Yes, we’ve been bad at updating and we’re so sorry. We’ve been so busy in the past month it’s
insane. There is no excuse though, we
need to keep updated stories and pictures of Landon because he’s growing so
quickly and changing so much! We’ll keep
each section short as we’ve honestly had so many different things go on, but
hopefully you’ll see how much fun we are having with our little boy!
So, what’s happened since our trip to Yosemite for Mother’s
Day…
Landon Updates:
Landon is now 16 months old. We aren’t
sure what he is weighing exactly, probably around 23.5 lbs. He’s definitely slimmed down since he was a
baby. He’s stretched out a bit too. We’ll have to measure him to see how tall he
is now. He has eight teeth: 4 on top, 4
on bottom. He’s become such an active
boy. He loves, loves, loves playing in
the car. He’ll sit in the driver’s seat
pushing any button he can, pulling anything he can, and the funniest of all,
honking the horn using his chest. He’s
not strong enough to push with his hands, but he’s learned to “hug” the
steering wheel in order to make it go beep!
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| Landon honking the horn |
He’s also really into climbing. He’s learned to get up on the kitchen chairs
by himself. Gone are the days of the
high chair. He now wants to help with
everything in the kitchen and is constantly dragging the chairs over to
wherever we are so that he can be up helping/playing. He’s learned to crawl up onto the window
seat. He can’t do this without some help
so he’s figured out how to turn a couple of his toys on a side so he can use it as a
step to get up. NO, we did NOT teach him
to do this! He’s really started using
that brain of his. We allow him to climb
as much as he wants, but make him get down on his own and have encouraged this. We want him to explore but he needs to learn
his limits. However, just the other day he literally
climbed by himself up Papa’s 8 foot ladder, with no help at all. Yes, Shani and Papa were there just in case
he fell, but we did not spot him at all.
We did have him climb down, but that required some help on our
part. He’s so crazy!
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| Helping Daddy with the dishes |
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| Window seat with Mochi |
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| New recommendation for rear-facing is 2 years old. John thinks it's time for Landon to turn but Shani is insistent. |
He’s starting to talk a little more. Some of his words include: mum, dada, papa,
na-na (Nonni), book, more, milk, pa (please), duck, bir (bird), haa (hot),
haa-pa (help), moo (cow). He continues
to sign a ton still. This continues to
be very helpful and we are so glad we decided to do it. Landon’s also really into books now. He used to browse through them on his own,
but could care less about reading them with us.
He now likes to read and actually enjoys “reading” them on his own. Very cute to hear him babble his way through
a book. He has also learned to throw and
to John’s dismay uses his right hand.
There go Daddy’s hopes of a left-handed pitcher! His dexterity has improved as
well. He’s been putting his screwdriver
into the screw on his own, stacking nesting boxes by himself, and putting tops
on bottles/jars. Although we are
probably missing something, that’s a quick yet still lengthy update on what’s
happening with Landon.
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| Put the screw-driver in on his own |
Hanging with the Hills and Wards:
Uncle Kev, Auntie Elaine, Eli, and Jacob were in town from Michigan! We’ve missed them terribly since they’ve been
gone and it’s been hard to catch up as often as we’d like because of the time
change. They were in Sac for a couple
weeks and we took advantage of their time here and saw them as much as we
could. We had a great evening (on the
eclipse night) of hanging out with them and the Wards. We used to all hang out back at Cal Poly so it
was fun to get our families together.
This was the first time since before Landon was born that we were all
able to get together. Now we have a
houseful of kiddos. Very fun!
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| Eli, Jacob, Landon, Georgia, August |
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| Yes that's John under all those kids! |
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| Landon's a bad influence already! |
John and Landon also had a fun hiking day with the Hills. All the things we could do with them if we
could convince them to move to Sacramento!
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| Eli, Uncle Kev, Jacob, Auntie Elaine |
Hiking/Backpacking:
Since coming back from Yosemite we got back
into hiking and backpacking. This was
something we really enjoyed before Lando was born, but really haven’t done in
quite some time. So we were a little
spontaneous during Memorial Day weekend and decided to take Landon on his first
overnight backpacking trip. We knew he’d
probably be good on the hike part as he’s pretty used to that, but we were so
worried about the overnight part. Would
he be too cold, did he have enough food, would he be fine trapped in a tent? It ended up being such a fun,
yet exhausting trip. A few things that
made it exhausting: Shani was carrying about 40 lbs (including Lando), John was
carrying about 50 lbs, we ended up hiking an extra mile further (after 4 miles
already) to camp near water (the creek bed was dry - NOT John's fault!), it was an exposed trail so the sun was very warm,
and we didn’t really pack enough to eat for breakfast. But we had such a great time as a family and
actually started planning our next overnighter while hiking out.
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| Just a little into the hike |
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| Half way through the hike |
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| Yes we still have fun together! |
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| Shani's Blue Boys. We survived the night! |
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| Landon in his camping get-up from Grandma and Grandpa Mac |
Now that puts us into June..
Sacramento Zoo:
We took Landon and Morgan to the zoo. This was Landon’s first trip. He did like seeing the animals, but at times
couldn't care less. He really enjoyed the
animals that made noise. His favorite
was a Hornbill that honked really loud.
His cousin kept us at a quick pace as to make sure Landon didn’t get
bored. All the animals were up and
moving for us which was really nice. We
ended the day riding the carousel a few times, which they both loved.
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| Morgan and Landon |
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| Shani and Morgan |
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| Riding the carousel |
Grand Junction, CO:
We took Landon to Colorado for the first time to visit
Grandma and Grandpa Mac. It was a very
quick trip, but we had a great time.
They made the very long drive to come get us and bring us back to the
airport and we couldn’t be more thankful.
We also got to visit with Great Grandpa Mac and Uncle Bill and Aunt
Jan. Landon had a great time with their
1 yr old dalmation pup Buck. It was especially adorable when a plane flew over while Landon was
playing with him. He would go back and
forth signing “dog” and “plane" and he looked like he really wanted Buck to acknowledge the really cool plane flying overhead. It was
quite cute. One night we even put Landon
down to bed and were able to go out for a date night. John found this really good place downtown
with amazing desserts. It was nice to
have a couple hours to hang out and talk.
We also went on a fun hike with Grandma Mac to Independence Rock in the Colorado National Monument. It was a hot one, but very fun
nonetheless. One of the highlights of the hike was seeing 5 desert bighorn sheep! Landon took a good nap
through most of it which was probably good as this was another one of our hikes
that was quite exposed. Although we wish
we could have had few more days, we were so happy to get to go out and be with
John’s parents. We know Landon loved his
time with them!
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| Hiking with Grandma |
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| Independence Rock |
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| McIlnay boys: Great Grandpa, Grandpa, Landon, and Daddy |
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| Landon, Uncle Bill, and Aunt Jan |
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| Landon playing around with Great Grandpa |
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| All smiles with Grandma |
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| Being silly with Grandpa |
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| Landon and Buck |
Most Recently:
We also celebrated Shani’s 29th birthday this
week. Landon brought her balloons to
work with the help of Nonni. She loved
this and Landon loved the balloons. He
carried them the whole way from the car to her.
What a sweet boy! John also
cooked a wonderful surprise birthday dinner for her and invited Shani's family. Shani made it a little difficult with
threatening to come home during her lunch hour while he was prepping
everything. It all worked out and the
food was so yummy!
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| Happy Birthday Shani |
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| John's delicious meal: Chipotle beer-can chicken, curry honey sweet potatoes, prosciutto and havarti wrapped asparagus, grilled portobello mushrooms with mozzarella salad, and 2 big bottles of birthday themed beer (neither of which Shani drinks) |
The weekend went by
quickly between doing Shani’s dinner Friday night, work Saturday, a wedding
reception Saturday night, and then hanging out Sunday for Father’s day. Sorry again for the long delay in updates,
but hope this catches you up for now.
