Landon at 1 month

On December 14th Landon turned 1 month old.  He is sleeping very well, and often times has to be woken to eat.  Despite his desire to sleep, we have had to wake him every four hours at night to eat and help him gain weight.  Hopefully soon the doc will give the ok to let him sleep longer stretches at night!

Landon's eyes are blue, but they have been tagged by Aunt Aly as a 'lighter blue' than Caleb's were as a baby (his eventually turned dark brown), so her vote is that Landon's are going to stay blue or some other light color, perhaps taking Papa Joe's hazel eye genes??  

Anxious for the smiles to begin.... So far they only come while his is asleep or immediately preceding spit ups, but they are still so cute!

Oh my goodness, can you believe it has already been a whole month??

Hallelujah!

Caleb has given me a great gift now two days in a row - SLEEP!  For any parent this is awesome, and even more for the parent of a newborn who is only getting 5 hrs a day!  Yesterday Caleb slept in until 8:30, which he has never done before, and then today he broke that record by sleeping till 9:30!!  Must be all the busyness of having so much family in town visiting (he is having so much fun!) ... whatever it is, I like it!

Yesterday Aunt Lindsey and Uncle Joey tried to decorate a gingerbread house with Caleb.  Caleb has pretty much never had candy, and I want to keep it that ways long as possible - he's only a year old and I figure he has plenty of time to eat candy later when he is older... So I thought we would just not tell him that the decorations were edible. Well, he saw small colorful objects and the first thing he did was put one in his mouth. He ended up eating a few candies, some from the bowl and others he took off of the house, and didn't really do any decorating himself.  Oh well, it was fun to try!

17 months and Caleb's trip to the E.R.

Thankfully we made it 16 months before Caleb had any serious injuries, but a week after Landon was born Caleb fell on the corner of a plastic toy bin and split open the skin between his eyes, requiring a stitch to fix it.  Of course he landed on a vein so it was a bloody mess, freaking out a mom even more than just any old boo-boo.  It is amazing how quickly children heal and sure good that they forget things.  

The day of the accident, boogers and all...

A few days later it was already looking so much better

I would say Caleb is doing fairly well adjusting to the addition of Landon to our family.  Of course he has his difficult moments,  but judging by the large number of kisses Caleb gives Landon each day I'd say he definitely loves his little brother.  He gets very excited to go look at him sleeping in his bassinet or swing, and he puckers his lips and makes a kissing sound with his eyebrows raised to tell us he wants to give him kisses.  And once Caleb is out of his crib in the morning the first thing he does is run either to Landon's bassinet or swing to see him - so darn cute. 

Caleb's favorite things:

- LOVES Signing Time videos and The Laurie Berkner Band (a musical DVD - he marches with just ONE foot to tell us he wants to watch it, as one of his favorites is the 'We are the Dinosaurs' song.)

- Obsessed with Peanut Butter
- Cuties (Mandarins)

Gaining speed on his attempts at words:
- Blue = 'boo'
- Tools = 'toos'
- Knife (part of his plastic cooking set) = 'ni'
- Mandarins (Cuties) = 'ala ala ala' (I know it sounds like a stretch, but I call these 'mandarinas' (Spanish) so I think he hears all the syllables and tries to mimic.  He consistently makes the same sound for them every time
- Down (to get down from hi-chair, crib, couch, etc) = 'dow!!'

Communicating quite well with noises and gestures, and some signs:
- Hearing something (points to ear) - trains, sirens
- Making the sound of sirens for fire trucks, etc.
- Swings arm and says 'baa' for playing baseball outside

I know there are more that I can't remember right now... Will have to add them on later. 

Meet Baby Landon!

He's here!!  

Landon Abram Williams, born November 14th, 6 lbs. 15 oz, 18.5 inches... 

Caleb is pretty excited about his baby brother....he wants to give him kisses every time he walks by him  :)

Loves to be swaddled

Leaving the hospital with our new (very little) bundle

Welcome Baby Landon!  We love you very much!!

16 months, and about to be a big brother!

We are down to the final days before baby number two arrives (won't be later than Nov.14th!) and Caleb becomes a big brother within just days of turning 16 months old.  He is changing and learning new things every day, which is so fun to watch happening. Here is what's new this month:

• Baby signs - every time he is in his hi-chair and sees my computer open, he signals and makes noises loudly to tell me he wants to watch the baby signing videos.  He hasn't repeated many of them back to us, but he loves to watch them, and I suppose it can't hurt for all those signs to just be stored away in his mind for later.  He regularly uses the signs for 'more' (to mean more and please), and 'all done' (to mean all done, no more, or that someone or something is gone), 'milk' when he is tired and wants his bottle before a nap, and he points to his mouth when he wants to eat.  His latest addition is the sign for 'gorilla', which is pounding on his chest and making a gorilla sound.  
• Caleb has also begun making sounds for different animals when we look at them in books: very good at 'cow', and also does duck, dog, and sometimes monkey.  They aren't very clear and may not be recognizable sounds to others, but we can tell the difference now through practice :)
• Caleb LOVES playing 'ba' outside, which can refer to either the (plastic wiffle) bat or the ball.  Jimmy has noticed that Caleb naturally bats left-handed and is looking forward to developing him into a switch hitter.
• Figured out how to walk backwards (without falling) today
• Had a case of Roseola recently...  I think it was his first real fever (you can tell he hasn't been in day care yet), but after a few very fussy days and long nights of waking, he was back to his usual happy self running around outside.
• Has a new big boy room to play in.  If only he understood all the hard work put into it for him...!
• New foods he likes:  kiwi, grapefruit, peanut butter, red pears, swedish meatballs
• Loves working in the yard - shovels, brooms, dust pans, and didn't even bat an eye when he squished two snails between his fingers, ugh!
• Caleb is having fun playing with his (temporary) nanny, Karla, who has all kinds of fun activities, toys, and ideas to help get out all that boy energy. (Mommy has been put on decreased activity for these last few weeks of the pregnancy by doctors orders, which includes 4 hours each day of laying down - not an easy task with a toddler running around!) 
• His first haircut!  It was just a trim to take care of some of the random long pieces and keep it out of his eyes.  Though Caleb didn't like the sound and feel of the scissors clipping near his ears, daddy was able to do a pretty good job!

Uncle David, Aunt Dana, and cousin Deacon (2 mo.) 

If only our children could appreciate all the time and hard work we put into things for them... Caleb's big boy bed took nearly 4 hours to put together!  Gotta love Ikea... 

The theme of his room was originally 'Spain', but we had to broaden it to Spain & Travel, so these prints and photos represent both things about Spain and about our travels, with a little Dr. Seuss mixed in.  More to come soon on the finishing details of his room...

Caleb asked Jimmy to put him on the toilet.  Could this be the very early beginnings of an interest in potty training??

On loan from Karla.  This one has been a big hit! 

7:30am, about 40 degrees out, and he already wants to play outside!

Mickey Mouse and Minnie

Although this is technically Caleb's second Halloween, it was the first one that he was somewhat aware of what was going on around him.  This year Caleb went as Mickey Mouse (a character he is familiar with from watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in the mornings) and his cousin Tessa was Minnie.  The kids looked so cute, even if Caleb's hat (ears) were only on his head maybe a total of 1 minute during the entire evening.  Aunt Aly found some really cute crocheted mouse ear beanies on Etsy that we ordered for Caleb, Tessa, and Baby W #2 (He got to join the dress up festivities, too!... Look at my belly...)

First stop was Nonni and Papa's house where Nana Gigi joined us to see the grandkids all dressed up...

Second stop was Tameem and Deanna Mardini's for a little Halloween gathering.  We didn't get any pictures there on our camera, but they live in a neighborhood with lots of young families and kids, so there were flocks of Trick-or-Treaters roaming around and coming to the door all evening.  Jimmy took Caleb out to check out the action, and he had SO much fun chasing around the costumed kids, running on lawns, laughing when other kids laughed, and walking up to people's doors with some of the groups of kids.  He came back into their house so wound up that you would think he had eaten a whole bag full candy (though he had none).  I think he will sleep well tonight...

Ironman Kona

Many of you have heard that Jimmy's brother Joey recently competed in the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii a few weekends ago.  He was fortunate to be selected to participate through the lottery, which only accepts 200 applicants from all over the world.  This is something that people often try for their whole competitive careers and sometimes never get chosen, so Joey felt that there was definitely a reason that he was meant to be there (known only to the Big Guy upstairs...!).  After 6 months of training and probably the longest day of his life, he was able to complete the 2.4 mile ocean swim, 112 bike,  26.2 mile run (a full marathon) in 14 hours and 3 minutes.

I have to share the ridiculous story of how the day of the competition began for Jimmy and I.  I had planned to wake up at 4:15 to give me time to shower and get ready to leave the house at 5 (we had a 40 minute drive into Kona where the race started and Joey had to be there with time to spare for the 7am start).  So I set the alarm on my cell phone, and Jimmy set his for 4:30.  When my alarm went off, I got out of bed, showered and got completely ready to leave.  In the meantime I woke Jimmy (thinking 'why didn't his alarm go off to wake him??') and he, too, got ready then headed upstairs to meet everyone else.  When he got there he looked at the clock and saw that it was actually now 2 AM, not 5am like we thought it was.  I had made the mistake of setting my phone alarm to 4:15am California time, not Hawaii time, which is three hours behind CA!  We both hopped back into bed to try and get a bit more sleep but didn't get much before the real wake up time had come.  Made a very long day unnecessarily longer! :S

Jimmy and I were lucky enough to go to Kona to support him (and get in a mini 'babymoon' before number two arrives), along with his wife Aly, baby Tessa, and Aly's parents.  It was a busy few days, but we did get in a few hours at the beach and got to do a little snorkeling, too.  Big baby belly = good buoyancy!

Here are a few highlights from the weekend.  You can see a lot more of Joey's Ironman details on the Facebook page Jimmy kept during the race (more videos and pictures posted there) - search "Go Joe! Ironman" and you should find it:

The crowd trying to catch a glimpse of the swimmers at the start, around 6:30am as the sun was still coming up

Joey and Aly just before he got in the water to warm up

At the beginning of the biking, and right after he left the water from the swim

Beginning of the run.  Jimmy jogged alongside to catch some video footage and encourage his brother

The home stretch of the 26 mile run, with about 2 miles left to go.

Joey's suprise dance after he came across the finish line.  We (and the crowd) all loved it!!

"Joey Williams, YOU are an Ironman!!"

The cove that we had access to through the house we had rented

The 34 week belly :)