but it didn't seem to bother him.  We just put his car seat in a sled and off we went!



Here we go!




Checking in, he was doing great!




What is going on!?




Found one! Too windy over there, had to move to get away from the wind.




Then the next weekend we had the BIG snowstorm! We were pretty much snowed in for the whole weekend.  We did venture out on Saturday for a few hours to go to Logan's (Pat & Kelly's little boy) first birthday party in town. We only stayed a few hours, but it was a fun time!

Levi has been getting very active this month! We cannot just lay him on the floor and expect him to be "right there" when we get back. He tries to either find where you went or move to find a new toy to play with. He is army crawling now or just rolling to his place of interest.  He favors backing up versus going forward, but he is starting to attempt the forward way now.



I am trying to get to you but I can't!

He went to one physical therapy appointment for his "torticollis" with Grant last week. He had a good appointment and we are already seeing improvement.  We have been doing at home exercises with him and he is getting better at tolerating them. He has another appointment on the 3rd of January and that will probably be the last one he needs. This Monday he started getting a bad cough again so Grant took him to the Doctor. We actually had an appointment already scheduled for his ear re-check so it worked out perfect.  His ears were better and she said it was just a cold virus, nothing to treat it. Figured that, so we just are elevating his crib mattress again and he has shown improvement this week thankfully.  His cough was hard to watch and hear!

Other than that, he has been LOVING his Johnny Jumper. That is by far his favorite thing to do these days. He had a sleepover with Carter last weekend, she was loving helping Levi with anything she could think of that he needed. (Often times more than he needed of course :) ) And we went to visit Santa as well.  He didn't cry, he didn't laugh... just typical Levi, stared and was expressionless haha.




Hard to get him to STOP jumping for a picture!



Loves his new toy from Grandma Thurmes



I told Carter to get close to him for a picture but she said he would jump on her :)




I love chewing anything I can find!



Levi's first visit with Santa.. Couldn't get a smile in, too many people behind him to look at!



This month is flying by! We have been busy with everything I mentioned above and then Grant just wrapped up his semester at school this week. He is more than excited for a month off, he had a very busy semester with a full load schedule, working, hockey, and Levi. Daycare was closed today through Friday so Grant spent his first day off home with Levi. Then I am with him tomorrow and then we are off to Willmar on Friday for Christmas. I was brave this week and went to the outdoor Vikings game with Jess and Adam who are home for Christmas from Boston. We had a great time, too bad the score did not reflect this! But it was an experience to say the least, and we are glad we got the chance to go. I am excited for this weekend and I will post pictures of Levi's first Christmas sometime next week!

Half way to being ONE!

Well, Levi is now six months! He is a growing little boy.  Here are his stats from his 6 month well check:

• Weight: 16lbs, 1oz. ....30th percentile
• Length: 27.5 inches ....81st percentile
• Weight for Length: .....13th percentile
• Head circumference: ....75th percentile

November was a pretty tough month for the little guy.  He had a cough, runny nose, etc for a few weeks so I finally brought him in.  To my shock, he had a double ear infection! I never would have guessed that. He wasn't grabbing his ears or being fussy at all.  So we had him on Amoxicillan for ten days. Then at his well check this week, she looked in his ears and he still had it in one ear. So we got a stronger antibiotic now and hopefully that will work. He has to go back in three weeks to get those checked as well as his second dose of the flu shot.

We had his appointment at Children's on the 23rd. We were finally assured that the bump on his head (from the vacuum attempt at birth) will go down completely.  The Dr said he had never not seen one go away and that it just takes time. So that was good news. And then we talked about his flatness of his head and he wouldn't tell us he needed a helmet or didn't need it since it was purely cosmetic at this point. We decided not to go with the helmet. It is a huge commitment and I can already see his head getting better as his bump is going down. They did however find that he has a mild case of torticollis on his right side. We never noticed this until they pointed it out! Basically, Levi will not turn his head completely to the right. So we have some at home exercises to correct this that we do with him everyday and he is supposed to start physical therapy once a week too, but they haven't called me to schedule anything yet.

Thanksgiving week brought the flu to our family... Well to Grant and Levi.  I am still crossing my fingers I do not get it.  I had flu symptoms for a few hours, but nothing like those two.  We were getting ready to leave for Willmar on Wednesday and Levi started throwing up. We contemplated even going, but we decided to give it a try.  The ride out was pretty bad because of the snow, so it took us a long time to get there. Levi got sick a few times, but he was a trooper, smiling in between. It was hard to see him puke the first time since he doesn't know what is going on and it takes his breath away. So we stopped to clean him up and get him some Pedialyte. He pretty much just drank that all of Thanksgiving Day and started coming around that night. He didn't sleep very much so we were all exhausted on Friday. It was a fun, fast trip. Grant got to get some hunting in with his dad and uncle and it was nice to see everyone, hopefully the next time we are there, everyone is healthy!! We came home Friday night and then on Sunday Grant woke up with the flu pretty bad.  He was out of commission until Tuesday. Since then, we are all good to go, my fingers are crossed it stays this way!!

Levi continues to be a very good eater. We got the okay to start giving him the meats and dinners baby foods now so it is funny to see his reaction when he tries those for the first time. He still LOVES his fruits more than anything though. I started giving him some fresh fruit in those mesh holders, that is his favorite thing to do after daycare.  Well that, or sip on a sippy cup and make a mess :) He is starting to roll over non-stop, this makes diaper changes quite a pain sometimes! But he makes us laugh. He is starting to scoot or roll towards you when you pull a toy away from him too. That is our new fun little game we play with him. So we are not far away from fully baby-proofing our house. Gates will be up soon!

He still just has his two teeth, although, I think another one is on it's way. He is starting to be a drooly mess again. We will see if he will let me look in his mouth this weekend to investigate. Bath time is still his favorite thing ever. He splashes almost all of his water out of his tub by the time we are done. It is a very nice way for him to wind down and get all of his energy out before his bed time bottle.

We didn't take too many pictures this month, but i have a few to share. We also went and got some family pictures taken, although we were NOT impressed. We are not going back to that place!! There were a few good ones though as you will see.

We will see what this month brings us! Levi loves looking at all the Christmas lights and feeling our Christmas tree. It should be a fun month!