"Owie!"

Levi isn't much of a talker. And the words he does say are typically recognizable only to us, or in a really obvious context. (Examples: "Buh!" for bus; "Sah!" for socks; "Suh!" for pizza...and yes, they always come out of his mouth with an exclamation point!) A couple of weeks ago, Levi learned to say "owie" - we laughed so hard over how clear he says it...SO cute! Then I tried and tried to capture it on video, without much luck. Many, many video clips later, he finally said it. Success at last! Anyway, here are two of the video clips we took that day. The first one is much longer, and shows some of his hilarious facial expressions, but no "owie". The second (very short) one was my success story!

The voices you hear are me (running the camera), Drake (in and out of the picture) and our friend Dave, who was sitting at the table with us.

(I think Drake was getting tired of all the attempts - what do you think?!)

As I was uploading these clips today, Levi heard them and was fascinated. He kept saying "owie" over and over and over...

Drake on piano

Drake has just recently started showing interest in the piano, and yesterday it hit me that he is probably old enough to start hearing melodies and learning to "plunk" out a song. I wanted to keep his interest, so I decided on the Transformers theme song, consisting of only 7 notes. I guessed correctly, and he was very interested in learning such a cool song! We worked on it a little bit together yesterday, and then today he practiced it mostly by himself until he had it down pretty well! (Yes, there are stickers on the 7 keys that he uses for this song - he has a really hard time remembering the letter names of the keys yet, but I think that will come with more repetition.)

For this video clip, you will probably want to turn off the Playlist music for sure. Just scroll all the way down to the bottom of the blog and click on the square button in the upper right hand corner of the Playlist box that has two vertical lines on it. That should shut off the background music! Anyway, here is Drake's rendition of Transformers! Enjoy...

In case you're wondering, here are the lyrics he's singing:

"Transformers, more than meets the eye. (Transformers,) robots in disguise."

He often leaves out the second "Transformers" - I don't know why. He did that in this video, so I put it in parenthesis. That way, you get the gist of what he's saying! I think he's pretty cute!

So, Ann of SD, (just realized there are two Ann W.'s who read this blog!) .... What do you think about a just-turned-six-year-old boy starting the old Music Pathways books? I still have most of mine...I know I have the red Discoveries book, and I'm thinking of getting it out...but I want some advice about whether it might be too soon. I don't want to turn him off to piano or anything by starting too early...

Outdoor fun

The weather here has been just beautiful! Finally, I can open doors and windows in the morning and evening to let in some fresh air without turning our house into an oven! Yesterday after school, the boys and I went outside to play in the backyard and beyond. Drake's friend/neighbor/classmate Tyler was outside, too, so the boys had some fun together! Here, Levi is showing off his walking skills. The big boys were taking turns getting Levi to walk to them. He's getting better all the time...

Did you catch the part at the end where Tyler got grossed out by Levi's drool? ("Ewww"...while wiping his arm on his shorts! So cute!)

And here's another little clip of them all bouncing together! Gotta get those wiggles out!

Anyway, we had a good time playing outside. I also took quite a few still pictures, which I'll be sure to post soon.

A Drake and Daddy video

This is a cool video I've been meaning to share on the blog for awhile. It was taken a couple of weeks ago when Jeff & Crystal were here, the evening of Drake's birthday party. Drake really likes those cheap little plastic parachute guys that you throw up in the air, with the little threads that always get all tangled up...you know the ones I mean. Anyway, Adam found a really neat gift for him for his birthday - two larger parachute men with really nice fabric parachutes and a single fabric piece to connect it to the little man...and a tube that flings them way up in the air! They're of refreshingly good quality in comparison to the dentist's-office-prize type! So, in this video, we were at the park on base and Adam was flinging the parachute dudes up into the air for Drake to catch. They were having a blast!

Catchin' up with Levi

I think we are finally approaching the walking milestone with our precious Levi! He took six steps this afternoon, all on his own! Three slow steps, a very long pause, and then three more. He really wanted a pinecone he had spotted in the weedy area behind our backyard, and that's all it took to motivate him!

I am breathing a sigh of relief, as he's already passed the 18-month mark (on Drake's birthday - they're exactly 4-1/2 years apart, to the day!). His 18-month checkup with our new doctor is scheduled for next Thursday. I am still gearing up for the possibility of a referral to physical therapy for him, but a little walking is better than none at all! He walks so quickly and easily now while holding on to a finger, but he just isn't too eager to let go. Anyway, we'll see what develops from here...

I just have to post this adorable video I shot tonight while Levi was playing in the tub. He discovered that he could slap the water really hard, and water would spray all over the place! What an exciting discovery! (As long as you're not the one who has to wipe all the water off the floor afterwards, that is.) As you can see, he thought he was a pretty funny guy:

Another adorable thing he's been doing lately is loving his shoes! He frantically signs "shoe!" and then often "please!" and "walk!" I don't think I've ever known a baby who loved shoes quite like this boy does! I think he realizes that in order to go on walks outside, which he loves to do, he has to wear shoes on his feet. I'm loving this little guy!

Levi video clip

I just e-mailed my mom and said something like, "Well, I'm taking a break from the blog this weekend, but I'll post some more tomorrow."

Hah.

Only the mention of the blog made me itch to blog. This is one of those things that I so didn't see myself becoming attached (addicted?) to. Anyway, I have this little video clip of Levi playing with our Trouble game - given to Drake a couple of Christmases ago by our favorite (and dearly missed!) Alaskans. We had it sitting out because Drake and I had played it together a few days ago, and I hadn't quite got it back upstairs to the closet yet (the story of my life), and Levi found the box and was really interested in what might be inside. So I let him take it out and play with the pieces - yes, fully supervised - and he absolutely loved putting all the little pegs into the holes and moving them around to the other holes. Like, this occupied him for a very long time. It required a great amount of concentration, and sort of reminded me of the way he plays with blocks. So, I got out the camera and took a short video clip. It looks really dark, but that's just sort of how pictures turn out inside with our camera. You get the general idea. (This was taken with our regular digital camera, not our video camera.) Isn't he just a cutie pie?

Now I know you all want to pick him up and cuddle him. Just buy some plane tickets online, and let us know when you're coming!

Bike ride video

Last night we took a walk around the "loop" in our housing area. Drake got to ride his bike for the first time in, like, a couple of months. It's just been so doggone hot here, but last night wasn't too bad. We're thinking about taking those training wheels off pretty soon. Maybe when it cools off just a bit and it's more comfortable to ride regularly. (And Mommy is ready for some scrapes and bruises!)

I wanted to try out the video posting ability of this blog...so here goes. I'm not sure how much space video takes up, as compared to just photos, so I may have to remove the video(s) eventually to make room for more pictures. We'll see. Anyway, here it is:

By the way, if you want to hear the audio without the Playlist music in the background, scroll down to the very bottom of the blog and turn off the music. It's the little square button with the two vertical lines at the top left of the Playlist player - looks just like the buttons on a CD player. (Not like the audio on this video clip is anything special, but it could be annoying to try to hear it with music playing...)