Three Years

Today is our third wedding anniversary, and I really can't believe how much has happened since the day we married. We started our life together hoping to one day work alongside each other and start a family of our own. I'm amazed how quickly God granted each of those dreams; by the end of May we'll mark two years at the ranch and welcome our second baby. God is faithful! I'm glad that our dreams were according to His will. I can't wait to see what He'll accomplish in another three.

Happy anniversary, Rob!

Lynda

Stephanie and Clint

I returned my best friend Stephanie and her baby boy Clint to the airport today, after nearly a week of fun and catching up. I've been hoping she could visit us here sometime, but circumstances over the last couple of years conspired to delay that trip until now.


Stephanie and Clint were greeted in Colorado by beautiful mountains, snow, wildlife, and cold germs (sorry about that!). It was great to hear what is going on in their lives, and show her what ours is like here. It was also good to watch our two sons play together. We made hopeful plans for another visit, next time to include Craig, her husband. One of the great benefits and joys of living here is sharing it with family and friends that feel like family.


I already miss you, Steph. Thanks for coming to see us.


Love,


Lynda

Cheese Grin

I suppose we have created a cheese-grinning monster. Sometime in the last two weeks, we noticed that any time a camera was produced, Levi smiled the most unnatural and ridiculous smile. When he smiles this way, he hardly looks like the little boy we know. We don't know where this smile came from, unless it's the result of us coaching him to smile for the camera in over-emphasized, plastic smiles. I guess it's our fault, and we're hoping it's reversible. In the mean time, it's just funny.





Here's hoping the days of authentic smiles are not far off!


Lynda

Big-Boy Levi

'Big-Boy Levi', as we like to call him, used a spoon to feed himself several bites of oatmeal this morning. Daddy 'loaded' the spoon for him, but Levi put it in the right place all by himself. He'll be fifteen months old on Saturday. We've been holding off on teaching him to use eating utensils, since our pediatrician told us it's a 15-18 month skill. No use trying too early, I thought, and cleaning more than the usual amount of food out of Levi's hair and off the floor. We celebrated his first self-guided bites with lots of praise and applause. As Rob said, "The little boy is a big boy!"

Levi is having a lot of fun these days. He plays independently for much of the day, keeping himself busy in his room, the living room, and the kitchen pantry. We've 'Levi-proofed' the pantry, putting indestructible things on the lower shelves, turning containers with handles backwards so that they're handle-side in, and 'hiding' his snacks on an upper shelf where he can't see them. His stomach is bottomless when it comes to snacks.

We think we may be raising a conductor. Without any example to follow, he started waving his arms around like a conductor whenever he turns on any of his musical toys. His waves his arms vigorously and smiles, expecting you to follow along. We're all conductors in the Luttrull house.

We're trying to teach him the sign for 'please', but he's not fond of performing the sign until he gets what he wants. It usually goes like this:

Levi: "Tup!"
Us: "You want your cup? Can you say please?"
Levi: blank stare
Us: "Say 'please', Levi."
Levi: avoids our gaze, pretends to be interested in something else
Us: take Levi's hand, make sign for him as he fights, then give him his cup
Levi: makes 'please' sign as he drinks.

He also loves throwing balls and chasing after them (now there's a good boy). Unfortunately, he likes throwing them in the living room, where they roll under the couch. I didn't mind going after then before my belly got in the way, but Levi has to wait for Daddy to come home now to get the balls back.

Lynda

PS- Thanks to all who have offered to send us their Levi photos. Rob found a jump drive yesterday with almost all the photos taken in his first five months. I evidently backed up everything from Nov. '08 to March '09. I'm glad that not all is lost.

Vista is the Devil.

Lest anyone think I'm the worst blogger in the world, I must tell you that we are experiencing technical difficulties. Our laptop decided to quit working last weekend. It's been 9 days without internet access at home, but who's counting?

Please say a prayer for our ability to fix our computer, or at the least, recover our photos and video. We tried on a few occasions to back up our photos and videos, and despite assurances from our Vista operating system, nothing appears on our back-up disks. That means that aside from grandparent photos, I may have lost all of Levi's photos up to this point. This is more than my heart can bear, and I have many select words for Vista and its creators. Vista is the devil. There, I said it.

Lynda

Walkin'

Over a month ago, I promised to post video of Levi walking. We finally caught him on tape over Christmas...

He's walking much better now - he has a smoother gait and hardly ever crawls - but I love this stilted, Frankenstein walk.

His friend Isaac, who is 2 1/2, isn't used to Levi being able to keep up with him, and he doesn't particularly like it. On Monday night, Levi was toddling right behind Isaac while he rode a trike through the house. Isaac turned around, annoyed that he couldn't get away from Levi, and said, "Quit chasin' me!"

Now that Levi can keep up, it's about to get more interesting around here...

Levi

It's a Girl!

We are expecting a baby girl! We had a 24-week sonogram yesterday and got the great news. I'd been feeling like this was a girl, though I had no 'good' reason to think so. We've already chosen her first name: Wren. Like Levi's name, it was arrived at early, and both of us loved it from the start. Now, if only we could settle on a middle name. Here are some of the sonogram pictures.

In this picture, Wren's profile is on the left. Against her brow is a balled-up fist, and nearly touching her nose are the toes of her left foot. She's in a 'frank breech' position, meaning that she's head-up in the womb, and folded in half.

This second picture shows just how cramped she is; you can see her leg (foot on the left side) stretched across the top of the sonogram image, and her shin and knee are pressed to her belly.
This image is hard to make out; you may just have to take my word for it! In this picture, we're looking at the front of Wren's face at an angle. Her forehead is on the far left. You can see a small, dark circle - that's her right eye. Her nose is the bright white line up and to the left of her right eye. Her mouth is open, and you can even see a shadow inside - that's her tongue. In this picture, it looks like her face is frozen in a smile.

Maybe this will help.

You may recall that after Levi's sonogram, we immediately went to the local shoe store and bought him a pair of John Deere boots to celebrate. We tried to get some pink John Deere boots for Wren, but unfortunately the shop in town no longer sells them. We did buy something for her several weeks ago, though. When I was seven weeks pregnant, I spotted this dress with matching bonnet in a baby boutique, and against all reason, had to buy it. I've been feeling that this baby is a girl all along, even if I had no real reason to. It'll be a long time before she can wear it, but I bet the time between now and then will fly!

Love from the Luttrulls!

Lynda