I wish we'd gotten it on camera...

It seems babies, toddlers and the like grow by leaps and bounds right before your eyes. Both in size, as my sister commented on the other day when she came over to see Landon after not seeing him for a short week and a half, and in skill - again mentioned by said sister. And she's totally right. Landon is losing that cute, chubby baby look and looks more and more like a big boy every day. Not to mention the way his vocabulary is changing and growing; toddler speak is going away quickly and I find myself teetering on encouraging the silly words he uses rather than reinforcing the correct pronunciation just because that toddler speak is so dang cute. And, of course, I have no idea where he comes up with some of the stuff that he does! It's super cute and he has us in stitches frequently.

Alas, our little ham is camera shy; well, sort of camera shy. Whenever I break out the camera (video or still) he would rather look at the pictures or video that have already been taken. He hasn't quite connected the dots that you have to take video or pictures before you can see them. I've tried being all stealth about it and sneaking the camera on him whenever he's being his super cute self, but it's like a magnet and as soon as he sees it in my hand he'll stop what he's doing and want to come see.

There have been a few - okay several - moments where I wish we'd gotten them on camera...

The many animal sounds Landon knows are pretty darn cute. One of my favorites that has evolved over the last few months has been his impression of an elephant. Once upon a time if you asked Landon what an elephant says he would hold his hand up to his nose like an inverted trunk and nod his head up and down going, "wooh wooooooh!" Somewhere along the way someone corrected his trunk action and now he holds his arm out instead. I must admit, the "inverted trunk" version was my favorite.

For weeks Landon would recite the same toddler speak gibbrish monologue over and over again. We tried and tried to figure out what exactly he was saying since it was the same unrecognizable thing each and every time. "Da-da, ba-ba KNOCKER! Zoom down da diam. OW OW OW! Ah-wee hoom." Each and every time. Finally, Irma was able to decipher it for us, and as it turns out it's one of his favorite stories at daycare; "The Hungry Giant." "They bumped him with their bommy knockers. The bees zoomed out, they zoomed after the giant. 'Ow ow ow!' Cried the giant. All the way home." Once we figured out what he was saying we could ask Landon to tell us the Hungry Giant story and he would get excited and tell it to us in his funny little version. Now? Apparently that's old news and he won't do it. I sadly can't tell you the last time Landon told me the Hungry Giant story.

Landon's got quite the ear for music. He's not too big on dancing, but he loves playing the piano, playing with his xylophone, playing the "tee-tar" (guitar) and picking out each instrument in his current favorite song, "Save Me San Francisco" that the group Train (appropriately enough) sings. He calls it the drumming song. If we could put the song on repeat so he wouldn't have to ask for it every time it was over he'd be the happiest toddler in the world. Seriously. He likes to sing along to anything that's on and recently made a good friend in our neighbor behind us who was playing music for our neighborhood's annual block party this year. In true "Landon" form though, every single time I break out the camera the singing stops.

When there is no music on in the car sometimes Landon will break out in song all by himself. Similar to the "Hungry Giant," there was one song we could not figure out even though it was repeated several times. "Vla-see vla-see a nay nay wooooo!" Any guesses? How about, "black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?" I like Landon's original version, but it's become less toddler speak and more and more grown up over the last few weeks.

Landon is very animated right now. The expressions on his face when he's asking seemingly mundane questions, the way he holds out his hands and shrugs his shoulders, the genuine interest he has in every single little thing and the way his attention is captured. If he can't touch something for one reason or another he wants to smell it. If we hear something outside he stops what he's doing, puts his hand to his ear and tells everyone within eye/earshot to "shsh, listen." When he's looking for something, whether it's the group of turkeys that wander around the neighborhood, the "hopter" (helicopter) at the little airport on the way home or a lost toy he puts his forearm against his forehead and looks intently for whatever he's targeting.

I've gotten better about sneak attacks with the camera and have had to let things slide when he's singing at the dinner table or doing something cute or funny when we're supposed to be focusing on other things just so some of this fun stuff can be captured forever. If only life had a pause button, I'm so in love with my guys.

Kids really do say the darndest things

Landon has quite the vocabulary for the little two year old guy that he is. It's so much fun to see what's going to pop out of his mouth next...sometimes. We've had a couple embarrassing moments and some hysterical doozies that I've been meaning to memorialize for a while now.

A couple of nights ago Landon was having a rough moment and hit the dog with his sand shovel and then kicked Daddy on the way to time-out. Our "time-out style" is to immediately put him on time-out without any words or reaction/action and then discuss what happened after time time-out is over, apologize for whatever action warranted time out and exchange hugs and kisses and "I love yous." It works well for the most part and Landon definitely understands what appropriate versus inappropriate behavior is. After the time-out mentioned above the end of the conversation went like this:

Mommy: Landon, what do you need to say to Daddy?
Landon: Thank you my time out, Daddy.

Not quite what I was going for. He's unapologetic but he is polite!


We were shopping at Costco a few weeks ago. This is one of Landon's favorite places to go shopping because of all those samples. Our Costco, probably like all the rest of them, is jam packed on the weekends and it can be tough to maneuver your cart sometimes. We were perusing some random aisle when all of a sudden a lady comes to a stop in the middle of the aisle right in front of us and we were stuck waiting for her to move. Landon turned around and shouted at her, "GO LADY! COME ON!" She turned around, saw who was shouting, gave me the side eye and pushed her cart. I wasn't sure whether or not I should have been mortified or give the little guy a high-five. A few chuckles erupted from neighboring carts.


We were on the BART train coming home from the airport when we greeted Kari, Tony and BinBin home. Even though their plane came in a few hours before rush hour it was rush hour by the time they made it through customs with all their luggage, freshened up after the marathon flight from China and grabbed something to drink. The BART train was pretty full by the time we were on our way home and continued filling up as we passed each stop on our way back to the East Bay. In walks an older man with white hair and a beard. Do you know where I'm going with this? Yes, for about 15 minutes Landon insisted - rather loudly I might add - that the platinum bearded man was Santa Claus himself. He would look back at the man (who was seated in the row behind us), point and exclaim, "Santa!" and "Ho ho ho, me-wwy Chwis-mas!" We tried telling him it wasn't Santa but he wasn't having any part of it and insisted that he was, in fact, Santa. Maybe he knew something the rest of us didn't?

Angels

Landon has talked about the "little man" that he sees when he goes to sleep several times. So many times that I've lost count. When we tuck him into bed at night he says goodnight to Mommy and Daddy, we say goodnight to him, and then he tells us to say goodnight to the little man. We comply, exchange kisses and go to sleep - though it's usually not quite that simple, but that's another post entirely.

Sometimes I'll lay beside Landon in his big boy bed and sing him a lullaby while rubbing his back. I take whatever snuggles I can get these days and relish my time alone with Landon since I know our solo days are numbered with a baby brother on the way - again, another post there entirely. Tonight was one of those nights. We went through all the goodnight hugs and kisses, Daddy had just turned on his noise machine, turned the light off and shut the door, Landon asked me to say goodnight to the "little man," so I did, and then I asked him more about the little man. Every so often, maybe it's when he's really tired, he'll talk more about this mysterious little man. Is he an imaginary friend? A monster in the closet? A shadow on the wall? A ghost? He seems to be consistent, but what is he? Who is he? Tonight our conversation went like this:

Mommy: Who is this little man, Landon?
Landon: Umm, I know mommy.
Mommy: Who?
Landon: A angel.
Mommy: An angel?
Landon: Yeah, a angel. Like in my book, in the pages.
Mommy: Is he scary?
Landon: No, not scary. He nice. He come see me when I go night-night myself.
Mommy: What does he look like?
Landon: Like the pages.
Mommy: What color hair does he have?
Landon: Umm, white. He very fragile. Pretty neat, huh?

I got a little choked up at that point and Landon was dozing off to sleep so our conversation ended there. Angels, ghosts; call them what you want, I believe in them and I have no doubt Landon is seeing one. Call me crazy, call me whatever you want, but I wholeheartedly believe this. Who is it? I have my suspicions. On the top of my list, and the one that admittedly makes my heart the happiest is that Landon's great granddad, his namesake, the one person I miss most in this entire world, has in fact met his great grandson and is watching over him.

Disneyland!

More summertime fun! Daycare was closed for a week so we decided to head down to Southern California to visit the happiest place on earth, Disneyland! We all had a lot of fun at "Mickey's house," as Landon referred to it and reluctantly came home to resume life as normal after a fantastic week.

We started our adventure with dinner at Goofy's Kitchen. Landon wasn't too sure about all the characters that would walk around the restaurant and come up to your table, but he sure loved his "noonles and cheese" and dirt and worms!

Landon demonstrated what it was like to be a bug

Danced along to the World of Color

We rode lots of rides. Landon's favorites were the teacups, the Buzz Lightyear ride and Pirates of the Caribbean. We would ask him which ride he wanted to go on next and he would always ENTHUSIASTICALLY respond with one of those. On Pirates he would lean back right before heading down the first slide, cover his eyes and proclaim, "that too scary." Then, as soon as the boat would land at the bottom and the music would start he was all eyes and ears. As soon as the ride would end and we were back on solid ground he would excitedly jump up and down and ask to "go again!"

Landon tried pulling the sword from the stone

He even warmed up to the characters eventually. We ran into Minnie Mouse in Toontown and Landon ran right up to her. You can tell he wasn't too sure, but he held her hand and might have actually smiled! That was the breaking point for him and all the characters we visited with after Minnie were successful encounters!











Buzz Lightyear, or "Buzz Lightdirt," as Landon calls him, is a pretty elusive guy. We finally were able to track him down right before we left the park on our last morning there before driving back home. He's currently Landon's favorite guy and it was so cute watching Landon meet his "hero." Landon shared his astro blaster with Buzz and they had fun...even if Landon was being shy.

We were all tired out by the end of the trip with magical memories and dreams dancing in our heads.

When I woke Landon up the day we headed back to work and daycare he asked if we were going back to Mickey's house and cried when I told him we were going to Irma's. I know buddy, I'd much rather have been in Disneyland too. Of course, when we got to Irma's he kissed me goodbye, gave Irma a little something we brought back for her and headed into the other room to play with his friends. It was truly a wonderful trip!

Summertime fun!

I can't believe summer is already halfway over! We've had lots of fun so far and plan on continuing the trend all the way through until the rainy weather starts...and even then, I think fun will be on the agenda since we hit the outlets this weekend and scored a pair of dinosaur rain boots and matching rain jacket.

Summer started off by celebrating the big 2 and blowing out some candles

We spent some time at Pixieland where Landon loves to fly the airplanes

We made choo choo train cookies to share with friends at daycare

And shared some exciting news!

Swimming and playing in the sand at the beach

And learned how to pedal...sort of

Our baby is turning into a big boy right before our eyes!

And oh, how we love him!

Two years? No way...

Yes way! Two years ago at this very moment I was snuggling my brand new baby in my arms. Really, it was more chaotic and crazy than it sounds since we were probably trying to figure out how to get him to eat since he was so sleepy (and we were too), but nevertheless, we were snuggling. I couldn't help myself but to snuggle Landon to sleep tonight, only this time his little body wrapped around mine instead of the six pound little package wrapped up in a blanket that I could curl my arm around. Snuggles are snuggles though, and I'll take what I can get since they seem to be even fewer and far between. The last two years seem to have melted away. I can remember those early days like they were yesterday, yet at the same time I have no idea where the time went.

Landon is a tall and skinny little ball of energy these days! He can count to twenty, knows his shapes and colors, LOVES to drive by the "lellehoter" (helicopter) on our way home from daycare and is infatuated with Mickey Mouse and all his friends. His smile and sweet little face will light up any room and brighten any day. He is genuinely the light of our lives and I can't seem to remember what life was like before he was here...nor do I want to.

We had such a fun day today! We all took the day off of work and daycare to play around a little bit. Daddy made a special trip to Johnny's and we had donuts for breakfast, then we played around the house for a bit before venturing over to the mall to get some pictures taken, had some lunch and then we were off to Pixieland! Landon had such a good time and was tall enough to ride on the airplanes! I think this made all of our day. I wasn't sure how he would do since the airplanes are only for little guys and he had to go by himself; I thought for sure he'd scream and we'd have to have them stop the ride to get him off. Quite the opposite though, he ended up riding them four or five times and it was hard to get him off! Teacups, a train ride, the cars and the merry-go-round later we headed home for a much needed nap. After naptime we gave Landon a few presents, played outside and then headed to meet the rest of the family at Chuck E Cheese. Pizza, cake, more presents, rides, whack-a-mole, ski-ball and a few other games later we headed home for bathtime and bed! A fun, crazy, memorable day for our favorite two year old who is now sound asleep in his crib.

Happy birthday, Landon! We love you more and more each day and are having such a wonderful time with you! Thank you for making us laugh, giving the best squeezie hugs, entertaining us with your "hot dog dance" and song singing. I hope one day you're blessed with the opportunity to see just how much joy you bring to our lives.

She's coming home!

Kari and Tony are cousins on my maternal side of the family. They are some of the warmest, easy-going, fun and caring people I know. They decided to adopt a baby girl from China and started the process way back in 2004. Check your calendars, we're in 2010 now; it's been six years. SIX YEARS! Their wait will be over very soon since they will board a plane to China, just the two of them, today and return in a few weeks as a family of three!

Katelyn Xuebin is coming home! I'm so very excited for Kari and Tony and know they're going to be wonderful parents to this little girl, but I'm also excited that Landon will have a cousin that's just his age to play with!

Katie is two years old and will surely provide lots of spunk to her new household. Tony is officially outnumbered but already has a soft spot for his girls. I can't wait to follow their journey as they bring Katie home.