Look what we made!

Ok, so technically we did't "make" it, but we did take it out of the box and put it together!  Landon loves anything to do with tools and wanted to help screw the screws in.

So far it's going a lot easier than I expected!

And within an hour, we were done!

Landon showing off the shelf he helped put together!

This shelving unit is going to be used for what else other than toys.  It's going to go in Landon's new room downstairs, and although his new room is not quite ready for him, we put the shelf together to keep in the family room downstairs until then.  Ahem, Christmas was too good and the toys are a overflowin!

What I didn't ask for on Christmas

On Christmas night, we came home and I was extremely exhausted.  Not unusual, but I was ready for bed by 7:00 pm.  I woke on Sunday morning to not feeling well at all.  After eating some breakfast I realized the root of my stomach ache was not being hungry and quickly became sick to my stomach.  I had the flu. 

While I quarantined myself to the bedroom, my parents came over in the morning and my Dad brought his snow blower.  We have never had to clear the snow off our deck but got to thinking that there is a lot of snow and it is probably really heavy.  Luckily my Mom was along and was gracious enough to watch Landon as Jeremy stepped outside as well.

I spent the remainder of the day in bed and could not keep anything down.  Jeremy was not feeling well either, but did not get sick to his stomach.  Landon had a stretch in the evening where he was not feeling well, but never got sick either.  I spent today home from work recuperating and was able to keep food down.  Yay!  Landon had me nervous after he took a 4 1/2 hour nap, and did not have much of an appetite, but it hasn't gone any further than that.  Let's hope we are all on the mend!

More Christmas celebrating!

I was so excited for Christmas this year, as I thought Landon might actually notice that Santa came while he was sleeping.  Wrong.  Landon woke up at his typical time, 5:30 am, and went to the living room to hang out.  Jeremy plugged in the lights of the Christmas tree and Landon never noticed the presents under the tree.  I got to sleep in for a little bit and joined them at about 6:30 am.  We started breakfast and got ready for the day.  Finally around 8:30 am, I asked Landon if he noticed that Santa had come.  His reaction was just an oh.  I think he was enjoying all his gifts he got the night before.

Needless to say, Santa did not go overboard this year which was great.  Landon got a toy story race track and a new tractor and wagon.

Landon's reaction was "I told you."  Not sure what he told me but anyway.

After hanging out and playing with his new toys for a bit, we headed over to Grandma Debbie and Mike's house.  We snacked, ate some chilli, and opened a few more presents.

 

We were so blessed this year and for the first time in many years were able to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.  A lot of my thoughts on Christmas morning went back to the boy we bought gifts for.  A few weeks ago, Landon and I took a name of a tree at my coworkers church.  Landon and I went shopping for this 10 1/2 year old boy.  Jeremy was bummed he didn't have the opportunity to shop with us, so he wrapped the gifts instead. I told Jeremy on Christmas morning, I hope that boy liked his gifts.  Jeremy said he was thinking the same thing.  I hope you all had a Merry Christmas as well!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!  We kicked off the Christmas celebration last weekend with some of Jeremy's family in MN.  The celebrating continued on Christmas Eve as we went to my parents house to celebrate with the my side of the family.  The weather was a little sketchy at first, and we were all praying my sister and Mike would make it home.  And they DID!  Thank goodness!

The kids were all so patient waiting to open presents.

 Landon definitely got his fair share of presents.

 And how cute is this little guy. Our six week old nephew sporting his new Hawkeye hat.  What a stud!

3 year photos

These were taken by Rose at Infinite Image Design.  You can also read about Landon's photo shoot on her blog at Infinite Image Design Blog.  Here are a couple of her (and my) favorites.  To see the rest of the pictures, click here.  The password is Merrill.

 

 

 

 

Bribery at it's finest

This morning, Landon and I hit the road for Cedar Falls.  Mission for the day:  Have Rose at Infinite Image Design take Landon's three year pictures.  This was going to be an action packed trip however, and we had a few other stops to make before the photo session.

I was looking for some new jeans and after Landon followed me from dressing room to dressing room, we decided to head to Pet Smart so Landon could pick out a Christmas gift for Elke.  By now, Landon was not as patient as he was earlier and did not want to go inside.  He quickly changed his mind however. 

He was so entranced by the birds, turtles, hamsters.  I didn't even tell him there were fish in there.  I think we spent a good 40 minutes in the store as he talked to all the animals.  Maybe I have a Dr. Doolittle on my hands?  We picked out a present for Elke and we had one other stop to make before meeting Auntie Jo Jo for lunch.

Home Depot - why do I love Home Improvement Store's so much?  I really do.  I have been checking out a rug on line and wanted to see what it looked like in person.  Looked good, but we'll see what it looks like when we get home.  What a fun ride!

By now it was time to meet Jodi for lunch.  It was so nice to see her! 

After lunch, we headed over to have Landon's pictures taken.  Despite our talks all morning about how he didn't need to be afraid and he needed to be a good boy, he cried and cried and cried. I reminded him of our deal to be a good boy and he could pick out a treat.  Well, it took him just a smidge longer to warm up and then he ROCKED IT.  Seriously, Rose always does an amazing job when he doesn't cooperate, so I can't wait to see how these turned out!!

All Landon kept saying was that he wanted the beaver.  The what?  I had no idea what he was talking about until Rose asked him what noise a beaver made.  He said, "Bam.  When I whack them over the head."  Now I finally knew what he was talking about.  He wanted the Whac-a-mole game. Buying a new toy three days before Christmas and just a week after a Birthday is an entirely bad idea, but I needed to follow through on my promise.  And well, who really cares, because he ROCKED his photo sesh, and I was proud of him.  

Back to Target we went, where he knew right where to go.  It wasn't two minutes after we were in the car heading home that he was a sleep.

So excited once we got home!

I'll link the photos once their up.  Can't wait!

Ok Mother Nature...

we get your drift.  Pun intended.

  

This is what my car looked like about five minutes after getting home last night.  Our garage is 50 degrees, so a lot melted in the time it take me to get Landon inside and get my camera, but again, you get my drift.  haha...

Last nights drive home was crazy.  Between the snow plow in the ditch and traffic at a complete stop, to finding a car upside down in the ditch and being the first one on the scene (everyone was ok), I rank last nights commute as probably the second worse one ever. 

I really hope they are wrong about any more snow coming at the end of this week.  So many people will be traveling, including my sister and her fiance.  Please Mother Nature, be kind to us!

The world's longest Birthday!

Since Landon's Birthday Party was canceled last weekend, it turned out to be the world's longest Birthday!  Landon celebrated by having several guests come over to see him last week and several other Birthday wishes and presents being sent to him.  The next time we have to cancel his Birthday party, we will definitely make time to reschedule - we don't want him thinking his Birthday lasts for a week every year!

Thank you once again to everyone who helped Landon celebrated his special day!

Happy 3rd Birthday Landon!

As I mentioned previously, mother nature had a mind of her own this weekend.  Landon's Birthday Party was scheduled for Saturday evening, but we called it off.  There was no way we wanted anyone out and about and they most certainly were not going to get down our gravel roads.  So mark this year down as the first, and hopefully only time that Landon's birthday party was canceled.

We definitely did not skip on the birthday celebrating today!  Happy 3rd Birthday to my T-Man!!  After Daddy got home, Landon opened a birthday present from Bernice and Leon.  Bernice watches Landon everyday and we appreciate them so much.  It was so kind of them to think of Landon today.

A new book and monster trucks.  What more could a boy ask for!

Then it was finally time to sing Happy Birthday and dig in to the cake!

Happy Birthday Landon, make a wish!

So good!

 Too good!

And here are the cookies that Landon and I made yesterday.  We brought these to daycare to hand out to his friends today.

Our winter wonderland

Well, after being couped up in the house for a couple days, we decided to venture out into the world again.  Here's what we had to face...a very slippery driveway.

Looking at our house going up the driveway.

It does look pretty don't it.  Too bad it's -5 degrees.  Brr...

The drifts around the mailbox.

I love winter, but seriously snowing the last couple weekends has really put a damper on things.  Ahem, including Landon's birthday party, ahem.  I think we're good on snow for a while.

A new trike?

Tomorrow (12/13) is Landon's 3rd Birthday.  I honestly can not believe he is 3 already, but anyway...We planned for Landon to celebrate with his family last night (12/11).  I had the lasagna's ready, the party supplies purchased and the cake bought, but Mother Nature had other plans.  She dumped a whopping 7" of snow on us last night and then the winds kicked up to 45 mph.  There was no way anyone was going to make it out here for the Birthday Party, so we canceled it.  :-(  

Let's say the snow drifts were so high at our house that Jer got the truck and plow stuck at least once today.  He spent a good 6 hours plowing us out.  Landon and I did not venture outside to play as the high this morning was 9 degrees.  Brrr....

And why would we need to go outside when Landon got his early birthday present.  We planned on giving Landon his new bike at his party last night, but held off until this morning.  Here is the video of Landon getting his new trike bike!

Landon loves spiderman, and I think that was the icing on the cake for him.  A big bike and it's spiderman and a matching spiderman helmet.  He is in love!

He loved the helmet so much he didn't want me to take it off so I could take it out of the package!

The hardest part that Landon is still getting used to is not being able to back up.  He is so used to riding his trike and zipping all over the house with it.  He pedals his trike backwards to back up and he can't do that with the bike.  His bike is also much bigger than his trike so I have moved it down stairs.  There is plenty of room upstairs but the bike is still a little big for him and hard to pedal.  The carpet does not make pedaling any easier, so the tile downstairs is the best riding spot. 

The helmet came with a matching horn as well.  Landon loves the squeaky horn - Elke, not so much.

Landon has pretty much spent all day on his bike!  He did take a break for a little bit to ride in the truck with Daddy to push some snow.  He also thought that was pretty cool!

That's one fresh beat...

Landon loves watching the Fresh Beat Band on Nickelodeon.  Landon especially loves to dance to the Fresh Beat Band.  Watch out Usher, Landon's got some pretty fresh moves!

Free Christmas Cards

Ok all you bloggers out there, here is your chance to get 50 free Christmas Cards from Shutterfly!  I saw this out there on another blog, and I was super pumped!  One, I love Shutterfly.  Two, I don't have my Christmas cards done yet.  And three, I LOVE free stuff!

You all know that I love to take pictures.  It is very rare that a day goes by that I don't take a picture of something.  (FYI, my dream list is a new camera).  Once a month I try and upload all of that month's pictures to Shutterfly.  It is such a good feeling to know if my computer crashed, all my photos would be protected.  

Each year since Landon was born, I have put together a hard cover book for him.  While taking the photos are great, and the blog is great, it's so awesome to be able to look at the books everyday.  I love looking at them.  And I may, or may not cry...

I also love these desk calendars, they may or may not be making an appearance at Christmas this year!

And these little snap books are so super cute as well!

So, let's get down to business.  Shutterfly has so many awesome cards, I'm not sure how I'm going to choose! Here are two that I absolutely LOVE!  You'll have to wait and see which one I chose.

Now, to get them done and in the mail.  Why am I so far behind this year?  Oh well, Christmas will go on whether I'm ready or not!  Oh, I almost forgot - if you are a blogger and want to take part, hurry the offer ends December 10th, and click here!

Our peaceful Sunday

Today, was pretty boring and peaceful and wonderful all at the same time.  We started the day off with a trip to Walmart.  It was pretty quiet there, so all was good.  The rest of the day, Landon and I spent watching the mighty deer hunters out the window...

napping...

and enjoying each others company.  I wish every Sunday was as pleasant as this one!