Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

I came across the pictures that I mentioned a long time ago I would post, regarding our 'bear-y' unwelcome guest a few springs ago.

Heather and I were sitting in the living room watching t.v. one afternoon. I thought that I heard something but didn't really think about it. We had the bird feeders and sometimes the birds make noise or fly into a window. I got up to go into the kitchen to put away a plate and looked into the back yard. Imagine my surprise when I see a bear outside, sitting on his/her rump eating away at the bird food in the feeders.

I called her over since it isn't something we normally see. We started watching it and I got my camera. I took after my father a little, I guess at first I just opened one of the windows in the morning room to get some good shots with. The bear didn't seem to mind us, though. I then proceeded to go out to the screened porch, open the door there, and take some more. I had a telephoto lens so didn't need to get close, but the bear was still only about 15 feet away.

The bear kept working on the food in the feeders, but later on made it's way back into the woods. I was annoyed that the bear bent the main pole in the feeder system, meaning I would have to buy a new one. I bent the pole back up and hung the clear plastic feeder in the above photo. I put a little seed in it, as I felt bad that the birds wouldn't have any. Heather and I were heading out to hockey, I think. It seems that the bear came back later in the evening, as the dome feeder was missing. Not just off the feeder setup, but I couldn't see it around the yard or in the woods.

The next day I ventured into the woods down my trail, looking for the feeder. I found it about a hundred yards in the woods, close to my trail. It had been licked clean and had some big claw marks in it, but was still good. Earlier that day I had gone to the bird store to get a new feeder pole and dome feeder, but now I could take that replacement dome feeder back.

So, kind of exciting but fortunately the only bear we have seen here. We still get the deer, turkey and sometimes a fox. I actually saw a funny thing last week. There were some hunting dogs in the woods somewhere (hunting dogs can be used during deer hunting season) and I saw a single turkey running in the opposite direction about 10 feet into the trees. Kind of funny watching a turkey run fast like that.

Happy New Year! (oooopst!)

Ok, Landon was off by a day when he wanted to name this blog post. Dates and years aren't his big things right now, so we'll give him a break.

Heather is sleeping off a long set of music in Rock Band 2, so I thought I would make a blog post since one is overdue. So much going on, where to start ....

We've had a few holidays since the last one. Thanksgiving was fun but just a build-up to Christmas. We had 16 inches of snow that unfortunately messed up our plans of visiting family in North Carolina, but hopefully we will see them soon. I think that Landon enjoyed Christmas, seeing everyone, opening presents and 'Tanta'.

We took him to see Santa and were surprised at how well he did. He went right up to Santa to take some pictures. We weren't expecting that. The picture we got makes it look like he wasn't as happy around Santa as he was, but we were shocked.

We also got some holiday photos at a local place. They had two rooms set up, one with a tree for a Christmas setting and the other more generic. Landon wanted to run around the tree and check out the ornaments, so it was hard to get him to sit in a little chair for some pictures. He was cute, though, especially considering the time spent there. We got some better ones there, including family ones and one with his doggy. Heather thought it would be good to bring it along and it paid off.

Christmas itself was busy, first our gifts, then at Heather's parents for her family stuff. Back to the house for a nap, then my family came over for gifts and food. Landon first was opening gifts by ripping of a little piece of wrapping paper. He then got a second piece in his other hand. He would put them both down to get a third piece, though we got him using the trash bag. He got to the point where he was taking larger and larger pieces of paper. He was already at the point where when he got a gift of clothes, he put it aside and went for the next gift.

His favorite is Santa, though. He sees Santa everywhere and wants to point it out. He got some good gifts and lots of things for him to play with (thank you everyone!).

As a whole things are still going well. He's enjoying things and growing up a little. He has started trying to put phrases together instead of just words. He still points to things and wants to know what they are, but he understands more and more each day. My brother gave him some letter blocks to help him with his letters. He has worked on saying the alphabet but the blocks will help him put the letter with what it looks like.

Some pics now, can't get away without those ...

Landon showing his friend Elmo to mommy.

Landon offering to carry my hockey bag out to the car. (He didn't quite make it)

Landon helping mommy to make some cookies for Santa.

We were at Heathers sister's (Tracey) Christmas Eve and wanted to get a picture with Landon and Tracey's daughter, but Landon sat on her when we asked him to sit next to her. Ooopst!

Landon being given an ornament from Santa. This is the best shot from him squirming in the chair.

Landon and his doggy when we took pictures. We thought that this one came out so good. He does love his little animals.

I am going to try to be better about posting in the new year. If you want me to post about something, or just want to complain that I haven't posted anything recently, send me an email. I sometimes lose track of time and might be busy soon, so be obvious about it. I will transfer to Virginia Commonwealth University this spring so might have a cray schedule. I finished up at community college and will transfer to continue things at VCU. I don't know yet what my schedule will be but hopefully will be ok.

Check back relatively soon for (hopefully) a new post. It has been a crazy year, but has gone by fast and ended up being a pretty darn good year. That's pretty cool. I'm a dad. Heather is a mom. We are parents. Wow ..... yay!!!

There's no place like home

For those of you still checking the blog, sorry for long absence (sound familiar?). One day becomes one week and then I feel like nothing has changed to write about. I forget that we see the little changes each day so it seems like not much happens, but for those who don't see him every day you would notice the changes. I need to get back to posting more, so email me if it seem like a post is needed in case I forget.

So, we are getting to the holidays and we did a little Trick-or-Treat-ing. Landon seemed to have fun and liked his costume. He didn't mind wearing it and would even continue playing around the house if we tried it on him or were getting him ready.

The outfit is a two-piece outfit, so when putting him in the van we had to take off the jacket so he would fit into his car seat (and seatbelt). He didn't like that. I was surprised that he liked it but he did get warm in it. He likes his stuffed monkeys plus his bathroom is done that way, so it seemed appropriate. He also looked cute in it, and no it doesn't have wings.

He is doing much more with the words and understanding us and when to say certain things. He is using 'no' in the correct way now, when we ask him if he is done eating or wants to go to bed. He is working on 'please', but at the moment comes out like 'pup' when he says it. We had been trying to get him to say something so started with the 'p' and he hasn't gone much further with the word. He points to lots of things in his books or out in the world to find out what the word for it is. It gets repetitive but it is his way of really understanding the word so he can say it. Sometimes you can almost see the wheels in his head turning trying to remember the word and then he tries to say it. He's doing very good with it.

Unfortunately he didn't care about the time change, getting up this morning at 6 am. He then didn't take much of a nap so was tired this evening and got punchy. He normally gets that way when he is tired. He might stumble around or be even sillier than normal. Tonight he was playing in an empty diaper box. He had put in a few of his stuffed animals and was sitting in it with them. He then tried to go into the box head first and you could only see his legs sticking out. I got some video and pics of it, I need to download them and see how they are.

On a quick side note, for those that knew or remember from my previous post, I have been working on an Associates Degree at a community college to get back into school. Well, last week I got my official acceptance letter from Virginia Commonwealth University to start in the spring. Very cool but very odd. It will be fun and I'll be there at the same time as my cousin Morgan. We most likely won't have any classes together, though. He is in the art school while I'll be in the business school.

A few quick pics for now. I'll go through more and post again soon.

Here he is falling off of the changing table in his room into Heather's arms while getting ready for bed.

Here he is outside with a push mower that spits out bubbles. He was having fun with it, stopping now and then to go pop some bubbles.

Looking back at the camera while mowing.

More soon...

Sunglasses at night

I guess that with the entire adoption process taking so long it seems like we've been doing this forever. I then remember that we have only had Landon for a few months, something that is still surprising given how well he is doing. I sound like a broken record and all but I am still surprised at how well he is doing.

I'm working on an Associates degree at a local community college. Next spring I will hopefully be at Virginia Commonwealth University starting the next phase in my goal to get a degree in economics (with a minor in math). I've been in the Information Systems field for a number of years without a degree which has gone fine, but in trying to think of the future (now including a son) I am getting the degree to help my career. The end result of all that is that I am taking a public speaking class this semester.

Today we had our first speech, a self-introduction using a prop to help out. I talked about the changes in my life (Heather's too) as a result of the adoption. Some of these changes are the obvious things like new schedules, not sleeping late, diapers to change. There are also the not so obvious changes like how I look at life differently. You think about the things we take for granted, the things that you expect to have. Landon is just a happy boy, not expecting anything, everything is new to him and something special. I also used his favorite lion and doggy as my props to explain that they were my next friends as a result of the adoption.

He's saying more words now, or at least trying to as he doesn't always pronounce the entire word 100% correctly. It's still cute, his version of the words. Heather and I got his Halloween costume yesterday. She had looked at Old Navy and saw a little monkey outfit that works so well for him. He has his money friend, the monkey theme in the bathroom, he likes to make a monkey sound and sometimes do his arms (tough to describe) like a monkey. Anyway, it's a little 2-piece outfit, pants and a 'jacket'. We will get some pics later but he seemed to be ok with it on.

The next few months will be interesting. His first Halloween, first Thanksgiving then Christmas, New Year's (he is a partier), then his birthday in February. Lots of stuff coming up soon. I'm trying to take more videos. They are better than pictures for some situations and there will be more things to take video for soon.

Here are a few recent shots of him just being cute ...

Tom Cruise who??

Pimpin' the fake crocs.

Not the best resolution, but he has cute froggy pajamas and he just wanted to wear the shoes at the same time. I guess he's a trend setter.

Video killed the radio star

It just keeps getting better and better. I probably sound like a broken record, but Landon is just such a normal little guy. Maybe kids are just supposed to act like this in a 'normal' (i.e.- a non-orphanage) setting. Who knows, I just know that he is a silly little guy that is a ham. He enjoys when we are eating dinner and he tries to keep our attention by acting silly. Oh no, if we are not paying attention to him, he has to act cute and laugh or just be silly so we laugh first. It makes it tough some times when he does something bad and we try to let him know, but we have to almost turn our heads so we can laugh and he doesn't see us doing it.

He's working on more words and phrases. If we say 1 he says 2. When he is ready for bed he knows what night-night is, walking us to the stairs if needed. We go through our nightly routine of reading a little story to him and he is ready to get into his crib. He sits down in our laps and we both get a turn to read the story. He is so cute turning the pages to help move the story along. He knows that a train makes a choo-choo noise, along with the arm movement. I can sort of get him to put his arms up for 'up' and then down for 'down and he says both. He was doing both of the up and down parts, but now he mainly does the up part.

Let's try a little video to see if it works. Here is Landon at a meal acting cute and doing his choo-choo.

Let me know if this works or doesn't work so well. Maybe a little video is better than just pictures sometimes. It is still very odd to think that not so long ago we had only just met him. He also looks very different from 'way back then'.

Just a few pics

I just wanted to post a few newer pics that I had. It's tough to try and pick the 'best' ones to post, because they are all good to me. Sometimes he is just doing something cute and you can't get a camera. Tonight was his bath night. We've got a towel thing for him that is a Cookie Monster towel, where there is a 'hood' of Cookie's head so Landon can wear it. Heather put it on Landon before his bath and he was running around with it, funny but no time for pics. Just the little things that he does that you try and remember for later.

Here is Landon giving his friends a ride. He put 3 of them on his ride and pushed them around.

We recently took Landon to get his first Build-A-Bear. There was only one bear that was good for kids (sewn on eyes) but Landon liked it anyway. Here he is after we left holding is bear close.

Landon got a chance to got out the other weekend and play in the water. Heather got a kid's sprinkler attachment that Landon enjoyed. He didn't know what to make of it so we took turns taking him close and running him through the water. Heather's sister brought over her kids to play with Landon.

That's all for now, but hopefully more soon. I might get back to the non-Landon pics if I can get the bird and other creature ones. Do you know about the bear we had behind our house the other summer? Yeah, adult black bear eating on the bird food. Heather thought I was crazy like my Dad when I went for the camera. I went out to the screen porch to get some close-ups of him/her. The bear was too focused on the bird food, but didn't stay for long. I'll find the pics and tell you the whole story later.

Watching him change

I'm going to start posting more sans pictures, hopefully allowing me to get things out more quickly. I had been in the habit of only posting something if there were pictures to go along with it, but that isn't always needed. So, here's a post that might be a little random at times (or the whole time) but I'll get a few pictures up tonight or tomorrow.


I'm still utterly amazed at how smart, healthy, normal and adjusted Landon is. I almost think that Heather and I are the ones adjusting and Landon is sitting there wondering why we are acting so odd. He is just so good with everything and go-with-the-flow, it's like he is waiting for us to catch up to him.

He has finished a few weeks of daycare and has done very well. His biggest problem is that he hasn't been taking good naps there, but last week he got in two naps of almost two hours. He is there 3 days a week, so that is great for him. He also didn't get any bumps from falling down or anything, so that was good also. He sometimes walks a little 'wobbly' or gets excited and trips over himself in running. He doesn't really cry much, if any, when I drop him off. I've been picking him up at the end of the day, trying to hide when I go in the room first. I like to try and watch him a little before he knows I'm there. It's cool to watch him playing with the other kids or by himself, seeing how he is from an outside point of view. It gives a different perspective on him and how he is adjusting.

He is still doing well at eating and not being picky. There are still times when a certain food is not something he wants all of a sudden. Some times he acts like he is done with his food but then keeps eating. His 'all done' arm shrug might mean 'well, I really want to keep eating'. You can tell right away as he still goes for his bowl when you take it away.

He hasn't gotten the pronunciation of any word down 100%, but he keeps adding to the words he is working on. You can see him trying new words, getting the first part of it only but you know he is trying to get it right. One day he is just going to blurt out a word perfectly and we'll be shocked.

We're all settling in even better to the routine, although it has adjusted a little as time has gone by. Most of you will understand, but it is just great to sit and just watch my son doing anything or nothing. Just talking on his own, playing with a toy, working on his food, watching the birds in the back, whatever. Just to know that he is changing all the time, becoming more and more a part of our lives, growing and growing. It's hard to think that next week he will be 18 months old. Wow. It's only been 5 months since we first met him. Wow. We've only been home with him for just over 2 months. Wow. Crazy stuff, those kids.