Landon's first haircut and 6 month stats

Landon's hair has been getting a bit crazy. He's always had a lot of hair but most of what he was born with has fallen out to be replaced with new growth. Except for the long weird stuff he had on top that gets kinda greasy when he hasn't had a bath in a day or so:

I've been debating whether or not to cut it for a while. Jesse's fiancé suggested I wait until after they came out so she could see it. It was perfect because by the time she got here, I was SO ready to give that boy a haircut! The long stuff on top was just looking ridiculous. I mean, he's still cute as a button, but it was just so... well, you'll see.

The ones in PJ's were taken at Thanksgiving. My sister got a new camera and she has a TON of great pictures on it! The pj ones I stole from her blog. In fact, she has a ton of great pics up right now that are recent. If you check her blog now, I suggest scrolling through the whole page because it's filled with great pictures. If you get to it later, most of them are on her "Thanksgiving" post.

So here's before:

With Aunt Kyle:

See? Adorable. But check out after:

I'm SOOOO glad I cut it! He looks so handsome! I just cut it a day or two ago, so I'll post more of him as I take them.

Oh yeah. And stats.

Length: 26 5/8 inches
Weight: 15lbs. 4 oz.
Head circumference: 41.6 cm
Long and lean!

Landon can sit unassisted for a little while and is starting to be able to predict where he's going to fall and put a hand out to stop himself. But still he falls often. He's starting to get those knees up underneath to get into a crawling position. He can scoot all over the place. He rolls over occasionally. He can hold things in both hands and pass a toy from one hand to the other. Makes vowel sounds but no consonants yet. He is a happy and healthy baby and we love having him in our family!

Except for sometimes at 3 am when he just wants to scream for an hour for no apparent reason. Other than that, he's a piece of cake and sweet as pie!

On the fly

Okay, I really just need to get caught up fast so that I can blog as I go. I keep not blogging because I have way too much to catch up on. It would be like 12 posts to get it all done. So instead of procrastinating indefinitely, I'll just fly through the last few months and give you my favorite pictures and the stories that go with them. Then maybe I can do a better job of staying relatively current (yeah, right).

So here goes in no particular order:

Landon thinks Alaina is hilarious (she is) and Alaina loves making him laugh.

Landon is the happiest little guy. He is full of smiles (Raelin calls him Mr. Smiles) and such a content and mellow kid. So grateful for that!

Raelin's been taking more and more of an interest in sports as time goes by. She is a natural athlete and she's super fast! For her birthday this year, Brice and I made her soccer goals. We even made the nets! You can learn anything on youtube!

Alaina is a total ham and she has the best smile and a contagious laugh. She is a joy to be around.

Handsome boy ready for church. Love this suit!! (and the comb over)Halloween. From left to right, Landon (a bone), Alaina (a dog), Ryker (a pirate), Raelin (a witch), Liam (a polar bear), and Russell (a monkey).

I usually like to make the kids' costumes, but this year I was content to just make one thing for each of them. Bet you can't guess what I made!

I made Ryker's dread locks! They turned out so COOL! Wool yarn, braided, thrown in the washer and then sewn to a red strip of cloth. Easy and awesome!

And I made Raelin's hat! I had some silky black fabric on hand leftover from my sister's wedding (they were table cloths or something) a few years back and I got some interfacing and there you have it! Tease out the hair and put on a witchy dress and she's ready to go!

Picking pumpkins. I love pictures of pumpkin picking because the colors are always so great. Wish my camera batteries hadn't started to die... I'd have taken more.

On top of the world! I'm standing at my full height to take this picture. The hay bales were stacked super high! Alaina loved it!

And here's my amazingly gorgeous husband. I just love his manly swagger. Mmmhm! I could watch that all day. Oh sorry. TMI? I digress.

Okay, but really though, he is quite amazing. Look at this playhouse he built this fall! He's just the greatest and I'm so proud of him and all his hard work. He can do the most amazing things!

More of Mr. Smiles! Love that happy face! He has the greatest laugh too. Ooh! I think I might have a video of it! I'll have to check.

Most of the time, for Christmas, I make things for extended family and we buy things for the kids. This year, I decided to make things for the kids and mostly buy things for family. So I made the kids a bunch of stuff. My favorite by far are these monsters. They are SO cute! I love them. I want one.

I also made the kids these cute frogs (among other things that I don't have pictures of yet).

Ryker has wanted a remote control helicopter for a year and a half now. We... Er, SANTA got it for him this year! He loves it! I think Brice and I like it just as much as he does. It's a cool toy!

Alaina got a dolly and a crib and a stroller. She loves dollies and set about right away to take Dolly for a walk and put her to bed. Such a good little momma! She loves her present!

Raelin got a really cool doll house (one that I even like because all the furniture is fixed--less mess!) but I don't have a good picture of it. She's got her thumb in her mouth in each one. Blah. I'll have to get some of her playing with it when she gets back from California--we let her go out for a week with her aunt and uncle to visit family.

My brother Jesse and his fiancé Carmen came out from California for Christmas and it was GREAT to hang out with them! They came over a lot and we got to play play play! The kids love them--Carmen, besides being beautiful, reads stories and listens to stories (she has the patience of a saint!) and Uncle Jesse is the coolest because he plays blocks with the kids and helped them build this awesome snowman. I've never seen such a cool snowman!

True to a little brother's nature, Jesse convinced Raelin to throw snowballs at me when I was trying to take their pictures.

Ryker's wrestling stance. Brice loves to teach the kids wrestling moves and they are getting pretty good! Now they just have to learn that jumping on Daddy, knees first is against the rules. Ouch!

Christmas tree shopping. The colors were great this day and I love these pictures!

Alaina, however, wouldn't let me get a good picture of her. She kept running away and hiding every time she saw me. Every picture is either blurry or she's exited the frame.

The kids got to see Santa at our church party (which was an amazing party! EVERYONE was there!)

Alaina was terrified! She didn't want to go but then Brice asked her if she wanted candy--always a sure-fire way to get her to do anything. So she consented to sit on his lap, but as soon as she was there, she freaked! But then she saw the candy canes. She stopped crying, reached over and grabbed a candy cane, and then resumed crying. So cute, funny, and sad all at the same time!

I gave Landon a bath, left to dress him, came back to drain the water, and found this:

Okay, well that about sums it up! There are lots more pictures and I'm sure tons of stories I'm missing, but so goes life. These are my favorites and if I think of anything else worth sharing, I'll be sure to post it! (uh huh. Because clearly, I have SO much extra time on my hands!)

Busy, busy! My new business!!

Sorry I haven't been the most diligent blogger lately. I'm sure you all have been missing me desperately. Or maybe enjoying my silence so you can get other things done besides reading my long-winded ramblings. Whichever the case, I have been busy as a bee at my sewing machine. I've been making things for my kids (mostly baby things) for a long time and I've tried selling things here or there but just haven't come upon the right thing to really try to make a business of it. Until now.

I'd been using cloth diapers with Alaina for about 6 months before she was potty trained (yes, she is fully potty trained and has been since she was 20 months old! LOVE IT!). When Landon was born I couldn't use Alaina's cloth diapers on him because they were too big. I thought I'd just wait until he was big enough or something, but I was just really HATING putting him in disposables. Weird, huh. Well, one reason would be expected by anyone who knows me well: I hated spending the money. But I was surprised that I was bothered on an environmental level also. I'm not usually the "greenest" person around. I try not to abuse the earth, but I don't go out of my way to save it either. But as you look around at cloth diapers, you will inevitably come across statistics on the impact of disposable diapers on the environment. I guess I was feeling like, since I didn't mind doing diaper laundry and all that, I would really rather not contribute THAT much garbage to the landfills. Diapers are a HUGE contributer to the trash we generate in this country. Anyway, I looked around at diapers and just wasn't finding anything I liked enough to want to spend money on. The kind we'd had for Alaina was bothersome because you had to snap in a liner and separate things as you washed and rinsing was kind of a pain. I was sure there had to be a better idea. I finally found something I liked but I didn't want to spend that much money. I'm a tightwad; what can I say? So I started doing some research and found all the things I'd need (some if it was quite a challenge!) and I started making my own diapers. I've been liking them so much and liking making them that I thought maybe I'd make them to sell. I think that this business idea might actually go somewhere if I want it to because the materials are obscure and hard to find. Lots of the other things I've made wouldn't go anywhere, in part, because I live in Utah and everyone is crafty or has friends or family who is and they can just make their own baby stuff. So I'm going to give this a go. I've filled one order so far and I've made enough for Landon to have him in cloth full time and I've made 2 for Alaina for nighttime. I LOVE them!! And they are virtually leak-proof; way better than disposables in that regard for sure!

If any of you use cloth diapers and want to try mine out, I sell them to friends and family at a discount. And I'd appreciate it if you would spread the word to anyone you know who uses cloth diapers. Thanks! Here's the site:

MonkeyDoDiapers.blogspot.com