Missing in Action

Aloha Everyone!

Sorry but our friends John, KC, and Nicholas left for Hawaii this week and we're pretty jealous about it...so now we've got Beaches, Sun, and Boat Drinks on the brain.

Anyhow, back to reality...I know that we've been missing in action this week, but we can either be L-I-V-I-N or T-Y-P-I-N...and we elected for more of the former and less of the latter this week.

There isn't a ton of new stuff to report, but I will say that Landon is really becoming quite the walker. He seems to be gaining more confidence in his ability each and every day and probably walks nearly as much as he crawls now. It's especially fun to watch him when we pick him up in the evenings. He gets this huge smile on his face, stands up and walks over to us with his arms outstretched...he also says "DADADADADADA" the whole way over...Michaela and I have come to the agreement that Landon thinks that both of his parents are called "DADA"...he can say "MAMA" now, but he usually only does it when mimicking us...one of these days we're sure he'll figure it all out.

Other words in his vocabulary are: "QUACK-AR", which he uses when we say "cracker" and also when we ask what a duck says..."BABA" which is what he calls his bottle..."BAAAABAAAA" which is what he says when we say "bath time", at which point he books it into the bathroom...."HIGH-EEEEE", which he says all the time...it's "hi", but as a valley girl would say it....and he also says "UH OH" whenever he drops or throws anything.

We continue to read to him each night and make a point of describing things throughout the day like "we're putting your shoe on your foot" and we'll point things out to him as we do it...it's sort of like we're narrators in his life. :) We also realize that we really have to watch our mouths now, and those little verbal slips aren't really acceptable around the kid now, because we don't want one of his first words to be embarrasing!

Other than the walking and the talking, he also continues to be a very adventurous little eater...we're not quite ready to try the highly allergic stuff like honey, eggs, cow's milk, and peanuts....but he's recently enjoyed pop tarts, garlic bread, nutri grain bars, black beans and rice, and a variety of fruits, vegetables, meats, and his favorite: pasta...he actually really enjoys Beefaroni, which makes me laugh because I loved that stuff when I was a kid and still find myself snagging bites off his plate.

This weekend should be a crazy one for us, between house work, yard work, and general parenting goodness. We did head over to my Mom and Dennis' house this morning for a little bit to show off Landon's walking...they were very impressed...we'll get to show Grandpa Barry tomorrow as he's going to be in town to help me with some baseboards...

As for what's on the horizon for us, we've got a very busy week ahead of us. Landon turns one year old on March 18th, so we're having a birthday party for him on Saturday the 14th. We have a pretty small house, and we're expecting around 30-35 people, so we're praying that the weather is nice (so we can hang out outside)...if you didn't get an invitation, please don't take it personally...due to the size of the house we really had to limit it to immediate family for the most part...we'd have loved to do it someplace that would accomodate all of our friends and family, but most of the parks in our neighborhood are going to be muddy for a good long time, and Landon is so young that he's really not going to know what's going on most of the time.

We are very excited to welcome Michaela's parents Rachael, Steve, and Skip...as well as her Grandmother June, who will all be flying in on Friday....I told you we're going to have a packed house!

We'll definitely have a post after the fact with pictures and some fun stories.

In the meantime, we have an awful lot to do between now and next weekend, so I'll leave it at that.

Enjoy your weekend and we'll see you soon.

PS~ Michaela's friend Becca's baby is due today, so we'll keep our fingers crossed. We wish we could be there in person to welcome the new addition to our extended family, but we'll see them soon. Good luck guys!!!