Merry Christmas!

I hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season with family, friends, food and fun!  We are in Gainesville spending some time with my parents and brothers.  It has been a fun visit, filled with music and presents and the pitter patter of tiny little feet in giant combat boots.  

Landis just took his evening bath with Uncle Caleb.  It was a very loud, splashy and fun bath.  Uncle Josh is practicing his piano.  He is getting to be a very talented pianist.  Caleb wants to make sure that everyone knows that he is both a talented pianist AND drum player.  The 2 big uncles are out and about.  John has seamlessly rejoined Paul's busy social life.  Goat is, unfortunately, working on his truck.  The ball bearings went out as we were driving up.  We were able to make it under our own steam, but Goat has had to spend most of the day replacing the bearings.  All 4 of his brothers-in-law have helped him throughout the day.  They were kind of cute, all crowded underneath the truck.  Awww, male bonding!  

The Benton uncles are using this visit to make sure we are raising their nephew right - as a Gator fan!  Paul dressed Landis up in his Gator Gear, and Landis has learned good Gator Chomp technique.  Maybe one day he will be able to attend a game with his uncles.  

We will be heading home later today or early tomorrow.  I don't know what Landis is going to do in our boring house after spending so much fun time in Gainesville!  We are looking forward to spending some time with Aaron Scott while he is still on his school break and seeing Goat's parents, (who are in Arizona visiting his Grandmother) his siblings, and all of our friends.   

Awww

Landis just treated his uncle Josh to the cutest rendition of "Hickory Dickory Dock." It went something like this:

Mouse cwimb cwock.
Mouse cwimb up!
Mouse cwimb down!
Mouse cwimb cwock.

I'm adding a video of Landis singing for his uncles.  This was a few days later, but the same song.  

I am so proud of my brilliant step-son

Hooray for Aaron Scott, science fair champion of the 3rd grade! He is such an amazing kid!

If you've ever happened to encounter a mother in the presence of an adorable baby, you may have witnessed the ridiculous, cooing, nonsensical language that comes naturally to many women and is almost universally loved by babies. It's hard not to coo and wax lyrical about each tiny feature when faced with an adorable little face, and the fact that it is rewarded with sweet toothless smiles only reinforces the behavior.

Unfortunately, while Landis has grown from a tiny infant to a tall and very verbal toddler, I have not yet stopped cooing over each of his adorable features, especially his very blue eyes. As Landis was hard at work building a train track, I kept talking about his big blue eyes, and just how cute they are, and how nice it was that he had gotten blue eyes just like Daddy. I thought that he wasn't really listening, but he got up, ran across the room and tugged on Goat's pants. Goat turned around, and Landis said, "Daddy, thank you for my eyes."

We just about fell over laughing at that one, but I think I'm going to have to stop telling Landi how cute he is quite so often. I don't want to raise a vain little boy - even if he is the cutest toddler in the world!

There is nothing cuter than a toddler learning to speak. Landis' latest little quirk is this: When the sun goes down in the evening, he requests that I "turn the dark off" instead of turning the lights on.

Landis is cracking me up lately with his quirky little mannerisms and figures of speech. He is such a funny talking boy!

He is always curious about our destination whether we travel by car, bike, or walk. He announces our arrival with a cheerful "Made it! We made it!" C'mon Landis, it's not that scary riding with your Monnie. You don't have to act so relieved.

His new favorite phrase is "I don't like it." I'm hoping this isn't his favorite for too long, but it's a definite improvement from "NO!" It's sometimes quite funny. Tonight at dinner, he had his first taste of brussel sprouts. We went to the grocery store earlier this afternoon and he helped me put the brussel sprouts in the produce bag, counting as we went. I told him we would eat them for dinner, and played up how yummy they are. However, his reaction was what you might expect from a 2 year old. He took a bite, chewed once or twice and deposited it directly back on his plate. His commentary: "No more. I don't like it!" He had the most serious look on his face, and it was all we could do not to laugh. Other times it's not quite so endearing, as the phrase seems to accompany all of his temper tantrums and fits.

He's recently learned the word "something." When he has a mystery object in his mouth, he's learned that answering "something" to our queries about the nature of the object elicits quite the entertaining response, even if he's only chewing a grape or a piece of cheese. One evening recently he came up to me, pulled on his left earlobe and announced that he had "put something in ear." Goat and I rushed about, finding a flashlight, shining it down his ear canal trying to get a glipse of "something" and debating whether we should take him to the ER to have "something" extracted. He finally confessed, to our relief, that "something" was the tip of his pointer finger. Little stinker!

One of the interesting things about venturing out in public with a potty training, verbal child is the inevitable conversations in public bathrooms. Landis has learned that a proper conversation has 2 sides, and waits politely for a response after he makes a statement. If a response is not forthcoming, he assumes he wasn't heard the first time and repeats his statement louder. So, there are 2 possible types of bathroom conversations. Either we carry on a 2 sided conversation about our various bodily functions, or Landis carries on a 1 sided conversation at an increasingly loud volume. I usually choose option 1 - it's better that the conversation only carries to the adjoining stalls!

It's so much fun watching my little boy grow and learn, and there is never a single dull moment!