16 Weeks!

We are just moving right along over here in Tennessee.  We are still in waiting mode about moving.  No more bites on our house; I don't know what we will do if this thing doesn't rent before we move.  We have decided Logan is going to go up to VA in about a week and a half and find us a place to live.  Landon, the animals, and I will head up toward the end of June we are thinking.  That means I am left here to deal with cancelling all our services and dealing with the movers! Thank goodness my Dad is planning on coming out to help us with that.  I am not looking forward to traveling with Rusty, two cats, and then 3 humans in a car for 12 hours...should be interesting.

I am going to try to do something new with talking about Landon this week...we are going to try bullet points!

Landon, this week you:

• Rolled over for the first time! I was so proud of you since you hate tummy time so much.  You didn't even get frustrated in order to do it, so it was rather shocking!  I still think you like to roll over for Daddy more than me, since he gets you to do it more frequently than me.  We are still working on getting pictures of this!
• You are now back to eating every 2.5-3 hours.  Our 3 hour scheduled held up great through CO, but you must be doing something in that little body that has our sleeping and eating routine all mixed up.   
• You had another first, you woke me up every hour last night starting at 11:45 until 9 AM when I finally let us get up.  Like I said, I am not sure if you are hitting your four month wakeful period, but I would greatly appreciate it if you would go back to your 7-9 hour stretches. I can even handle getting up at 5,6, and 7...if you sleep your first long stretch!
• We are back to cloth diapering you this week.  We still only have 3, but have decided once we move to Virginia to get another 12, for a total of 15.  We will then supplement with disposable diapers if we are going out in public for a long time or spending an over night somewhere!  
• You went to the Dr. on Tuesday for a medicine check since your reflux was getting a bit out of control and you seemed to be in more pain with it lately.  They upped your dose to 1.5 mL twice a day.  We also got some eye ointment in order to help get rid of your clogged ducts.  After only 2 days, your eyes look so much better.  Let's hope they are gone for good and not just temporarily, which I guess can happen! 
• We asked about your napping, or lack there of! She said that some babies just nap in 30-45 minute spurts and that you will eventually grow into taking longer naps. They said generally around 6 months. So we will see what you want to do =).
• The last and most exciting thing for you that you learned this week was how to splash in the tub during bath time.  Gone are the nice relaxing, wind you down bath, for bedtime.  Now we are in the midst of full on playing and splashing in the tub.  It makes you rather difficult to wash with you squirming all over the place! I do have a video of this so enjoy!                       

Here is just one picture of Landon this week! We haven't been doing much, so not alot of pictures!

Logan thinks he is starting to look like Yoda! Poor kid lol...

 Until next week!

15 Weeks!

Landon is just about 3.5 months old now, crazy right.  We had so much fun in Colorado visiting everyone, but we are all pretty exhausted.  Our wee traveling man was not pleased about the car ride on the last day of driving and proceeded to vocalize this pretty much the entire day unless he was eating (bottle) or sleeping.  Regardless, we all survived and it was a great trip!

Here are a few pictures from the trip:

As you can see we had a busy trip! Landon was a trooper most days, but he had his down days a few days as well.  I don't blame the poor little dude, he was a busy guy compared to our daily life in Clarksville.

Landon is just moving along in life.  In the past week, he thinks he would like to sit up and tries to flex his stomach to sit himself up while laying down.  He often keeps his legs up by his stomach now, which I am assuming means he will start reaching for his feet soon.  He still only naps 30-45 minutes, regardless of where we are at...Gigi's, Nana's, the swing, car seat.  I have come to a realization this is JUST how he is for the time being.  Maybe in the future, he will begin to take longer naps. We have him on a pretty good little schedule with eating every 3 hours, getting up between 7-8 in the morning and going back down just about every 90 minutes for his short cat naps.  The time change has thrown us off a little bit with the bed time schedule, so over the next few days we will be working on getting him back to bed at 7:30.  Overall, I am very pleased how he did the entire time we were gone and just how sociable he is! Must take after his Dad ha ha =).    

We have a busy month coming up with renting our house (HOPEFULLY-the other offer fell through), finding a place in Virginia to rent, moving, and then getting settled.  I am trying not to think about it until next week since I am still in Vacation mode!

Until next week =).

14 Weeks!

So we are on our way to CO but I wanted to post something for this week.  We are in the hotel and Landon is sleeping next to our bed at his new bed time, 7:30.  After we get back from CO, I will talk a little bit about what I changed in his schedule that seems to have said goodbye to his colic behavior once and for all!

Any who, Landon has done AMAZING so far on our drive to CO.  We are staying over night in Lawrence, KS at the Hampton Inn.  Very nice hotel and perfect size room for our little family of three.  Here is a picture of Landon in the back seat just chilling playing with his toy:

After we ordered dinner to the hotel, we decided we would take Mr. Landon swimming for the first time.  We aren't sure what he really thought of it, but he didn't cry and just seemed indifferent about the whole experience.  We didn't dunk him since the swimming pool seemed to have a lot of chemicals just by the looks of it.  As I was walking him around in the water, I noticed he was starting to fart so we got out before he could poop and ruin the pool for everyone ha ha.   We then just sat with him on our lap next to the hot tub and took turns sitting all the way in!

Here is a video of his first time swimming and a couple of pictures as well!

Someone's fat belly already out grew his swim shirt! All ready for the next size up lol...

We are rolling out of here bright and early tomorrow around 7 am and are planning on meeting Provi and his little family for breakfast in the morning at Cracker Barrel in Riley, KS.   It is another 9.5 hour drive tomorrow, so we will see what time we end up getting in.

Landon had a big first in the past week, he finally laughed out loud and it was so cute!  I can't wait for him to do it more.

We are REALLY looking forward to everyone meeting Landon this next week.  Stay tuned for several fun pictures of family and everyone meeting our little man.

We are still not much further in the house renting process (ours or one in Virginia).  I am just trying to step back from that for now and enjoy our trip home before the stress of moving kicks in!

=)

13 Weeks!

Landon is 13 weeks old and officially 3 months as of yesterday!! Almost daily, I get people telling me he is huge for 3 months.  I think he is fat, but long-not so much.  I guess we will see what all the family thinks here next week when they get to see him.  Here are some of the three month pictures I took of Landon! I love that when I pull out the camera he ham's it up =).  Guess he realizes he comes from a family of photographers/ want to be photographer (ME-ha ha) and he better get used to it. 

My favorite.  He let out a big squeal during this one too!

His eyes almost look green in this picture!

Logan's favorite of the shots!

The past few days my Dad has been in town, so we have been having fun entertaining him.  We went out to lunch, ran errands, stopped for coffee at his favorite local place, went to the Blackhorse Pub and Brewery, and took Rusty swimming!  Landon was pretty good for all of our outings, but he surprised us the most last night at the Blackhorse.  It was the first time we didn't have to take him out of his car seat while we were out.  He fussed a few times, but overall just sat back and took in the surroundings.  It might have helped I was sitting there talking to him and making him smile instead of talking to the adults =).  It was kind of a bitter sweet visit since he was our last official visitor at our house in TN!  How sad, but like he said, it was a great started house and we have learned what we want and don't want out of our next house in VA!  

We are slowly working on tummy time with Mr. Landon.  I feel this is probably Landon's least favorite time of day when we put him down and expect him to show us his mad skills, no pun intended, of tummy time.  We have started using the boppy and that has seemed to help a bit with the screaming/eating the floor situation.  He is getting pretty good at holding his head up for the first minute or so, so that is fun to see!  We usually only make it five minutes at a time, but we try to have him do it 2-3 times a day if we get around to it! 

In the last few weeks EVERYTHING goes in Landon's mouth (except a pacifier, of course).  So we have started giving him toys that he likes to nom on while he is hanging out alone if I am busy or we are out and about.  This is the famous Sophie the giraffe toy that everyone raves about and Landon seems to fall into the love category as well.  He officially started eating her face as soon as I gave it to him.  He seems so old now that he can hold toys and chew on them =).

Here is just a cute picture of Landon and Logan.  He was so cute in his little plaid outfit that I had to take one of them matching!

Here is one of Landon and I! I rarely get my picture taken with the little man, so I need to post them when I do.  Plus this is post haircut (YAY for alone time)! I am so happy I cut it short.  My hair has been styled more the past week than it has in the last 6 months ha ha. 

In other news, Landon is still the world's worst napper.  He should seriously win an award!  If anyone has any ideas or advice we will be happy to accept.  We are lucky to get a total of 3 hours of napping in during the day these days.  Landon is currently napping in his bed and we will see how long this lasts.  If we get past 45 minutes it will be a miracle. 

We are also getting ready to ditch his swaddle in the coming weeks as well.  He is starting to bust out of it in the wee morning hours so when he wakes up his one arm is out.  I am taking that as a hint that it is time to move on, regardless of how well it helps him sleep at night.  I discovered this "suit" that is supposed to help transition from the swaddle to just PJ's, called the Baby Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit! It looks like a space suit, but if it helps us with the transition without losing a bunch of sleep, we will give it a go! 

We have had several nibbles on our house for a possible tenant for renting.  We have a showing tomorrow morning and have had one other inquiry asking about animals.  So keep your fingers crossed we get this bad boy rented before we head out next month!!  Logan just got back from a quick trip to Virginia where he was hoping to be able to look for houses, but no such luck.  It appears that we will just be staying in an extended stay hotel with the three of us and the animals (God help us), until we find a place to rent! We are allowed 10 days in the hotel that the Army will cover until we have to start paying.

We head home in just under a week and I think it is safe to say we are all very excited.  I know everyone is super excited to see Landon!  I am looking forward to the family BBQ and seeing all my friends who still live in Colorado!

Ok, enough writing and on to cleaning and squeezing in a work out before Mr. Peanut Brittle wakes up.

Until next week.  If you are lucky you will get a post from the car on the drive to CO!  See everyone soon =).

 

12 Weeks!

So Landon is 12 weeks old today.  When people ask how old he is I just say the weeks until he hits his actual birthday day on the 9th...mostly because I am in denial that he is almost 3 months old!  The phone app said this week he is no longer considered a newborn, but an infant! How insane...guess Logan will have to stop saying he is brand new to people =).  With this 12 week mark though has returned the fussy pants Landon. I think we are in the midst of the 3 month growth spurt.  We have a fussy, non-sleeping, constantly eating baby on our hands.  Like I told my Mom and Logan, it is better that he hits this now rather than when we are traveling to Colorado here in a few weeks.  Another indication that he is in a growth spurt is that he now suspiciously fits into some 3-6 month clothes! All the jammies he has worn so far this week are 6 month! YIKES! The sad part is they fit pretty darn well ha ha!

We have had another busy week, but with the fussy level we have had to limit our outings a bit more.  The most important thing that happened in the past week was we got a new car, a 2013 Ford Explorer.  We now have MORE than enough room for Landon and Rusty. We will be driving home to Colorado here in a few weeks with it so hopefully it does what we want it too!

Here is the last picture of my little Jeep, I will miss it!

Here is a picture of the new car:

I think it looks pretty sharp! I LOVE the brown =)

Landon also started wearing cloth diapers this week! So far we only have 3 and they seem to work pretty darn well! Not to mention they are SUPER cute.  We are going to use these three for a week or so and then decide if it is something we want to invest in.  We think it would save us a lot of money in the long run since he could wear them up to 35 lbs!  I just need to teach Logan how to use them now ha ha =). 

Cute little diaper butt! He also has a yellow one and a green one! Can't wait to get more =)

Landon is developing QUITE the personality.  Logan and I were talking last night that we think we are going to have our hands full when he is a toddler and gets older.  He is already a challenging little guy with all of his likes and dislikes and his VERY STRONG opinion on things, so it will be interesting to see how he develops over the years.  I blame Annie, Mallory, and Donna for wishing Logan to have a son that was just like him growing up ha ha...I think we definitely have a contender on our hands for that!

Yesterday while we were having a coo-ing conversation Landon decided to give me the poop face from start to finish...so here ya go! He is always SO PROUD of himself when he gets done ha ha...maybe that will transition to wanting to potty train early =). One can only hope!

Look how proud he is in that last frame =).

Something new I wanted to try this week was getting Landon on video. This was just done with my iphone, I need to work with the fancy camera some more on videos so expect more in the weeks to come.  I was trying to get Landon to talk and smile, but he gets so distracted by the smallest things these days it is hard to get him to do what I want ha ha...typical man =).  So here are two videos (really the same long one cut in half, stupid phone wouldn't let me email it all together) of Landon talking and just moving around! Please excuse my retarded sounding voice in the background ha ha.  =).

So after three months of parenting Landon we are starting to see our parenting style develop.  I think we are borderline attachment parents, which cracks me up and I feel like I would make the Boulder hippy Mamas proud! We are working on cloth diapering, Landon is exclusively breast fed (with an occasional bottle, but I think of this statement as no formula added), we baby wear in a carrier, and we even co-sleep on occasion in the morning.  Co-sleeping scares me, but Landon loves it so much and I know would sleep there all night long if I let him.  I position him right up next to my body and cover him up on his legs and he is asleep minutes later.  I never in a million years thought we would fall into this type of parenting, but it is what works for us right now.  At the same time we also try to structure Landon's day a bit with a routine. We are still working on our midday routine which involves trying to figure out his nap schedule.  Lately he has been maybe sleeping 2 hours during the day (he is supposed to be getting between 5-7 hours of day time sleep) and turning into a terror to put down at night.  So in the coming weeks my goal is to try to get him on a schedule or at least an eat, play, sleep routine during the day so he naps MORE during the day.  He fights going to sleep so bad during the day; it is like he is going to miss something.   

Ok this is now a novel!

Until next week =).

11 Weeks Old!

So Landon is 2.5 months old! I still can't believe it.  People ask how old he is when we are out and they are shocked he is only 2.5 months old because he is so chubby!  I think people must just think of weight in the age of babies and not consider his length!  Seeing as he is short and chubby, I think everyone just assumes he is older than he really is.  Here is a picture to show you his true chubby belly...

He was super hot the other day when we got home from running errands! So he got to hang out in just his diaper which he LOVES.  I have a feeling I will have a problem keeping clothes on him when he gets a bit older =). Despite how chubby he looks, his 0-3 months clothes are still a bit big in certain brands and most of his footed pajamas fit just fine since he is so short! I am glad to see he is staying pretty true to size of the clothes!

We had a busy week! Lara was in town visiting from Saturday to Wednesday.  We went on a walk at the Greenway in Clarksville, went to lunch with the Curves ladies so they could meet Landon and to celebrate two of their birthdays, went out to dinner with Landon for the first time at the Black Horse Pub and Brewery downtown, and spent a day in Nashville doing some shopping and going to The Grand Olee Opry.  So as you can see Landon had a BUSY last few days.  For the most part he was great while we were out to eat and running errands.  We were most concerned about dinner since he usually gets fussy right around 6 pm.  He was asleep when we first got into the restaurant, but soon woke up.  He got a bit cranky about being in his car seat so I took him out and he was pretty much happy as a clam after that.

At the Black Horse for dinner!

He has been pretty amazing this past week.  I love watching him smile.  He is getting VERY close to being able to roll over from belly to back during tummy time. He gets so frustrated and upset he just pulls his legs up under him and then pushes and tries to roll over.  I fully expect him to scare himself the first time because even only rolling part way over got him to scream and got him even more upset.  It is hard to leave him down there when he is so frustrated but I know he has to develop all the different muscles, so I will just wear ear plugs during tummy time =). 

He got his first big boy bath this week also.  He is almost getting a bit long for his infant tub and he keeps pushing off the end with his feet and it makes me nervous.  So I put a town down in the tub and put him on the little holder and that is how he got his bath last night.  He didn't seem to notice much of a difference, but it definitely was a bit easier to do without him squirming around and kicking the side of the baby tub!  He is still a bit young to find bath time super fun, but he is starting to move his legs a little bit, so I assume splashing will be great fun for him when he gets a bit older.

Landon is becoming more interactive by the day.  Yesterday while I was getting him dressed he actually focused on my face and would copy my facial expressions.  He also was copying the sounds I was making.  I swore he said hi, but I know that is probably not possible ha ha.  I am hoping he gets to interact with Logan like this.  It was a great feeling and so fun to see he is becoming a little person, not just a wee little infant that kind of just stares off into space!

Okay off to the chiropractor for Landon and I.  Then we have to take care of some moving stuff and get some of that fun stuff figured out!

Until next week =).    

10 Weeks Old!

Landon is now into the double digits in weeks...awwww.  Landon I think has hit a developmental milestone this week.  Just in the past few days his head control has become more stable in the bumbo, started batting at toys on his play mat, and learned a new cry (this one I hate ha ha).  He smiles alot every day, especially in the morning.  I think this developmental milestone has messed with his sleep schedule a bit, but overall he is still at least going between 5-6 hours in the first stretch, then it can range from an hour to another four until he wakes up again.

This was a big week for our little man, he had his two month appointment at the Dr., where he got his first round of vaccines (6 of them to be exact, but I would have to look to tell you which ones).  He got three shots and one oral one, two of the shots were combined, which I appreciated since it meant less shots they had to give him.  They did all his measurements first when we got there.  He is 22.5 inches long, just barely in the 25th percentile, a short little dude.  His head is super tiny, the 22nd percentile, which I always think his head looks HUGE...guess not lol.  Then his weight, 13 lbs 3.2 oz. and in the 76th percentile! Short and chubby little man, the Dr. did not seemed concerned at all and just said keep up the good work.  We commented on his flat little head, but she said its super common for babies this age since they still spend so much time on their backs.  She said over the next few months try putting him places where he is more on his neck vs. his head so it can have a chance to round out by 4 months.  Overall she was very pleased with how he is growing and developing and said he looks great.  She also commented that she can see no remaining effects of his bells palsy from his brith, so that was GREAT to hear.  After the Dr., the poor nurse had to come back in and give him his shots.  He was already a bit irritated with being pushed on and flipped around, but he did SO MUCH better than we expected. He of course turned bright red, screamed, and cried, but only for a minute and he was fine.  The harder part came later in the day after he had slept for a few hours and then just woke up and you could tell he was just plain uncomfortable.  He did run a low grade fever and we gave him some Tylenol before bed to help with.  He slept horribly that night, but we did a bit better last night. 

Here is a picture of him attempting to self-soothe while hanging out with Daddy:

Landon's SLOWLY (and I mean slowly) growing out of his colicky behavior in the evenings.  Some days he forgets it entirely and others he still starts at exactly 6 pm on the dot.  Often I don't even bother to look at a clock, I just time the evening by his crying ha ha.  The days that we seem to be out doing things or in a new place, such as by the fire pit this past weekend, he does his best!  On Saturday night, Logan had some buddies over for a fire and Landon and I joined them until it was time for his bath and bed.  I got him all bundled up in his jacket and mittens and out we went.  I was fully expecting him to melt down after just a few minutes of being out there, but he LOVED it.  We were out for well over an hour and he just talked and smiled at random things, it was pretty cute.

Here are a few pictures of his first night by the fire:

In other Landon news, he is back to rejecting the pacifier.  Annie and I tried SO HARD to get him to like one and he did for about a week, then back to not taking it.  Oh well...instead he just seems to suck on his fingers or hand.

Landon is becoming more interactive every day.  He has this cute little sly smile on occasion and then other times you get a huge gummy one!  He is still smiling at his fan, baseball wall, and other random objects, but each day Logan and I get huge gummy ones as well!  This is the first one we finally caught a picture of this past weekend: (Sorry it's a bit blurry, have to be fast these days)

In other news, it looks like we will be moving around the beginning of June!  We met with a realtor yesterday and that turned out to be a huge let down on selling our house.  We would have to come up with roughly $12,000 in order to sell our house and that is not something we want to be doing right now with a new baby, moving, etc.  So we decided, with the help of the realtor, that we should rent for a year or two and then look at how the market is doing then.  It is not really ideal, but we will work with a property management company to find a good renter and make sure everything with the house is okay and stays clean and nice.  Another perk of this is that Landon and I will be able to go with Logan right away instead of waiting until the house sells, so less time apart.  We are going to be putting the house up for rent probably within the next week.  Let's hope we find a renter quickly.  They said most people fill their rental home within 30-60 days, so that is about the timeline we have!

That is about it this week for the Landon updates!  Until next week =).