Our house

I have been meaning to get all of our before and after pics up of our house, but I haven't taken the "after" photos yet. John has worked so hard on this house since almost two years ago when we bought it. I have heard it said that there is ALWAYS something to do on the house and now I understand why; we are always trying to make it our own. We are planning to put a patio out the back sliding glass door, put gutters up, and cut down trees this summer, but we are definitely not doing as much as we did last summer! Praise the Lord! We are planning to do more camping and fishing this summer then last. Pictures to come of our improvements!

Biking and Planting

We have now been biking a few times with the boys in tow; they are fun to have along as they are pretty good riders and easy to pull (at least for me, I am not the one pulling, John is). At first Emerson didn't like his helmet too much, but that was to be expected. Now he doesn't mind but is glad when it is taken off. We biked over to John's grandpa's house yesterday night to get some rhubarb from him for us to replant. I cut up some of the rhubarb today and made some sauce out of it. We also got a peony and some bleeding hearts from John's mom, Paula, to replant which we have really enjoyed having all of these "growing things" around us. John and I also bought two(top pic) new trees (lilac and european elder) and planted them last weekend. Although we do sound a bit "earthy" right now, we have already cut down one and have about 5 more trees to cut down yet this summer in our yard. They block our sunlight in our backyard. We hope to plant a few shorter ones over the next few years.

Brothers

This picture depicts how rough Levi has been with Emerson lately. As you can see, Emerson takes it well! Today Levi bit Emerson's finger and Em screamed very loud. Most days Levi just hits Em over the head with a toy or shoe or something. Even though I know Levi loves Emerson, he still likes to be the bully when it comes to his little brother. Even though we do discipline for hitting/biting etc, I still do not see a decline in Levi's bullying behavior. I wonder if he will ever stop trying to beat his little brother up, but in my heart I already know the answer: no! The day Emerson can fight back will be a surprising one for Levi!

Levi and Emerson

Levi and Emerson enjoy playing together as long as Emerson isn't touching Levi's toys and Levi isn't grabbing Emerson's toys. Needless to say, we are learning lessons in sharing in this household. The boys also love playing outside together, especially swinging. Our backyard is completely fenced in, so we allow Levi the freedom to be in the backyard by himself (with us watching) and he enjoys this for about 15 minutes and then he wants John or I to play with him. I've noticed in the last few months though that he has gotten better at playing by himself and keeping himself occupied. If Emerson and I go out to join him on the grass, Emerson usually just ends up eating grass and the other day he even found a moose turd and was about to put it in his mouth-eewww! Luckily mama saved the day and took it away before it made it that far.

Emerson-8 months

Emerson will be 8 months next Saturday! I am 99% sure he will be crawling by then. He is scooting with his toes and forearms and got his knees under him about 5 times yesterday. One thing he just started recently is giving open-mouthed kisses. I love it! He will even pull my head toward his and open his mouth on my cheek and just smile. He planted one on Levi today and Levi couldn't stop laughing! Emerson has about 10 foods (pureed) that he eats regularly now. He likes everything but the avocado, which may change since I just introduced it yesterday. Since yesterday we started teaching him the word "no". He takes a liking to computer cords mostly, but I am sure there soon will be other things we won't want him to get in to.

Bikes

John and I have been wanting bikes for awhile now and we were able to get a really good deal at REI so we went and bought ourselves some bikes! We are very happy with them both and have done a little biking without the kids. We do, however, have a carrier for the kids that we can pull behind one bike, so we will take them along one of these times. We just got Emerson's helmet in the mail the other day. I tried it on him and let's just say he wasn't so thrilled about it being on his head-he will just have to get used to it. :) On the other hand, Levi LOVES his helmet and would wear it everyday, everywhere if we let him. :)