I know, I know- I am seriously behind on posts. Life has been busy around here trying to get ready for the holidays, then having a house full of people, cleaning up the aftermath, getting the house undecorated, planning for our trip to Miami tomorrow and now I have Landon's first birthday and all the party planning that entails looming ahead. Never a dull moment, I tell you!!
So let's backtrack a little. The first weekend of December GiGi came to our house to watch the grandbabies while we headed to Atlanta for the SEC Championship game. I brilliantly forgot to charge the battery in my point-and-shoot camera so I actually don't have any of my own photos of that weekend- luckily Julie and Kevin sent me theirs so I have something to remember the weekend by!
It was so nice to get out of HUMID Florida and actually have some cold weather for a change!!
The best sign EVER! How true is it?!
Me and Julie, right after the Gators victory over #1 Alabama!
So then we came home, back to reality. We got our Christmas tree up and decorated and surprisingly, amazingly- Landon actually left it alone! We have a potted (fake) palm tree downstairs and in the last few months Landon has been all over that thing, pulling out the moss every chance he gets so I was anticipating many broken ornaments this year- and the only broken one came the day we took the tree down, when Savannah accidentally dropped one. Not bad considering we are a house with a toddler, a very curious 11 month old, two BIG dogs and a cat who likes to get into trouble!!
After that, December was pretty uneventful. We did some Christmas shopping (and please remind me next year, if there is anything at all I might possibly want to buy at Toys R Us, do it BEFORE Thanksgiving- the Brandon Mall is an absolute nightmare of incompetent "security guards" trying to direct traffic, which actually makes things 100x worse than it would be if left alone. But I digress....)
Savannah and I made Christmas cookies which were actually pretty fantastic. She discovered a love of cookie dough (wonder where she gets that from....?)
And now Blogger is giving me a fit and not letting me upload anymore photos- go figure. I get 5 minutes to actually post an update and it won't let me!! Oh well....
So Christmas was so fun this year. Savannah was so excited leading up to it- we have an Advent calendar that is a velcro Nativity scene... at the end of the day Savannah would get so excited waiting for Daddy to get home so they could "do the manger" together. It was so fun to see her so excited about doing something special with him. She definitely had interesting placement- all the animals looked like they were flying above the manger! And she would get excited talking about putting baby Jesus up on His birthday. And this was the first year she really understood Santa Claus, and she was so excited to come out on Christmas morning and see all the presents under the tree- and then GiGi and PaPa arrived with another batch! She was so different from last year- last year she was moody and embarrassed and didn't have much interest in actually opening gifts. This year, she was tearing through the paper and then rushing to move on to the next one. Luckily Landon didn't mind the help, and Madalyn was having too much fun playing, so she opened three times the presents she should have.
The kids were thoroughly spoiled this year- it was actually a disgusting to look at our living room after all the paper was thrown away and see how much STUFF they ended up with.... not to mention trying to figure out where everything would go! Savannah's favorites were her Princess bike (which she has been asking for for MONTHS) her trampoline (I have a ton of photos, which I will have to add later) and a set of 7 Disney Princess Barbie dolls- GiGi's last minute impulse buy that was definitely the hit of the holiday. She cracks me up with those princesses- at the end of the day we clean up all the toys and put them in a basket under the side table... and in the morning Savannah comes out and if the princesses are in the basket she throws herself to the floor, crying and saying "They're not toys, they're princesses!" Apparently they need special treatment!
Landon got the neatest push toy, it is from Melissa and Doug and when he pushes it, there are 3 wooden gators that chomp, chomp, chomp! It is absolutely adorable. He is getting so big, I really think he is pretty close to walking. He took a couple short steps to me the other day and is starting to discover his confidence on his feet. One day last week he stood up from sitting down without pushing or pulling on anything! He says 'baby' when he sees himself in the mirror, and calls Savannah 'NaNa' on occasion. He also says MaMa and DaDa. Still no teeth (no surprise here) but he doesn't let that stop him from being a pig!! I am a lot more relaxed with foods than I was with Savannah, I was so nervous to give her too many table foods before she had teeth but Landon wouldn't let me.... he actually eats more than Savannah does! Which explains why he is 3 pounds heavier than she was at his age. He is so much fun these days, and they are so fun to watch together. Last night they were sitting on the couch with Brad and hugging. Landon will just lay his head on her, it is seriously heart-warming in every sense.
On December 27th Brad and I celebrated our 5th anniversary. Crazy right?? Brad's parents stayed in town after Christmas so Brad and I had a nice, full day together. We spent the early part of the day at Busch Gardens- we wanted to take advantage of one more day on our pass before the 31st! Afterwards we ran some errands which doesn't sound exciting, but it was nice to be able to pop from one store to another without worrying about the kids having meltdowns getting in and out of their car seats! Then we went home, got dressed and went out to this AMAZING Mexican restaurant that opened a few months ago in Brandon. It is a fusion of traditional and contemporary Mexican cuisines and boy, it was great. Brad said he wants to go back for my birthday in April! I might just have to let him take me there!
It was a great anniversary, we had a great time. We meant to watch the video from our wedding but here we are 2 weeks later and haven't had the time, what with all the bowl games that have been on! All leading up, of course, to the big one tomorrow night! We are leaving tonight when Brad gets home and heading to Gainesville to drop Savannah at my sister's house and then early tomorrow morning we are packing up and heading to Miami!! Hopefully Landon will be as well behaved as his sister was 2 years ago... not to mention a good luck charm like she was! Hopefully the next time I post will be with pictures and a National Championship!!
