I dun gradiated!

It's true! Landon has finished, Yay. Though we have had a fun time through all of our BYU experience, we are ready to move on, and excited for the next exciting adventure on the farm.

 

 I just thought I would take a minute to say how proud I am of Landon and his ability to keep balance during school. I never had to juggle a family with college life, since I graduated before then. Though it does come with the perks of someone to make dinner after a long day, or a built-in editor of your papers, I know it also came with challenges. He had to deal with the sleepless nights of a newborn while preparing for exams and taking classes.  He had to work so that we had enough money for essentials, rather than take time off when school was busy. It took extra effort and planning to still be a part of the BYU experience with football games, concerts, student programs, or intramurals, and still have time to come home and play with the baby before he had to be in bed. I just wanted to say that I'm glad that family is a priority for Landon, because Tyson and I always felt a part of the process instead of a hindrance.

Here are a few pictures from our graduation weekend. Thanks to the Rowley family for helping us move!!!

So cool!

We saw some of our good friends, the Youngs. Amanda and I had fun
with mother's group, and Adam had some classes with Landon as well.
They are a fun family.  We will miss the great friends we've made in Provo.

Just makes me think of a little leprechaun. :)

 

We played some family tennis that weekend to break things up from the moving and ceremonies. We aren't exactly amazing, but we aren't bad. It made for some funny games.

 

 

 

Tyson was pretty excited Daddy waved to him.

Christmas

I'm still playing catch-up from Christmas. But here are some fun pics of our break. 

Grandma Rowley made him a super cute hat

He's always so excited when Daddy comes home!

Meeting Santa

Most little kids seem to be terrified of Santa. At least a lot of those at our ward Christmas party were. Not Tyson. He was "Santa's Little Helper", or so it said on his shirt. Santa named him his little "Beard Stealer"...

Now all of our ward knows if Santa's beard was real. He checked twice to make sure. Once when he first got on his lap, and once while we took the picture above, ha. From the minute he got on Santa's lap, he was just looking for things to pull or play with. The tree caught his attention next.

He had this thing with posing for a while.

He loves the bubbles!

Our tree. The top was too flimsy, so the star went in the middle, ha. And the tree was dead in two weeks. We even cut it ourselves and still--dead as a doornail. Good thing we weren't here until Christmas.  If you look you can see our elf Sparticus too.

Just makes me smile.

At the Basin City Ward party.

Grandpa Draney said he needs to start young. So we let him try out the drums.

I was pretty proud of our gingerbread houses this year. Makenna and I made the one on the left.

His first Christmas!

Landon and I were in charge of leaving a plate for Santa. Landon is all for bribery. 

Baking rolls, you gotta have a stylin flamenco apron.

Ty wanted to play too.

My new snow clothes

Landon made me get him some Christmas socks last year, since I  have so many.  He was pretty proud of them.

Our Little Destroyer

When Landon was a youngster they called him "annihilate". It was part of the threesome with his brother Ryan and sister Whitney, whom their parents deemed "Search", "Destroy", and "Annihilate", because Ryan would always find something new, Whitney would break it, and then they would run off while Landon destroyed it to smithereens...and he got in trouble.  Typical.  

Later in life Landon was called "Slayer", because apparently he knew how to foul someone properly in basketball. 

Now we just call our little guy "Destroyer". Apparently it runs in the genes. Any time he sees any kind of tower he gets really worked up and HAS to knock it over. He really is pretty upset until it's down. Even after making this video, we showed it to him, and he would get all excited watching himself destroy the towers. We used it as incentive to help him learn to crawl. Cracks me up.

Ferdinand the Bull

This is from a month ago or more, but I finally have access to a computer that can convert the file. We read "Ferdinand the Bull" to the little guy. Then he and Landon decided they could be bulls too!

Progress

I decided it's about time I update.  If anyone read my post about Landon's cooking ideas, then you might appreciate this pic. I had company coming, so I was avoiding the eyes watering. 

We saw the movie Julie and Julia, and the part where she is practicing cutting onions and the husband came in cracked me up. It totally reminded me of this, ha. 

Ty is now 5 months old!! Yay. He's still alive, so we must be doing something right, eh. He's now at the stage where everything goes in his mouth. Thumbs, feet, toys, flowers...you name it. I'm told this is normal :)

He has also found his voice. All day long he is squealing or trying it out, it just makes me laugh a lot. This will be our first normal church meetings since the discovery, which will be a whole new kind of interesting during sacrament, I'm sure.

He's getting some cute cheeks, and little more hair. So I like to experiment sometimes. I'm told I should just leave him to do his own hair when he's old enough. 

He has also learned to turn over from his back to his tummy. So putting him to bed has some added difficulty. But he's a pro--4 times the first day.

I'm not really sure what was going on here. Landon claims that he was showing him how to use the toys. I think he just wanted to try it out.

As far as our family news, we got to go bowling with some of the Rowley fam. It was really not my night. I kept getting 9's, which as everyone knows, is so close to being amazing, but leaves your score pretty unimpressive. Here's my reaction to one of the bowls--Landon was so kind as to document it. Can I just say, I want bowling shoes for every day use. 

Ry was daring enough to show up at the Wilk in complete Boise attire right after we lost to them. 

And Ty was pretty amazed by the whole thing, especially the lighting. Becky and David would hold him before their turn for good luck, ha. Landon did pretty good the first game. We did some crazy bowls on the second round, which changed his score a bit. I, on the other hand, did just as well lefty and crazy as I did when I really tried. Figures. Becky was going for the Obama bowl--a 37 in 7 frames.  Sadly, she and Landon were close, but missed it.

 And we went to another football game. Ty was all dressed and ready.