Photo Shoot

Linda, a friend at Harvest Church and a friend of hers were taking a photography class this past semester.  One of her assignments were to take pictures of "Kids in Action."  She asked if Landon could be one of her models.  We had fun and since it was close (two months later) to his first birthday it was basically his year old pictures and they turned out great!

Here are some of my favorite...

Thanksgiving

 I thought I should post this before I got home so I can post Christmas and our Missouri trip once we are back (I can't seem to get the pictures off my camera, I am going to have to wait until I get back home on my computer).  Things have just been so busy before Christmas, I had gotten behind.  I am trying to catch up while I don't have a housework and all the normal task at home.  I put some pictures on my iPod so I could post while we were traveling.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  Food and family and a time to remind you to be thankful for what you have.  

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at Harvest with our Harvest family to start out Thanksgiving.  Oh the food was so good!! They had 3 smoked turkeys, which may have been the best turkey I have ever had!  Everyone who cooked did a SUPER job, thanks!  

We also started celebrating early by working on a 10 devotion book our preacher, youth minister and secretary put together.  Thanks for the great work, Charlie, Brian and Julie!  It was a great idea and helped us focus a little deeper on thinking about what we our thankful for.  I think we will keep the booklet and use it again next year.  We also used the book on Thanksgiving and did two of the devotions after dinner with everyone.  

Thanksgiving day and weekend was spent with the Williams and Gormans.  One thing Josh, Landon and I are very thankful for is not having to pick which family to visit on the holidays, since both our families live about 15-20 min from each other we can see both.  We typically have a big Gorman/Williams dinner at the Williams house, which we did again this year.  It was a important holiday for us because it might be the last one, hopefully not, that everyone is in attendance.  Jon and Jessica drove down together from up north, and my brother Adam came up from Tallahassee.  It was really great hanging out with our family and enjoying them.  I am so thankful for so many things that God has blessed me with but on the top of my list is my wonderful family.  I know not everyone gets to have both sides of their family together and I love it!  

Jessica had a great idea a month or two before Christmas... She thought we should all take some family photos since it may be the last Christmas where all the Williams are together.  I ran with the idea invited my family along too and thought it would be nice to take the pictures on the beach since both families have live there the longest.  I thought white tops and blue jeans would be easy and look good on everyone.  I think the pictures turned out great!  

Love'n on Grandpa

This boy loves bubbles!

Grandpa and Grandma Gorman know the best toys, a cardboard castle!

Dad use to make these for me and my brother, Adam, all the time while we were growing up, how I loved them.  The best one filled our whole two car garage!

Even Grandma got inside the castle!

Visiting with Great Aunt Leah

Landon had a blast in Grandpa and Grandma's new shower

First Carousel ride- Grandma took him and he had the biggest smile!

Landon and I on one of the mall rides

At the Williams

playing games 

Getting ready to go outside with Uncle Jeremiah

Reading with Aunt Jamiie

Mommy and Landon

The couch pile 

and then it grew to a big couch pile of all the kids

My lovely parents

Exploring with Jeremiah

Sleeping with Daddy

The Girls

The Boys

The Gormans and Williams

The Williams

The Grandparents and the first grand child

Our Family

The whole family

Music class and other stuff

I took Landon to a Tonewood Music class at the library.  They offer a free class once a month, you just have to sign up before all the spots fill up, which is very hard I have been trying for 3 months.  I figured the trick is signing up with in the first few hours of the registration opening.  

I thought he might enjoy it since he loves music at home.  He had so much fun!   The guy who runs the class is great with the kids.  He doesn't mind them running around (which I really appreciate because Landon rarely sits still and we had just had a bad experience with the a lady at the library-details later) and he brings lots of music instruments for the kids to play with.  The class is about 45 minutes long.  

After Landon enjoying the music class so much I signed up to get emails about other music classes going on.  There was another free class on a day we were free so I signed up Landon and I plus our friends, Michelle and Joshua.  This was a much smaller class.  The boys really had a lot of fun.  Landon loved the room it was in, it was on the second floor of the Hillel building on campus and it had huge floor to ceiling windows which he loved.  Landon did a great job at keeping the beat during the songs and he also tried singing a song or two.  Joshua had a lot of fun and got so hyper.  It was fun watching all the little kids enjoy the music so much.  This time the teacher (same guy from our last class) had his son.  It was really cute seeing him with his son.  He is a great dad, which explains why he does so great at teaching the class.

So I normally try to bring Landon to story time at the library on Thursdays when they have story time for children birth to 18 months.  The lady who normal does it took November off, which we were very sad about because she does a great job and Landon really likes her.  She also sings songs and teaches a little sign language.  She always remembers his name.  The only bad things about story time is the room is not 100% baby proof so the moms normally have to stop their little ones from walking to certain parts of the room but the babies who can crawl or walk normally wonder around and visit with each other and the lady telling the story.   Anyways we still planned on going every week even though she wasn't going to be there.  We headed down the the library on Thursday looking forward to a new story lady.  We got there, things seemed pretty normal, we saw a lot of the same little friend we normally see.  The lady seemed nice and introduced herself and told everyone she would be doing story time for the month of November.  She also told what she did for story time and if anyone needed to leave because their little one needed to not to worry and just needed to step out and she would not be offend.  So she started reading and singing songs.  The babies always start out in the moms' or dads' laps but after about 5 mins they are on the move.  Well, I keep Landon with in arms reach but some of the other moms let their children have a little more range.  Landon saw a coffee cup on the floor and decided to take a look at it.  Apparently it belonged to one of the other mom;s who has a very active little boy and she saw Landon going for the cup and came over and apologized about leaving in reach of the little ones.  Well while she was talking to me she had stopped keeping an eye on her little guy who had made is way up to the front and was playing with the old doll the story tellers use as their baby when we do songs that we interact with our babies.  The new story teller apparently didn't like this and took the doll away from the boy.  The other story teller always let the kids play with the doll.  Then to all of our surprise the lady told the mother that she needed to leave since her son didn't want to sit still in her lap.  Then she said to the rest of us and looked directly at me, "Children belong in their parent's lap and if they can't sit still and listen then you need to take them out of the room.  This is story time."  So the other mom left seeing as she was told.  I followed her shortly afterwards so I wasn't kicked out too.  I could not believe that this lady expected 18 month old children and younger to sit still for 30 min.  Well, both of us started talking outside and were shortly followed by every other parent in story time.  I guess the other parents also thought it was rude and every single parent walked out on her.  Needless to say everyone agreed that we were not going back until our normal story telling lady comes back.  

I decided in until then I would try taking Landon to the story time at the Hawthorne library.  It isn't that far for us.  I only got to take him once with the craziness of the holidays but the lady who does it is great.  So I guess after the holidays we will try again at the downtown branch and have Hawthorne as our backup.  

Landon has Daddy Fridays which I love.  Josh clean our church building on Fridays and now that Landon is old enough he take him to work.  Josh gets to spend some time with his little guy and I get a couple of hours at the house without Landon to chase after.  It works out great for all of us!  Landon loves hanging out with his Daddy and is a great helper.  This little guy loves to clean, which is good since he is also an excellent mess maker.  

Getting the trash bags ready

Cleaning the bathroom

Some cute pictures of my little guy.

He put his dog bucket on his head.  He loves "dressing up."

Landon and his silly smile

Look how grown u he looks, I love those eyes!

Landon is tech savvy 

Landon loves belts

My sleeping angel

Music class: Landon and Joshua

Landon at his first music class