I have been meaning to update this blog for days but time slips away from me, especially this time of year. First of all, we have had a very busy summer! Back in May we started to make some home improvements on our house that we bought last September. Sarah Palin issued a state-wide grant for home energy. If we improve our home's energy rating by a certain amount then we get up to $10,000 reimbursed. We had an energy rater come out the end of April and he told us that we have 2-star energy efficient home (goes up to 5-star +). Thus began our home improvement adventures! So this summer we (and putting other people to work) have been working hard to get our home more energy efficient. Among the list of things we have already done are: 3 new doors, 4 new windows, spray foam insulation in cracks, and a new furnace. We still are: residing our entire house, putting insulation in the crawl space and attic, caulking windows/doors, and a few other little things. Let me just say that John has been heading up all of it! I haven't been doing anything with the big projects. Pete, John's dad, has been helping quite a bit, and my dad got to come up in June to help with a door and a window.
We have also had a lot of people visiting this summer. Jenna, John's younger sister came the middle of June followed by Danielle, John's older sister, and 2 kids, Ella and Peter, came the middle to end of June to the beginning of July and my parents came the end of June and stayed until the beginning of July. We had our friends from college come up from Iowa for two weeks until the end of July. Our friend Liz and her son Jacob (Levi's age) came up at the end of July. It has been a great summer of hanging out with friends and family!
We decided that August would be a little more low-key since I am due September 5th! So far things have been great with the pregnancy. I am getting more uncomfortable every day but I know that the baby can't stay in there forever! I am 37 weeks (full term!) so any day now is fine. :) My mom is coming up September 1st through September 10th which will be nice to have an extra set of hands in the house!
Levi has learned so much this summer! He has really started talking a lot and putting sentences together. We are learning colors right now and every color is put in front of the word "car". So "red car", "white car", "black car" are all part of his vocabulary. I cannot begin to tell you how much he is excited about cars, trucks, planes, trains, boats, etc. He can even say "backhoe"! He makes us so proud. :) He also has been helping his dad with the house projects this summer. He holds the hammer and the level, throws stuff away, hands papa nails, etc. He is such a good helper, I have no doubt that he will be a great older brother/helper when the baby arrives.
We have also had some hard times with Levi in the past week. Levi had a seizure on Sunday and he ended up in the ER. The Dr. classified it as a febrile seizure which is caused by a sudden spike in body temperature (fever) which causes the seizure. The ER doctor looked in his ears and sure enough he had an ear infection which caused the sudden fever. His temp was 103 degrees in the ER, but by the time we left it was 101 degrees (after giving tylenol). We had a follow-up appointment with Levi's pediatrician on Tuesday and she still wants to do an EEG next Wednesday to make sure everything is okay. John and I have been having a pretty hard time with all of this to say the least. It is not easy to watch our kid go through a seizure. Levi, on the other hand, seems to be doing just fine, he is still as active as ever. If you think to pray for us please do. We are a little nervous about Wednesday and we don't find out the results until Friday.
Those are the main things that have happened this summer. Hopefully one of the near-future postings will be about a new addition to our family!
Levi had a wonderful 2nd birthday party with John, me, Grandpa Pete and Grandma Paula, Great Grandpa Jim, Great Aunt Carol, Great Grandma Jane, John's cousins Michael and Loren, and second cousin Reagan. Levi got a new basketball hoop as you can see by the pictures. The most entertaining part was watching John and Pete try to put the thing together! Levi also got a musical card (3rd picture) for his birthday which he thought was absolutely hilarious! We finished off the evening with a dairy queen ice cream cake with Levi's favorite type of truck on it. It is hard to believe two years have gone by so fast. The saying "the days are long but the years are short" is so true!
