80 Weeks!

We have had a good week.  The weather has been amazing for playing outside, despite it being somewhat rainy. It has been cooler and less humid the last week...well up until yesterday.  We have been busy doing walks, playing at the park, and beginning the early phases of packing and cleaning the house. 

Landon has become such a little man in the last few months that he seems like a completely different baby than just at the beginning of the summer.  He has so many words, knows his likes and dislikes, can recognize and name family members in his photo album book, etc. He is still VERY obsessed with Elmo and lately his Daddy.  He is going to be one sad boy when Logan leaves again soon. 

Some big developments for the fall, we have decided to put Landon into the Mothers Day Out Program at the United Methodist Church where he also does music one day per week.  We think it will be really great for him and it will give me a 3 hour break one day a week to get stuff done around the house,  pack, go to house meetings, etc.  It is very affordable; I will have to volunteer about once every 9 weeks in addition to the teacher in the classroom.  I am excited since it is set up a like a preschool setting which we hope to eventually put him in when I head back to work.  I am excited, but nervous.  I am waiting to hear back from the director to see if there are still spots open in the 12-23 month class. 

Here are the pictures and even a video from the last week!

Exploring his new backyard

Someone thought he was sleeping in our room...I don't think so buddy.

Cleaned out the car yesterday and found this grossness under Landon's seat. This is all sand/dirt!!

Loving his Elmo pjs and looking at his Daddy!

Climbing outside....he is a monkey.

Reading with Daddy before bed

Enjoying some swing time

Ruling the park this day....

 Here is a video of him and Logan playing:

Until next week =)

New House: The trades and furniture shopping!

The house is coming right along!

We went up to visit on Sunday and were pleasantly surprised to see the trades have been in doing work.  This includes the duct work, plumbing, and cabling.  I am sure I am forgetting something, but I don't know much about this stage of building the house ha! It was fun to go in and see everything really cleaned up on the floors, etc.  At some point this week we think we will have our pre drywall meeting with the project manager.  That meeting we will spend time going over the framing and looking at all the different things in the wall.   Also this week we expect the siding to start going up on the outside of the house, which I am SUPER excited about.

Here are the pictures from the last visit at the house:

Outside with the roof and windows!

Back door!

Blurry L running through the kitchen and great room

Landon's first climb up the steps

Landon's bathtub!

After the visit to the house in the morning we spent the afternoon furniture shopping down in Newport News.  We went to two furniture stores, Haverty's and Haynes.  They were both pretty nice and have labor day sales going on.  If we buy something now we will just put it on lay away for delivery in November. We want to make sure we catch the sales for these type of things so we decided to start looking sooner rather than later.

Here are the pieces we picked out yesterday.  We are still trying to decide between the two bedroom sets, so opinions are appreciated!

The downstairs sectional!

Dresser, first bedroom set

Smaller dresser-first bedroom set

Whole bedroom set-first set

Dresser-second set

Whole second bedroom set

Nightstand second set

  Until next week =)

79 Weeks!

Today marks 79 weeks for Landon-or 18 months! We have been pretty busy this week.  Logan was off Monday so we spent the day with him.  We had Landon's 18 month appointment today at the Drs. where he also got 3 shots.  He is all up to date on his vaccines now until age 4, except for the flu vaccine! It is nice not to have to subject him to getting stabbed every 3 months!

He was a handful at his appointment.  He didn't want anyone to touch him and screamed and fought while the Dr. tried to examine him. So that was hard, but overall he is healthy and advanced in most places developmentally.  He is still a big dude...he is in the 75th percentile for weight and height and in the 50th for head.  He is still on the same growth curve since birth, so that is great. I still don't have any idea why he is so big for as tiny and short as Logan and I are.  I am just glad all that is done until he turns 2 in February.

Other than that we have just been up to our usual things.  We visited York River State Park in Williamsburg.  It is on the York River and has alot of hiking trails and nice playground for Landon.  Rusty went swimming in the river, but the problem is the jellyfish.  Thankfully, Rusty didn't get stung but we didn't even want Landon near the water. 

Here are some pictures from the week:

L loves this army bear....

Pushed this box over to the door to try to escape and unlock the door...

Jelly fish in the dirty river!

Playing at the park!

Naming people in the book.

I am in love with his hair-I love its color and that it is finally growing.

Wearing Daddy's shoes

Waiting for shots...poor guy.

Until next week =).

New House: Second level!

In the last week the house has been framed completely! It is amazing that they can put it up so quickly. From last Tuesday to today they have been busy little works bees.  They work 6 days a week and try to get as much in as possible without having issues with the rain.  Here is the houses progression over the last week!

Last week-Tuesday I think?

Saturday, 8/10/2013

Monday, 8/12/2013

Monday, 8/12/2013

Back view-8/12/2013

 As you can see, they put it up fairly quickly.  The stairs are set to go in today and then throughout this week and next the trades people will be out to put in plumbing, electrical, wiring for the bonus room, and start insulating.  In about a week and a half we will have our pre-dry wall meeting and learn a little bit about what is behind the walls of the house in terms of energy star things, pipes, etc. So that will be interesting to hear about that.  We are hoping that Logan will still be around for that. 

We went to a meet and greet for the neighborhood for an hour or so on Saturday and found out some interesting things.  We had been having trouble getting a hold of one of the project managers and turns out he was either fired (we heard this through the grape vine) or left the company.  So we ended up meeting with the new project manager today, Hayden.  He was really nice and told us he would work with us the best as possible on any questions or issues we have with the house building process.  He helped work on a friends house in a different neighborhood a few years ago and she had only great things to say about him so that is encouraging.  We got a few words of advice from the neighbors about watching the subcontractors closely since they like to cut corners.  We are also happy we decided against a basement because it seems everyone is having moisture issues with them as well.  Thankfully, we dodged that bullet!

We also found out they are going to sod our entire backyard which is awesome.  We noticed our neighbors only had the back partially sodded so we were a bit concerned.  Overall, great news for us!

Until next week =).

78 Weeks!

The little man turns 18 months old tomorrow...how does time go so quickly! He is such a joy at this age!

We have had a good week. Logan was off until the 6th, but had to go back to work.  This left Landon and I to get back into a little routine during the day.  He has finally adjusted back to Virginia time and it back to sleeping in until 7:45-8 AM.  We went back to our weekly walk in Colonial Williamsburg and our coffee dates at Aromas Coffee House.  We were also able to attend a special music presentation put on by Landon's music school at the library yesterday and that was fun to see his teacher.  Music starts in just over a month, I am excited to get back to that! Landon really seemed to enjoy the music activity yesterday which means he will still enjoy it in the fall!

We have also been visiting our new house alot lately-about twice per week.  So keep up with the house progress on the house blog!

Landon has been testing boundaries the past few days. Touching everything he shouldn't be, getting into different things, and climbing. I guess it all comes with the age but it has been exhausting! He was so much better behaved.  He has even gone so far to start putting himself in time out for doing something he shouldn't be.  He will say no...time out and go sit down in his spot.  Granted, he doesn't stay there, but it is funny! We are trying not to laugh since he clearly already things timeout is a game!

I was a total failure on taking pictures and videos this week! I promise to be better next week =).

Until next week =), 

New House: Framing

This past week the framing started on our house! It is pretty exciting to be seeing it finally going up.  We have had some pretty bad rain lately so it wasn't so exciting to see water standing around on our wood.  They did at least cover the garage floor which was poured several days before the rain.  Hopefully the weather holds the rest of the week until they can get the majority of the framing up and the roof on.  I am not sure what comes next, but I do know in a few weeks we will have a pre-dry wall meeting where we talk about electrical things and see what the house looks like.  Logan will also have a meeting with the theater wiring people to discuss placements of speakers, projector, etc. We are going to try to meet with the project manager at some point this week to discuss coming plans for the week, etc.

Here are the pictures that I took the other day:

Logan inspecting everything

Looking at the morning room wall and the fireplace

Fireplace bump out

Living room and eventually office

Standing in the hallway ha ha

Backyard full of wood

Our GIANT driveway....this is going to be awesome for when Landon is older and can ride a bike/play with his cozy coupe

Looking into the dining room/down the street

View from the back....so different than just a few months ago

Until next week =)

77 Weeks!

Sorry, blogging a few days late! We have been trying to get back into our routine since getting back to Virginia! We had such a busy and fun time in Colorado I think we all needed a few days to recover from our vacation!

We were super busy while in Colorado! We saw alot of family and close friends which is always our goal while home! Landon was a trooper as always and was a joy to travel with even on 4 hour flights! We went to Vail for a night thanks to our good friends! It was awesome to be able to get away for a night and have some fun like the old days.  Landon did fantastic for his Gigi and Rere.  Going home always makes me wish we lived closer to both sets of parents and friends!  Landon had a word explosion while in Colorado. I imagine he left with twice as many words as we arrived with.  He is still continually walking around looking for Rere, Gigi, Papa, and Nana. I wonder how many times I will have to say they are in Colorado or Nebraska until he will actually know how to say those words as well ;).  I just need to put myself on repeat for the entire day at this point!

He is still obsessed with looking for planes, or Amas, as he says.  He can also say alot of endings to words he couldn't say before like ball.

Logan is of work until Tuesday. We have Landon's 18 month pictures (WOW) and family pictures Monday evening in Colonial Williamsburg.  The same lady who took Landon's 1year pictures will be doing these, so I imagine they will turn out great! The weather is supposed to be in the low 80's and nice that day, so I am hoping it works out! I picked our outfits, so I am hoping they look good together! =).

Ok now for the pictures....

Trying out his new Cozy Coupe-Can't wait to get him one once we move in to the new house!

Playing at the Louisville park with Rere! Love to swing on her lap!

Playing with Nana and Ayuba outside!

Our great trip to Vail!

Logan mountain biking with Sam in Vail

A trip out in Louisville

It was rather chilly in Colorado, so we busted out his pants and jacket!

Visiting Hole in One Bagels!

Visiting CU!! Landon's future school =)

Visiting my old Chemistry building

Swinging with Gigi

Papa caught someone eating an entire apple

Snoozing briefly on my lap on the plane...we were shocked he actually slept

Giving sweet kisses to Daddy

 Until next week =).