Zoo Trip!

It isn't going to be much longer before Sam is taller than me!
A baby gorilla was born in January, it was really cute but our pictures didn't turn out.
So here is Sam with the Mommy Baby Gorilla statue.

I think this must be the Papa...

I am not going to bore you with pics of animals, but I couldn't resist the pony eating it's poop pic.

Can you find the elephant, lion and two monkeys?

There are two lions that mark the back entrance to the zoo. Pretty impressive.

We decided to take Sam to the D.C. Zoo. It is a national zoo, so it is free and it is huge and awesome! You could spend hours there. There were even people running the length for a work out.

This was our last day together. Had to do our own run through of the zoo. Had about 30 minutes that we stretched into 90 minutes, but totally worth it!

Every time we passed under a bridge or overpass, Landon's eyes would get huge. It is so funny. I tried to capture it on tape.

Visit from Sami

My niece Sam came to visit us. She paid for the trip and everything! We had so much fun! I had to make some blankets while she was here and get them in the mail, and I started working again for my boss, so between that stuff, we had a ton of fun!

I miss her and am so glad that we were able to do this! We laughed a ton and I am so amazed at the person she has become! I love you Sami!

(These did not upload in the order I wanted, but I don't have time to fix...)

Sami made her baby brother (who is just a few days older than Landon) a Snugga-Luv.

She chose the Rhino.


Watching it get sewn...

Sam and Landon

James and Landon playing while we put together the Snugga-Luv.

Sami bought Landon a hippo. I think he loves it!

I got a special request order from our website:

quiltsbykista.com

and had to finish it at the beginning of the week. Isn't it awesome?!

All of the hippos in the corners are embroidery.
Landon watching the embroidery machine make a hippo.
Holy Cow! Their faces are almost the same size!
The first couple of days our mornings started with the entire family calling to see what we were doing.
I took Sami to this store called Five Below where they have some awesome nail polish. We were experimenting with art designs for our nails.
Sam feeding Landon, look how huge he is!

Sam is amazing with babies. Landon loved her. I am not used to anyone other than me or James taking care and entertaining Landon so this was weird for me, but soon got very comfortable. It was hard to get back to life when she left.

Landon was talking and then right before it ends he spit up all over Sam, but watching the video you can't tell what happened.

Landon was making this hilarious face! His nickname monkey is starting to fit pretty good, huh?

Landon was so entertained...

Disclaimer: This is not my normal laugh. I laughed so much this week with Sam and hardly got any sleep, so I am guessing this is my delirious laugh...

Our life...

So the updates for me and James are that at the end of this month, James will have been at Wegmans for 6 months and he can now apply for a different management position with the company. Our hope is just that we can pay our bills and I don't have to work. This may sound naive, but I really don't think that Heavenly Father finally gave us our first child now, that I would have to work and have someone else raise him. May sound selfish or dumb to you, but it is what is in my heart. I don't even want to go to the movies or anything like that because I don't want to be away from him.
Anyways, I am going to start working for my Real Estate Agent again next week. He doesn't have a ton going on, but it should help a little. I have also gotten a few blanket orders on the website. I am really excited about this because I don't pay any money to advertise my website on anything, but somehow people are finding me. The cool thing is all of the orders except one have been from complete strangers in states on the opposite of the US. How awesome is that?! Well, I have to say, now I am motivated to work on the website some more. We haven't done anything to it for about a year and there are so many blankets that I have made since then! It isn't the most user friendly site, so it will take some time, but it is obviously worth it!
For those of you that haven't seen it and didn't even know about it, the address is:
www.quiltsbykista.com
Craft Show season is here. I haven't decided what to do with my little guy and all... So wish us luck!

Silly stuff from this week

No pictures, sorry. This week we were giving Landon a bath and the baby shampoo was just about out. So James squeezed it hard and it made that noise of air escaping very loudly. We looked at Landon and his eyes were huge and we said, "Oh, what was that?" and then... He just wailed! It was so funny because he doesn't do that very much. The funniest part was that he cried during his entire bath and wasn't consolable.
My favorite time of day has changed from bath time to every time he wakes up and I go to get him. He give me the biggest grin and we make waking up so much fun!
I love this so much!

Landon is 4 months old!

Well, Landon turned four months old last week, but we went to the Dr. yesterday. He is 15.4lbs, 25 inches and he got four more shots. He is actually having a hard time with the shots this time. So lucky me, he wants to cuddle more than normal. I love our normal cuddle time, so this is even better. Who cares that I have a bunch of stuff to do! Oh the best part is that he weighs enough now to have a full dose of Tylenol. Works out pretty good! This morning he was extremely hot all over, but no fever, how does that work?
Landon and I have just had a ton of fun with each other this week. We just laugh and laugh all day. Well, I laugh and he gives me that huge grin I love so much. He is still working on his laugh. Lots of loud squeals and funny noises. He started changing his cooing noise a little. He still coos, but before he does that he sings. It is hilarious! I laugh almost the whole time, but that doesn't bother him. I will try and record it. He is doing great with the cereal. He sucks it down and then still empties me out. Of course it is only about 2.5 to 3 ounces of cereal. This week my allergies have been acting up so bad that I think my allergy medicine (that I take all year long) had to work harder and started to dry up my milk. So, I drank about 5 bottles of water (that is crazy for me) and it came back with a vengeance. Along with many trips to the bathroom the next day!
When I told the Dr. that he only takes a few 30 minute naps during the day, she asked how long he sleeps at night. I said,"Well, I guess about 12 hours" and she said, "there you go!" I guess I should have thought about that on my own.
Landon has started walking forward holding on to our fingers now. It is so much fun to see him get excited about these things. He still can't get his one shoulder out of the way to roll over whenever he wants, so he turns in circles all over the place. It is so funny to see him get around the room. Of course, after the snake, I try to keep him in the middle of the room away from furniture.

Landon starting cereal...

On Thursday, besides the copperhead scare, Landon turned 4 months old. Since I have been having a hard time keeping up with him food wise, we started him on cereal. I don't know why I tried to spoon feed him this watery stuff, but it was fun to see him work his tongue! For it being so watery and it being his first time using his tongue in this way, he did pretty great!!! A lot more stayed in his mouth than got on his bib, even though it may not look like it in the video. We just kept going until he was done. I think I'll wait to spoon feed him until the food has more thickness and texture though.

Last week Landon actually entertained the Binky. I am sure because of the teething, but I'll take it! So we decided to try to give him the cereal in a bottle. He took it and had absolutely no problems! He has never let us give him a bottle before this. I even was able to give it to him on Sunday! James is now working Sunday evenings, so it is just me and my little love bug. It is kind of weird since our Sundays have always been just a veg day and we love to spend time together. So now I just spend time with the miniature version of James :)

Copperhead scare...

Don't know why these pics are loading vertical, they are horizontal...

Okay, this snake is small, but not sure if it is a baby or adolescent.
This morning I was washing out my cereal bowl and saw something wriggling around on the floor by my feet. I instinctively jumped back and there was a small copperhead snake under the cupboard in striking position. I called James but he didn't answer, then I called my brother Javier who used to catch snakes as a kid. He mentioned getting a neighbor. So I called my friend Carrie and asked if her husband Michael was home. He wasn't home from working yet, so I told her what was going on and at this time I was in panic mode and crying. I didn't want it go somewhere else, and it was in striking position so I wasn't going to try and catch it... She told me to call animal control and she would be right over. I called animal control and they said someone was on the way. We have a kitchen that is right off the garage and has a door way into the dining room and a walkway from the garage door to the rest of the house. I kept going from one entrance of the kitchen to the other and trying to catch him off guard, but every time I got to one entrance, he was already looking in my direction. He was not only ready to strike, but he was very smart...
So, Carrie got to the house and told me that Michael had just gotten home and was right behind her. He came in and shined the flashlight on it and confirmed that it was indeed a copperhead snake. They brought a bucket to catch it, but the way it was under the cupboard, that wasn't going to happen. I was so worried that they would get bitten I just wanted to wait for animal control. Eventually Michael decided to smash its neck with a camping prong and took it outside. I was so relieved that it was dead and didn't hide somewhere. About an hour later the animal control guy showed up and just verified that it was a copperhead. He was turning it over with his snake prong thingy and it started to move. I jumped back and he said, "Don't worry that is just me moving it." And then it moved its head in his direction and he said, "Oh, I guess its not dead..." and then he killed it, AGAIN.
I still am a little freaked out. All day I have been looking around every few minutes for any other snakes that might be lurking and I have been trying to not walk next to any furniture that I can't see under, which is just about everything. Well, I am not ready for winter, but now, I am so ready for it to get really cold!
Of course the words of wisdom from my brother Bryan were" Kista, if that snake bit Landon, you wouldn't know what was wrong with him and he would die." Thanks Bryan, like I wasn't already worried enough.