i love lists. see... i'll show you.

ok, so hello! haven't blogged in awhile, and right now i am trying to hurry because clayton leaves for mexico tomorrow. priorities, right? yes, we have had a lot going on this last month...so here go the lists.

in may we...

1) went to youth camp in missouri which consisted of a 15 hour bus ride there and another 15 hours back. nutso...levi did really good considering we hit a deer, had a flat, were on a bus of all junior high boys ;/, and was completely out of his element. i however, almost lost my mind. ;)

2) levi is eating 3 to 5 solid meals a day. we went to see the feeding and occupational therapists one time and he has been eating all kinds of stuff ever since!! what a relief!

3)clayton is going to mexico for the SECOND time tomorrow. he went in june a week after youth camp (vbs was in between those two) and he will leave tomorrow and be back next saturday. please pray for him if you think about it!!!

4) and by the pictures, you can probably tell that we FINALLY had our family pictures taken...and i am so happy with them!! levi was NOT in the mood to take pictures, or smile for that matter, so our photographer did so good!!! her link is www.betsylackey.blogspot.com if you want to check her out!!! she's amazing!!! 

5) we are going on vacation for our five year anniversary when clayton gets back from mexico!!!! i can NOT wait!!! 

hope you enjoy the pictures. we had a blast looking at them when it was all said and done!! family, if you want to order pictures, we have lots more that we haven't put up, so just email me and let me know!!

little bit of this, and a little bit of that.

here. we. go. just a little video of levi from yesterday. he likes to re-arange anything and everything, so we were finally able to get it on video.

oh hello...

*disclaimer  - this isn't actually a picture from levi's birthday party...but i'm working on it!!

well for all 2 of you that read this, i am sorry that i have had such terrible blogging discipline!! it hasn't been a "half-to" kinda thing around here, so it's kindof become a "not-at-all" kind of thing. but anyhow..everything is pretty much our day to day happenings around here. we are going to the feeding specialist and ot (occupational therapist) next week for levi's texture aversion. we had to fill out a REEE-DICULOUS amount of paper work for these appointments, so i'm ready to see what they have to say about all this. levi has eaten some donuts and actually chewed and swallowed them instead of gaging and spitting them out. but it is with the help of water that he manages to get it down. it's kind of funny to watch because he will hold it in his mouth until you give him something to drink!! thats our leetle pack rat for ya! '

i also saw this on another blog (she's kindof famous so i'm not going to mention who...i think name dropping is rather lame) - but i thought it was a good idea so i'm going to steal it! she would write a letter on her blog to her son on his birthday's so that she could always remember what was going on in his life at these huge milestones...so, here goes.

munchkin - 

you turned one about 2 weeks ago. i know this is supposed to be around your birthday, but you might as well know now that your mother is a procrastinator and is hardly ever on time for anything (except for your doctor's appointments which i am insanely anal about..ask your dad), so it's only fitting that i'm writing this 2 weeks late. ;) i want you to know how much i love you...how much you have grown your mom since you came to us a year ago. you have made me more selfless, more loving, more compassionate and more emotional than i ever thought i could be. it breaks my heart to see you cry when you get hurt, and it breaks my heart when i have to discipline your strong-willed little spirit (ok sometimes it doesn't break my heart as much as it enrages me..but i'm learning about this whole strong-willed thing still. dr. dobson..we thank you for this book ;) you have melted my heart everyday with your smile, the way you scrunch up your nose and show me your little chicklets. your dad and i have learned so much about God's love for us and his people through having you that we never would have understood otherwise. i worship our creator every time i watch you figuring things out, and when you laugh so hard you chuckle. you inspire worship in me like i have never known, and i can only think that Christ is good and gracious enough to let me know him more the more i know you. levi you have brought so much to my life. thank you for making it so much more about Christ than me. You are being used to bring glory to God, and you don't even know it. we pray everyday that your precious little heart would be softened to God and the salvation He has for you. we pray that you would have a tender and compassionate heart towards other people, and that gentleness would become a big part of who you will become as a man, father, husband and leader. (which, by the way, seems like a big prayer right now because you love for things to be loud, rough and ridiculously non-gentle...but nothing is impossible with God, right? :) God in his sovereignty, knows your future, and we pray everyday that we are leading you to Christ, to His salvation and his goodness. you are such a gift - i am so proud to be your mommy. thank you Jesus, for letting me lose myself even more to you through the gift of levi. you are such a good God - i am always humbled to see how you work. happy birthday levi....we have loved every minute of this first year with you!!!

now...

some of your favorite things...

1. playing with balls. we play catch all day - EVERY day.

2. looking in mirrors and seeing yourself or other people in the reflection

3. dogs...any kind.

4. kissing all the characters in your books, all the people in our photo albums, and any animal you see.

5. your praise baby dvd. 

6. climbing over our legs like an obstacle course.

7. taking things out of drawers, handing them to people, and then putting them back (esp. the dishwasher and dryer...you are such a helper!!)

8. banging on anything, with anything. the louder, the better.

9. playing chase around the house

10. making noises with your mouth like a little sound machine.

11. opening the shower door while we are taking showers ;)

12. your blankets...we joke that you are our little linus!

13. music and dancing...you defin have some rhythm. 

some of your NOT so favorites...

1. food. of any kind. of any texture...but we are working on it.

2. grass...defin don't like it to touch your hands or your feet.

3. changing your diaper

4. being up when your tired. it's seriously meltdown mode at that point. 

5. shopping. sorry kiddo...better get used to it. your future wife will thank me.

6. lots of attention at once kindof scares you

7. being touched by people you don't know very well. you pull away and make it really awkward for me...but i get you. aunt kelsey is the same way ;)

8. having your hair washed. 

9. not getting your way....not even kidding, it's WW3.

10. when it's play time, you get a little perturbed when we are on the computer, not playing with you, and you let us know it.

i'm sure i could think of more, but these are my favs. happy (late - but only in the blogging sense) birthday levi!!!!

oh my gosh.

i have a one year old.

levi turned one on sunday, may 4th. i cannot believe how fast it has all gone...it makes me want to savor every minute..even the minutes of him throwing up after all 6 of his shots today (seriously...6 shots!!), even the minutes of him learning that if he doesn't get his way he will throw a tantrum, even the minutes of listening to his pediatrician tell us that, yes, we will have to go see someone for his texture aversion, and even the minutes of him letting him learn lessons the hard way when it would be WAY easier to just do it for him. oh and ps..we will have pictures of the insane birthday party up this weekend. i am still waiting to see them!!!

random updates...

1. my sister just bought her first fuel-efficient car! yea for kelsey and for good credit scores!!

2. levi has been eating yobaby yogurt with fruit and cereal 2 or 3 times a day - that stuff is a life saver.

3. he also tried ribs, donut holes, and chick-fil-a french fries ALL since sunday...maybe we're onto something here...

4. levi took several more steps on his actual birthday!!! i can't wait for him to just take off (ok, really that's a lie. i just say that to sound like a great mom. honestly, thinking about him walking makes me tired - to have a one year old boy who is already into everything, be even faster at it by walking, yeah, like i said, it makes me tired. 

so just a quick update. i will put pictures up from the birthday weekend soon!

i love these SOOOO much!

ok, so i absolutely love to look back at all of the things we did, said, prayed, ect. when i found out that i was pregnant with levi. it was absolutely the MOST exciting time for me - really - to find out that there was a BABY growing in my tummy was just - you just can't describe it with words...so everyone reading this who is preggers - i am so SO excited for you! but anyways, so i'm looking through things, and i came across these videos. but before you watch, let me set up the scenario for you...

it was a wednesday night in august of 2006, and clayton and i had just gotten home from church. we had been home for awhile, so clayton was in the living room eating some dinner and watching a movie. i was about to join him, but i was so FRUSTRATED that my pants were so uncomfortably tight (you know like after you eat WAY to much at one time and you just feel miserably sick??) and so i went to change into some elastic-wasted pants (little did i know how much i would grow to love elastic over the next year!) so i was changing clothes and i remember saying to clayton a couple of days before, "if i am not pregnant, then we are going to do some SERIOUS working out, because i am so bloated!" really, it was ridiculous...so i decided, oh i'll just take a test tonight - that way if i'm not pregnant, i can run until i pass out tomorrow. so i go into the bathroom, kinda hoping i was pregnant like you always are - even when you think you really don't want to be - and i wait my 3 minutes in the bathroom. mind you - clayton has NO idea what i'm doing, or why it's taking me so long to change clothes. and after my timer went off, i look down.....OH MY GOSH!!! i could NOT believe it!!! there was a positive sign in the "results" window. what!!!??? am i reading this right?? are my eyes ok?? am i just thinking i'm seeing this, but it's not really there?!?! i FREAKED OUT! i was shocked to say the absolute least. so i wait in the bathroom, thinking to myself, "ok - should i go tell clayton that i just found out he is going to be a dad, or should i wait and do something really cute and memorable - OH MY GOSH!!! am i really asking myself these questions?!!?"

and in the midst of all my thoughts, clayton yells from the living room, "babe, WHAT are you doing?? you're missing the movie!!!"

and that's all it took. i couldn't help myself. i walked into the living room with the test in my hand and just stood there in front of him. i was not just looking at my husband anymore...i was looking at the MAN who would father and raise this sweet baby growing in me!!! he had never been so attractive! so as i'm processing ALL of these life-changing thoughts, i somehow whisper..."i'm pregnant."

"WHAT."

"um, i just took a test and it said that i was pregnant." (i'm literally ALL smiles and some tears at this point - shaking because i'm so excited.)

"what. let me see the directions. are you sure you did this right?" - (of all things, this is what he says to me! it was so funny. he automatically assumes that i pee-ed on the stick wrong..gotta love it.)

and what do you know - i had taken the test right, and the results were clear. i was pregnant. so we took another test later that night, and then another one again the next morning...all with the results stronger than the last. I COULD NOT CONTAIN MY HAPPINESS!!! i wanted to tell the entire world on thursday. SOOO, we decided that we did not want to wait (kindof scary now that i think about it) and we made plans to tell our families on thursday night. the plan was to have my family all together at my parents house, and clayton's family all together at his mom's house to take seperate pictures. we told them that we had to have family pictures taken because they were doing a minister spotlight in the bulletin on sunday morning (so cheezy huh, but that's all we could think of) - so after we all got home from work on thursday, we started off to the houses. we had a good friend come to "take the picture" but really we had the whole thing on video so we could always watch our families reaction to the good news. so we all line up, and our friend tyler jones (the official picture-taker) says, "ok, on the count of 3, everyone say "darby's pregnant!!!" hah! i can't wait for you to see their reactions!!! so this entire huge long post is for these videos...

my family - things to watch for...1) my dad's reaction is SUCH a typical dad response..he weirds out immediately. 2) my family does NOT get it. they continue to say "darby's pregnant" without understanding what they are saying...so goofy. 3) my brother, case, the second the video starts, actually gets it, and you can hear him say..."what." - priceless. 

now, CLAYTON'S family - things to watch for..1) well, this isn't the most obvious, so i'll start with it first. travis, who is in the middle, standing next to me, continues to look at the camera in his "cheezy pose" for a good while after the madness starts...kindof funny. 2) clayton's mom, beth, - absolutely steals the show! you will hear her before anything, but watch how hard she hits my arm in excitement, and then she hugs EVERYONE in the circle - she was SO EXCITED! 

thank you to both of our families for making such an exciting time in our life even better...and thank you Jesus, for giving me such a gift in levi. You are such a good God! i am so honored that you have entrusted such a precious little boy to clayton and i to raise. You have shown me more of Yourself through this little boy than i could ever have dreamed...to You, all praise and honor and glory.

so sorry this was so long, but i wanted to share these videos with you! enjoy! 

texture aversion??

well, since levi's been old enough to eat any kind of food, he has refused. ok so maybe every once in a while, he will eat MAYBE 4 or 5 bites of some kind of baby food or big people food, but after that HE IS DONE! he will not eat any more...and we have tried EVERYTHING! eating when he's real hungry, eating when he's kinda hungry, eating when he's not hungry. you name it, we have done it. so at his 9 month check-up, his pediatrician told us that if he wasn't eating food on a consistent basis, then we would have to go to a specialist for "texture aversion." well, we have 2 weeks for this little boy to decide he likes "texture" and it's not looking good. well - i thought it looked grim until today.....

after he "helped" me put the water bottles into the fridge (meaning i hand him a water bottle, he looks at it and tries to throw it into the right spot on the bottom shelf - this process usually takes at LEAST 15 or 20 minutes, but hey he LOVES it) i left the door open as i stepped over to the counter to write down something before i forgot...i mean, being a mom, if you don't IMMEDIATELY write down your thoughts, forget it...they are gone for good. so i started writing something down and realized that it had gotten quiet...like REAL quiet. so i look over at levi and he's sitting on the floor facing away from me. and as i bent down, he looked up at me with BAR-B-QUE sauce all over his face and bib!!!! he had somehow unscrewed the lid off the jack daniels bar-b-que sauce and was savoring EVERY LICK he could get!!!! (don't worry, there's not actually alcohol in the sauce - and i know that because i was afraid i would have a drunk toddler for the rest of the day, and would have to skip taking our drunk son to the nursury because they don't allow intoxicated children at church ;) i could not stop laughing! he doesn't have "texture aversion!!!" he just isn't getting the southern, finger-lickin' flava in the pureed foods from gerber!!!! so we will see what his doctor has to say about that ;)

oh kids - they bring so much excitement into life! i LOVE it! i absolutely love the age levi is right now. who knows what will happen tomorrow. 

um...can you say cheese?

well, its been a while since we have posted...sorry! i don't know where time goes during the day. well, ok. that's not true. we spend a lot of time laughing...as you will see ;) levi has found his camera face...really, a necessary milestone in our family. i absolutely LOVE IT! it's the same in every picture and i have probably 395 more on our computer! so i hope you enjoy as much as we did. other things that have happened in the last month...

1. my friend rachel had her little girl, ellie ruth patterson. yay! 

2. had a birthday that sent me on the downhill spiral to 30...geez.

3. we have been planning/thinking about levi's FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY!! 

4. i have started reading sacred marriage...absolutely incredible.

5. my friend jennifer colley found out she is having a baby at the end of october...such an answer to many tears, questions and prayers!!! thank you God for your incredible GOODNESS and MERCY. jen, we can't wait to meet this precious gift!

6. and blah blah blah....other boring, unexciting things OH - levi did learn how to dance on que...so the video at the end is just a little glimpse of his mad skills...hopefully i will catch him when sesame street is on. he LOVES dancing to big bird and the gang! 

PLEASE click to enlarge this picture so you can see his little "chicklets" - !!! this is prob my FAVORITE picture right now...

bubble beard and the newly learned camera smile!


betcha didn't know clayton could beatbox, did you? :)