Escargo

Escargo anyone?

We went to the beach yesterday for a little while. The beach was covered in snails. They were all along the shoreline. I had never seen anything like it before. Landon enjoyed holding them and putting them back into the water. It was a little gross, but since boys are made of snakes, snails, and puppy dog tails I saw it fitting to allow him to hold the snails. The beach was cut short because of a thunderstorm, but I did manage to take a few pictures.

Landon passed the time by pouring water over his head.

Trip to the Zoo

I haven't been posting too much lately because we are without a camera. Our camera broke a little bit ago and a post about Landon without pictures seems completely worthless to me. I took Landon to the zoo last month and never got around to posting about it so I am going to do so now. That way there is a new post and new pictures.

We went to the zoo on probably what was the hottest day so far of the summer. We usually spend all day at the zoo and we wound up leaving after just 3 1/2 hours. The temperature gauge on the stroller read 116 degrees that day!

They have a splash park for the kids to cool off at, but it was so crowded that day that they limited the play area to 80 people at one time. The capacity limit also made them enforce a 20 minute time limit for the splash park. It took Landon 15 minutes to even get close to the water. The only reason Landon went into the water is because I went in with him. I wound up getting soaking wet, but Landon at least had five minutes in the water to cool down. I wasn't complaining about being soaked since it was so hot out.

After the splash park we went to see the penguins. I think they were Landon's favorite exhibit this time around. Landon loved the penguins and even showed us how they swam:

We then cooled off by going into an enclosed exhibit to see the jaguars and reptiles. Landon sat and stared at the jaguars for quite some time. I think he stood there so long because he too was enjoying the a/c.

Landon loves snakes much to my disapproval. He especially loved copying the facial expressions of the anaconda.  

He then continued with his mimicry when we saw the capybara.

And again when we saw the monkeys!

No visit to the zoo is complete without stopping to see the tapir. The tapir is Landon's favorite animal at the zoo. I think it is because he thinks it is a hippo or a "bobo" as Landon calls it!

Growing Imagination and Independence

Landon's imagination has really been showing these past couple of weeks. Landon will now sit down with a piece of paper and crayons and draw things. He will say "Pooh" or "Tigger" or whatever it is that he wants to draw and then draw it. These drawings of his are only scribbles and do not look like anything at all, but he truly believes that he is drawing Pooh. It is amazing to sit down with him and watch his imagination at work. He is also playing pretend now. He will walk like a monkey, roar like a lion, and jump like a kangaroo when he sits down and plays with his animal toys. I am amazed daily by how much Landon is growing and changing.

Landon is also talking more and more now. Landon now says about 20 words regularly. He will also try mimicking every word that he hears. I don't know whether that is a good thing or not! With his newly found vocab, Landon is now able to clearly express his likes and dislikes. He more often than not expresses his dislikes! He will now say "no" if he doesn't want to do something while crossing his arms across his chest. He's been saying "no" for over a year now, but now he says it with intent. The arms being crossed makes me smile every time he does it, even when he does it when I ask him to pick up his toys.

Landon is also gaining independence as well. He wants to brush his own teeth and climb onto the sink to wash his hands by himself. He pulls a chair over to the kitchen sink every evening to help with the dishes and helps with the laundry. He still goes around with his vacuum along side me as I am vacuuming and he still holds the dust pan while I sweep. Landon is growing way too quickly. Soon he won't even need me to dress him or bathe him.

Eat Mor Chikin!

Yesterday was cow appreciation day at Chick-fil-a. Seeing as how Chick-fil-a is our home away from home, it was a no brainer that I was going to be taking Landon. They offered free meals to anyone dressed as cows. The whole point of it was to get something for free so I wanted to make costumes as cheaply as possible. I made our outfits for $1 (the cost of a larger sharpie marker because the fine tipped one was taking forever). I took an old white pillow case and cut head and arm holes into it for Landon. I then colored on spots with a black marker. For myself, I had an old white t-shirt with some holes in it that I was about to throw away. I colored spots onto the t-shirt and then wore a black tank top under it. Wherever the holes in the shirt were, the black undershirt showed through. For ears I cut out white paper and colored it with the marker. I attatched mine to a headband and made a paper headband for Landon. My mom even joined us at the last minute. We quickly colored in paper cut out spots and safety pinned them to her shirt. We were able to choose any meal off of the menu. I made sure to go at dinner time so that I could have a night off from cooking! We ate well and Landon had a blast running all over the play area.

                                                                Waiting to order

Landon loved his tail!

Mom-Mom and Landon in front of the "moo cow" as Landon calls it.

Happy 4th of July!

This 4th of July was really low key. Landon has been sick for a couple of days so we didn't do much of anything for the 4th. There was a whole lot of sleeping on Landon's part:

We did go to the beach to walk around for a few, but kept the visit short because of the rain. Landon was quite the helper when it came to bringing in the groceries needed for the cookout:

He also helped out with washing his Tigger, Pooh, and Piglet. He insisted that they needed a bath. They couldn't be bathed in the sink or the washer. Landon actually wanted them to be bathed in the tub with shampoo so they were. Here is a pic of Landon drying them off.

As you can see there was no big 4th of July barbecue or fireworks display, but we did enjoy our day nonetheless.