Landon's birthday day.

On July 5th, my little man turned 5.  Wow!  Five years.  It seems like not that long ago, but it also seems like he's been here forever.  I don't really remember life before my kids.  It's all a blur.  What did I do with my time then??  ;)

Anyways, we spent the day together to celebrate.  I made Landon homemade birthday waffles for breakfast and his favorite beans and weiners for dinner.  The rest of the day was filled with presents and time spent together.  Braydon had the day off, so that made the day a little sweeter. :)

We started out with a scavenger hunt for the present we knew he would love the most.  This little guy is called Pocoyo.  He's on a show on Nick Jr. and it's all Landon talks about.  It's his motivator right now.  So, Pocoyo played hide-and-seek with Landon.  Landon woke up with a note that said Pocoyo was playing hide-and-seek.  We had him go to different places in the house that each had a note to tell him where to go next.  It lead Landon all the way to the basement where Pocoyo was hiding in one of the cabinets.  He was so excited and has taken Pocoyo pretty much everywhere with him.  He loves him. :)

After that, there was more present opening after breakfast....

Team Umizoomi stuff makes Landon very happy. :)

What a cute birthday boy I have. :)

Some Lightning McQueens to add to the collection.

After getting dressed and playing some, came more presents...

A Jake and the Neverland Pirates pirate ship,

Mickey Mouse coloring books from Sydney, 

A big giant pencil for sidewalk chalk,

And a sword to beat up dad with. :)

When I was a kid, every year my mom would make me or my step-sisters a home-made birthday cake of our choice.  It could really be anything.  Cookie cakes, cream puffs, carrot cake, there were no limits.  After all, it is your birthday. :)  So, I decided I wanted to try to carry on that tradition with my kids.  I asked Landon what he wanted and he told me chocolate cookies....so that's what he got. :)  We stuck a candle in it and sang to him as he smiled at us.  Normally, Landon would need help blowing out his candle.  He's never blown out the candle on his own.  This year, he did.  I was SO proud. :)

Just a little help from mom and....

It's out!! YAY!!!!

I'm pretty sure Landon had a great birthday this year.  We'll do it again in another six months for a two year old. :)

Grandpa Joe is a good playmate :)

Braydon's dad came to visit us this past weekend.  From the second he walked in the door Landon wanted to play with him.  He wanted him to sit next to him at dinner, and be there when he was going to bed.  Every second of the day was spent with Grandpa Joe.  Sydney barely got any time with him, although she would squeeze herself in there to get a hug every now and again. :)

Landon got a new game for his birthday and Grandpa Joe got to try it out with him. :)

A quick second to play with Sydney.  She liked being bounced on the trampoline. :)

We're so thankful for our family.  They are all so understanding to our situation and come to visit us.  One day we will make the trip back home to see everyone, but we're happy that they don't mind coming to see us for now.  :)

It was such a nice visit with Joe.  Every other time Joe has come to visit, we've been working on some sort of project.  Last time he was here, we were working on framing our basement.  The time before that, he was helping us build our deck.  He jokingly said to me that it felt weird to not have something to work on.  He enjoyed just being able to spend time with the kids. :)

Fourth of July fun!

We didn't have our normal fourth of July this year.  Normally, we have friends over to BBQ and we hang out and shoot off fireworks and watch my neighbor set off his crazy display!  This year, I had a lot going on with planning Landon's birthday party and birthday, doing a garage sale the weekend before and having family come into town.  I actually lost track of time, and everyone already had plans by the time I got to asking. :(  Oh well, maybe next year.  

The night before the 4th, the neighbors down the street were doing their fourth of July bash.  They were setting off fireworks for several hours and we took the kids outside for a trial run for the next day.  Sydney was fascinated so we knew she would do great.  She sat and watched the fireworks with us for a good while until it was bedtime.

Daddy and Sydney checking out the fireworks.

She kept pointing to the sky and trying to say "firework".  A-dor-able!

My handsome boys

On the fourth, we actually had a pretty relaxing time.  We had both kids lay down for naps that day so they could stay up late and watch the fireworks.  We grilled out and went to a firework stand.  We walked around aimlessly looking at all the choices of things to blow up.  Since we come from Georgia where fireworks are illegal, we had no idea what we were looking at.  We picked up a few that Braydon thought would be fun, and a little kid pack of things to light.  The kids had fun watching the things we lit for them.  Sydney wanted to get in there and help (of course) and loved the big booms!  Landon loved the little poppers you throw at the ground that make a snapping noise.  He would just laugh!!  We had fun watching our neighbor light off his.  Their family has a Fourth of July party every year where his friends and family come over and light a ton of fireworks!  Landon actually wanted to go to bed, so Sydney, Braydon and I stayed up at watched the display from next door.  Sydney LOVED it!  And Landon actually slept through it!  My kids are very heavy sleepers. :)

Landon voluntarily got on his tricycle!!  I thought I might want to take some pictures of this momentous occasion!  He's never gotten on this on his own.  He scooted around on the driveway and in the garage.  I was glad to just see him on it! 

Sydney had to push hers around too.  I got this tricycle for $2 at our neighborhood garage sale!!!  I was so excited, I told everyone!!  I'm just glad she's showing an interest in it.  Her legs aren't quite long enough yet, but she'll grow into it soon enough. :)

Me and my cute kids!

Sydney felt like she needed to help Landon with his tricycle

Although we didn't have our "normal" fourth of July, we made it into our own.  I'm glad that our family got to spend time together. :)

One woman band. :)

Sydney has turned into an adventurous little girl.  She is into everything and has quite a selection of words she says.  I started writing down the things she says just to see what she is saying on her own, and we are up to 36 words so far.  It's anything from "hi" to "airplane".

Some of my favorite things she says are:
"wa-wa" (water)
"Me-na" (banana)
"wok" (walk)
"Oh no!" This one is all in how she says it.  Like it's the worst thing that's happened to her all day.
"Ew!"**
"Shewsh" (shoes)
"Tick-awl, tick-awl" (tickle, tickle)

**Funny story:  One day I was upstairs doing laundry when Sydney wandered off.  I knew exactly where to find her.  She likes to go in my bathroom and take every bottle out of my drawers.  She learned recently that there are Q-tips in one of the drawers.  I walk into the bathroom and there she is, standing there looking down at a Q-tip in her hand.  I asked her what she was doing and she started saying "Ew, Ew" over and over.  She had put the Q-tip in her ear and got some ear wax on the Q-tip!  She definitely thought it was gross. :)

My little girl is getting so big, so fast!  I feel like I'll turn around twice and she'll be in high school.  It's amazing how time flies!

Here are some cute pictures of the little munchkin playing with our musical instruments:

Sydney has her 18 month appointment towards the end of the month, so we'll be visiting the doctor to see how much she's grown.  I'll put that up when we have it. :)

Extra pictures from June...

Landon's a rock star!!

This picture is pretty fitting for my little man!  He's a pretty amazing kid!  I have to say that Landon is probably one of my heros.  He's such a fighter and surprises everyone with what he can accomplish.  Going from May 2009 to now and how much he's grown and progressed, I can't imagine him being any short of amazing!  If any of you need a refresher as to how far he's come, just check this out!  You can also watch the video at the bottom of the screen.  Watching that video makes me feel so blessed.  I'm so glad that we took the time to document everything that happened.  Just to remember where we've been and how far Landon has come.

Speaking of Landon being amazing (no pun intended), we've been still going to speech therapy over the summer with Kim.  She's awesome with him, and is always amazed by what he accomplishes.  Sometimes even in a week's time.  He's talking so well and even clear enough for anyone to understand him.  There are still some things even I have a hard time understanding, but I didn't think he would make such progress in such a short amount of time!  Neither did Kim!

I was watching some videos on my phone the other night that were taken right after Sydney was born.  On the video, Landon is spelling out JCPenney's.  He couldn't say the letters very clearly, and was making the sounds for most of them.  The C was just a little click of the tongue, where now he can pronounce every letter and most of their sounds.  There are still a couple of sounds that he gets caught up on (like X and Q, J and F), but for the most part, he has trumped a year and a half ago.  Here is a video of him spelling his name, and you can tell that he couldn't pronounce "N".

The trach disappearing definitely helped a lot of his progression, and we're hoping that he just continues to progress to where eventually we won't have to go to therapy!  Kim is already talking about how he's almost to where other kids his age are struggling.  I couldn't believe it!  He's come so far!!!

I'm hoping that this year in school, Landon will graduate from using his iPad and he will speak clear enough for his teachers and his peers to understand him.  Only time will tell... :)  At the end of the school year, his speech teacher at school (Mrs. Wilson) was only working on using his iPad when she couldn't understand him.  We wanted to make sure that speaking was his first choice, even at school.  She would work on him using his iPad when she would say "what?" to him, like she didn't understand him (even if she did).  He's so efficient with it, that he had no problem with communicating with it.  I'm so happy that he has such great teachers that are so willing to help him out!  We ran into Mrs. Wilson at Walmart last week and even in the month and a half that she hasn't seen him, she was saying how clear he sounds!  It always makes me happy to hear things like that.  Not because I don't realize how far he's come, but because sometimes I forget how fast he progresses.  He's one amazing kid....A ROCK STAR!! :)

A lot of LOVE

I'm always worried about Landon and Sydney getting along.  For the most part we just have the normal issues with sharing and the "that's MINE!" problem.  Then I just have to remind myself that as long as we spend time sharing love with them everyday that we can't go wrong, right?

Evidence that my little family has a lot of love to give:

We love our children for all their differences and similarities.  We wouldn't trade them for anything in this world.  I would hate to know what kind of person I would've been without them.  Children have a way of reminding you to slow down, live in the moment, and don't take life too seriously.