9 months old!!

My little guy is growing up so fast! He is officially 9 months old, and has been out of me longer than he was in me! So bittersweet. I figured I need to blog about Landon, since I haven't dedicated very many posts to just him. I feel like I have tried so hard to keep this as a "family blog" and not let it turn into a "baby blog" that I have swung the other direction completely and don't post nearly enough updates of our little guy. So here is all about Landon at 9 months old.

• He is the sweetest little boy you could ever meet. He is friendly and loves standing on our laps and looking over our shoulders at all of the people behind us at church.
• He doesn't crawl on his hands and knees, but he gets where he wants to go via and army crawl. It's super adorable and he's actually very speedy!

Now that he's mobile, he usually ends up in the kitchen, especially when I'm making dinner. So I grab some tupperware and he chases them all around the kitchen. It's cute. :)

• He is the best sleeper and napper. I honestly don't know how I got so lucky with this kid. He doesn't fight me to go to sleep at all and he sleeps 10-12 hours at night and takes two 2 hour naps during the day. 
• He LOVES his daddy. He has figured out where Matthew's study room is, and he always "crawls" over to the door and yells. He also gets excited when I pick him up and take him in to "visit" dad. 

• He had some pretty wicked patches of eczema on his face, but it's finally starting to clear up now. 
• He's 22 lbs. and 29" long. 
• He still has the most GORGEOUS eyelashes and his hair is getting pretty long!
• He has such an adorable smile and will usually smile for people. Sometimes he just gets "moms permission" before smiling at someone. They say hi to him and he looks at me and I tell him to say hi and he looks back at them and usually smiles.
• He loves sleeping on his belly

• He always stops whatever he is doing when he hears the Gilmore Girls theme song/credits song and "crawls" over to find the TV. Sometimes he'll even shake his head and dance to it. I am not going to tell you how many times a day he has heard that... 
• He is almost learning how to clap. He's still just slightly uncoordinated with his hands. Same with waving. He's almost there. :)
• He can actually throw a wicked fit when I take something away from him. Keep in mind, I'm not taking his own toys away from him... Usually I'm taking away a power cord or something like that.
• He loves his own reflection/seeing himself on camera. He gets so excited and it is adorable!

This is the result of a front-facing camera. Haha! Don' t mind the laundry in the background... haha such is the life!

• He loves reading scriptures at night. We lay on our bellies together and I read the Childrens Scripture books with pictures to him and he loves the pictures. He always tries to scoot closer to my iPad screen and just giggles the whole time I read. Adorable! :)
• He can't pull himself up yet, but he LOVES standing. He gets so excited when I let him stand next to the couch or in front of me. I can tell the poor kid just wishes he could walk and run around with all of the other kids here!
• He is constantly babbling now. It is so cute. This video is just one example of how he babbles. It is my favorite to wake up to his talking vs. crying.

All in all, our lives are so much better with this kid in it. He seriously makes me smile and laugh all day long. I can't even tell you how many times a day I say "Gosh, you are so cute!!".  I love being his mom. I love knowing everything about him and being responsible for taking take of him. The things that overwhelmed me before having Landon are the things that give me purpose now that we have him. I can say so many more cliche phrases like "we can't even remember or imagine life without him!" etc, etc... But just know, they are all 100% true! Happy 9 months, Landon!

This is the result of a "hair fight" between Matthew and I. Haha he makes anything look good!

Just look at that tubby belly!!

2014 in Review

Speaking of New Years Resolutions... Let's talk about this neglected blog of mine! Lately I have been thinking of how to keep up on my blog better and I realized something... I am ALWAYS trying (and failing) to play catch-up on my blog. So... Here I am making a lame bullet-point post so that I can be completely caught up and then (as a resolution) stay caught up on my blog! So here is our 2014!

January-March:

Not much happened these months! I was working, Matthew was going to school, and I was just getting fatter and fatter! :) Even though I felt awesome my whole pregnancy, I look back at pictures and laugh at how huge I was!!

Case and Point. ;)

April:

Obviously, this was the month that our little Landon came into our lives! Luckily, I have blogged about that, but it seriously was incredible! He is such a good baby and he has changed our lives forever. The rest of April was just trying to get the hang of being a mom and recovering.

May-June:

When Landon was 5 weeks old, we headed to Utah for the summer! Matthew finished up his finals (and passed! Woohoo!!) but then he had to stay in Kirksville for one week for his preceptorship and then he headed to Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio for his 2-week AMP training. Meanwhile, Landon and I hung out at my parent's house and waited for daddy to join us. When Matt came to join us, we went up to Bear Lake and spent a week there with the Wright's. After we got back from Bear Lake, we got to bless Landon. We didn't bless him in Sacrament Meeting, but we just had a get-together at the church after the block with family and close friends. It worked out really well and was such a special day for our family. Matthew, of course, did a great job! It was so fun to be able to share that day with our family and close friends. We had fun visiting Utah and family for the summer and were so grateful to be able to drive back.

Bear Lake with the Wright's

July:

Back to Missouri we went! Matthew started his 2nd year of medical school and I started back at my job at Truman State University in their payroll office. We tried to adapt to our "new normal". Landon was a great baby, typically only waking up once a night (really only waking up at about 5 AM) and he made the transition and easy and a hard one. We were fortunate enough to have a great and trustworthy friend who was willing to watch Landon whenever I was at work and Matthew was at school.

August:

Sadly, our "new normal" just did not work for me or our family. My last day of work was August 8th, and from that day forward I have been able to stay at home with our little guy. Being a working mom was HARD and I was not very good at it! In the end, Matthew and I decided that we could make it work financially (living solely on his military stipend and savings), and me working was only putting unnecessary stress on our family. I am so blessed that we are in a position where I can stay at home with Landon. It has been so wonderful to be able to manage our home everyday rather than just on nights and weekends when it was the last thing I wanted to do! :)

September-October:

Nothing super big to report! Our little guy just kept growing and growing and we just kept loving on him! We had our first Halloween with him and it was freaking COLD!!! We obviously didn't go trick or treating with a 6 month old, but we did dress up and go to a couple of trunk or treats and then a party with friends. We definitely made things harder by making Landon's costume a "stroller costume", but it turned out pretty cute. We were given a surgeon costume a couple of years back before we had kids, so we dressed him in that and made the stroller his OR. It was pretty cute and he was adorable, of course. Matthew dressed up as a little kid on stilts. Yes, he is always this creative... And then I kept up with my lifelong tradition of dressing up as a soccer player for Halloween. :) I guess this time Matthew made me get a little more creative and I went as Ronaldinho. Even though it was miserable and freezing, it was still a pretty fun day! This month we also found out that we matched to complete our 3rd and 4th year clinical rotations in... Provo, UT! Yay! We are excited to get to spend a couple of years closer to family before moving away again for... 8 years... haha So next May/June we will be moving somewhere in Utah County to live for 2 years! So excited!

Landon's cute friends here in KV!

It was SO COLD, but he's still smiling!

It took some people a minute, but you have to admit... That's pretty freakin funny.

November:

The beginning of this month was just normal and waiting for the end of the month to come! We had the SAA Thanksgiving dinner at the beginning of the month, which is always a good time. Then for Thanksgiving, we went to CHICAGO!! :) One of Matt's best friends from high school is getting his MBA from the University of Chicago, so we decided to make the 6 hr. drive to see them for Thanksgiving! We left on Tuesday morning and got back on Sunday and it was so much fun! Landon was so good on the car ride and we didn't have to make any extra stops for him. It was great! We went to museums, took a boat tour, went to zoo lights, ate deep dish pizza, walked the magnificent mile, and of course cooked a killer Thanksgiving dinner! I'm not going to lie, usually I HATE big cities. I just am not a fan of them at all. New York as a dream vacation for some people?? Makes ZERO sense to me. However. I actually REALLY enjoyed Chicago! I don't know what it was about it, but I was ok with it! Haha obviously parking is the same as you would find in any other city... a joke... But once you get over that it's not too bad! I'm glad we had the chance to go stay with Lance and Di. It had been too long since we had seen them, and it was a lot of fun!

December:

December is always such a fun month! Well... I guess when you're not in school it's fun! :) Matthew had his intense finals prep at the beginning of the month, so Landon and I just kept busy! We made lots of Christmas presents and visited friends and made Christmas candy. Matthew worked his little butt off and it paid off! He did awesome and is now half-way through his second year of medical school! The day after finals, we flew out to Utah for 2 weeks for Christmas. Landon did awesome on the flights and was a happy baby, thanks goodness! We spent the first few days with Matthew's family before leaving on Christmas Eve for my family reunion in Bear Lake. We spent a few days sledding, snowmobiling, snowboarding, and hanging out around the cabin for Christmas. It was fun to get my whole family together again. The rest of the time was spent bouncing around from house to house and family to family. We always love being able to come visit!

All 13 of the grandkids in my family! How fun is this!? 4 of them were born the same year as Landon! 

2014 was such an incredible year for us! We had a lot of change in our family, but it was really good change for the most part! I'm sure I missed some highlights, but that's what happens when you are an infrequent blogger... We can't wait to see what 2015 has in store for us. We know it will bring more change, but we are ready to take life as it comes and embrace every change we encounter! Until next time.