11 months yesterday! Don't let that overly handsome, innocent face fool you. He is getting to be a handful! I've mentioned before how helpful he is. Any cupboards in his reach are his specialty. It's almost as if he's saying "Don't worry about it, Mom...I got this. I'll empty this cupboard for ya, no problem." or, "Don't worry. Mom, I'll get this toilet paper off the roll. No biggie." Yeah. He sure is helpful. Check out these teeth! It didn't take him long to learn how to use them. I weighed him on our scale today and he's exactly 23 pounds. He must be getting more teeth because he has been grumpy the past few days. I just wish they would all come in and give him a break. Poor kid is just going through a lot. The weaning has begun. I hope to be completely done nursing by his birthday, we'll see. It is basically his favorite thing in the entire world and it's hard for both of us.

This kid is a Baby Signing Time fool. It saved my life on the drive from Idaho. It continues to save me if I want to get anything, like dinner, done while he's awake. We have 2,3 and 4 and he's getting 1 for his birthday (don't tell him...it's a surprise).

Since moving to Oklahoma, Lily and I are really into blocks. I hadn't gotten them out in a long time because she would just dump them out and lose interest instantly. Not surprisingly she will play them forever if I play too. It has actually been pretty entertaining. We combine sets and make some pretty awesome things. Rapunzel's tower is a favorite structure. Levi can be a challenge as he wants to knock them down instantly. That can be frustrating for both Lily and me. That is probably why we distracted him with Baby Signing Time in this picture.

Lily has been my sweetie pie. Matt teasingly calls Lily a Silly Goose. Lily has to set him straight and says "No Daddy! I'm a sweetie pie!" Her favorite thing about Oklahoma is swimming. We have gone several times. It feels so good because it's been in the high 90's every day this week. Matt and Lily went by themselves once this week. It was nice for all of us. I'm not sure Levi likes swimming yet but he doesn't complain.

We have all been eating a lot healthier around here. For a while there I couldn't get Lily to eat anything close to healthy except for fruit. I take responsibility for it. She was getting WAY too may sweets because we were eating LOTS of sweets. While we were driving down here I told Matt we needed to make a change in her diet. She deserves way better and it is our fault that she isn't getting her healthy food. So we still do plenty of fruit. We are all hooked on watermelon and strawberries. Everyday I make a green smoothie for the kids. It consists of spinach, yogurt, banana, apple juice and ice. They both love it. I have been putting a lot of spinach in it so it kind of over powers the sweet so add a couple packets of turvia to sweeten it up a little. They both really like it. Another goal is to at least present a vegetable to them at dinner. We'll see how that goes. We have also cut the sweets significantly down. So good things are happening in the kid's diet.

Matt survived his first week of school. He is taking a calculus class that will be a little challenging for him over the next 7-8 weeks. He has to go back and remember what he learned 3 years ago. It is his only class but because it is a summer class it is going at a faster pace. I know he'll do awesome. He was telling me how different his class is here compared to a BYU-I class. He said on the first day his teacher just came in and started teaching. He didn't even tell about himself or ask for introductions. I had to smile. Is it a BYU-I thing to take the entire first class introducing yourself and telling everyone something unique about yourself. Haha. There are other obvious differences from a church school. He said it's pretty good though. I think tomorrow he's going to show me where the testing pond and his research lab are. He gets to spend time outside in this lovely HOT weather.

In case you are wondering...I love it here. I kind of like our slow paced days. I'm sure we will get to know people in the ward and start doing play dates. There is a combined ward play date every Thursday that we are going to do. If it weren't so hot we would be out of walks or playing at the park more. I'm sure we will get more going but for the moment the kids and I are enjoying our air conditioned life at home. It's really not slow paced...remember how I talked about Levi being a handful. Enough blabbing. We are doing great here!