Levi at 7 months

My baby is 7 months old! How did this happen already?! It feels like I just posted about him turning 6 months and somehow another month has flown by!
Levi is such a snuggly baby. He loves me to hold him all of the time. He is such a joyful addition to our family and I am so glad that he is part of it!! I honestly thank Heavenly Father in my prayers that Levi chose to come to our little family. He is such a sweetheart.

• Levi army crawls now. Poor boy, I think his pants and socks combined with our slippery wood floors are inhibiting his ability to learn to crawl!! He still manages to get all over the place, though. He current favorite target is the lower branches on the Christmas tree.
  
• Levi gave me a wonderful Christmas gift this past week (Christmas week) and slept through the night 4 out of 6 nights.
  
• He's starting to eat baby food more, though the boy definitely loves to nurse.

Rebekah:

• Rebekah is almost 3 1/2 and she's starting Primary next week!! I can't believe she is a Sunbeam! Ahk, she's growing up too fast!


• She loves to play make believe and is always talking with her imaginary friends or her kids. She also loves to pretend to put on her "marry dress" and get married.


• She is still a tiny gal and measures at the height of a regular 2 year old. At her last Endocrine appointment things were still the same as they have been. She is still paralleling the growth curve but is not on it. She's a smart, clever girl and that's what really matters.


• Rebekah also loves to dance to any music or rhythm and sings songs constantly. She has an excellent memory for song lyrics and I love to hear her singing along to the music.

Christmas time is here!

We had a fun Christmas here at home this year. It was our first one with just our little family for Christmas morning and I was a little sad about this initially but it ended up being great. (Quick background: every other Christmas that we've spent in H* my family has been visiting so we would spend the holidays at my brother's house along with everyone else.)
We did the traditional Christmas Eve party with Nelson's extended family and then on Chrismas morning I made a big breakfast for the four of us and then Rebekah and Levi opened their presents. (Technically Rebekah opened all of their presents while Levi happily chewed on one of the empty boxes.) In the afternoon we had an early dinner with Nelson's sister and her in-laws and then spent the rest of the evening with my brother and his family.
Rebekah, ready for church in her cute Christmas outfit

Notice the empty plate with the tell-tale crumbs, the almost empty bowl of Reindeer food, and the mug of milk "He drank most of it!" Rebekah was extremely excited to leave out the milk, cookies and reindeer food on Christmas Eve, and even more excited when she noticed that it was gone Christmas morning!!

Christmas morning. What cute kids!

Rebekah enjoying the spoils of the morning.

This is what Levi did all morning - attempted to eat the boxes - while Rebekah opened all of their presents.

Nelson winking at the camera while holding his new video camera (his Christmas/Anniversary present.)

Me holding my gorgeous necklace from Nelson (my Christmas/Anniversary present. Our Anniversary was on the 26th. 6 years!!)

Photos

Nelson's sister took some last minute photos for us on Sunday. She did a great job and many thanks to her!
Here are the two favorites:

Susannah's Fave:



Nelson's Fave:

A condensed version

Many things have happened in the past two weeks. First of all there was a record breaking snow day here in H*. On December 4th it snowed almost all day long. I was extremely excited and took way too many photos and videos. (Hey, I didn't know how long it was going to last so I had to get I could before my fairy tale snow-day ended!) Rebekah was very excited about it as well, and ran screaming for joy all around the yard. She even ate snow, and to my teasing "don't eat any yellow snow!" she replied "it's white snow!" and ate away. It was white snow, thankfully.

Nelson had fun as well, making his first ever snow man!

Another big thing happened on Dec. 4th as well: Levi got his first tooth! It was the right front tooth on the bottom. That was quickly followed by a second tooth (on the 11th)! No biting, please!! Levi also went for his check-up last week and he is now 27 1/2 inches long and weighs 17 pounds 10 oz.

We are immersed in Christmas over here at the Ortiz household. We attended a Christmas party complete with man-made snow (the real snow came the next morning. Much better.), pony rides, a petty zoo, a train, hot chocolate, off-key carolers, and of course Santa! Sadly the line was too long for Santa so I took the kiddos to another one a few days later. Rebekah also sent off her letter to Santa in the Big Red Macy's Mail Box. She could hardly wait to send it.