Oh Christmas Tree

On Saturday we loaded the truck for a day in the woods. It is truly amazing how much stuff we need to spend one day driving around the back roads. It looked like we were going for a weekend somewhere. 

We did a long, icey loop and ended up by Lincoln. Although Dylan didn't find a monster buck dumbly standing on a road somewhere, we did find the perfect tree!

On Sunday we turned on the football game, cranked up the Christmas music and decorated our trees. 

The last time Grandma Deaette visited she brought Addi tree decorations. All were pink and very sparkley! Addi was thrilled to decorate her own tree with some Addi Jo flare!

What I am thankful for...

 My Landon.

Fighting to survive. 

I am thankful for every single dirty diaper I change. I am thankful every time my little man wakes me up in the middle of the night. I am thankful for his fingers and toes that look just like mine. I am thankful for every bath he needs. I am thankful every time he wants to be rocked to sleep. I am thankful for quiet mornings we spend together alone. I am thankful for his crazy, old man eyebrows. I am thankful for every little smirk he makes that explodes into a full face smile. I am thankful for every time I get to change his clothes. I am thankful for every minute he spends nursing. I am thankful for his big, chubby cheeks and long, beautiful eye lashes. I am thankful every time he stares into my eyes. I am thankful for every load of laundry. I am thankful every time he falls fast asleep on my chest. I am thankful every time I can pick him up whenever I want to. I am thankful when he 'coos' and talks back to me. I am thankful for his big, wet, slobbery kisses. I am thankful when his big sister asks to holds him. I am thankful for every breath my son takes. I am thankful I was given the chance to be Landon's mamma.

Perfect and peaceful.

My life.

 My husband.

I am thankful that I am married to my best friend.

 My Addison.

I am thankful for my sparkley, hilarious, sassy, full-of-life Princess Addison.

Nugget Love

For my Landon aka 'Nugget',

I love when the smallest corner of your lips start to curl and your entire face explodes into a smile -- all the world could not hold me back, when you smile at me with your whole face my heart skips and I have to kiss you.

I love when you sleep just right to curl up one set of eyelashes.

I love it when we take a bath. You relax in the warm water, smiling, kicking and talking! You often fall asleep on my chest and make little, soft whimpers...so relaxed. I love it when you start to cry when we get out until you feel the warmth from the dryer-warmed towels.

I love when you are nursing. You stare into my eyes nearly the whole time. All I have to do is smile and whisper anything and you smile so big you un-latch yourself. You sort of panic, shaking your head back and forth to get latched back on!

I love when I am talking to you and you talk back. Your little noises melt my heart and literally bring tears to my eyes.

Landon,. 4 months

4 Months Old

Landon is now four months old actual, 2 months adjusted. At his 4 month old checkup he weighed 10 pounds, 10 ounces and was 22 1/2 inches long. He is doing very well. He is very smiley and has giggled a couple times. He has been sleeping in his bassinet. He goes to bed around 10 pm and is waking up only once at night, usually sometime between 3 - 6 am. He takes a short morning nap, a long afternoon nap and a short evening nap. He has started batting at toys that hang above him. This month he will start receiving a monthly RSV shot to help prevent a serious respiratory illness, RSV. He loves being talked to and talks and talks back. He will roll from his belly to his back during belly time and enjoys lifting up his head to look at toys in front of him.

Our Thanksgiving Feast

Our original plan was to spend Thanksgiving with Grandma & Grandpa Powell, Uncle Spencer and the Hensen family in Missoula. We decided that we could not risk Landon getting sick. He is doing so well and it can be easy to forget that he is still extremely vulnerable to any respiratory illness like RSV and the flu. He has not started his series of RSV shots yet and we decided we cannot take the chance of him coming down with something. We also heard that there are several cases of whooping cough in Missoula. Yikes. No thank you. We have spent plenty of time in the hospital with Landon. So we stayed in Helena, I cooked and invited my dad over to join us. Even though my dad "does not travel on Thanksgiving", Addi talked him into it!

I was wide awake at 4:30 am. After Landon fell back asleep after eating I was unable to stop thinking. So around 5:30 am I got out of bed, made coffee, turned on my Christmas music and finished up making Pumpkin Pull-Apart Bread for Thanksgiving breakfast. I had made the dough the day before, but there was still so much to do in prepping this bread. I found this recipe on a food blog and the picture was enough to make me attempt this recipe. It was way too complicated and time consuming for my liking. I mean, "browning butter", WHAT? If the recipe has more than 10 steps and language other than stir or whisk I usually do not attempt it! I was very nervous that it would not turn out. And you cannot start out Thanksgiving with a failure. Not when Dylan says for weeks, "Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love Thanksgiving. I cannot wait for Thanksgiving". I do not want to let him down when it means so much to him!! The recipe calls for the dough to rise a few different times. Each time I waited for it to rise, it really never "doubled in size". While it was baking I whipped up some easy Monkey Bread, just in case!

To my surprise both gooey, pull-apart breads turned out delicious!

Our Thanksgiving meal was very traditional - a big 'ol turkey, Bacon-Braised Green Beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade rolls, Sausage & Apple Stuffing and apple & pumpkin pie. Addison was a big help. She kneaded the rolls, made the pies and stuffed the turkey!

My helper.

We took a break for a kiss!

Kneading the roll dough.

Putting the finishing touches on the apple pie.

Talking to Papa.

My First Thanksgiving

It was a wonderfully mellow day and our meal was delicious! We have so much to be thankful for.

With a big help from Papa, Dylan and Addi put together Landon's crib. In the move we lost most of the screws. We had to go track down the right ones. Not as easy at it sounds. With a few minor adjustments with a drill it is all ready for Landon!!

Jack's Story - The Excerpt

Jack was born in May two years ago. His mother was having complications associated with pre-clampsia and tiny Jack was delivered at only 23 weeks gestation. For those of you that need a visual, he was about the size of a large mango. Jack's mother is Jessi. Dylan and Jessi grew up together.

photo credit: Jessi Bennion, www.lifewithjack.com

Like so many others, I have followed Jon, Jessi and baby Jack's journey through Jessi's blog. Jon was keeping friends and family up-to-date by posting updates to their blog. Today, Jessi's blog follows Jack's amazing life. Both Jon and Jessi are amazing writers and I enjoy reading their updates.

While Landon was in the NICU  I needed encouragement. I went back and re-read Jon and Jessi's inspiring words and felt re-energized and lifted.

Jon has written a book about Jack's amazing journey. I urge you to go to the their website and read the excerpt, the first 3 chapters of Jon's book. Link to book website. They are asking for support as they work to get the book published. Please share the link and help to get Jack's story out. This book with not only help encourage families in similar situations, but it will also be a story to encourage people in all sorts of situations.

This story it nothing short of inspiring.

Many thanks and blessing to you!

Thank you cards

I think thank you cards are very important. I enjoy sending them and I really appreciate receiving them. I will admit I wasn't able to keep up with thank you cards for some of the wonderful gifts we received for Landon. My mind was obviously somewhere else for many weeks. I lost track of which ones I sent and misplaced a list of gifts I was keeping. I feel bad about it. I feel under the circumstances people will understand and forgive me.

I try to write thoughtful messages. I want the gift giver to know that I/We truly appreciated their thoughtfulness, kindness and generosity. For Addison's birthday gifts I came up with a very easy, but very special thank you card idea and wanted to share it. I simply uploaded a picture of Addi either playing with or wearing her gift and added a simple message to the photo using Picnik. Each picture thank you literally took seconds to create and at 9 cents or so per pictures to print they are very cheap. Here a couple examples:

Baking Recent

I really wish Addi enjoyed exercising as much as baking! I might be much more motivated to go run instead of eat! 

No-Bake Cookies aka melt-in-your-mouth mounds of deliciousness: I was so addicted to these cookies. They remind me of my mom's mother, Grandma Willy. I think I remember that she always made these! I know I remember loving them then as much as now! Out of respect to my ever-growing behind I will not be making these again for a while!

Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Cookies: My Aunt Moni sent me the recipe, boy am I glad she did! I don't know why I continue to do this to myself. These cookies were amazing and I have NO self control when it comes to sweets! I forced myself to freeze over half of them!