Summer Courses & Chimpanzees

When I came back from work, Jenny had the whole upstairs all cleaned up and tidy for me. She's an amazing wife. :)

We immediately went to our college to buy some of the textbooks we'll be needing for our classes. This coming summer, Jenny and I are taking classes at North Hennepin Community College. Jenny and I have two classes in common: Introduction to Algebra (we've forgotten it since high school, which is crazy because I use Algebra ALL the time. sarcasm) and Psychology. I have a class on my own which is the Freshman Writing class and Jenny will be taking a Biology class. We're very excited to learn and get one step closer to getting the degrees we need to pursue the jobs we are passionate about.

When we got home, our family pretended to be chimpanzees, fighting and climbing on each other. Then Levi started making zebra noises which was out of place, but funny.

We had some pizza for dinner and ended the night with a solid workout.

Rain!

We started the morning out by giving Levi his first shower ever. I turned it on, shoved him in there, and all I hear was joy-squealing with shouts of "rain!". It was adorable. I'm not fully confident he properly washed himself, but he had fun and enjoyed the experience. Our boy is growing up quickly.

While talking about son milestones, Liam asked to stop wearing his diaper at night times. So far, he's been sleeping at nap time and at night time sans-diaper and we've had no accidents. It's a wonderful milestone. I'm not a fan of diaper changing, though I'm not sure anyone is.

We then spent some time organizing the apartment.

Jenny took Levi to the store to get some ingredients for tonight's dinner: Meatballs, mashed potatoes, buttery rosemary skillet rolls, and home made red velvet cake for dessert! (YUM!)

During the time she was away, I was spending some time planning our anniversary which is coming up on the 2nd of June! It'll be our sixth anniversary.

I did my Tai Chi workout for the day while Jenny took a well-needed rest upstairs.

Knock, Knock

During breakfast this morning, Jenny was telling Levi some knock knock jokes. She told him the famous:
"Knock, knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock, knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock, knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock, knock. Who's there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad I didn't say banana?"

Levi got a good kick out of it and then immediately came up with his own version:
"Knock, knock."
(Jenny) "Who's there?"
"Chair."
"Chair who?"
"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Chair."
"Chair who?"
"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Banana."
"Banana who?"
"Banana you glad I didn't say chair?"

That was a great start to the day.

Taylor Swift

Consequences

Jenny has been out with her friend, Kate.


The boys and I are shooting each other with darts while she's away. Just now, I shot him from across the room.  He got off the couch, said "consequences!" and ran and tickled me. It was hilarious.


For dinner, we had macaroni and cheese. (Ron made four or five boxes of it) and now we're upstairs to get that last-minute play time between the boys and me. Usually after dinner, we only have less than a couple more hours to get our time together.

Levi the Giant

Levi says some of the funniest things. For example:


I was working on my finances on the computer when I noticed Levi loitering around near my legs. He suddenly put on my slippers and said, "I'm a big giant in my slippers!"

Did you throw that ball or me?

I walked into the boys' room while they were playing and took a ball and lobbed it at Levi's head. To avoid being seen, I ran out, jumped on my bed, then pretended to sleep.


He waltzes out and says, "Daddy! Did you throw that ball or me?"


(Not "at me", but "or me". This is no typo. My options were to confess that I threw the ball or I could also try to convince him into thinking he threw the ball at himself. I considered this option but I decided against it and gave an evasive response.)


"Who do YOU think threw the ball?"


"YOU!" (He clearly had gathered all essential information)


"How do you know that, Levi?"


"Because I didn't see you throw it, dad. It was you." (again, not a typo.)


His logic was on such a different plane, I think. It went right over my head. Baffled, I fessed up and was consequently called a stinker. Shamed.

Five Years Old!

My marriage to Jenny is officially five years old on the 2nd of June, but we celebrated it today because on our actual anniversary date, I’ll be back at the orphanage for a few days. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, there is an orphanage that is pretty far away that has a little over 10 disabled orphans and for the most part, there is just one woman who watches them all, 24/7. I’m going with some friends to help out where I can. I’ll be there for three days. I’m looking forward to it, even though (to be honest) doing that sort of thing isn’t always natural or comfortable to me.

For our anniversary date, we went out to H&M to treat ourselves to a new outfit. We haven’t really bought clothes in over a year for various reasons so we both got a new outfit for ourselves and one new one for Levi. After that, we went out for some Indian food. (We can’t resist!)

A funny story about presenting Levi’s gift to him. First of all, we bought him a Mater shirt. For those who don’t know Mater, (how big is the cave you live in?) Mater is Lightning McQueen’s friend in the movie Cars; Levi is a HUGE fan. Not only that, but the shirt is a really good blue color which will match his glasses and eyes really well… blah blah blah, we were really excited to give it to him.

We bring the shirt home, make him close his eyes, pull the shirt out, he opens his eyes and says, “Where’s Lightning McQueen?” I haven’t had any near death experiences, but emotionally, I just did.

This was a great moment for us though. We are learning just how sweet this boy is. I was honest with Levi and said, “You know, buddy, I was bummed when you reacted that way.” He spent the rest of the night telling me how much he liked the shirt, which made us really proud. He’s at the point where he can feel sympathy and regret for things he says and he also attempts to right his wrongs. We were so proud of him and his sweetness.

That’s all for now!

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Levi’s Story

I was reading a book when Levi walked past me.

“Daddy, I can read that,” Levi informed me.

Wanting him to prove it, I let him read the book. This particular book is called Parenting With Love and Logic by Foster Cline, M.D. and Jim Fay, for those who are curious. Anyways, here’s how the book went (according to Levi):

Daddy loves me. (next page)

Liam loves me too! (next page)

Mommy loves me. Don’t get out of your bed, Levi. The end.

It’s a pretty good book. The plot is a little spotty, but I think it’s just over my head.

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Levi the Sailor Dog

So for those of you who are familiar with The Sailor Dog, the famous classic Golden Book, you may appreciate this story on a different level than others, but Levi made a pretty ingenious connection lately that I wanted to share with you all.

Just this morning, my wife went to a friend’s house to drop off some homemade pumpkin bread (what a sweetheart, right?) and while there, Levi noticed a little spyglass he loved. Our friend gave it to him and he was elated. We think we found out why…
Levi found something Scuppers also had! The forsaken spyglass…
At the end of the book, there is a little song that is included. It goes a little something like this:

I am Scuppers the Sailor Dog-
I’m Scuppers the Sailor Dog-
I can sail in a gale
right over a whale
under full sail
in a fog.

I am Scuppers the Sailor Dog-
I’m Scuppers the Sailor Dog-
with a shake and a snort
I can sail into port
under full sail
in a fog.

Levi was singing this very song on the way home from our friend’s house. Jenny was super confused, but when she got home, I told her that’s the song from the book we read to him! We finally understood. It was epic.

Isn’t it crazy what kids remember???

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Avery

Today we got the incredible opportunity to take care of a foster child for an evening!

 

As some of you know, Jenny has been volunteering her time at a local foster home. Well Jenny has grown attached to a cute little girl named Avery. She’s around Liam’s age and was found incredibly malnourished at an orphanage. This foster home took her in, and is taking wonderful care of her now. She’s still very skinny, but she’s getting better and better!

 

This foster home allows you to help out by taking the kids from the foster home to go out and play, etc. This helps the people at the foster home because they work there 24/7 with the children and this helps the children so they don’t get cooped up in a house all day and they also get more familiar with foreigners.

 

We got to take care of little Avery from 2:30-6:30. Jenny brought her home as I was waking up the kids from their naps. When she got home, Levi immediately fell in love with her. He went up and cuddled with her and said, “She’s so cute. I love her so much!”

 

It was great taking care of her. We hope to continue to take care of her as time goes on. Maybe once a week? We’ll have to see. :)

 

We took some pictures, but we are not clear as to whether or not we are allowed to post them here on a public website. If we get permission, we’ll put up pictures as soon as we can!

 

Until next time,

Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Levi’s Birthday

Okay I’m going to post about Jenny’s birthday tomorrow, but for today, I’m going to talk about Levi’s. Mainly because we have a video we’re releasing and I’m very excited about it. More on that in a bit.

This will be a multimedia post today. I hope you enjoy it :)

Last night, we decorated our apartment for Levi. When Levi woke up, he saw the decorations and loved it! We hung paper chains, had Thomas the Train decorations, we made signs, we hung a banner… It was all so great. Check out the pictures below.

Here you can see our lil’ banner for our big 3 year old!

We hung a chain here and put up four pictures.

Thomas the Train.

Lightning McQueen. (?)

Percy (from Thomas the Train)

Happy 3rd Birthday Levi!

Jenny made some Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast.

After breakfast, we went to the biggest, best play-place in the city. It is awesome!

After the play-place, we had naps and when we woke up, we had our friends over for a party! Stylin’.

We finished the night watching some Charlie & Lola ‘til Levi went to sleep. It was an awesome day! Very eventful, very energetic, very exciting, very… successful.

I want to leave you with a new video, but first: a little backdrop. In late October of last year, we made a video called “Levi Says” (You can watch it by clicking here). It was a short video of all the cute things Levi says every day that most people miss. We heard a lot of people really enjoyed it, so I’ve made another. Levi Says 2.0. You can see it below. For those of you on Facebook or reading this in email, come to our site and see it by clicking here.

Until next time,

Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

Liam eats

Today we got a good video of Liam feeding himself pancakes for the first time. He was going crazy on those things; he loves them! During the whole video, Levi was trying to steal the spotlight and for the most part, he did. Watch it here:

 

 

Something else that might be noteworthy: We now have a link that directs you to our YouTube channel, where you can see all the videos we have on the internet. You can find it under our “Important Links” section on the left side of our blog.

 

Until next time,

Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

What are you thankful for?

Sometimes, just as we are about to eat our dinners, we'll have everyone present at the table express to everyone else at the table of the things we are grateful for.

Levi had a good one the other day.

Jenny and I shared our "gratefuls" and then Jenny turned to Levi and said, "Levi, what are you thankful for?" As his picked up his pizza and ate the back end of it, he replied, "Pizza Crust". I guess at times I'm grateful for pizza crust too, Levi. :)

Check out some recent pictures of Levi and Liam together by clicking here.

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam

好吃！(Yummy)

Levi's Chinese has been getting better and better. It's sometimes really amazing what we hear come out of his mouth, since we are not the ones who are teaching him. (It's mainly our babysitters we hire while we are both in class or working.)

Just a few days ago, I was in the other room while Levi was playing in the living room. I heard him sneeze really loud, then he said, "好吃！" which means nothing short of, "Tastes good!" I laughed and then thought, "Ewwwwwww!" It was a funny moment.

Lately he's been loving painting with his mommy. You can see some pictures of his paintings by clicking here.

Until next time,
Jeremy, Jenny, Levi, & Liam