Woo Woo!! My baby is TWO?!!?

This post has been sitting in my "unpublished posts" for two months now and life has finally slowed down enough for me to finish it.  Better late than never!

Our sweet and precious, youngest son, Levi, turned 2 on Wednesday, January 22nd. 
There are so many things that I want to  remember about this stage of his life.

The first is that crazy, long hair that daddy wanted him to keep for as long as possible. Here he and his sheepdog hair are on the new bike his Nana got him for his birthday.  He loves riding it all over the place outside.  There's a covered sidewalk across our front yard (aka: the bus loop) that has some sloping up and down for a crossing area for vehicles.  He loves to ride up and down these slopes and life his feet and let the bike coast as long as it can till it stops.  Once he pulled up a little too hard on the handle bars while going down hill, did a wheelie, and flipped backwards to bonk his head.  Poor guy.

Post haircut nap.  Do you notice anything else missing except hair? 

Thanks to a stuffy-nose-cold he had for several days in the middle of January he had to make a choice to breathe or use his pacifier.  Breathing won, but not without lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth.  About 3 nights into him waking us up every two hours or so, we figured out he was having pacifier withdrawals.  It would have been crazy to waste those sleepless and pacifier-less nights and give them back to him after that.  We still had to go another several nights of interrupted sleep, but after about a week we were over the hump.  No more pacifiers for Levi!  YAAAY!

Levi loves playing outside with his brothers and doing big boy stuff with them.  Hunter made him a pinata out of a diaper box here and hung it from the fence. 

Levi is still a big fan of hats and necklaces. 

Levi LOVES to help me clean the kitchen.  He got a cute little broom, dust pan, and mop set from Maw Maw Wally for Christmas and he uses it whenever he happens to catch me sweeping the floor.   He also loves to help me spray the kitchen table and wipe it and the floor and the walls down.  He is such a good helper!  He also helps me transfer laundry from the washer to the dryer and from the dryer into hampers.  He puts his shoes away in his own box in the shoe cabinet like a champ.  He is the most compliant, cooperative, and helpful toddler I've ever had in our home. 

Have I ever mentioned that the boy is a ball player?

 Levi LOVES balls of all sorts and kinds.   Baseballs, footballs (a big fave of his and we have watched him throw a perfect spiral with one of the little footballs we have more than once or twice), bouncy balls, and basketballs. 

He can throw whatever ball he might be holding right to you, with excellent aim. 

Here is a little video I took of him last month hitting a plastic baseball on his own with one hand.  This is one of his favorite things to do and does it nearly every day for several minutes. 

More recently he's been working on his drop kick with his Lightning McQueen ball. 

 I took this video just the other day.

We're still going strong nearly every week at library story time.  He runs from the front door of the library into the story time room, grabs his carpet square, plops it on the floor, and is ready for action.  His favorite songs are "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", The "ABC" Song" and by far, his favorite, "If You're Happy and You Know It."

He has become quite the picky eater in the past few months.   Here's what he loves, what could go either way, and what he refuses to eat even though I try all the time:

What He Loves

•  All fruits but mostly bananas (sometimes 2x a day!), apples, and oranges
• smoothies with coconut oil, frozen fruit (berries, mangoes, papayas, and pineapple) plain yogurt, milk, raw honey and avocado.  Smoothies are the ONLY way he'll eat avocado.
• cooked green beans and peas (he goes crazy for peas)
• corn
• raw carrots
• mashed potatoes
• seaweed
• plain, cheese quesadillas
• whole chicken in the crockpot (hands down his favorite protein source)
• baked cod and salmon 
• chicken noodle soup
• scrambled eggs
• hamburgers
• rack of lamb
• leg of lamb in the crockpot
• homemade oatmeal with raisins
• homemade bread with lots of butter (any kind of bread, really)
• homemade, soaked, whole-wheat biscuits
• homemade pancakes
• water
• raisins
• pecans
• any kind of packaged, snack food like pretzels, crackers, chips, etc.  Much to his disappointment, he gets very little of this stuff.  

If He's In the Mood For It

• Babybel cheese
• deer sticks
• lunch meat and cheese sandwiches
• tuna sandwiches
• sweet potatoes (he used to eat this all the time a year ago!)
• milk 
• mashed potatoes
• walnuts, peanuts, almonds, cashews
• pizza

What I Offer Him All the Time But He Won't Eat and I Sure Wish He Would!

• pretty much all kinds of soups except chicken noodle
• kale sauteed in butter
• collard greens cooked in broth
• casseroles and stir fries (or any kind of food mixed up, really)
• salads
• broccoli

Taking a nap with the school-bus-yellow, cotton blankie that Grandma Nelson got him for his birthday.  When I tuck him in at night I try to always say the Bible blessing of Numbers 6:24-26 to him:

"May the Lord bless you and keep you

May He Make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you

The LORD lift up His countenance on you and give you peace."

I have plans to put it on a canvas and hang it in the boys room. 

Busses are still on the list of his favorite things, but have been pushed down a couple notches by airplanes, matchbox cars (we have a ton and they're his favorite blanket-time toy), pla-doh, and his cabbage patch baby.  

 

He loves to sleep with a little boy, cabbage patch baby I bought for Hunter when I was pregnant with Nathanael.  Hunter barely touched it.  Levi has latched on to it and claimed it as his own.  He calls it his "deedee". Most nights before bed insists that I give his "deedee" a drink of water and asks me, "Deedee poo poo?" and wants me to check his diaper before putting "deedee" down next to him on his pillow.

The day after his actual birthday we took him to his pediatrician for his two-year checkup. 

 They have this school bus in the waiting area and the boys love to play in it. 

He wasn't that jazzed about taking a pic with his wonderful pediatrician at his 2-year-check-up, though.  We love her a lot despite Levi's reaction to her this visit. 

Levi is a little ball of sunshine that makes many people smile when he's around them.  He walks with a bubbly jump in his step and loves to say "Hi" to everyone. 

Levi is so loved by all of us.  He is a gift from God and an indescribable blessing.  We couldn't imagine life without him and the joy he brings us daily.  We are so grateful to have him as part of our family and can't wait to see what the Lord will do in his life as he grows into a handsome, young man.  Happy 2nd Birthday, Levi!