Christ the Savior is Born!

We had a great time celebrating Landon's first Christmas!  Yes, we enjoyed it much more than he probably did.  Even the wrapping paper and boxes weren't that interesting.  For him, it was being around family that he loves.  Can you blame the guy?  He's definitely not starved for attention and that makes him a lucky boy!  

Landon visited Santa a couple different times.  The first time we went with Karin, Georgia, and August.  The Santa was a great one, but the picture turned out a little blurry. Since it was Landon's first visit with him we had to buy the picture (no matter how poor of quality and how expensive the thing was).  We then went again with Nonni to a different Santa and he had a little less of a personality, but the picture was much better.  Landon did great both times.  Everyone warned us how scarred he probably would be and how to set him so he wouldn't see Santa.  Landon could have cared less.  He just smiled at Santa and held onto his hand.  The second time he even turned towards Santa and pulled on his beard.  John was sad we didn't buy that picture, but it was hard to justify paying for a picture that you didn't even see Landon's face.  Looking back on it now, it was such a precious thing we should have paid the extra $8 for that pose too.  Oh well! 

On Christmas Eve we woke up, dressed (not) to impress, headed to coffee, and then to take on the mall.  Yes, the mall...on Christmas Eve!  We are strange. We really enjoy the mall during Christmas time as long as we don't have any urgent needs.  The spirit of the season and all the people joyfully (sometimes) looking for gifts for loved ones is much fun.  We hadn't had the chance to shop together so we decided to walk the mall on Christmas Eve.  We had a great time and didn't get overwhelmed by all the people.  It also helped we had no trouble finding a parking space!  We then headed over to Auntie Kim, Uncle Josh, and Cousin Morgan's house to have our Christmas.  Unfortunately this year Grandma and Grandpa Mac didn't get to join us.  It would have made the day complete if they could have been there, but next year...hopefully!  Morgan did a great job being patient as we ate lunch before opening presents.  Auntie Kim made Landon a beautiful quilt.  A first (and she says maybe last) for her.  It turned out so amazing and is very precious!  After we opened gifts we headed to Nuyo for dessert and on our way home for Landon to nap before Christmas Eve service.  

 

Our tradition is to enjoy Christmas Eve service with Shani's family at Bayside.  We were a little nervous about taking Landon as the music is extremely extremely loud.  Last year, while still in Shani's belly, he was kicking around like crazy because of how loud the music was.  We weren't sure how he'd handle it on the outside.  We had Papa bring his mowing earmuffs to help with the loudness.  Landon kept them on the entire time and even fell asleep during the service.  Yay it was a success!  We got to enjoy the service as a family without being the ones with the screaming child!  It was then home to bed...for Landon.  We for some crazy reason decided to watch a movie, something we haven't done in months, which ended at 1:30am.  Not the greatest idea since Landon is still not sleeping well and gets up often. More importantly, we couldn't sleep in the next day because you can't sleep in on Christmas morning! Oh well, we enjoyed the movie and the time to snuggle on the couch with each other.

So Loud!

Enjoying the service

Christmas morning we opened our stockings with Landon, then headed over to Nonni and Papa's house for waffle breakfast (another tradition).  We hung out while we waited for Uncle Chris and Auntie Kat to arrive.  John was about to jump out of his pants waiting for them to show up.  The Kelley house is quite a bit slower in the gift opening than the McIlnay side.  He survived the wait and once Landon woke up from his nap we started opening presents.  We were once again spoiled with wonderful gifts that people picked out for us.  The rest of the day was spent hanging out at the house before having an early dinner with the family.  It was such a nice and relaxing Christmas this year which isn't always the case. We look forward to many more with Landon and watching his face light up on Christmas morning!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with friends, family, and loved ones.  We are so thankful for all of you in our lives.  Bless all of you as we celebrate Christ's birth and the end of 2011!  Merry Christmas!

December has flown by...

Sorry we haven't updated in awhile, but December has been busy and flown by.  So here are some pictures to update you on what's been going on the past month.

Landon turned 10 months!

Landon, Georgia, and August

Look at those top teeth

Cooking with Nonni

Our own "boy who lived" (Landon survived a head dive into the TV stand)

At Uncle Chris's graduation

Congratulations Dr. Uncle Chris!

John is 30!

Christmas lights at Dovewood Ct.  Matching hats that Shani knitted for her boys.

Spa-ing with Nonni and Papa in Palm Springs

Palm Springs

On the playground in Palm Springs with Papa

Landon in his knitted hat Shani made him

Landon has learned to climb onto things

Having fun with babysitter Kirstie

Gobble Gobble

 

Happy Thanksgiving!  We hope you all had a wonderful time with family and friends.  Ours was great!  This year was at Uncle Chris and Auntie Kathryn's house.  As always we ate way too much food.  Landon definitely enjoyed all the food.  He loves turkey!  The night ended much earlier than it normally does for us.  We usually are up playing poker with the family until pretty late, but this year ended early with putting our son to bed.  And even still it was on the later side for him.  However, just like every other year, we have so much to be thankful for.  We are so grateful for the love and support we receive from family and friends, the love we have for each other, jobs we love, a place to call home, and most of all Jesus.  We are truly blessed!

Auntie Kathryn's first turkey!

Landon playing with Bud's cane

Thanksgiving Hosts: Uncle Chris and Auntie Kathryn

How'd you see our house if Google Earth had taken the picture on Saturday

9 Months

 

Landon's now been on the outside for as long as he was brewing on the inside.  Our little man turned 9 months last week.  As always, how the time flies.  He is weighing in at 20 lbs 2 oz but definitely slowing down.  Although he's such a baby still, he is getting to be so big.  He loves crawling everywhere and standing along anything he can pull himself up on.  Getting down from standing had been the issue for a bit, but now he's mastered that as well.  When he wakes up from naps and during the night (yes he's doing this frequently still) we find him standing at the end of the crib staring at the door.  After naps he's usually talking and happy so it's cute when we open up the door to his greetings.  Sometimes he'll even attempt a mini jump while holding onto the crib.  We think the crib needs to get lowered one more because one of these times he might jump and fly over the edge. 

Landon loves Mochi

 

 

Landon fell asleep reading books with Daddy

So cozy and warm

Fall leaves

As for food, he's been eating meat more frequently now.  Chicken, beef, and pork.  We chop it up for him pretty good and he will feed himself, although most of it still ends up on the floor.  He also likes his plain yogurt (from goat's milk) with either apples or pears.  We aren't planning on raising him dairy-free but we are definitely going to minimize his intake of cow's milk/products.  If we can easily replace with goat's milk we will.  Hopefully we can find a local person who can provide us with real goat's milk and maybe one day have one of our own.  That's Shani's far-fetched dream (no matter how much work it would be).  We tried peas but he doesn't seem to care too much for them, so we'll give it another try in a little bit.  He just loves his winter squash so much and with our wonderful farmers markets around here we can't help but continue to make that for him.  Most of the time when he's eating, we'll take a bite for ourselves.  Homemade food is much more appetizing than the jarred stuff--there is no comparison!

As most of you know, we've been struggling to get more sleep.  It's starting to wear us pretty thin.  Between getting up every 2 hours, sometimes being up for an hour, and then getting up early for work, we are going a little bonkers.  If we are feeling this crazy, we can only imagine how our little guy must feel.  We (Shani hopes) continue to feel that it's his teeth.  He got his bottom two over 2 months ago now and has really been working on his top ones.  Well finally, on Friday, his left top one poked through.  We pray that now things start changing and we get some longer stretches.  Until then we are continually praying for patience.

Landon had a play-date with his fellow Cal Poly friends.  Well, at least us moms are Cal Poly friends...we all secretly hope our kids will be too??  We had a great time hanging out at the park.  The big boys loved all the stuff they could play on and the little ones loved crawling around the squishy ground.  The swings were a big hit as well.  We love all getting together, but sometimes is hard to do with all of our crazy work schedules.  Soon the score will be even with three boys and three girls, but until Kallie has her little one it was the 2 big boys, Landon, and his 2 girlfriends.

Sophia and Landon

Sophia, Lucas, and Colton

Sophia

Claire

 

Colton and Lucas

Landon loves the swings

 

Claire, Lucas, Sophia, Colton, Landon

Lastly, our little Lando had his first official cold.  He's had little sniffles in the past, but this time it was definitely a "real" cold.  Thankfully no fever, but he looked so sad.  His eyes were watering, nose was snotty, runny, and stuffy, and he had a cough.  Sleep has been even worse because he couldn't breathe and would wake himself up.  Poor little guy.  Anyway, not that you want to see it, but we figured we'd give you a wonderful, snotty Landon picture for you to enjoy!