8 months young

Today Landon is 8 months old... really? It seems like he was just born a week ago, but according to the calendar its been 8 months!

This sounds so cliche but you REALLY can't understand how capable you are of loving another person until you become a parent. I can't even put the love into words, its amazing how quickly even the most selfish person will put aside their own wants for their child.

These last 8 months have been the best, most amazing months of my life. Frankly, they've gone by WAY too fast! Every "month birthday" has been very bittersweet, knowing the time that has passed is gone.

Landon will never be a newborn again who would sleep for hours and hours in his swing that completely swallowed him. He will never again be that little half brown 3 month old who fell asleep on my fresh spray tan, staining half of his face an orange/brown. It seems like yesterday i was thinking "WOW, he is 6 months old, we are halfway through the first year!" & now here i sit, mother to an 8 month old.... that sounds so old.

I know mothers of older children are thinking "ya right, wait until he's 3, 5, 10, 15, 23" but don't lie, you all had this moment!

So in honor of 8 wonderful months:

With love,
Leia & Landon

crawling right along

BIG NEWS!

Landon CRAWLED today! Not an army crawl, not a scoot, not a creep... a up on hands and knees CRAWL! Im SO very proud of my little man, he is just getting way to big. Where did my baby go? Ok, who am I kidding, he will ALWAYS be my baby.

Precious. 

This morning he was doing his normal army crawl/scoot thing, put him down for his afternoon nap and he obviously had crawling dreams because when he woke up he could magically CRAWL!

I know this was short, but I think Landon CRAWLING warranted its very own post. (:

With love,

Leia & Landon

P.S. Did I mention Landon can CRAWL?

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

It's funny how a little change of scenery can re-center you. I'm feeling so motivated and so optimistic tonight. I've been doing a lot of research and I feel like the "pot of gold" is just within reach. I'm ready to finish school. I'm ready to move out ON MY OWN (completely independent and w/out a man). I'm ready to start my life and quit waiting for someone else to come in and start it for me.

Today we went to the zoo w/ Landon's grandma, aunt, uncle, and cousins. So fun. Landon and his cousin Gavin (3 mos.) are too little to really enjoy it but Emma is almost 2 and she had a big time! She's so curious and independent. She wanted to see EVERYTHING (twice) and it was so fun to watch her explore and watch all the animals. Landon liked the animals that moved a lot and caught his attention, which were very few today, we obviously went at zoo nap time. He liked the fish aquarium and he watched some orangutans that came up to the window. He REALLY watched all the crazy kids! I could almost hear him thinking "mommy these kids need to be in the cages", oh wait... maybe that thought was coming from my head?

So then we came home and I helped grandma set up her new iPhone, only to come to the conclusion that it's no longer a want and officially a NEED. Okay, prob not, but still I now want one more than ever. It's going to have to stay pretty low on the list though if we're gonna get over that rainbow in the near future.

It's time to suck it up, REALLY focus, and get busy making my dreams come true. I do have some pretty adorable motivation...

With love,
Leia & Landon

Baby Teeth: tiny white shards of monster making horror

It's official, I hate teeth. Now I feel like I should knock on wood or something, so mine don't fall out... whoops!

My horribly crooked teeth gave me 8 (no, that isn't a typo... EIGHT) long years of braces, spacers, and retainers. Now Landon's "teeth" have turned my sweet bright eyed boy into a screaming monster. He is taking a combined total of MAYBE an hour of naps (usually he takes two, hour and a half naps), he fusses through every feeding and doesn't eat as much as he has been.

I know there are mom's who will read this and think I'm whining, but damn-it... I AM! I'm very blessed and spoiled in the baby department. Landon is the easiest child I have ever encountered, & no i'm not just saying that because he is mine. He is very easy to please and generally only fusses when Mommy isn't making his food fast enough. It absolutely breaks my heart to here him cry so much. ):

We had a good Mommy-Baby crying session and then we both passed out in my bed for about 30 min. I woke up to a precious little ear imprint on my arm.

Hopefully the two tiny little teeth hiding just below his gums will surface soon, but then i'm reminded that there will be more where those came from. In the meantime my heart just breaks for him, & Mommy's shopping list for tomorrow consists of Baby Tylenol, Baby Oragel, Teething Popsicles, and something new and soft to cuddle with.

With love,

Leia & Landon

Fun in Salado!

So those of you who know me, know that I make bottle cap jewelry. Those of you who dont know me, there's a link on the left for my facebook page (self promotion, it is MY blog) Its kinda bottle cap couture, if you will.

Anyways, if your from Central Texas the place to get beads is brazos collection in Salado. So the little man and I went there last Saturday along with my best friend Rachel. If you've never been to Salado you for sure need to go. It's a neat little town on I-35 halfway between Waco and Austin. (read: great shopping) This was a pretty big trip for Landon as we don't go on "trips" very often. I knew he would love the fresh air and getting to be outside all day, so we loaded up on some baby sunscreen and off we went.

We went to the bead store first, as i needed beads for "work" and didn't want to be tempted to spend my hard earned money elsewhere, and Landon LOVED looking at all the cool colors. Of course like any 7 month old he wanted to yank on all the beads, and Rachel did an awesome job of keeping him entertained while mommy loaded up on some fun beads. That is until he spit up on her, GAME OVER for aunt Rachel. If we weren't in a public place i'm pretty sure i would have had two "spitter-uppers". Luckily the friendly staff let her wash her hands while Landon and I checked out.

Next we headed for some Sir Wigglesworth fudge (read: heaven in your mouth). Rachel bought some amaretto fudge and after quite a bit of "nibbling" we decided it tasted like chocolate covered cherries, yum!

Then we randomly decided to start taking pictures of Landon and myself, he was such a trooper and put up with Mommy making him pose all over Salado. As this was an impromptu photo session neither of us were "dressed" for pictures (mommy didn't even have her make-up on) but they turned out pretty cute. ::Props to Rachel and her mad iPhone picture taking skills::

Here are a few of the pictures, after I glammed them up a bit:

After spending the afternoon taking pictures and... well, sweating. we were a little tired and a lotta hungry. So Rachel took us to this neat place in Temple called Mad Mongo's. The food was SOOOO good and i can't wait to eat there again! Landon, however, enjoyed Mad Mongo's for a different reason, the ladies. Boy is he a little flirt. He was literally turned around backwards in his high chair cooing at 2 girls behind us, and of course they were eating him up.

Exhibit A:

& here is mommy feeding herself & Landon at the same time (the two girls in the top left corner were the flirtees)

Once we got back to Waco we went to Rachel's house for a bit and she watched Landon while Mommy moved all of our things into our car. When I came back inside to get him he tried kissing me thru the window, it was pretty precious! But everything he does is pretty damn precious. All in all we had a very fun, successful day and we loved getting to do something fun together.

We will leave you with a window kiss from Landon (:

With love,

Leia & Landon

Scrapbook? ehhhh, maybe later...

I remember when I found out I was pregnant and one of the first things that popped into my head (after the panic had faded) was scrapbooking! I LOVE to scrapbook and now I would have a guaranteed reason to scrapbook all the time, right?

>>fellow mothers insert laughter here<<

Now my little scrapbook inspiration is 7 1/2 months old and I have made and astonishing ZERO pages! Surprise, surprise right? I have piles and piles of adorable photo's of my little man all of which have yet to find their home. Between diaper changes, singing, rocking, playing, feeding, burping, bathing, book reading, laundry, laundry, more laundry, and cuddling, I just sigh at the pictures and say "another day".

So I've decided to admit defeat and start this blog (maybe i'll eventually scrapbook). It seems like it will be much easier ::cough, cough:: (FASTER) than scrapbooking and we can keep our family and friends up to date w/ pictures and stories of our little adventures.

We'll see how often I actually post....

With love,
Leia & Landon