Hoping for #4

It's hard for me to believe that the baseball regular season is almost over. Baseball is such a long season...it starts at the beginning of April and ends in October. What makes baseball so exciting is the playoff races. Less teams make the playoffs in baseball than any other sport...only 8 total out of 30 teams. For us Tigers fans, making the playoffs is a very rare occurrence. In my lifetime (since 1980), the Tigers have only made the playoffs 3 times, in 1984, 1987, and 2006. So this season has been very exciting because while they are very flawed team, they are in a position to make the playoffs for the fourth time since I was born. Only 6 games remain and they have a 2 game lead on the Twins. Each game is an emotional roller coaster for me (just ask Courtney), but it has been a great season and after watching truly terrible teams for many years of my life it is nice to watch a team that is actually in contention for something meaningful at the end of the season.

In addition to the exciting and stressful Tigers games, our fridge decided it had enough and died on us a couple days ago. Its a tricky one though because it kind of goes in spurts where it over-cools everything, and then stops entirely. So we made an emergency trip out to Menards today to get a new fridge. It'll be here on Thursday, so hopefully our food will keep until then.

Levi is learning more every day. He's also quite the strong willed little child. He seems to enjoy openly defying Mom and Dad. He hasn't learned "no" yet but when it does I'm sure it'll be all that he will say. Some new things that Levi is doing:

* When you ask him "where is your belly", he'll pull up his shirt and point to his little chubby belly.
* When you ask him "where are your ears", he'll try to touch your ears instead of his (for whatever reason).
* There is a part in one of his favorite bedtime books (Mr. Brown Can Moo Can You?) where it talks about going "Knock Knock" on a door. Now he'll knock on the book when we come to that part and he'll try to say "knock knock". He also tries to go "knock knock" on pretty much anything in the house.
* Can almost say "cracker", one of his favorite foods.
* When we say "all done", he'll lift up his hands (like dad does) and says "all" (can't quite figure out the "done" part yet).
* Really loves to get up on the bed and try to jump around. Blame dad for that one.
* Really loves spending Tuesdays at Grandma and Grandpa Freed's, and especially loves playing with his cousin Maya.

I'm sure there is more, but that is all I can think of for now. Enjoy the pictures! Go Tigers!!

There's nothing like reading Mr. Brown Can Moo (upside down) while sitting in a small basket.

Looking quite stylish, just like his dad.

Levi didn't enjoy pictures with Courtney's grandparents.

There, that one's a little better.

Best Friends

Ok, maybe not. But at least Prince sat still long enough for us to take this cute picture.

It's Football Season!!

This past Sunday was an unofficial holiday for me as the NFL season got underway. Luckily for me Levi slept through the first 2-1/2 hours of the games, but then we just played and watched the rest of the games. Even though the Lions got blown out and both my fantasy football teams lost, it was still a great day.

Things are going well. Courtney is doing her internship at Dansville schools and is enjoying it. I have the opportunity to get Levi ready in the mornings now and I get to drop him off at daycare. It's certainly hard to get used to waking up earlier every morning but I'll survive. Prince is pretty bummed out because his routine morning walks are pretty much done. As if he needed any more reason to dislike Levi...

Levi is doing well. He continues to make us laugh and marvel as he learns new things. He also makes us shake our heads in frustration with some of his actions, but that's just kids I guess. Some of his new things are:

* Says "papa" when he sees a picture of Grandpa Terry or Grandpa Chapin.
* Touches his teeth when you ask him "where are your teeth?".
* Says "duck" when he sees his rubber ducky in the bathtub (or pretty much any bird).
* Loves wearing his new tennis shoes and even says "shoes".
* Wants to hold the spoon/fork when we're feeding him and tries to feed himself.
* Loves pushing the button to close the garage door.
* Loves playing outdoors and especially picking up leaves (hopefully he'll like to rake someday??).
* Says "baabaa" when looking at my bobblehead collection...I swear he's trying to say "bobblehead".

That's all for now. Enjoy the pictures!!

Practicing his football skills.

Levi and his ball colletion.

Remember this for the future kid...never let Dad style your hair.

Put the rocks on the deck, throw the rocks off the deck. Repeat again and again.

Learning how to go down the steps on his own.

Running around semi-naked after a bath.

Levi's Year Old Pictures

We recently had Levi's 1 year pictures taken at Portrait Innovations. Cousin Maya came along also and we had them take some pictures together. It was a bit of an adventure as can be expected with two little ones, but all in all things went pretty well. Enjoy the pictures!!