Slow Down Mommy

How do kids know when you're in a hurry? The later you are, the slower they get.

Landon decided he wanted to save all his doughnuts until he got to school, so he could eat in the cafe. And when I say eat, I mean, slowly put a doughnut to his mouth, taste the sugary outside, put it down, pick it up, lick, put it down, look around, pick it up, take a tiny miniature bite, put it down, take a drink, look aroun...you get the picture.

I almost scarfed them all down myself just to get out of the tiny chair and back in the car with my 54 ounces of diet dr pepper.

But, I waited. And he finally finished and took off towards the classroom.

Mommy

I've now become "Mommy" - no longer ma-ma. Not sure why, but its Mommy and Daddy now.

More Pictures from this weekend

Memorial Weekend at the Camp

Thursday
We left (a lot) later than expected on Thursday, so we didn’t get into Houma until around 2:30ish. That bed felt wonderful. Landon and I slept in the back of the car most of the way there, so it wasn’t too bad for us.

Friday
Woke up early and headed to IHOP. Who’d have thought they’re be a waiting line at the Houma IHOP on a Friday morning…so we switched over to the Waffle House. Deewishus.

After some yummy breakfast, we went to Sam’s, loaded up on food (but not quite enough – need to make a list next time.) Plus another Dora DVD for Landon. Then on to Target. Got pool toys, an awesome pool for the kiddos, fishing rods, and just some goodies for the adults. Like a gianormous bag of twizzlers and batman reeses.

Then we went to West Marine to get some rope for Jamie’s boat. There we discovered kids cro.cs on sale 40% off! Yep, we loaded up. Got Landon two pairs, and Maddox and Seth some too. And of course, I got a pair also. (Which I happen to be wearing to work today cause the shoes I originally had on gave me blisters in like 2 minutes.)

We headed back to Mr. Danny and Miss Joann’s house for some rest. Well, the adults wanted to rest, Landon wanted to play outside. So he and Mr. Danny went out and found ducks, a cat, lots of dragonflies, some moss, mulch, among other things.


We finally left for the camp around 4. Unpacked everything, got the boat in the water, turned the AC’s down, started the ice machine. Made some baked ziti with meatballs and enjoyed a nice dinner out on the back deck. We took the boat out for a little bit, Lan relaxed quite a bit, but never fell asleep.
Landon fished with Dad for a while. He loved his fishing rod. But wanted to do it just like Dad.



Max and crew finally got in around 3:30 that night. I only woke up to hear Miss Cole asking where she could crash.

Saturday
We woke up early the next morning. Had some sausage egg biscuits, and started blowing up the pool (they had an air compressor, but not the right attachments.) Mel and I did a pretty good job on it, though we were light headed for the rest of the morning. We put the pool out on the back deck and enjoyed a nice warm, but breezy morning.

Then we loaded up the coolers, got the boat ready and took off. The boys both feel asleep on the ride, but woke up to swim. We anchored off in lake Boudreaux and just spent some time floating around the boat. Landon loved it. He had a huge smile on his face the whole time he was in the water. And he was not happy when we decided to get back in the boat.


That night, the guys came upstairs laughing…we look outside and some Cajun had sunk his boat in one of the Blanchard’s slips. LOL. Moron. It was great. The guy was wearing this tiny little aqua life jacket that barely fit over his man boobs, since it had to be tied above his big belly. He and his friend tried for a long, long, long time to get the boat out. They finally got it out with some help about 4 hours later. Definitely some drinking involved there. (the picture is dark, but hopefully, you can still laugh about it.)


Sunday
Mr Danny (Sr.) and Miss Joann come up with their boat to take us to the island. It was beautiful out. After a 45 minute ride out to the island (the boys again fell asleep, missing the dolphins jumping beside out boats) we realize Danny (jr.) left the bait at the camp. We had anchored off on the back side of the island, but the water was way choppy. Mel and I both start immediately getting sick. So we decided to go look for some calmer water. We finally get around the island and anchor off. Its gorgeous. We say 100s of hermit crabs all along the beach…all different types and sizes of shells. I’ve never seen that many in one place. (Nicole had her camera so the pictures will come later.)

After we used the net to catch some minnows, Bry, Max and the Blanchards took one of the boats over to the pier to fish. Danny stayed with the girls and kids and we just floated around the boat, in about knee deep water. So very relaxing.

Didn’t catch anything without good bait, so we loaded up and headed back to camp. Miss Joann was going to try out her Pina Colada mix, but it was too frozen and ended up blowing the fuse in the blender! Luckily, we had two engineers with us, so they rewired the blender and it was back in business. We grilled some more hamburgers and sat out while the boys (who still somehow were full of energy) ran around the deck.



We all went to bed early, or at least the girls did. The guys stayed up to watch the basketball game (but I’m pretty sure they were all snoring during the commercials.)

Monday
We got up early (again) and started cleaning up. Deflated the pool, dishes, laundry, mopping, etc. I believe it’s the earliest we’ve ever left the camp. Made it back to Houma for a delicious lunch at Big Al’s. We sent Max and crew on their way and ended up going back to West Marine for another pair of crocs for Landon, Miss Nicole and Maddox.

We all got quite a bit of sun, some more than others. It was a great and relaxing weekend. We need to go back again. The boys loved fishing with their superman fishing rods. And loved throwing rocks in the water (and at the neighbors camp.)

Weekend, Here We Come!

I am so excited for this weekend to get here. And I'm even more excited to see Landon have so many new experiences, with his best friend Maddox.

We're going to our friend's fishing camp. Boating, fishing, sunning, eating. Fun, fun, fun. I know Landon's going to love the water. However I'm not so sure he's going to enjoy the life vest. I haven't purchased one yet, can't make my mind up between Nemo, Spiderman (which he thinks is superman) or Diego. (Secretly, I know that he'd love the pretty bright pink Dora one, but I gotta put a stop somewhere.) I'll have to call Mel in a while and see which one she's getting for Maddox...they have to be twins all the time.

I found out that Landon will be moving up to the next classroom at school. I found out, that is, by asking directly, if he was moving up. Love how the school keeps us informed. He transitioned yesterday and today and will move up on Monday, er, Tuesday. I just hope Matthew and Ava move up with him. But he loves playing in that room with the older kids, so I don't think he'll have any adjustment issues.

Look for pictures come Tuesday! Have a great Memorial weekend everyone.

This is why I'm late to work...

Wakey, Wakey Monkey Baby from jodielea on Vimeo.

And here's some pics from the BBQ we went to this weekend. A coworker had a house warming party, with, oh gosh, deewishus food. It was wonderful. Landon's friend Ava came with her Dad. Baby M came, Landon wasn't too sure about mama feeding another baby.

New Room

We finally got all the new furniture up in Landon's room. Bryan and I painted it a very light blue on Sunday. Rehung all the pictures. And yesterday I bought him the cutest comforter set with cars, trucks and jeeps. He loved it! He kept saying, "nother car, nother truck."

After his bath, which oh my gosh is hilarious. He now gets down on his belly and pretends to be swimming. He even put his head down in the water. He slides all over the tub. Too cute. So after his bath, we went upstairs to read books in his new bed. He laughed and laughed, but didn't go to sleep. (We'll work on that next week, after our vacation weekend.)

I'll try to get some pictures of the room tonight. It is such a little boy's room.

Poo Poo in the Potty

Before you get too excited. This had nothing to do with potty training, and everything to do with luck and anticipation.

Landon poo-poo'ed in the potty last night. Pure luck, not training. He's been having a bm every night pretty late; so last night, I noticed the signs - grunting, squating, so we got to the potty as fast as we could. We read most of the piggy book and then he poo'ed. He looked around like, what in the world just happened. LOL. It was hilarious.

He was so proud. He got a sticker and then got to call some of his family. We called Trevor, Jana, GJ, (tried Grammy, but she had knee surgery, so her phone was off), Danny. When we called Danny, he was in Kroger. He was laughing that he was walking around the grocery store saying, "Yay Lan, you poo'ed in the potty."

This morning Lan woke up saying, "I want more..." So I ask, "More what? What do you need more?" Lan replies, "More Batman covers." Huh? We don't have any Batman covers, much less "more" batman covers. Crazy boy.

We love the Bathtub!

Landon now loves taking baths. Loves it. Mostly because he thinks he's swimming. Yesterday, He game into the living room with his shorts off, his diaper hanging off and trying to get his shirt off...He was telling Bry, "I go bathtub."

So Bryan started up the water and landon excitedly gets in. He stayed in the tub for ever. A very, very, very long time. I took a shower, while Bryan watched him, then Bry went to cook dinner. I dried my hair, read some of my book, sat a while. Finally, I'm like, look, baby, we've got to get out of the tub...I tried to explain that his fingers and piggies were getting wrinkled cause it was time to get out. No good.

He decided to lay down on his belly. He'd lay down, and slide down to one end of the tub, get up, turn around, lay down and slide back to the other side. "I'm swimming mama." "I swim bathtub" LOL.

I finally just had to drain the water. He kept saying, "no, more water!" and then tried to save all his toys (thinking they'd go down the drain next!) When all the water was out, he just layed on his tummy in the tub. He was not getting out.

I finally had to get him out, wrap him up and wrestle him into a diaper. Poor kid. Explaining that he could take another one tomorrow just wasn't working. Blue's Clues and a big blanky in the rocking chair helped. Landon and I rocked til bedtime.

Tough Morning

I'm truly a mom. Not that I didn't know that before, but I've passed an initial phase most mom's go through.

I spanked landon on the back of his leg.

I know. I feel bad about it now. We had a rough morning. He woke up happy enough, but then decided he didn't want a new diaper on. Then it was the shorts - no way was he putting shorts on. I finally got him in a new diaper and shorts. No shirt. Every shirt I picked out, he'd take and throw it across the room. And oh man, did he get mad if I caught one before he could throw it. Crying, 'no shirt, no shirt' I finally wrestled him down and got a shirt on, which only made him realize he still had shorts on, so he's trying to pull his shirt up over his head, and his shorts down, along with his diaper when I mention something about shoes.

You'd think the kid was being tortu.red with fire (would hate for a search on that to lead here.) Please - are the clothes hurting you? No. Are the shoes eating your feet? No. For the love of everything good in the world, just put some clothes on. As he's kicking his shoes off (again) I smacked the back of his leg. Not hard. But enough to know I meant business.

I then proceeded to get him to the car, of course when he realized he had to be buckled in, we went into Round 4. I'm practically on top of him, trying to get the seat belt buckled, he's pushing out the seat belt, while also, trying to kick his shoes off. And here comes spanking number 2. He then resigned to huffing and sniffles (by this time the DVD player had started up with crazy Dora.)

Got to school and everything was fine. Kissed me bye bye and took off playing.
Really? Really?

Super Quick Trip to West Texas

Friday

Bry left work early, picked up the uhaul trailer and loaded it up with some furniture we took up to my sisters. Landon and I messed around in the house and yard, until we were ready to go. We stopped off at Denny's and had dinner and finally got on the road around 8:30pm. Ouch. Landon fell asleep just on the other side of downtown and stayed asleep the whole entire drive. Not kidding. I stayed up til about Brenham and then got in the back with Landon and we slept well. Poor Bryan. He stopped at Gatesville for a potty break at Walmart and a tornado had just come through there...no power at all...so he hopped back in the car, and found a small dirt road. I wasn't to sure we were going to be able to get turned around once Bry had completed his 'break.' LOL. But we did and were on our way again. Bry stopped and slept for awhile after Abilene. We made it to Muleshoe around 8:30...a little later than we thought, but just in time to have breakfast with my family.

Saturday
Landon and Kallie played, while we got ready for breakfast. Landon walked into the living room, he had painted one side of his cheek with green marker, the other with orange. We finally all went down to eat at the Dinner Bell. Yummo - biscuits and gravy. Then we got back in and went down to a small store there so Bry could try on boots. They had some nice ones, we finally made him put jeans on, so he didn't look so crazy in his shorts and boots. We didn't end up getting a pair, think we'll wait until the big 4th of July sale at Joe's.

Landon and Kallie played some more at the house, before we took off for Portales. On the way out of town, we stopped at Kip's sisters and let Landon and Kallie ride the Kallie's little pony. And I mean, LITTLE. Almost like an over-sized dog. Landon loved it. In fact we had to take him off, kicking and screaming, "my horsey, my horsey, my kallie, my kallie" He cried the whole way to Portales, and finally fell asleep as we got to the city limits.



We stopped by the furniture store to grab a dolly to get the furniture into Jana's apartment. (Wish I would have taken pics, her apt is way cute.) We left Landon sleeping at Jana's and went back to load up at the store.
Let me tell you about the store. My aunt and uncle hired a company to come in and close them out. These people are creepy. Like greasy car sales men. Eww. They brought in cheap crappy furniture, gnasty leather couches, yucko stuff. Its weird to go in the store and see all that junk in there. Sad, too. Poor Sharon and Bill. Its just not the same there anymore. Bryan and I walked all over to see if there was anything left we might want. Two chairs, I really wish I would have taken, but didn't. Oh well.

Sharon and I both cried before I left. Its just so difficult. We've had the store for almost 50 years. I grew up in that store, spent summers there, its where you always go. It was so hard to leave. Seeing the door frame with every one's height, the tool drawers and cabinets that my Grandad made. The chair my grandmother sat in up until the very last day. The toys that have been there for years. The stairs, each a different color carpet. The hot Tell City room. So many memories there. For all the family. Every baby has crawled on that floor, played in that store, ran up the stairs.

Finally left the store, Bry had to drag me out of there. We went over to Mom's and cleaned up, then headed back to Muleshoe for Trev's baseball game. The wind was blowing up to 45 mph...it was pure dirt in the air. Like a not so fun microderm-abrasion, free from nature. I ended up watching the game from the car, with the kids in the back watching a movie. Went back to Jills to get some rest. (Up to this point, Bry still hadn't slept anymore.)



Slept great. Didn't get up until 7:45. Got on the road after some McDonalds and spent the rest of the day driving home. Bry took some nice shots here. Windmills out by Abilene, a pic of me sleeping, and his new find - a 100 ounce mug.



We got home and Mr. D and Ma Cole came over to help unload. The furniture looks great. I'm exhausted and sick to my stomach from eating crap all weekend. Although it was all deewishus.

My sports boy

Since this is my blog, I'm going to brag. Landon, being around volleyball and other sports since he was 1 week old, has picked up things very quickly. He can throw a ball very well. Like, better form than most people I know. He swings a bat with form and control, not like most kids who swing with anger and gust. He's controlled, watching his target. (I'm serious! If you don't want to hear me brag about my son, don't read my blog. LOL.)

So yesterday, we went to the pool after work. We had taken a baseball sized squishy ball. Landon was throwing it back and forth with Dad and Mr. D, then decides to hit it like a volleyball. Not kidding. He holds it out in front of him with his left hand, cocks his right arm back in perfect form, and swings and hits the ball. Seriously?! LOL. Dad, Danny and I look at each other with our jaws hanging down, then just start cracking up. He's brilliant - lol. Or, very well skilled. Let's all hope he doesn't get my reflexes, cause there goes any chance of being talented.


Here's some great pictures.
His love for doughnuts


And my little swimsuit model (again with doughnut all over his face.)

Sonic was so last week

LOL. We've moved on from cheeseburgers and fries.

Landon has discovered white powedered doughnuts.

Sonic

Yes. Landon knows Sonic. Unfortuanately, its on our way home from daycare. So every day (EVERY. DAY.) when we pass by, "I wanna cheeseburger!"....and "french fries"...."cheeseburger!"

So we may be looking for a new route to the house.

New Camera

Eating "cheeseburger!"



Looks just like his mama...correction, looks like his daddy, giving a "Mama" look



New thing here. He LOVES to chew on his crocs. He said "cheese" and gave me a big smile when I got ready to take the picture.

Sleeping...

Landon has decided he likes to sleep in just a diaper. LOL. I have no idea why or how this started, but that's how we end up every night. He'll put his jammies on for a while and watch TV, then decides he's ready to be naked. And, by golly, if we don't get the clothes off right away, he'll explode.

Last night, he slept half the night in his bed. He was excited when he found that out this morning. Maybe we'll start moving in that direction (again.) Although Bry and I both love snuggling with him at night.

We were running late this morning (even later than normal, cause we're always late.) And for the first time, he decides he wants to save his muffin and juice and eat it in the school cafe...not in the car on the way. "Mama, sit, sit." So, yes, I sat and waited (impatiently) as he slowly ate his muffin, minus the blueberries, which he told me were "Eww, Yucky, bugs" and handed them to me to eat.