Landon

Landon turned 3 about four months ago and I can't believe it. I wanted to write a post about him and what he is like at this age. 

Likes

• He loves anything that has wheels on it - cars, trains, planes, garbage trucks, fire truck, buses - and he is very good at pointing them out to me even if they are 1/2 mile away. He also likes to intimidate the sounds and movements of each thing.
• His biggest passion is fixing things and he will fix anything. He has a car lift and likes to lay under it pretending to fix his cars and then pretends to wash them. I often find his play tools in the most random spots because he left it there from a work project. I have found tools in my washing machine, underneath my sink, in my fridge, in my shoes, and in my purse. 
• Right now, Landon is in a basketball class and has so much fun it. He is always asking when he gets to go back. He also likes playing basketball in our kitchen with his daddy
• Chocolate! This kid (and his brother and his daddy) think chocolate is its own food group. He asks for it at least once a day. He will often say, "Mommy, I neeeeeeeed chocolate." If I say no he often replies, "Okay. Daddy will go to the store and get it for me."
• Landon loves to help. If you have been around him just a little,you he is always willing and wanting to help. Anytime I am cleaning, doing laundry, or cooking he will run to me shouting, "I can help you, mommy."
•  He is obsessed with the car wash and everyday will say, "we go to car wash today."

Dislikes

• Veggies - Landon just doesn't dislike vegetables, he hates them. Anytime he sees a green food, he will slowly back away and say, "That gross. That yucky." If I put veggies on his plate, he usually throws them at me or on the floor. We just have to hid them in his food. 
• Being without his blankets - He has a green blanket and a Cars blanket that he is incredibly attached and no one touches it. Ever. 
• Being inside for too long - Everyday he asks me, "Mommy, when we go bye-bye."

Landon is an incredibly creative child. I love watching him gather up a bunch of different toys and see what he comes up with. Today, he put his blanket on our kithcen counter and put a ball on the blanket. Then he started shouting, "Doggie stuck in a tree." So he jumped on his car, started making the fire trucks sounds, drove to the kitchen and then used a broom as a ladder to climb up on and save the doggie. 

He is an amazing older brother to Jason. He always making sure Jason has something to play with and if Landon has a snack he makes sure I get Jason a snack. He likes to give Jason hugs and kisses and high-fives. They get along very well. I am so proud to have this little guy in my life. 

Building his first snowman

Riding the Harley Davidson Motorcycle at Marleys

Christmas Lights at Temple Square

Decorating Gingerbread Houses

Tubing at Soldiers Hollow

When is Santa coming?

Ever since Christmas, Landon keeps asking, "When is Santa coming?" I reply that he won't be back until next year. That answer never really satisfies him and this morning he decided to take matters into his own hands. He started out by making Santa cookies and chocolate milk. He then wrapped presents for Santa to deliver and then he pretended to be Santa. He had me and Jason opened the gifts and we acted surprised. Landon pretended to eat the cookies and drink the chocolate milk to which he told me was "Yummy." After he was done, he shouted "Mommy, I all done. Santa Claus go back to the mall now."

Here are pictures of his adventure.

Quick Update

I will be "attempting" to blog more on a regular basis. We will see how that goes. Here is an update on how our little family is doing.

Landon

After working with a few speech therapists, Landon's speech has really taken off. Everyday he saids a new phase and I wonder where he learned it from. Landon loves to play cars and pretend to be a mechanic like his grandpa. He loves anything to do with trains and airplanes. He is an awesome big brother to Jason and is always sharing with him. He makes sure his brother always has a snack to eat and a toy to play with. Landon started Primary (children's Sunday School) and loves it. He always asks if we can go to Primary tomorrow. This kid is so smart and very creative.

Jason

At 18 months and after lots of encouragement, Jason is finally walking. He is super active and all over the place now. Some of Jason's favorite activities are reading, riding his toy car, and playing with blocks. He is a daddy's boy and enjoys sitting on Kyle's lap and watching football. Jason has a very strong personality. He knows what he wants, what he likes and knows how to push his mommy's buttons He also has the cutest laugh I've ever heard.

Kyle

Currently Kyle is a Collections Manager at a finance company and is working on his MBA at Utah Valley University. The MBA program is a part-time two year program. Both his job and school keep him extra busy and we are so glad when he gets to spend time at home. Of course, he is teaching his sons about sports and likes playing basketball with them in our kitchen. We love watching movies together and going on dates. Kyle loves it when I tickle him and play pranks on him (not really, but I think it's hilarious.)

Kristy

About a year and half ago, I decided to go back to school to become an American Sign Language Interpreter. I've been taking about 2 classes a semester and I am so glad I'm doing it. It is quite the balancing act with Kyle working full time and both of us being in school. Because of some scheduling issues and other things, I am taking this semester off and waiting to go to school in the summer and fall. When I'm not a student, I am full time mom to my boys. They keep me on on my toes and I love spending my days with them. Lately, I've started to enjoy baking - mostly cookies. I've also started to enjoy working with tools and building stuff for the boys. I even asked for a pink tool set for Valentines Day. 

Mommy Confessions

Hey, look at me, I'm actually blogging. It's mostly because I don't want to clean and my toddler is still sleeping.

This link, http://www.viralnova.com/mom-confession/, has been shared on facebook a lot. It made me of f some of my "mommy confessions" that I have. I thought I would share.

1. Motherhood is hard. Period. Anyone who saids differently is a liar.
2. Labor sucks and is hard. 
3. I'm often too enthusiastic for my children's bed time.
4. I leave my kids alone in my apartment when I take the trash out. My baby is usually strapped in his swing and my toddler watches me out the window.
5. My baby naps in a bassinet in our laundry room. It's the only place I have found where Landon's loudness doesn't wake him. 
6. I give Landon chocolate almost everyday.The only time he doesn't is if we are out. 
7. I let Landon spoon feed Jason. 
8. I don't believe in spanking. If anyone lays a hand on my children they will get the wrath of me and I promise it won't be pretty. 
9. My kids stay in pajamas all day way too often. 
10. I let Landon use a steak knife at dinner. 
11. I NEVER give into temper tantrums. 
12. I hardly sing nursery songs to my kids. I find them extremely annoying. The few times I have sung them, Landon covers his ears.Apparently I'm that bad of a singer. 
13. Jason was very unplanned and cried when I found out I was pregnant. 
14. I plan my daily schedule around Landon's nap and bed time. All hell breaks lose when he is sleep deprived. 
15. Sometimes I give Landon the ipad and Jason my cell phone to play with so I can read. 
16. I'm pretty sure, I have food or drool on my clothes 24/7. Most of the time, I don't even realize until someone points it out. 
17. Landon and I get into food fights. 
18. Landon looks at veggies as if they are foreign objects. 
19. I was recently diagnosed with bipolar disease. I'm scared to death my children will have it. 
20. I can't wait until Jason sleeps through the night. Some mothers enjoy the midnight, 2 am, 4 am feedings. I do not.
21. Landon eats spaghetto's for lunch almost everyday.
22. Some Sundays, I dread going to Church. Church is very difficult with 2 children. 
23. The boys never wear a pair socks that match. 
24. Sometimes I throw stuff into my coat closest so my house looks clean.
25. Motherhood is the greatest thing I have ever done. 

Hello World

Hello blog world. I'm back. My computer has been having issues for awhile and it is now fixed. I'm currently downloading 1400 pictures from my iphone and about 300 pictures from my camera.

It's going to take awhile to go through all those pictures and I will be doing random blog posts. But here is a quick post of what we did this afternoon.

Landon loves the outdoors. We decided to spend the afternoon at a local park and Landon had a blast.

This kid loves to swing. 

Landon before going down the slide and trying to climb back up the slide

Sign language and Temper Tantrums

For those you know me you know I love sign language. I'm not fluent but could hold a basic conversation in sign. Before Landon was born, I decided to teach him basic sign starting from a young age. When he started crawling and getting into things, I taught him the word no and what it means. It took a couple of weeks before he finally understood what it meant. Now when I don't want him to do something, I just do the sign for no and he stops doing it. Landon can't do the sign for no yet but he shakes his head and that is his sign for no.

I work part-time from home and sometimes when I'm working Landon will pull himself up to my chair and start tugging on my clothes because he wants to sit on my lap. This can make work a little tricky. This morning I decided I would teach him the sign for "sit-down". In the past it has taken a week or two before Landon understood what a sign meant. He took him about 5 mins to figure out what I was signing to him. I would do the sign and force him to sit so he understood what the sign meant. After doing this a few times, he started sitting down when I did the sign.

Well, about half way through work he came up to my chair and start tugging on my shirt. So I did the sit down sign and he started shaking his head no. I did the sign again and he shook his head no again. This went on for about 5 mins. He decided that shaking his no wasn't enough, so he started screaming at me. I continued to tell him "No, sit down Landon." He then started to bang the chair with his hands and kicking the floor with his feet. I couldn't believe my not even one year old was throwing a temper tantrum. I let him go on about 10 mins before I picked him up, calmed him down, and put him down for a nap.

After his nap, I played with him for a few mins and then started work again. He came over to my chair and started tugging on my shirt again, I told him to sit down, he shook his no, and he started throwing another tempter tantrum (2 in one day, really). But this only lasted for about 2 mins before he sat down and played with his toys. I hoping he got the message that when I tell him to do something he needs to do it. Guess I will find out when I work again on Monday.

As Landon was throwing the fit, I thought back to my teenage years and  thought of all the temper tantrums that I threw to get what I wanted and my mom's voice came into my head and she was laughing and saying, "Payback Time."

                                                        Good Thing I Love this Little Punk

Landon's Hospital Stay

A few weeks ago, Landon started throwing up and I thought it was just a cold (We were in Oklahoma when it actually started and I still need to post about that trip). But it got worse the day we got home. He also had gone almost 48 hours without peeing. Two days after we got home, I took Landon to his doctor. He had his weight checked and he had lost a pound in just a couple of weeks. The dr gave Landon some medicine that was supposed to prevent throwing up. She told us if he started throwing up again to take him to the hospital. Landon went the rest of that day without throwing up but started again about 6 the next morning. So we went to the hospital. This is how the day went. 

Friday, August 24. 

6 am - Landon starts throwing up 

6:30-7:00 am - We take him to the hospital 

9:00-10: am - Landon is stuck with needles and has about 7 small tubes of blood taken. This took about 45 mins to do and he screamed the whole time. Just a side note Landon has learned that waving means "bye-bye." Well the whole time he was getting the blood drawn he kept waving his hand. He was trying to tell us that he wanted to leave. It's so hard watching your baby go through that.

10:am-3:30 pm - We hang out in Landon's room and he can't eat b/c he is getting test done in the afternoon. 

3:30 pm - Landon gets to ride in a wheelchair on Kyle's lap to his test. He loved that and laughed the whole time. He got a Ultrasound, X-Ray, and Upper GI done. He screamed and cried the whole time through these. Kyle and I had to hold him down and he kept looking at us with those big blue eyes and you could tell he was very angry with us. 

5:00 pm - Landon finally gets to eat about after 8 hours of not eating. He throws up it. 

6:00 pm - Hospital Doctor finally comes to give us the test results. This is pretty much of a summary of what he said "All test results come back normal. We don't know what's wrong." This is frustrating and somewhat relieving b/c I'm glad nothing was wrong but we still didn't know what was wrong. 

7:00 pm - A Pediatric Gastroenterologist came to speak to us and he was very helpful. He put Landon on some medicines to prevent him from throwing up. He also put him a very specialized formula that cosst a fortune and told us to put him on a diary and soy free diet b/c he may be allergic. 

8:00 pm to Saturday afternoon - Landon didn't throw up at all and was peeing again. So the doctor sent him home. We were told if he started throwing up again to bring him back. 

Here are some pics 

 

             I wish I had taken a better shot of his hospital gown but they were so cute

Kyle trying to distract him from his hunger

Landon on his wheelchair ride. The best one I could get.

Landon is doing much better today. He takes medicine six times a day and is eating his formula pretty well. It's hard to find food that doesn't have soy or diary in it. We are mostly feeding him organic food. The plan is to introduce soy and diary back into his diet slowly and if he gets sick then we know he is allergic. We go to the gastroenterologist  tomorrow so will see what happens from there.