Welcome Levi John

And with this post, the blog now becomes a place for us to record the happenings of our three Todd babies!

The last "BEFORE" shot.

Levi John joined our family on Monday, May 13 at 3:11 p.m. weighing 7 lbs. 10 oz. He was 20 inches long. Levi's birth story is certainly different from that of his brothers. In fact, his brothers picked his birth date! Mom had to have a C-section and it was scheduled. (We had thoughts that Levi would make his own entrance but that was not to be!)

Mommy and Daddy left home a little before noon, stopping to do a few errands along the way! Mommy commented on her way out the door that it was weird to know we were leaving home to have a baby and had scheduled it like that. Mommy found herself a bit more anxious with things happening this way!

Upon arriving at the hospital, the nurse put a baby monitor on mommy, put in an IV and generally prepped mom for surgery. Then, we just waited! At about 2:40, they took us back to the OR area. We left daddy in the recovery area for a few minutes while the doctors and nurses got mommy ready in the operating room. Mommy heard Dr. Dillard come in to the room and then say, "Let's have a baby!" Another doctor reminded someone to go get daddy and in just a few minutes, we heard a BIG OLE cry! Levi made a very loud entrance and pinked up right away after he was born because he was crying so vigorously. Apparently he was a little taken aback by the activities!

Daddy cut Levi's cord and then came to mommy to confirm what his name would be. He also got to have Levi's footprint on his hand and it took up most of the back of daddy's hand. Levi has big feet! Then, Levi got to come see Mommy for the first time! While the doctor finished with mommy, the nurses took Levi upstairs to get cleaned up. After about an hour in recovery, Levi joined mommy and daddy in a postpartum room. A short time later, his big brothers and grandma came to meet Levi.

Daddy sent out messages and made a few phone calls to family. Mommy was much more wiped out than she thought she would be but enjoyed getting to know Levi right away.

Meeting the Big Brothers!

Going home!

Kindergarten Program Videos

Jeremiah's research presentation

The last unit for Jeremiah's Kindergarten year covered space. His teacher had him do a special research project on the solar system. The week before his presentation he came home in a slight panic that they were not making the progress they needed to on his presentation so we did a little research at home. (The biggest challenge was zoning him in on 2-3 facts about each planet to share because he wanted to share so many different things.) His teacher helped him build a powerpoint with his facts and add pictures of the sun and all the planets. On Monday, May 13, he gave the presentation on the classroom smart board!

The next day his class rook a field trip to the local planetarum for two shows. Daddy was able to get away from the hospital for a bit to join the class on the field trip. He labeled this as the best part of his week.

Jeremiah has also had his fair share of fundraising experience lately. His school had a special walk on May 15 and the kids had to get pledges for the local track renovation project and special school assemblies. He did a great job approaching people and making calls. He also found himself on the flip side of fundraising last week when a church youth group rang our doorbell and offered to let someone in our house break an egg on someone's head for whatever someone might want to give. Jeremiah was willing to give $2 and mom and dad supplemented it with a few more dollars. He enjoyed picking someone in the group randomly.

His school year is wrapping up this week with a special pajama reading day the class earned for reading over 500 books in the past month, a movie day and then report cards. Where did the school year go?

Andrew to the dentist

Andrew made his first trip to the dentist earlier this month. He was so excited to get called back to the exam room, in part because we had prepped him about getting a new toothbrush and a prize from the treasure chest. The dental hygienist did a great job showing him all the instruments.

Andrew is quick to share that they counted his teeth and he has 20! They cleaned his teeth and then he did make his selections from the treasure chest.

Kindergarten - Check

It seems like mommy was just blogging about Jeremiah's first day of Kindergarten and now we are already writing about his Kindergarten completion program. On Friday, he and his classmates performed several songs and rhymes summarizing all they learned throughout the year.

Jeremiah was part of an ABC recitation about their time in Kindergarten. His part of was Z is for first grade zest, we are ready! Videos will be posted another time when I the computer decides to cooperate.

Mommy actually shed more tears at the program than she did on the first day of school. We are so grateful that Jeremiah had such a wonderful teacher for Kindergarten. Ms. Saathoff set the bar pretty high for our expectations of his future teachers! We will miss her next year.

Finshing up tumbling

Andrew is quick to tell people that he goes to school at tumbling. I guess that is a little reasssuring that part of what we wanted him to get out of the experience was accomplished. We wanted home to experience the structure of following directions, waiting his turn, and interacting with other kids.

We were excited to see him learn a variety of jumps, do a front roll and a back roll, and learn some other fundamental movements. He wrapped up his tumbling at the end of April but he may do it again some time. He continues to remind us it is there each time we drive by!

Here are a few pictures from his last session!

Jeremiah's personality

We continue to see Jeremiah develop in so many ways, including his individual personality. We have known that he is competitive on a sports team, but we recently saw another side. His class is keeping track of how many books they read for a school challenge. Last Monday, he came home declaring that he wanted to read more books this week because TWO people in his class read MORE books than he did last week.

We have also been observing his desire to research when he has a question. Last week, he told me that whales hear with their tails because of the grouchy ladybug book. I told him I wasn't sure about that but that he could look it up. It didn't take too long for him to get on the iPad to start googling.  He has also been working on a research project at school about space. He comes home with a new fact for us each day.

We had a little fun earlier this week taking a may basket to neighbors. Jeremiah's class made them and he chose to give his to neighbors that were moving. We will miss having another young family next door. Jeremiah was also a recipient of a May basket from one of his classmates who lives in our neighborhood.