allllaaabbaaammmaa!

our plans to visit florida were postponed, so over pioneer day weekend, we took a quick 24-hour trip to huntsville, alabama! we drove down friday night and the next morning, we went to the u.s. space and rocket center. 

it was SO nice to go to a museum and feel like we were educating ourselves. the space center had an awesome kids' section with tactile exhibits. there were tons of rockets, planes, and lunar landers on the grounds. 

really, you know we took the trip so we could listen to our "tennis shoes among the nephites" series on cd in the car...

my loves

cory: what summer it's been so far! mostly work, grocery shopping, church and random fun things. work, though-that's kind of been your life the last month because the DE's dropped off significantly in june. it's been rough for you, but luckily it's not a reflection of your performance, just the company's marketing. i'm proud of you for not letting it get to you, even though i can tell how stressed you get at the end of the month by how early you'll leave for work. you passed your license apprenticeship test! the one that they said you failed because you got a 74 instead of the passing grade of 75. and then two months later, when you were going over the test with the supervisor, you found two answers the marked wrong that were right...WOW. everyone is so mad about that, especially the tons of people who took the dumb test three times and failed every time.

work aside, you've been itching for a project now that life has settled down (meaning no trips or houseguests for the span of two months). it's just so insanely hot that it limits most activities, especially when you throw in a baby and his needs and schedule :) you bought a bird feeder and ask every day if i saw any birds (always no). and you actually think going to tj maxx with me to look at house stuff and baby clothes and bow ties is a treat! life sure has changed, but we're appreciating this slower pace for now. oh, let's talk about how sick you were last week with the chills and cold and a fever! you haven't been sick like that before, but it was fun to have you home for two days even if you were in much discomfort.

right now you love making levi laugh by squeezing his thighs and saying "chunky legs!" and rubbing your beard on him which he's still wary of. we now pretty much always have dr. pepper vanilla float in our refrigerator, much to my chagrin and your delight. you are much better at feeding levi than i am and you don't like changing his diaper anymore (rude!).

levi: my little songbird has turned into a screamer! you are definitely discovering the different nuances of your voice and it can be painful at times :) i absolutely love to watch you crawl because it's hilarious-you get on all fours and you use your arms to propel you. sometimes you go on all fours and rock back and forth, especially in the crib. you've got two teeth and i can't tell if your top one is coming in yet or if you're just being irritable :) one of your favorite things is to crawl over to sienna to take/touch her toys. she doesn't approve. this week you've started turning around in my arms constantly to look out at everything, which not gonna lie, can be pretty annoying! there's nothing more satisfying than giving your cheeks a big smooch-seriously, i dare anyone to contest this.

levi: half a year old

levi eating his pacifier clip in knoxville where we went for a a few days so cory could cover someone's office! 

it's the fourth of july and it's pouring down rain. it's been gloomy for the last week and the next week's forecast looks like all rain, as well. so right now, levi is crawling around (yes, he crawls!) and cory and i are watching indiana jones. happy independence day!

first time riding in the kroger shopping cart-woot woot! 

we did make it to a patriotic breakfast at church where they read the declaration of independence. we didn't get to eat because someone had a blow-out...and that someone shall remain nameless. also the breakfast was at 8 am?! and we were up late last night hosting a s'mores party! yes, you read that right. S"MORES PARTY. only the best kind of party. mostly, it was us and two other couples with way too much candy and small appetites. was this blog post supposed to be about my son? oh well, he was there.

anyway, we went to our complex's gas fire pit, which was super nice. some of the delectable goodies included rolos stuffed inside marshmallows and roasted. york peppermint patties and marshmallows. reesrs' were a big hit. and my favorite? coconut marshmallow, dark chocolate and fresh raspberries. anyway, it's such a great excuse to have a low-key get-together.

back to the main topic of this post: levi robert hill, 6 months old! his stats are as followed: weight-17 lbs 10 oz (53.94%ile), 26.75 in (57.71%ile), head circumference-17.32 in (72.54%ile).

levi's first visit to cracker barrel. he loved it, of course. 

as you can see by the pictures, we've got ourselves a little chunk! i can't believe that nearly half the babies his age, are bigger than him! i mean, my arm hurts just holding him in the grocery store. in the last two months, levi has gotten two teeth, learned to crawl, changed up his sleep schedule weekly and made us fall even more in love with him.

is there anything cuter than a baby in overalls? absolutely not. 

the first tooth was rough. a lot of tylenol was consumed and tears shed (by levi, totally not me). but the second came in with no crazy personality changes, thank goodness. rolling over has been levi's primary mode of self-transportation but the last few days he's mastered the pull and schooch and we've seen some crawling in there, too. levi is still our little songbird, most notably during the father's day program, "i'm so glad when daddy comes home," and always before bedtime. he's mastered the art of comedic timing, always emphasizing one of mom or dad's jokes with a loud "ahhhhhhhh"-literally like ten seconds long. he's not too interested in real food. heaven forbid we torture him with cheerios, which will float on his tongue until gravity pulls the soggy thing onto his high chair or the floor for sienna. nope, levi still prefers the expensive gerber baby food!

i'm loving this stage of levi's life. he is able to give me open mouthed kisses and wrap his arms around me and lay his head on my shoulder and smile and giggle at us. and i love that he knows i'm his mama and that i take care of him, even though it means i'm the one that has to calm him in the middle of night when he wakes up crying. cory and i always say how much we miss him after we put him to bed! levi doesn't have to go to the doctor for shots until he's 9 months and i'm pretty sure we will be in minnesota for erik's wedding then. but i don't know whether we will be moving or not!

audiobook affair

i don't even want to know how cliche my blog post title is...but seriously guys, i've become obsessed with audiobooks. since being home all day, i've become a huge podcast junkie. the thing about podcasts though, is that they're short and usually come out once a week. so in april, i had the brilliant idea to start listening to audiobooks!

the only problem with this is that i used audible first, and i started with a book in a series, so once i finished that free book, i had to buy the next two books...because i desperately had to know what happened before we left for our trip to california and it was raining outside for a week and i never buy anything...obviously, this was not the start to a good habit and i found overdrive (hallelujah) and bard (the national library of congress audiobook app for the blind). so, i've been listening to books like a madwoman as of late.

anyway, if you're looking for summer reads-i've liked all the books i've read (listened to?) and will write a little opinion of each. i've gotten a lot of these titles from the blogger at everydayreading.com.

1. the selection series by kiera cass

i felt so stupid listening to this, because to be honest, the writing wasn't that good and the main conflict of the story is pretty standard. yet i listened to all of them because i wanted closure, and the book that is separated into three books, should probably just be one.

2. the wednesday wars by gary d. schmidt

this is a kid's book but i loved it. i can't wait to read it with levi. i especially loved listening to it and totally recommend you read or listen to it.

3. unbroken by laura hillenbrand

cory read this a few years ago and for some reason, i always thought it was about navy seals in afghanistan so i never picked it up. i finally decided to listen to it, and couldn't stop. it was amazing...the writing, the story.

4. me before you by jojo moyes

i was expecting this to be a summer romance, but it was more than that. i really liked this book. i could guess certain parts, but others had me surprised. i would totally recommend this.

5. must love dogs by claire cook

this was cute and fun and light. a perfect summer read! and not your typical fluffy book, since the main character is a divorced, irish american 40 year old woman :)

6. gone girl by gillian flynn

there was a lot of swearing, but i really enjoyed this book. it amazes me how authors come up with stuff like this.

7. the outliers by malcom gladwell

i'd never read malcom gladwell before and i thought this was a good compilation of stories supporting his main idea about how outliers are really just recipients of good fortune.

8. landline by rainbow rowell

i was looking forward to reading this and it was just a little too drawn out/far-fetched for me.

9. okay for now by gary d. schmidt

this is a sequel to wednesdays wars and i really loved it. it focuses on a different character from the first novel and his story of moving to a new city. even though this book is geared towards older children/young adults as it mentions physical abuse, i really felt the highs and lows along with the main character.

10. bosspants by tina fey

you should totally listen to this book, but only LISTEN. it is magical in tina fey's voice and style of reading. it's a lot of anecdotes and randomness tied along with a theme of female empowerment.

11. dad is fat by jim gaffigan


i'd never seen or heard jim gaffigan but i thoroughly enjoyed listening to him in dad is fat. it's pretty heavy on the joys and trials of parenting, so maybe that's why it resonated with me so much. i liked it so much that i would bookmark parts to make cory listen to later. the only thing i didn't like was that i found jim gaffigan shows on netflix later that week and he used a lot of the same material as his book! it was good to listen to the first time but i would really be bummed if i paid for the book or shows and heard the same things multiple times.

12. the opposite of spoiled by ron lieber

this was interesting to me as cory and i were raised quite differently, so we are trying to find a good balance for us as parents. i don't think anyone wants to raise entitled children and there were some good tips. i especially liked reading about allowances and the various cultures of giving. i'm hoping to listen to more books like this.

13. out of the easy by ruta sepetys

this is a book about a girl who lives in new orleans and wants to go to college but is thwarted by her mother's antics-her mother who works in a brothel and hasn't really ever taken care of her daughter. it's a long book and i felt like it kept building up to this great climax which never really came. there was so much material and preamble and it just ended too succinctly for me.

father's day

cory thanked me last night for not "embarrassing" him on social media, as there were many posts celebrating fatherhood. obviously, i just took the gratitude and didn't say anything of my plans to dedicate a whole blog post to cory as a father. sshhhh, don't tell him!

as many of you know, i have an eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa, which means i've been slowly losing my eyesight (if we were talking about this, at this point cory would use his favorite #dadjoke, "what, you're blind?!" to which i'd roll my eyes, having heard this joke, maybe 743 times throughout our marriage). and as if parenting wasn't hard enough, this whole "legally-blind thing" certainly adds a whole new element to taking care of babies. that being said, cory has been the support that every mother needs, especially one who has to deal with her own physical challenges on a daily basis. 

cory and i have been married three years and i am grateful every day that he is my husband. i have numerous blog posts about him and the many little things he has done for me over the last few years. i could easily write a novel on how wonderful he is to me. however, it is only in the last six months that i have watched cory as a father and i guess, that's what my second book would have to be about (how am i going to make this post a reasonable length?!). father's day is a perfect excuse to document the joy i get from watching cory embrace his new role as a dad. 

from the first day our baby was born, cory exemplified his best self as levi's father. parenthood consists of a lot of mundane tasks including diaper changes, feeding, clothing, bathing, rocking to sleep and so on. cory works his 9 hour work days and then takes part in those rituals, without complaint. because i don't drive, we go everywhere as a family, and cory always volunteers to wear levi and journeys around the grocery store with levi in the ergobaby looking at produce or donuts. it is challenging to quickly run errands, especially with a sleeping baby and i often sit in the car with levi, while cory runs into get whatever we need because it really is impossible for me to efficiently do such things. cory also has the keen ability to make levi laugh just by looking at him. he is our resident nail-trimmer. cory cleans up all the dried food that mom missed on levi's face and swims with him in the deep end of the pool. levi spends many nights rolling on the carpet with his daddy, giggling as cory makes absurd noises that i am surely too dignified to utter, and reading in dad's recliner. i never knew my heart could feel so full, as it does when i watch cory and levi together.  

i always knew cory would be a wonderful father. i think that's why i never worried about being a mother and not being able to see if my baby had diaper rash or check on the baby in the dark...cory is the type of person who DOES stuff. he doesn't sit around and talk about learning new things. he orders books or watches tutorials and ignores social conventions (thank you youtube for our new brakes and rotors).  i have no doubt that when our children ask him if they can build a tree house or how fireflies glow, that cory will do everything in his power to show them and teach them. i mean, he's seriously already taught levi that he's the "fun" parent. cory has so many talents, including painting nails (lucky little girls), and levi is lucky that cor is his dad.  

the last six months foreshadow years of sleepless nights and days where i spend one conscious hour alone with my husband and date nights spent shopping for levi...yet, parenthood with cory is the most rewarding experience. when cory and i first started dating, we were talking about some of our short and long-term goals and dreams and i told him i really wanted to be able to see (physically) my babies and he promised me i would. it's been four years to the month since that conversation and i am so happy that we got married and he was right next to me when i held and looked at our son for the first time. thank you for being the best daddy and husband, cor.  

our trip to minnesota

my parents with carmen & levi

my grandma and my aunt wanted to meet the grandbabies (levi and carmen), and were planning to fly to minnesota in may. i decided to save them a trip to nashville, and levi and i flew up to my parents' house for two weeks. levi did so well on the planes-we had one minor incident where cory left the diaper wipes in the airport bathroom, so i had to change his stinky diaper in the airplane bathroom with some toilet paper...other than that, getting there was much better than i worried it would be (mostly because cory and my mom could walk with me to the gates and carry the carseat!).

levi and i got to meet kristi, erik's fiancee, and we had a little party for carmen that first weekend while kristi was there. we ran errands with mom and hung around the house with ainsley and carmen. on wednesday, carmen's birthday, grandma and aunt barb arrived! we had a birthday dinner and some cake and carmen "opened" presents. it's amazing how lovable babies are and i sure love that girl, who is just too funny. she goes "mrow" for a cat, pants like a dog, oinks like a pig and opens her mouth like a fish.

auntie barb & levi

on thursday, mom, barb, levi and i went to the art institute in minneapolis which was pretty neat. we saw an exhibit featuring the austrian royal family and their belongings, including beautiful clothing and a carraige! it was a tough two weeks for us because BABIES. especially when they don't get good sleep, and with all the commotion and the thin floors/ceilings, levi and carmen had a rough time. we went downtown st. paul and minneaplis with the family and took family pictures and ate a nice restaurant for mother's day.

mostly, we had a relaxing trip, spending time with our favorite people! i had looked at the weather forecast and it was supposed to be in the 70-80's, but it totally wasn't and poor levi and i didn't have any sweatshirts or coats. oh minnesota...

erik's customary pose with the babies 

we will be going back up there for erik's wedding in september and i can't wait!

uncle erik with cousins carmen & levi

at the art museum in downtown minneapolis 

what the what

yes, this happened. i went to minnesota and came back without six inches of my hair. it is officially the shortest it has been since i was in first grade. and i can't style it like the way it's pictured, like the stylist did...sigh. oh well, it's still nice not to have to deal with it while nursing and with this 100% humidity.

ALSO, cory got a call a few weeks ago from his trainer, dr. e, in highland, indiana who said he recommended him as one of three people to corporate to work at his office as a partner of sorts to help with his patients and train the new guys. anyway, so the CEO (!!!!!!!) called cory for an "interview" so we thought, but it was really to tell him that the executives had decided cory was the right guy for the job and if wants to accept, he will  get a pay raise, become a corporate employee and he starts working in highland in the fall. the company will pay for our moving expenses and cory can go back to his old position if things don't work out. I KNOW-total shock. we literally signed our lease for another year like two weeks before that call. this means that cory won't go along with the junior/ partner route, which would mean he wouldn't become a regional leader, making lots more money, but sometimes it's not all about the money...that's right, not a golddigger. anyway, so far we are feeling like he should accept this offer because a. he loves teaching and this means he can help ensure the new trainees have good integrity, business ethics etc. b. not as much stress to meet a sales goal each month because they'll be a few guys at the office c. he likes dr. e a lot d. it's a corporate position, so who knows where that could lead

i'm so, so, SO proud of cor. i'm also glad that the executives were able to recognize his potential in the few months he's been working-he really does love helping his patients and everyone around him realizes that through his actions over the last year. so, who knows, we may be back in the midwest by year's end?