Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

Yesterday, the 17th was Levi's birthday. What a year! Sometimes I deal with some guilt over some of the things that Levi has had to put up with (being born when we didn't have our own place yet, being a tiny baby during all the gutting and renovations of the house, and then to not even have a full year of being the only baby w/ the surprising news of Toby). And then I wake up...I realize what a blessing this year has been for us and how awesome of a kid Levi really is. He has become such a happy, content, loving, little boy with an awesome sense of humor and a curiosity for life. He is going to give his parents (and his brothers) a run for their money! And Shawn and I have decided not to believe in the middle child syndrome - we want to be sure that Levi is the one that defines his own identity, not a title. I want that for all our kids!

An update on what Levi is doing...

He has been taking steps for several weeks now. The most is 5 - he is getting braver and braver, but if he thinks too much about it, he still drops to the floor and crawls there. I tell you what though, I have never seen a faster crawler - you blink and he's gone! Of course keeping up with Ayden has helped with that and boy are they good friends!
He is not as verbal as Ayden was at this age (I didn't say loud - he makes a lot of noise and does say some stuff). But he is much more mobile much earlier than Ayden was.
The words that he is saying now are:
Dadad, Momma, Bubba, kitty, ChiChi, "cack cack" (quack quack), cheese, sip, juice...I'm sure there's more, but my brain isn't quite at full function anymore!
What a little snuggle buggle and talk about a Momma's boy right now - I'm not worried, though, b/c Ayden did the very same thing!

Anyway, here are some pictures of last night at the boardwalk.

(the pictures aren't uploading this morning...I'll try again later)

I still need to fill in quite a bit like our trip to Ohio, but I did want to get this posted right away. Have a blessed day!