Giving Thanks

It's been difficult Thanksgiving holiday season. Landon's great-grandmother (my mom's mom) has been very ill and my mom decided to skip Thanksgiving dinner at Steve and Madeleine's house (a few pictures from dinner below) so she could drive thirteen hours back to Slater, MO to be with her. Martha Murray, my last living grandparent, passed away early Saturday morning and I deeply regret that she never got to meet Landon in person. We talked often of taking him back to visit but just hadn't gotten it together yet. And now it's too late.

In spite of that, however, I am truly thankful. I'm thankful that my mom got to be with her mother in the final hours. I'm thankful that she lived eighty-nine good years - it's never long enough but hardly tragically early and she did outlive nearly all of her friends. Although I wish I'd visited more, I am thankful for the time that I did get to spend with her. I'm thankful that LT, a beautiful example of the happier side of the inevitable circle of life, was sleeping peacefully in my arms when I got the news of my grandmother's death.

There are not words to express how thankful I am for my family. I'd be lost with out my wonderful wife and child (yes, even our doggies) and all the love and support we get from our extended family. I'm thankful that all of Landon's grandparents are alive, very healthy and live relatively nearby - I'm very hopeful at the opportunity LT has to grow up knowing them better than I knew mine.

LT, Kari and I leave tomorrow for the funeral services on Tuesday. I'm thankful our lifestyle affords us the opportunity to go and honor my grandmother's life and to be there to support my mom and the rest of her family.

Sitting

LT can sit up on his own now. Hailie doesn't think it's such a big deal - she's been good at sitting for years now. In fact, she sat down right next to me when I got down on one knee to propose to Kari. However, if she'd have known that it would eventually lead to yet another family member to share the attention with, she might not have been so well behaved at that moment.

Johnny Jump-Up

OK, so technically it's not really a Jonny Jump-Up. It's a Bumper Jumper. But I've been told many times that I was a huge fan of the Johnny Jump-Up when I was a baby so that name has kind of stuck around this house. Looks like LT enjoys it as well. Bowen doesn't mind it but Hailie was kind of scared of it at first - she wouldn't go past it in the door where it was hanging. However, she loves to follow Kari and Landon around the house wherever they go and it didn't take her too long to decide that it was more important to be with her mom than to avoid the scary jump-up thing.

Mo' Readin'

It won't be long before LT is helping his dad with reading.

Avocado

LT still isn't too excited about *solid* foods. The rice cereal wasn't particularly well received so we thought we'd try something different. In spite of the look on his face, he does like it better than the cereal. A few times he even opened his mouth and chomped down on my finger with a little avocado on it. They say you should eat a little of the food and make a big deal about how good it is so the baby will be more interested. The only problem is that I'm a really picky eater and don't like avocado so I feel like a bit like a hypocrite. My dad and his dad before him were also picky eaters. Kari is Landon's only hope in breaking that streak.

Apparently playing with the Tupperware container is better than eating the food anyway.

Play date in the park

LT and Z tried to show off for the ladies (like cute little Sofi below) by doing a little arm wrestling.

Swimming Part II

Some pictures from the kid's second swim lesson.
Sofi
Landon
Zack

Apparently swimming wore Sofi out... but not LT. He had his usual 30 minute nap a while later.

Little baby...

in a big bed.

Teletubbies

Landon gets to watch a few minutes of Teletubbies some mornings although he is often more interested in watching what Hailie is doing than watching the TV.

LT's cute green hat kind of makes him look like a little Teletubby in this picture.

A week behind

Last weekend we went up to the mountains to see my parents (I guess I should start calling them LT's grandparents). Shawn and Z came with us (Albert was in Europe on business). We always make fun of their huge truck but it came in pretty handy as we packed in two babies, two dogs, and three adults. The baby boys worked well together and made sure that at least one of them was awake and crying for the whole drive up. Which was nice. It worked out so well for them that they decided to go with the same plan on the drive home.

Brother like brother

Bowen loves pink. He loves his big pink dog and all his other pink toys (of which there are many). He's even been known to dig thought a basket of candies (surreptitiously obtained) and pick out only the pink ones. Personally I think it's cute that such a big ol' mean looking dog has a soft side.

From the looks of these pictures, LT may have something in common with his brother Bowen. Landon looks pretty happy hanging out in Joss's pink boppy.

What a mom can do in 30 minutes...

(Editor's note: yet *another* post from Kari. Between her writing more often and now Z having a blog I'm starting to loose my monopoly on this baby blog business.)

Shawn thinks I [Kari] should write a book titled, "What a mom can do in 30 minutes" because I have become extremely efficient in my 30 minute time frames that Landon gives me these days. You see, he has taken up exactly THIRTY minutes of napping EXACTLY every 1 1/2 hours. Thus, I have learned to rake the yard, shower and put in a load of laundry in my first 30 minutes, change the laundry, unload the dishwasher and read in my next 30 minute nap slot etc... Not sure writing a book can be done in a 30 minute time slot, so it might just need to be an entry on the blog.

(Editor's note part 2: shortly after Kari finished writing this, LT fell asleep for an hour and a half. So much for predictability.)

Shawn and Kari plus Five

(Editor's note: another post by my lovely wife featuring photos by Z's mom about their adventurs in babysitting about two weeks ago)

OK, so we aren't quite the same as Jon and Kate plus Eight, but it gave Shawn and I an insight into what it might be like to have 5 babies! Chrissy and her husband needed some extra hands last week and so Shawn, Zack, Landon and I watched her 3 boys for a few hours. It was surprisingly not as hard as we had thought (mostly thanks to her boys being on a really great schedule and Shawn's laid back and extremely helpful personality!) These pictures show Landon as a speed bump that was supposed to slow Casey, Gavin and Liam down when crawling around, however, it didn't phase any of the boys and they went right over Landon. They enjoyed crawling over and Landon apparently enjoyed being crawled all over!

Socks go where?

It's colder in LT's room than it is in the rest of the house. I don't know why. Maybe if I had some handyman skills I could figure out why and even fix it but I'm just a computer nerd with no actual abilities in the manual arts. For several nights in a row LT had woken up with icy cold hands. I didn't want him to be cold so I can up with a solution - socks on the hands of course! Well, my misguided plan didn't last long but we all had a good laugh (LT included).

I guess I am a dad...

Because I thought this:

iiiiiiiiiiiikkvfdffffffffffffffk......,,,,,,,,,k, 9 m,,,b

was really great. It's what Landon instant messaged me today (with a little help from mom) while I was at work. I never fully understood until now why my parents though some of the crap that I produced when I was young was so great. Now I get it.

Readin'

Just to be clear - you are not the first person to make a joke about how Landon is going to help me improve my reading skills. It doesn't mean it's not funny - just that it's not all that original.

Swim Lessons

LT, Z and Sofi all started swim lessons today. The report from the other parents was that Z and Sofi were worn out and each slept for over three hours after swimming. Landon took only his usual 30 minute nap. My theory was that he wasn't tired because he's such a good swimmer (skills inherited from his parents and their distinguished swimming careers).

But Shawn said she thought he didn't sleep because he was so excited about holding Sofi's hand. A better theory I'll admit.


Notice Sofi flirting with both of the boys at the same time (a little payback to LT). Also notice that she's got a look on her face like she knows she's up to no good.


Apparently LT sticks his tongue out if you pull on his ear. Sadly, it looks like Landon got his dad's social skills.


Zack


Sofi


and LT (who just recently discovered his tongue)

Snap, Crackle and Pop

When I heard other parents talking about babies having rice cereal for their first solid food I just assumed they were talking about Rice Krispies. What do I know? Apparently not much about baby food. Good thing mom is in charge of that department.

Saturday morning was our first foray into the world of solid foods.
It was also LT's first time in his little highchair which he really enjoyed. In the photo above I picture him thinking, "Wow mom! This is really fun, what are we doing?"


And here, "That red thing isn't as cool as some of my other toys but this seat is still pretty fun."


But here, "I've been tricked! What is that crap? I don't think I like this anymore. What's wrong with good old fashion mama milk?"

He makes the same sad face (and spits up the same way) when he gets medicine at the doctors office.

them's good people

A sleepless night with LT compounded with tons of well meaning but contradictory and overwhelming advice about getting your baby to sleep from friends, books, the Internet, etc., finally caught up with Kari yesterday. She was having a pretty rough time in the morning. So bad, in fact, that I was trying to figure out how I could cut out of work early to go home and help (not that I would be much help but I didn't know what else to do). But then Shawn instant messages me wanting to know what Kari's might like for lunch and before I knew it Shawn had driven across town, brought Kar a turkey and avocado (with NO MAYO) sandwich, and was watching Landon while Kari took Bowen on a run. I may not have known how to help but Shawn sure as heck did and she really saved the day. I feel really lucky to have Z, Shawn and Albert in our lives right now - them's just good people.

Alright, enough of my sappy ranting! I know my readers don't want to see a bunch of sentimental garbage here - they demand my cliché humor, flair for bad grammar (or is it poor grammar?), and uninspired photography. So there's a picture at right of Z, Albert, Shawn and Landon (taken a few weeks ago at Amici's). And the only funny thing I could come up with from yesterday was Z grabbing a handful of Shawn's sandwich and stuffing it in his mouth. They say that your baby will start to show subtle signs that they are ready for solid foods but apparently Zach isn't much for subtly.

Mismatch!

The way Riley and Landon look, you'd think their dads dressed them. But their moms are to blame this time!