Landon's 10 months old!!!!!

How is it that my baby is no longer single digit months!!! He’s 10 months old! WHAT THE HECK!!! Seriously where does the time go. I’m just flabbergasted! The month of July truly just came and left before I knew it! Its been a busy work month with extra shifts and I swear this whole working full time thing really takes it out of you!! But is what it is…I’m just thankful to help support my kids and hubby with a job that’s enjoyable to go to.

I've been meaning to write this post for a few days, but there was an unexpected death in the family, and my mind has been elsewhere. 

But Landon has been such a joy the last month, not that he ever isn't, but I love this age in how they gain so much personality, temper and begin to really figure things out. He's still the happiest baby ever, and so super easy but he also lets us know when he's mad and things aren't going the way he wants them to. 

Here are a few of his milestones:

• He's still our champion sleeper. going down a little later this month, around 9 or so and sleeping until about 7/8 with a feeding and then down for another hour or so. 
• He also takes a morning nap on the mornings I work back to back, since I'm not there for the early morning feeding, and also a 2-4 hr afternoon nap.
• He still breastfeeds 4/5 times a day. 
• there are days where he wants nothing to do with table food, and there are days where he wants nothing to breastfeeding during the day. 
• I haven't really found a food he doesn't like. He does really well eating table food in the evenings. He loves the dinners we have together
• He likes puffs and cheerios a lot. I've been bad about veggies this month, but always room for improvement. But he likes peaches and pears a lot. 
• He is crawling, but mostly army crawl. He has in the last few weeks taken a few "normal" crawling steps, but he still prefers the army crawl over anything
• He pulls up on EVERYTHING! and I mean Everything. Nothing is safe. This means he falls down from time to time, and he has a lot of bruises on his poor little head. 
• His favorite place to pull up is onto our "tv stand" and he is now starting to pound on our tv. I'm going to have to think of something to prevent this because I don't want him ruining our TV like Lincoln did our last one! 
• He will also climb a few stairs, and has even fallen down a few before I could run to get him! (we are talking about 1 step, not several)
• We had to move his crib to the lowest spot this month bc he has gotten so good at the pulling up that I didn't trust him not to fall out. 
• He loves to stand and bounce. When he is pulled up into the standing position he just bounces his little legs. 
• When he stands holding our hands, he will take a few steps! 
• He will mimic you a lot, more so than I remember Lincoln doing
• He will say mama, dada,  and tt. but i still don't think he knows what it means
• He knows his name! He will always turn and look at you when you say his name. 
• We are working on "high-fiving" He sometimes does it. We are also working on "bye bye"
• We have had to start discipline him. Which breaks my heart. I hate it, because I feel like kids are  so innocent, but he has to learn somehow. 
• He thinks Peak-a-boo is hilarious!
• He is in size 12/18 month cloths. Mostly 18 months.
• He most of the time hates to have his diaper changed, and hates to have his clothes changed...i don't get this at all
• He loves his big brother and watches him all the time and loves to interact with him. 
• He also loves pillows. He sees a pillow and he gets so excited and immediately throws himself down onto it.

Here are a few of my favorites from this month's photo session. 

Landon is just a beautiful little boy and has such a beautiful soul. I love every moment I get to spend with him, and I just hate leaving him for work or other things. He's just perfect! and the perfect little addition to our family! I can't believe he is getting so close to ONE!! crazy how time flies...

Thank You Dave Ramsey!

I just wanted to post this because I wanted to remember what this felt like and how happy we are to have accomplished this.

I’m proud to say that Adam and I are officially CREDIT CARD DEBT FREE!!!! Back in February we decided to stop the cycle of paying off our credit cards and getting back into debt and just figure out how to live on a budget and get out of debt.

This month (A few days shy of my goal) we are officially free of credit cards and I am also so proud that we will NEVER have them again. If we don’t have the money then we don’t’ need it…even those 0% for so many month ones…we are not responsible enough to have them, and I’m ok with that!

Our next goal is to have Adams student loans paid off by December, that might be hard to do, but it’s a goal…and I’m hoping we can make it…

I’m just so proud of our hard work and dedication! It feels so good to say that! And here in a few weeks, we will have our car repairs, and my doctor bill paid off! So all that’s left is the major stuff! Cars, student loans and our house!

God is good!

Lando's 9 months...wayyy late

Well my sweet little boy is officially 9 month old. I once again am late in writing this so I’ll try to keep it to what he had accomplished at that point.

Landon grew so much over the last month, he gained several new skills and continued to warm all of our hearts with his bright big toothy smile. His big blue eyes and huge open mouth grin get me every time! He continues to be such a laid back and easy baby and is developing quite the little personality and temper.

Lincoln and Landon’s relationship has also really grown this month. It’s so fun to see how much they interact together and how concerned Lincoln is with Landon. I truly hope these two are close and remain close for all their lives…and not to mention I hope they stay close to me.—I don’t know why but I keep thinking about the day they are going to leave me, and it truly breaks my heart. I don’t know what I’m going to do when they leave the house, let a lone leave me for another woman ::gasp:: or leave me for another state. Good thing I have many years to prepare for this….

But anyways here are my little guy’s milestones.

• He has 4 teeth finally. Both top and both bottom
• He still loves to breast feed, but he will get 1-2 “meals” of solid food too
• His favorite solids are peaches, bananas and puffs. He’s obsessed with puffs…what is about flavored air??
• He sleeps like a boy wonder…usually 12-14 hrs at night, sometimes he wakes to nurse in the wee hours of the morning, but mostly goes down at 8-8:30 and will wake to nurse at 8-8:30 and sometimes even go back down for a few more hours
• He will take a 2-4 hour nap in the afternoon
• He is up on all 4s and rocks back and forth
• He hasn’t started crawling yet, but has started to sort of scoot. His whole body will twist in 1 direction and then the other to get what and where he wants
• He loves to plank. It’s really quite funny!
• He’s gotten really good at going from a laying to sitting position. Though I’ve rarely seen him do it. It’s quite random when he actually does do it.
• He has also gone from a sitting position in his crib to pulling up to his knees. He’s only does this a few times, but I’m sure pulling up to a standing position won’t be far behind, and I’ll have to move the crib down…I just hate doing that!
• He has said mama and dada, but not necessarily to one of us…but he will sort of mimic me. 
• He loves when I say mama…he gets a huge grin on his face melt.my.heart
• He loves to point to things with his index finger. He is constantly pointing at and putting his index finger in my mouth or my eye or nose.
• He also loves to grab at my necklaces and earrings.
• He loves to laugh…everything is funny, especially his brother. He has the best giggle ever!
• I’ve moved up the settings on his jumperoo and he likes it much better. He will sit and jump in it for a while, but no where near how long he used to.
• We also have a “walker” that we let him use when we are outside and he seems to like it a lot!
• He really enjoys bath time and getting to splash around—therefore he loves the pool, I just wish we could go more often!
• In the bath he loves to roll onto his stomach, something Lincoln would NEVER do, and it makes me a little nervous, I feel like I can't take my eyes off him for a second. And I feel like I'm sitting on pins and needles just waiting for him to dunk his face in the water. 
• We are at the stage where EVERYTHING goes in his mouth. I’m finding a need to really keep the house spotless so he doesn’t choke on something…good motivation to have a clean house I guess…
• I love this age because his personality is starting to show through, where we can see his likes and dislikes…
• He as also started to develop a temper. He gets upset and throws his head back and arches his back…I can’t help but laugh…I  can usually get him to laugh though, and he quickly snaps out of it.

At his doctor appointment

• He was 28 ½ inches long
• He was 70% of height
• He was 22 lbs 2 oz
• He was 75% for weight

Just for comparison sake…he’s an inch shorter (Lincoln was 29 ½”) and he’s almost 2 lbs heavier than Lincoln! (Lincoln was 20lbs 9oz)

Our photo shoot went rather well :)

Landon is just such a perfect addition to our family…I really can’t express or say it enough…when you have a second baby, you just wonder how your life will change and how different things will be and for me I wondered how challenging going from one to two would be and if the second would be as tough as the first one (Lincoln was colic). I sit there and look at Landon and I just cant imagine getting luckier, he’s the perfect baby. He is so calm and quite and really requires little from us. He is laid back and easy going.

He learned so much this month, and I just love getting to watch him grow and learn new things, but now that he’s getting more and more independent, I’m starting to get that baby fever again…though I do have to say that while I was very anxious to get pregnant after Lincoln, with Landon, I do want a third baby, but I also want to enjoy the two of them right now.

Our life is pretty amazingly perfect…I wouldn’t trade a second of it…well maybe the seconds at work I’d trade for being at home, but maybe someday.

We love you Landon Richard Kalvin!

Landon is 8 months Old!

I swear, where has the time gone? Not only the last week, but the last 8 months. How is it even possible that my baby is 8 months old...how are we 4 months away from him being ONE? It just amazes me how fast it goes the second time around. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was sitting on the couch snuggling my newborn while his brother slept.

Landon is still an amazingly good natured child. He is so beautiful inside and out. He always has a smile one his face, and I am still constantly told how good of a baby he is. My mom often likes to say that I don't know how lucky I am, but I'm quick to correct her that I do (I had Lincoln and his colic first lol). I often say that by 8 months, I thought Lincoln was a good, easy baby, but Landon isn't even on the same playing field! He's a whole different spectrum of good! When we are out places, you barely even know he's there!

I love this little kid more and more everyday, we are just so blessed! Here are the milestones

• He is FINALLY sitting up on his own!
• He is Rolling, EVERYWHERE
• he doesn't stay one place for long, he will be across the room in 2 seconds flat I swear!
• He puts EVERYTHING in his mouth.
• I'm constantly trying to make sure my house is picked up so he doesn't put something unwanted in his mouth. 
• Everything is something new to explore, He loves to pick up things and look at them, but mostly he explores with his mouth. 
• He is exploring things with his pointer finger. Its hilarious to watch him because he just sticks his pointer finger out to touch everything!
• He is getting better at the pincher grasp and being able to just pick things up with just his index finger and thumb. 
• I love being able to watch his pass a toy or object from hand to hand. I don't know why but this milestone is so cute to me!
• He finally, for some, started solids. We decided to do a different method of starting solids this go around, instead of making my own baby foods, and giving him puree's we are doing Baby Lead Weaning and instead we give him soft foods that he can feed himself. It's been quite successful!
• He started out with Avocados and loved them. He has since had, pears, peaches, sweet potatoes, bananas, broccoli, green beans and his absolute favorite is Asparagus of all things!
• I just cut the food into 1-2" "sticks" and then let him explore the food himself vs, me spoon feeding him. He doesn't always eat much, but he has fun doing it
• He also LOVES puffs, though those can be hard to keep away from his brother...
• He is still breast fed 5-6x a day, and loves it!
• He is starting to become more vocal, which I just love, exploring new sounds and things like that, but he can be pretty quiet himself...I'm hoping that he will be more talkative than Lincoln, so we don't have to do speech therapy, but I suppose there are worse things.
• He is starting to develop a bit of a temper, he arches his back and throws himself back and screams, I can't help but laugh, I find it funny. 
• this temper usually only shows through when he's tired and hungry and I'm distracted by something else so it takes me a little while longer to get to him. 
• He is a chunk! When I weighed him myself he's about 20+ lbs...He's got thighs for days as I like to say
• He's still mostly in 9 month clothes. His sleepers however are getting tight, so I've brought out the 12 month sleepers and those fit him much better.
• There isn't a huge difference in the 9 vs 12 month clothes however, so while he's mostly in 9 month, I've brought out some 12 month stuff too
• Now that he's sitting up he loves his bath because he can just sit in the water and splash, which he really loves to do.
• He's still an amazing sleeper (A TRUE CHAFIN). He goes down at 8 and then will wake around 6-7 and if I'm home I feed him and he goes back to sleep until 10! and then he takes a 2+ hr nap! He's AMAZING!
• He's down to about 1 nap a day, if I worked the night before he will often need a shorter nap around 6. 
• He is hilarious in that almost like clock work he has to sleep at 8pm. It doesn't matter if he's down for the night, or just 20 minutes, he almost ALWAYS needs to sleep at 8pm. It doesn't matter where we are, if it's 8pm he has to sleep! LOVE IT
• He has 3, almost 4 teeth. Last month, right before he turned 7 months, he got his bottom left tooth, a few weeks later he got his bottom right. Then just a few days ago his top left popped through, though his top right isn't far behind!
• He dose love to stand. He's wobbly but when you hold up his hands, he does a good job of standing for quite a while. I've even gotten out the learning table and he will stand there playing a for a few minutes. 
• He giggles at almost everything! His laugh is infectious and perfect. 
• He's just a happy, healthy little guy and it's so much fun to be around him

and for my favorite part...the photoshoot!

love this little guy

I'm going to get you!

love this smile

you can see those teeth!

his upset face

Love our baby so much!!! He's just so sweet. I can't wait to see where the next month takes us...maybe we will have a mobile baby!!! 

7 Months Old...Really?

My sweet Little is 7 months old...and about a week. Ha :) Life has been really crazy lately with me having to work several 14 hr shifts for all this extra training and stuff at work, but whats life if it isn't a little crazy?

So Landon is 7 months old...how this is possible I will never know. He has grown and learned so much!I love this stage when they seem to learn something new each day. I also love how happy they are! I mean I wish adults could be this uninhibitedly happy.

Every day is a new adventure with him and Lincoln. Their bond grows daily and its so much fun to sit back and watch it. I hope this bond continues well into adult hood and they always have each other's backs. It's such a beautiful thing!

Here are his milestones:

• He is still sleeping like a champ...typically 12-14 hrs at night and takes a 45-60 min nap in the morning and 1-3 hr nap in the afternoon. AWESOME!
• He's still exclusively breast fed. though he's showing signs of being ready for table food. 
• Instead of spoon feeding and starting on that nasty crap...rice cereal...i'm reading baby lead weaning where you let the baby eat what they want instead of feeding them...we'll see how this goes
• He has finally started sitting up. He doesn't do it for long, but a few seconds to a few minutes he does on his own. I can't wait for him to do it for longer periods of time. 
• He is enjoying tummy time now, because he can roll and scoot to get things. He will play for a much longer time on the ground (especially with his brother) and roll to get to toys and things
• He's started to try to get up on all 4s. He pushes up with his hands and then will try to bring his legs up underneath him. 
• I don't think he's going to be crawling as soon as lincoln did, but I'm sure in the next month to 6 weeks he will be. 
• He still loves his jumperoo. In fact so much that we broke down and bought one for my parents house because he loves it so much! 
• My favorite thing this month has been how much more talkative he is. He just blabs all the time.  ba-ba-ba-ba. ahhhh, ga-ga-gag etc. Though he hasn't said mama yet, we're working on it. 
• He just laughs when i try to get him to say mama...is quite cute
• He is also a grunter. He grunts A LOT
• He got his first tooth!!! his left lower tooth popped through. He's working on his second tooth too,  I'm sure it will come through soon
• He has found his tongue and loves to stick it out. He is always sticking it out and moving it all around. So cute! 
• Everything goes to his mouth. EVERYTHING! we have to start to be a little more careful about whats on the ground.
• We have started putting him in his high chair, to play with toys as well as getting him used to sitting in the high chair
• He loves to sit in the cart now, as opposed to being in his pumpkin seat
• He reaches for everything, toys, things on the jumperoo and pretty much everything thats on the floor or within his reach. 
• He likes bath time. We still primarily just bring him in the shower with one of us (adam or I) and quickly bathe him, but on nights that I'm home and they need baths, I give both boys a bath at the same time and he seems to enjoy bath time with his brother. Since he's not sitting up well yet, we use the slanted thing that came with his infant tub. I'm honestly surprised he hasn't tried to roll off it yet. 
• He continues to be so happy. Most of the time people comment that they didn't even know he was there...the perfect addition to this crazy little family
• He's continuing to grow like crazy, he's still in 9 month clothing, but some things are starting to get a little small...maybe i need to start to think about breaking out the 12-18 month clothes...really????

heres some adorable pictures of my little!

the tongue!

we were getting tired

that tongue again

Being a mom of two healthy and adorable boys is the greatest thing I've ever done in my life and I just love them more than I could ever express. Landon is just a joy and the perfect addition to our growing family. He makes  me want to have 10 more kids just like him (we will have more babies, just not for a few years)

Happy 7 month love bug! Mommy, Daddy and big brother Lincoln love you so very much!!