My Top Ten Favorite Pics

I have an entire collection of pictures from one of my college roommates of me doing just about every regular day thing. Me eating lunch, me doing my hair, me working on the computer, me writing a paper, me opening the fridge... This is my favorite - me playing the guitar! :)

Some of my best memories of college were of running. Jogging around the neighborhoods, going to the track - still one of my favorite places, a few 5Ks, and especially being a part of the cheer squad for my roommates' marathons. I love Logan, and mostly because of the sweet memories of my roommates' grandparents house where we'd escape from the hectic school life for a weekend during marathon or training seasons.
This picture is pretty descriptive of the beginnings of a relationship for me and Jordan. I thought I was pretty well set and doing my own thing, but Jordan just couldn't help but want to be close to me! Somebody in the ward caught a picture of our cars out in the parking lot. :)
That's my sweetheart! I think this was the end of a water fight of some sort that he and our neighbors had gotten into...
One of the most wonderful things for me about our wedding day was the incredible love and support I felt by all of those who came to share the day with us. Everyone always says that you'll never remember who comes to your wedding... but I know that I will. I was so touched to see not just all of our wonderful family and friends who came from all over to be there, but also fellow teachers from my school, families I used to babysit for, old neighbors, and just so many people who I never expected would take all the time to come and spend such a happy time with us.
The Christmas before Landon was born, all Jordan asked for was "baby stuff". And that's what he got! He spent the day carrying around a little sleeper on his shoulder, setting it down gently wherever he went and just feeling very much like he was the luckiest guy in the world to get to have a baby boy soon!
One of my students drew this for me - it was a life-size picture that hung out in the hallways for about a month (and not the MOST attractive, as I was 6 or 7 month's pregnant!) But, I loved it! There were a lot of really hard things about teaching, and little things like this or a note from one of my students, or any sort of indication that I was doing a good job... were so much appreciated!

Oh, what an amazing thing to give birth to this precious little son. Sometimes, I think that my heart will just burst right open with so much love that just fills me right up.
I love this picture (Landon's looking at a tiger with his Daddy at the zoo), because I think this is how Landon sees the whole world. I'm so grateful for all of the wonder that he sees and for the excitement and joy he brings to my life!
This is what I will miss the most about our duplex. What a wonderful site to come home to all Spring - these beautiful tulips! I am so excited now to have Spring on the way again - such a happy time!!
Thanks Emily for the 'tag' - this was really fun to do!

Music Man

 Today, Landon's nursery teacher was saying "He's sure a music lover, isn't he?" And he sure is! Jordan and I are often singing, humming, whistling, tapping... and often don't even notice that we are doing it until we see Landon bouncing away to the beat. In the mornings, he comes in to my bed around 6:30 or so, climbs up just above my head and turns on the radio for some dance music. He's not a fan of car rides, but he'll be calm as can be and join in on the actions as we sing the snowman song over and over again. Piano lessons are interesting when he is up and about because he just wants to join in on the music making - and 3 at the piano is a bit much. It's so fun to watch him learning and seeing him get so excited to dance and such. I hope he keeps this love for music as he grows up. 

My New Blog and Some Sunshine

Today, Jordan helped me create my new blog! My friend, Whitney, told me about a cool place (shabbyprincess) where you can download digital scrapbooking paper that makes it easy to design a much more exciting site. Jordan was, of course, thrilled that I wanted some help on a programming project. :) Now, I'm excited to use my blog more because it looks so much more fun! 

And, even more exciting, today we had an almost Spring day! We went on a walk, took Landon to the park (a bit snowy and slippery still!), worked a bit in the yard, and even had a little BBQ. Hooray for a little bit of warmth!

Little Discoveries

Tonight, little Landon found the moon outside his window. 

As I was putting him to bed, he was so distracted by the outside. The whole time, as I was praying with him and singing to him, he kept pointing out the window saying "mooo mooo mooo".  He's sure a precious little guy.

What we've been up to

Somehow we've gotten ourselves back into the middle of lots of unfinished Home-Improvement projects. Painting, curtaining, re-decorating, scrubbing, patching, carpeting... It's nice to always have something to be doing!

And we're looking forward to Spring. I'm so excited to start growing things again and figuring out a garden spot and spending our Saturday's outside in the beautiful sun. It must be this warm 35 degree weather that is bringing around thoughts of Spring. :)

This past week Landon seems to be so eager to be learning. He loves to play with his shapes - matching them up or picking them out or watching his shapes movie. And, he's talking so much. Whenever we say "Say _______" He copies us as best he can and even tries to imitate the pitch of our voice. So cute! It's so fun to see him not only understanding, but having some more success at communicating too.

We slacked off a bit this week, but we've been having a fun time with our new exercise plan. We've got a deal that each day we bike or run we earn money towards an armoire we want to get for our bedroom. This way, we know if we ever want to get the armoire, we've got to exercise! 

 I'm in charge of the exercise group in our ward which we just started up  - so far it's just been 3 of us getting together to do a Pilates workout while our kids run around in the gym. Landon gets so excited to see Paul each time we go and loves to run and play. It's given me a good chance to get to spend some time with Laura, and get to know a few people from my ward. And it's great to get a little extra exercise in too.

I've been looking forward to doing our taxes (no joke!), so I was excited to get those all done this week, and to feel the relief of getting some money back rather than owing more.

We'd been watching all of the election coverage for the past few months, and really hoping for Mitt Romney to do well. We even donated to his campaign, hoping to be able to make some sort of a difference. We were disappointed to see him out of the race, especially since he leaves behind no hopeful prospects for our next President. Still, I learned a lot from following his campaign.

I'm having a fun time in my calling as the primary chorister. Our nursery had a huge change with the new year and now most of the kids are about 18-20 months old. It makes music time a little more challenging, but already I've seen them picking up on the actions to some of the songs and that's so fun.

I've had more requests to take on new piano students and I'm trying to decide what is feasible... It's been a lot of fun to be teaching and Landon's getting a little more distract-able so I don't always have to work his naps around my lessons. He sure loves Emma and Aaron, 2 of my students. We often see them in the morning on their way to school as we're walking over to the church for exercise group and  he just goes wild with excitement!

We're just having a happy time enjoying life. We've had quite a snowed-in sort of winter, so we are looking forward to a week of sunshine ahead with lots of fun projects to keep us busy.