Giving Thanks for our MANY blessings!

We have so many things to be thankful for!! What a blessing it is to have all our family within 10 miles of each other and getting to spend to holidays with everyone. Yes it can be hard at times to hit all the places in one day but I will never take this for granted b/c so many don't have that opportunity! We have had a wonderful year and God has truely blessed us more this year than ever! Landry has been our greatest blessing~I knew I would love being a mother and raising my children but never in my wildest dreams did I know I could love someone the way I love him! A mother's love is so unique and far beyond my expectation. Having a child of your own makes you look at your parents in a different light b/c you FINALLY understand all they did for you while raising you in their home. So we want to say a BIG THANK YOU to our parents for getting us to where we are today and holding our hands through the years so that we can now enjoy the life of parenthood-it's AMAZING! Every day Landry makes me and my heart smile. I have never been happier in my life! Thank you God for Landry!
On another note- I will take you through our thanksgiving festivities. As traditon holds I always go to my Granny's house on Wednesday to help her cook and get ready for our BIG thanksgiving meal at her house on Thanksgiving day. This is one of my favorite memories and things to do with my granny! If you know my Granny she is an amazing cook! So every year I go and take "lessons" with her. Landry had the best time this year while we were cooking. He was in the kitchen with us the entire time playing with big spoons, pots, pans, and anything else he could find to get into. He even took a break one time from beating on pots and pans to dance with Aunt Baleigh....as you can tell by his face he was very happy and loves to dance! :)We we able to capture a few moments of her lessons she was giving to me and Amber-now the trick is going to be is we can remember them!




So on Thanksgiving morning we started off the day at Nana and Pops house for breakfast. Beverly fixed our favorite breakfast food "breakfast casserole." We sat and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and had a good time socializing. After we left there we headed to my Granny's for lunch. We had a record high at my granny's this year-44 people total. (All but 1 person was family) Alex has the honor of blowing up granny's giant turkey every year with the help and supervision of Amber and I so we were able to get a few pictures of the process this year! :) It's so good getting to see all the family that we only get to see once a year at this time every year!





We left from granny's and went to my Byrdie and Dad-o's house for the Thompson side thanksgiving for dinner. Landry got to see his little cousin Chole for the second time. The first time Chloe was only around 5 pounds and about a week old. It's so amazing at how fast babies grow. I insered a picture from their first meeting in June at my parents anniversary party-look at the difference in only 5 months! It was so sweet b/c Landry was either holding her foot or hand or reaching at her face in all the pictures we took. He really likes babies so I can't wait for him to meet his newest cousin Wyatt in a few more weeks!! And I can't either!

Friday morning we headed up to Paris Tennessee to have the Shankle family dinner. Landry really liked getting to see Grandma and I think she had a good time with him also! Whew we were worn out after all the festivities but we are had a great time! Thank goodness Landry was a trooper and so good everywhere we went but he has played catch up on his sleep all week.


This cute picture was not planned they just all happened to look at Landry b/c he started talking in the middle of me taking their picture and I happened to catch it. I thought it was so sweet! You can tell this little boy doesn't get any attention! :)

3/4 of a Year! (9months)

Here are just a few things Landry is doing now at 9 months old:

*Puts his hands together and tries to clap when we sing "Pat-a-Cake" and dances when we are singing the song or any other time he hears music
*Has a "new smile" when he is being silly
*Really putting things together and can tell he is concentratiing on certain things more. (example: when reading a book and pointing objects(ears/nose/eyes) he is trying to figure out what your saying and then trying to touch them himself)
*Sleeping around 10.5 hours a night and taking 2 naps a day
*Waves "bye bye" and will sometimes wave "hi"
*Just started eating a little bit of table food this week. He really likes bread, turkey and bluberries- well pretty much anything we put in his mouth!!
*Pulling up on EVERYTHING he can get his hands on and yes that includes Austin's leg hair!! OUCH!! It is so funny when he does this!
*Crawing 100% on his hands a knees- that little boy can move!
*LOVES to go out into public and see people and go places but we are still struggling with the car seat!
*learning to make different noises when talking. Every now and then he will make a "dayaya" sound which i consider to be daddy but mostly makes a "mmmmm" sound or talks Russian.
*This is my favorite new trick- When Austin comes home from work in the afternoon I will say "Landry, daddy is home-go get daddy" and he will look at me with a HUGE smile on his face and take off crawling toward the door that Austin walks in. It is so precious and I know it makes Austin feel good that his baby boy misses him during the day!!
*Just this past week he has started to dance- where he rocks back and forth and puffs his chest out. Sunday morning in church as soon as we start singing he immediately started singing very loudly- then all of a sudden he started dancing at the same time. It was so funny and I had to put my head down b/c I was laughing so hard. The lady sitting behind us leaned up and said "it looks as if he has the holy spirit in him today!" haha! It seems Landry is quite the entertainer especially at church! :)
*He is a pretty efficient little guy-when crawling since both hands are being used to help him crawl he has figured out a way to take his toys where he wants to go to play with him. He just puts them in his mouth and carries them. ha!ha!
*Learned how to make spit bubbles



*Starting to use his pincher grasp(pointer finger and thumb) occasionallly when picking food up.
*This little boy has learned how to bite and it hurts! WHo knew 6 teeth could hurt so bad?? This may not be a good thing but I'm sure it something they all go through.
*He is starting to be able to entertain himself now. Up till now you almost had to keep him entertained but in the last few weeks he has started to play really well without us by his side.
*Landry and Sadie like to share toys- GROSS!! They are also good playing buddies. They really like to watch each other play and will occasionally play together!
*He is getting very brave and when stading up he will only hold on with 1 hand and have a toy int he other. Sometimes he forgets and accidently lets go-that's why baby's have so much cushion! :)
*He has 6 teeth now and we are brushing them every night to make all 5 of our "dental field" family members proud! Landry likes to do it himself though but it turns more into him chewing on the toothbrush- but hey at least they are getting clean.

I just took this picture last night and thought it was adorable. Landry loves Austin to death and really likes getting on his shoulders. He thinks it's so funny. I'm not sure who loves it more though- Austin or Landry??
This is Landry's "new smile." It is soooo funny when he does this and it makes me laugh every time. I guess he has picked this up from me b/c after he started doing it I realized I will do that to him when we are playing and I want him to smile at something. So the saying comes true "monkey see monkey do" already at 8 months old!
AHHHH! This is one of the many things we absolutely love about our new house and that is our laundry room sink. I didn't realize when we bought this house that this would be Landry's bath spot but it is perfect for him right now and he loves it- and plus it doesn't break our back leaning over the bath tub.
Forget $30 toys for a baby- just give them a box! We had a moving box sitting in the kitchen floor for weeks b/c I was procrastinating finding a spot for all that junk that I really should be throwing away. Well Landry put that box to goo use. He has played and played and played with that box!
Here's Landry's most recent purchase. I was really hesitant on buying this for him being it's so close to Christmas. But Austin talked me into getting it for him because he could enjoy it for 2 good months before Christmas and boy am I glad I made that purchase!! He loves it! The past week has has learned to push it around the room and is kinda "walking" with it! I will be very surprised if this little boy isn't walking by Christmas! Don't get me wrong- I don't want that to happen but, he is on the verge! He is very agile and will let go every now and then when he is standing up and playing. Yes a lot of the time it leads to our poor noggin hitting the carpet but he is a pretty tough guy and recovers quickly.

pARtY aNImAL!

Landry loves a good party!! We have had so many different events lately and he has done amazing at all of them-we'll almost all of them! The first party he has celebrated recently was his daddy's 27th birthday. Landry loved looking at the ALL THOSE CANDLES on the cake and I have a feeling he is going to like fire like his daddy! :)


This was Austin's first birthday to celebrate as a father so it was special to all of us. He started off the day with getting to sleep late. Usually Austin gets up with Landry on Saturday mornings around 6:00-7:00(depending on how late Landry sleeps). I know I have a VERY sweet husband who lets me get some good rest on Saturday mornings and I always look forward to sleeping in! However, for his birthday I took the morning shift and he slept. He then woke up to his favorite "Breakfast Casserole." He celebrated the day away with watching football all afternoon - one game after another. I had asked Austin several times what type of cake he wanted for his birthday and he was dead set on strawberry cake with cream cheese icing. I really tried to persuade him to let me make a chocolate cream cheese icing but he just wasn't going for it. So since it was HIS birthday I followed orders and actually ended up making strawberry cake and strawberry cream cheese icing. He didn't object that at all b/c he LOVES LOVES LOVES strawberries- the more the merrier! That night we went over to his parents house and he once again had his favorite dinner food Lasagna made by his mother and we got to celebrate with our good friends Abby and Zach and their little girl Clara and good family friends Greg, Shannon and Kate Yokley. Kate was really cute and had to help Austin blow his candles out. Austin had a great birthday and it was so fun celebrating with him- Happy Birthday Austin you are the best husband, father to Landry, and wonderful Christian husband! God couldn't have blessed me with a better husband!
The second party Landry has attended lately was my dad's surprise 50th party. Let's just say that Landry DOES NOT like the party horns!! Bless his heart when my dad walked in and everyone yelled surprise he TOTALLY lost it and was not able to recover the rest of the night!! I felt so horrible for him b/c he was just totally out of sorts. If you know Landry that is not normal for him at all to not enjoy a party! He loves being around people and being entertained by big crowds. But he was just not having it this night. Once everyone left and it was a little more quiet and there weren't strangers walking up to him every 5 seconds he was all smiles and a totally different baby. He made a 90 degree turn-i think the party horns just did him in that night. But we got a few really cute pictures of him playing with Dad-o's balloon strings after everyone had left and he started smiling again. Happy Birthday Dad-O! Thanks for being such a wonderful Christian Father, example, grandfather to Landry!! God couldn't have blessed me with a better daddy!


The third party we have attended lately was Alex was chosen by the freshman class to be a homecoming attendant at Freed Hardeman so we headed up to Freed and celebrated with him. It was so good getting to visit with him and Evan! Landry just loves them and I can tell he already looks up to them! :) Landry was so funny during all the presentations! We happened to be sitting in the very front table(which being a mother always makes you nervous b/c if a melt down happens everyone will see it) but I have to say Landry was a charmer! He was just talking to everyone around us. When it came time to present the homecoming attendants he kept looking at the announcer who was talking into the microphone and would just grin from ear to ear. Landry thought he was talking and smiling at him the whole time!! It was too cute!! I guess that the only child for you- He thought he was the center of attention and everyone was there for him. ha ha! But congratulations Alex! You looked very charming and we were so glad to be able to celebrate with you.

This little boy is LOVED!!

I wanted to put up a few of my favorite pictures of all those that LOVE Landry! I know there are more pictures that I could add but I'm sure there is a picture limit on each blog! :) This is just a great reminder of how wonderful our family is and how special they are to us and Landry! Thanks for being helping us raise our precious baby boy-all of you make a big difference in his life and ours!