Our sweet baby GIRL!

Baby Addison Hope was born on June 9th at 4:00 in the afternoon and weighed in at 8 pounds 13 ounces. It is quite ridiculous that I'm just now posting this little angel baby's pictures, because she is almost four months old, which I can hardly believe! Her birth story is already fading from my memory a bit so I wanted to be sure and "write it down". Don't judge me for waiting so long....we're really busy at the Landress house!

I began having contractions about 10:00pm on June 8th which was a Wednesday night. We went to church as usual. I proclaimed to the ladies at church that I was feeling no signs of labor though PAST due and was very ready to have this baby. Little did I know she was going to make her debut the very next day. I stayed up all night timing contractions, trying to rest, packing last minute items, doing dishes/laundry, and finally decided about 3:00am it was time to get serious about calling the doctor and getting to the hospital. Mitch was already up at this point showering and getting his bag together

I called our wonderful sitters Linda and Brittany Wiggins who had agreed to be on standby any hour to come and stay with the boys. Just as promised they came over dark and early and stayed with the boys. It was such a blessing to leave the boys in bed undisturbed. We also made calls to my parents and Mitch's parents to let them know Addison was on her way and they should be too!

Mitch and I loaded up in the van and at this point my contractions were steady about 4-5 minutes apart, but not terribly painful. When they checked me in triage I was still in pretty early labor, so my doctor sent word that I could either go home or walk the halls of the hospital and then be examined again. Since we live an hour from the hospital, I opted for the walking option (I was trying to avoid pitocin and an epidural so my wonderful doctor didn't want to interfere too much with my progress).

Mitch and I walked, and walked, and walked for about 2 hours. Same floor, same confusing circles. At this point I had not slept and was exhausted. The contractions were not extremely painful yet but were getting stronger. My doctor checked me again and agreed that I could be admitted. She stripped my membranes to help things along and told me to walk some more (glad I packed my tennis shoes, even though I looked pretty ridiculous in hospital gown).

Due to a miscommunication, the nurse insisted on hooking me to a IV bag of fluids for my next marathon stroll around the labor and delivery floor. My contractions were getting more intense at this point and were only 2-3 minutes apart. I could no longer walk during the contractions but had to stop and hang onto the hand rails along the hallways (so that's what they are there for) with both hands and breath through them. All the while dragging a very rickety IV pole down the hall with me. Mitch was in charge of timing contractions and driving the IV pole. We're a good team! We both stayed very calm but I was in quite a bit of pain. After about an hour, of walking, stopping, timing, walking, stopping, timing, I was admitted to my room. Here they hooked me to the monitors and I took a seat in the rocking chair. And I rocked and rocked and rocked, stopping for contractions that were getting more intense. Mitch massaged my sore legs between contractions, but not during (please don't distract me during a contraction) My nurse checked my progress after a whole lot of rocking and discovered that I was 8 cm! Woohoo! As a completely unimportant side note, my delivery nurse was SUPER sweet and looked a lot like Casey Anthony....fortunately she wasn't Casey though and we didn't mention the resemblence to her, for fear of retribution! At this point I was told to stay in bed and on the monitors and she also told me that my water had broke. I knew that it had not broke, but she assured me that she thought it had so I couldn't get out of bed.

At this point I was terribly shocked that I had got to 8 cm without excruciating pain and stress and I was VERY excited because the nursing team started transforming the room. You know how it goes, they started gearing up the room with all the medical instruments, mirror for me to watch, the baby bed/warmer. As you can imagine, we were thinking....THIS IS IT! Any minute now. There were also tears for the first time. They were tears of pain and excitement.

Little did I know that my "transition" labor would take another 3 hours! All the other hours were a breeze, but the combination of being confined to the bed and the more intense contractions and the lack of sleep (I had been up about 30 hours at this point)....let's just say I didn't handle it as well as all the other hours combined. Lots of tears, lots of pushing that little button to get the nurse to come in, and a couple doses of Nubain. When my doctor finally came in to check on me she discovered that my water had not broken (I already knew that) and decided to break my water. She also is a wonderful, reassuring presence and coach. She made me sit up in bed, relax, breath, and within 30 minutes of her coming in Baby Addison Hope made her debut! The cord was very tangled around her, but my Doctor quickly unwound her and we got to see and hold our sweet baby girl!

Of course, no words can describe the sweet joy of holding the baby that you have longed for and felt inside you for months and months. It is a miraculous gift of our Creator and in that moment Mitch and I both felt completely blessed and totally in love with this new little Landress!

Fun Baby Tidbits

* When Noah found out I was going to have a baby, he looked at me (Mitch was sitting right across the table from me) and said very seriously....."does Dad know yet?"

* Noah REALLY wants a sister. We find out next week who is living inside there. We've really been talking to him about how God knows just what our family needs and that we are going to be happy and grateful with whoever God chooses to give us....boy or girl!

* Mitch has a whole list of names (just ask him) that he is pulling for. I'm having a really hard time settling on any of them so far and sadly I'm not much help in the suggestion of names department either. I'm hoping that after the ultrasound (NEXT WEEK!), when we'll know the gender I can be of more help. Right now I'm admittedly pretty useless.

* Levi doesn't really get it but will say, "baby in dair?" and point to my belly.

* Noah's name suggestions include sweetie and wife. hmm...probably not going to go with either of those.

* This pregnancy has been really very easy so far! God has been very gracious to me. Even in the beginning the nausea and tiredness were not unbearable and even when it was a bit much, I was just grateful for the sign that things were "normal" and my body was doing it's thing.

* There is some debate about the due date. My calculations were June 10th but according to measurements at my first ultrasound the baby was measuring big. So the Dr. set my due date at June 3rd. Just knowing my history of gigantic children, I'm betting on it being just another large baby!

* The boys are roomies now! In preparation for the baby's arrival we went ahead and put them in the same room on a bunk bed. This probably deserves a post all of it's own. So more on that later:)

Our Latest Little Miracle

This is the first glimpse of Landress Baby #3. We are thrilled beyond belief that God is allowing us the opportunity to raise another child for His glory! This ultrasound was done at 12 weeks and is a pretty incredible image if you ask me, of course I am a little biased in my opinion I'm sure. God had already knit together this little person in my womb in 12 short weeks. As the tech was taking measurements we could see the baby kicking, squirming, stretching. All the while, I was feeling no movement yet! God is performing a miracle INSIDE of me, while I just sit back take my prenatal vitamins and consume completely ridiculous amounts of ice cream, doritos, and cheetos. I can certainly not take any of the credit for the work He is doing in me. In fact, I'm quite humbled that he would even allow me this opportunity to carry, birth, raise, cherish, instruct, and discipline another child who will bear His image. Praying that God would find Mitch and I faithful in pointing this little one to Christ and eagerly awaiting the day we will look on his or her sweet little face!

Noah's "Real" Glasses

A while back I blogged about the Fake Blue Glasses that Noah has worn for a couple years now off and on. Well several months back Noah's dream of wearing real glasses became a reality. What a lucky guy, huh?

We stumbled upon a free eye exam that turned out to be a huge blessing. It was there that we discovered he had a bad astigmatism and actually wouldn't even be legal to drive if he were an adult. Who knew!?! Not his very attentive parents! Anyway, it was a little disheartening to watch him take the exam. I assured them that he knew his letters, but he was doing so poorly they switched to pictures. He would say things like "that one looks like........hmmm....a bench?" Or "that looks like a ..... whatever that is". Sad and funny all at the same time.

He's had the glasses for month or so and loves them! We go back in December to get the lenses that will give him 20/20 vision. They're having to wean him to the correct Rx because it would be too much of a drastic change to give him the correct lenses now. "Writing It Down" so that I'll remember to get Levi's eyes checked!

The Things They Say.....

Noah: Mom I love you to past the chocolate kind of love.

Levi: Instead of Knock-knock at the beginning of jokes. Levi says, "Ding Dong" Usually when you say "who's there" the answer involves a puppy and barking and of course laughing!

Noah: When someone does something wrong, instead of saying they broke the rules, Noah says they "cracked one of God's rules". Unfortunately he's much better at pointing this out when someone else does it rather than himself. Guess we all have that problem!

Levi: If you ask him his name he says he's "Beanths" His nickname is beans, he's got a bit of a lisp.

Noah: I love everyone that knows me....even my family!

Levi: He calls every grandma at church by their "grandma name"; Gigi, Mimi, Coco, etc. It makes their day when he calls them by their "name". BTW his own grandmas are Nana and Mona...we're not sure where mona came from.

Noah: At least once in every sermon that Mitch preaches, Noah will look up at me and whisper, "Is that right?"

Levi: Last night at church Levi called me "Mrs. Jennifer"

Our Birthday Boy - Levi Beans

It is so hard to believe that our baby Levi is Two Years Old! Levi is truly a joy at the Landress house. He talks up a storm and loves getting in on whatever Big Brother Noah is doing.

For Levi's birthday we decided to take him to a Character Meal at Disney World. Thanks to Papa's great discount this is a fun option for us for birthdays. So Noah, Mitch, Grandma, Papa, Aunt Jessica, and I all joined Levi for a fun lunch at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom. Also went on a few rides and had a fantastic day!

Some of the days highlights:

Levi yelling "ALL ABOARD!" at the Train Station.


His face lighting up when he saw the characters.


Levi enjoying me singing the Winnie The Pooh song to him at lunch (he may be the only person around that enjoys my singing!)

The way he now finds "hidden mickeys" EVERYWHERE. Basically anytime three circles are in any sort of proximity it's Mickey Mouse.

On Levi's actual birthday we took him to Toys R Us to pick out a toy from Nana and Papa. Of everything in the store he picked out a piano/keyboard. He is a little music lover!
Some of Levi's Favorite things these days are Barney, playing cars, listening to music, going to "chuch", and of course Frog and Purplish (his two favorite stuffed animals). We love you Levi Beans!

He's Learning Too

Three to four days a week, Levi, Noah and I sit down at the table and do "school". It's just part of our day now, worked into our routine. Usually both the boys have a snack and I have my mid morning caffinated beverage. Levi has a coloring book, some crayons, and usually something else that he insisted on bringing to the table with him.

We usually sit there for about an hour working on Noah's school work, but recently I've been amazed at the stuff Levi is picking up. He's nibbling away at his snack and will suddenly blurt out something I've been teaching Noah. Like when we're counting Levi will often say the next number. He sings along when we sing the days of the week. He walked up to our world map recently and pointed out Antartica (it's the one closest to his eye level, I guess). Noah was going on a shape hunt around the house the other day and Levi came in the living room with a peice from a puzzle and proclaimed "octogon"!

I love homeschooling and just to be honest, some days are much better than others. All in all the good days outweigh the more difficult ones and it's very fun to watch Noah get better and better at reading and to see the things Levi is picking up along the way too!

Finity Beyond Suits

There are few things my boys like more than dressing up. Before you judge me, there is nothing girly about our dress up stash. We have cowboy hats, police helmets, hard hats, manly "dress-up". Anyway, they love it! Their favorite costumes by far are their Toy Story costumes. Here is a picture from Last October....almost a year ago. Cute huh?
Well somewhere along the way, Grandma bought Noah a Buzz Lightyear suit that fit him great with room for him to grow into it. So now we have this.

Everytime Noah puts on his Buzz Lightyear Costume, Levi insists on putting his on. As you can see I can only snap on or two buttons on his and we don't even attempt to put his legs in their proper place. Levi runs around the house yelling "finity beyond!" And aptly named this costume his "finity beyond" suit. Thankfully he doesn't realize that the costume is about, well, 4-5 sizes too small for him. I'm thinking that a new Buzz Lightyear costume may be a great Birthday present for Mr. Levi beans next month though!

Homeschooling Noah

I'm sure there will be more on this to come, but we are in the midst beginning to homeschool Noah. He is only four and I am convinced at this point that less is more. He's four for goodness sakes, he should be spending a lot of his time getting dirty outside, using his imagination, riding his bike, etc.

So all that to say we have started slow and steady. I have been using:

The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading

Bob Books

Explode the Code Workbooks

Handwriting Without Tears

Saxon Math (adding this in the Fall)

I am enjoying doing a little homeschooling with Noah now and look forward to continuing into the Fall. I know we'll have plenty of years ahead of us to dig into a more rigorous curriculum, but for now this will do:) Writing it down so I don't forget how it all started!

Noah's Glasses

Noah has this pair of blue glasses that I think Uncle Ryan and Aunt Stacie gave him when he was just a baby. The sunglass lenses fell out long ago, but for years now he has loved wearing the plastic rims! It is the funniest thing. He will forget about them, but when he finds them at the bottom of his toy bin he will literally wear them for days. He's been wearing this silly glasses since he was about two. He actually wore them all day on his third birthday.

I think he just really wants to be like his Daddy. He says he can't see a thing without them! Considering the eye sight that Mitch and I have, with any luck he'll get to wear real glasses one day:)

Matching Bug Bites

Both of my boys have insane reactions to mosquito bites. This past weekend they were both bitten in the same exact spot on the same exact day. What are the odds? A little benedryl and they were good to go. Noah and I have a theory that mosquitos didn't bite in the garden of Eden.

Levi's Road Rage

Levi is the sweetest little guy you will ever meet. However this sweet little guy HATES and I mean HATES being in his carseat. Unfortunately for him we find ourselves in the van on a pretty regular basis. I have a few theories.

My first was that his carseat was a torture device. The little boy I babysit, Tyson, drifts quietly to sleep in the car and seems very comfortable in his. So I decided to let Levi give Tyson's a go. Tyson contentedly sat in Levi's seat, while Levi screamed in his loaner. Apparently the car seat is not the problem.

My second theory has no real way of being tested, but Levi gets kind of "ashy" on his back. The doctor thinks it could be mild (very mild) eczema. So maybe he gets hot and uncomfortable in the seat. Who knows? Maybe next year I can ask him and he will say, "why yes mother, my back itches. This is why I have been crying for the past year and half."

My third theory is he just hates being restrained. I know this is true, but the second theory probably has some merit as well. Anyway....here is a picture from a recent road trip as evidence.

Noah's Artwork

I teach Noah's preschool class on Wednesday nights at church. We were discussing how the Israelites were grumpy and complained in the desert, even after God had brought them out of slavery and defeated their enemy the Egyptians. Despite their bad attitudes God still showed mercy to them by providing them with manna to eat in the morning and quail in the evenings.

The kids enjoyed pretending to be the Israelites. They especially liked whining to Moses, together they would say....."Moses, Moses"....in the most annoying whiny voice ever. I think they could relate to the grumbling Israelites. The truth of the matter is I could too! God has so richly blessed me, yet I still find myself anxious and whiny. I still complain when I've had a long day with the kids...the very beautiful healthy kids God blessed me with. I still worry about money....the very money God owns and graciously lets me use. There is no telling the grumbling and complaining I would do if I was hungry in the desert!
I'm so thankful that the God I serve is merciful! Merciful to the Israelites, and merciful to me!

That night the kids also made quail as their craft. Their teacher is lame so the pattern is pretty silly. Here is what the quail was supposed to look like.....




Below is Noah's version. It looks a lot like Mr. Potato Head and is hanging on our fridge.

Levi Celebrates Our Risen Lord in a DISGUSTING way!

Easter Sunday my parents and sister were here so our Sunday morning routine was a little different than normal. Levi was going to stay home from Sunday School with them, and they were bringing him over for the service at 11:00am.

Noah and I were dressed and ready to go, almost ready to walk out the door when my Dad made the "discovery". Levi was playing happily in his room (too quietly). When my Dad found Levi, 66he had poop on his back, hands, feet, carpet, piggy bank toy, coins inside the piggy bank toy, and oh yeah....in his diaper! The diaper was still on so apparantly he had reached in and grabbed a handful and did a little "finger painting". YUCK! He had never done this before and hopefully he will never do it again! Nothing gets one in the mood for worship quite like cleaning poop off the carpet.

Fortunately my parents were here because usually I'm flying solo on Sunday mornings with the kids. I cleaned the carpet. Mom bathed Levi and Noah and I were still on time for Sunday School. Ordinarily Levi would already have been dressed for church, but he was still in his PJ's. God is very gracious to me!

We did have a wonderful Ressurection Sunday (poop incident aside).

Holy Week at Our House

A couple of years ago I read a book called Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Noel Piper. It is a simple book that challenges families (mom's in particular) to make the traditions in your home point to Christ. I could be doing more in this area, but here are a few of our traditions for Holy Week at our house. Two of these are straight from Noel's great book!

Every year Noah and I make a playdough tomb. I know it sounds a little silly at first, but this has been a great way to tell the story of Jesus death and resurrection every year. We make the tomb, stone, cross, and pipe cleaner people. All week we discuss the events of the crucifixion. We put our pipe cleaner Jesus on the cross on Good Friday, place him in the tomb, and cover the tomb entrance with the stone. On Sunday morning before Noah wakes up we pull Jesus out of the tomb and stand him up. He is Alive! We still do a basket for the boys in celebration of Resurrection Sunday, but our tomb has made the day much more about Jesus and I'm not sure Noah knows who the Easter bunny is...this is okay with us:) Click on the highlighted link for detailed instructions.

This year Levi got in on the action:

Noah working hard on the playdough. Levi was a BIG help. They are both still in their PJ's.

Levi would like for you to know that while the playdough isn't toxic, it doesn't taste good.

The tomb and Noah's new "natural" smile. We hadn't added the cross yet.

Also beginning last year we began using the Easter Readings available from Desiringgod.org Click on the link for a copy of the readings and complete instructions. We enjoyed this last year and are doing it again this year. It incorporates Lenten Candles as well. Noah doesn't completely understand all that we read, but he understands more this year than last year and is learning to quietly listen to scripture being read. Levi just enjoys trying to blow out the candles. Our prayer is one day they will come to understand the Gospel!

This year I stumbled upon what I think will be a new tradition. This month, Noah and I read the Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. I didn't intentionally plan this for the Easter season, but it was good timing. I love reading aloud that book and Noah loved the storyline. I know he doesn't get all the parallels between Aslan and Christ, but he did enjoy the story. We finished reading the book on Saturday and watched the movie Saturday night. He loved it and I think we'll make this an annual event! (Caution: The movie is a little scary in parts.)

Also new this year. I found a fun recipe for Resurrection Rolls online. You simply dunk a marshmallow in butter, roll it in cinnamon sugar, then wrap it in two cresant rolls (canned, refrigerated dough). When you bake the rolls the marshmallow melts leaving an empty "tomb". Noah had fun making these. Levi didn't help to make them but he had fun eating them! They taste way better than the playdough! The link above gives the complete recipe. (Tips: Use two rolls instead of one for each marshmallow. Bake in greased muffin pan instead of a cookie sheet. Otherwise marshmallows tend to ooze out!)

I started these traditions for the boys' benefit originally but they have proven to be a great reminder for me as well. I find myself reflecting more on the precious gift of Christ's death, burial, and ressurection during this season.

My Children are Bilingual

On Sunday mornings I'm kind of on my own with the kids. It's a busy day of the week for Mitch...go figure. He gets up early and walks on over to church while the kids and I do breakfast and get dressed for church. Some Sunday mornings are pretty hectic, but all in all we usually do pretty well. The routine I have worked out is:

1. Get the boys fed, myself fed, and dishes rinsed (but not washed...it is the sabbath after all).

2. Get the boys dressed, shoes on, hair brushed, etc.

3. Turn on a cartoon for the boys.

4. Get myself dressed with theoretically no interruptions.

This past week I was on number 4, when Mitch came home to check on us. Which by the way is very sweet of him, because like I said Sundays are his busiest day. Mitch came into our bedroom and said, "Did you know the kids were watching a cartoon in Spanish?"

My answer of course was No. Apparently in my haste I had chosen a Spanish cartoon for them. The funny thing is they still didn't interrupt me and were quite entertained while I got dressed. Here is a picture of them watching their culturally diverse programming. I thought Babar had a British accent, but not this week!

Tigger and Frog

These two are very cherished pals at our house. Noah has slept with Tigger every night since he was seven months old and Levi found Mr. Frog in his Easter basket last year.

When Noah was 7 months old, he still liked to be swaddled. Which would not have been a problem except for he was HUGE, and it got to be pretty ridiculous to try to keep him all wrapped up. Without the swaddle he startled easily and kept waking up. Eventually I figured out that with Tigger in his arms he was snug as a bug! His affection for Tigger only grew stronger over the years. Now he is 4 and still insists on sleeping with him every night.

As you can see Tigger's head hangs rather low. Mitch says he looks despondant. He really is a happy fellow, but Noah carries him around by the neck. He isn't quite as perky as he used to be. The picture below is of "back-up Tigger" which we foolishly bought thinking if we ever lost Tigger 1, Tigger 2 would do just as well. As you can see Tigger 2 has not had as much snuggling.

Frog became Levi's favorite last spring. He sleeps with him every night and his whole face lights up when he sees Mr. Frog. Occasionally we hear great cries of desperation from Levi's room. If he is playing in his room and realizes Frog is in the crib, he tries to pull him through the slats to rescue his pal. But Frog does not fit, and mourning ensues. Levi calls Frog "buddy" or "Gog".

We don't have any pets around our house so maybe Frog and Tigger will suffice for a good long while. They are so low maintence. No mess, easy to bathe (toss in the washer), no food, very healthy (they only go to the dr. if the boys are getting shots and there is no copay for Tigger and Frog), they enduce sleep rather than waking the boys up, Dad is not allergic to them, the list goes on and on.

Levi soon after getting Frog
Levi with the two pals one year later. Boy he has changed!

Enemies of God

Tonight while I was reading the story of Rahab to Noah, we read that the people of her land were enemies of God, yet she still helped the Isrealite spies. So Noah wanted to know if she was a Philistine (David and Goliath is his favorite story).

When I explained to him that she wasn't a Philistine, he said "well Amorites are little critters that (insert crunching noise)". First of all how random a comment is that? We went from enemy of God, to Philistines, to Amorites, to critters going crunch crunch?!?!

It took me a minute to realize that he was referring to TERMITES not Amorites. Wow, I had a little bit of explaining to do at that point.

Dinosaurs at Prayer Time

During bedtime prayers last night Noah prayed a very sincere prayer that went something like this, "God please, please could you put dinosaurs back on earth and keep them safe so that I could see them". Earlier in the day, we had discussed how dinosaurs are extinct now and everything we learn about them is from fossils.

Aren't you glad that God only gives us "good gifts and perfect gifts"? I'm glad his answer to some of our prayers is NO. I've never prayed for large carnivorous beasts to roam the neighborhood, but I have prayed prayers that in hind sight I'm glad God, in his infinite wisdom, did not give me.

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above" James 1:17

The Power to Read

Noah has always loved books (imagine that....have you seen my husband's office?). Last year he learned most of his letter sounds by watching Leap Frog's Letter Factory DVD. Recently he has been super interested in words. When we are going down the road, we hear a lot of "what's that sign say?" from the back seat. So I somewhat doubtfully decided I would try to teach Noah to read when he turned four.

Let me just say how terribly insecure I am about my teaching abilities. I realize that on paper I am qualified for this task (I have two degrees in elementary education), but I taught upper elementary and have never really had the privilege of teaching someone to read. What if I screw up and he is confused from this day forward about the "short a" sound?

I found the perfect book though! It's called "Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading". That's me an "Ordinary Parent"! So last week Noah and I began working on all the short vowel sounds. He was somewhat reluctant at first, but today asked if we could do a reading lesson (it takes all of 10 minutes). Everyday we settle in to "our special reading spot" and do a reading lesson together, and I read aloud a chapter from one of the Chronicles of Narnia books. We're both beginning to really enjoy this time together. As it turns out, I didn't really need either degree to snuggle up with Noah while he learns to read.

Yesterday was a big milestone. Noah read his first book! He read a book entitled "Mat". A riveting tale of Mat and Sam. Mat sat on Sam at one point in the story. It is the first phonics reader in the Bob Book Series. He was SO proud of himself and grinned the whole way through the book. He sounded out those short vowel sounds like a champ! We went out for milkshakes last night to celebrate.

What a big day for Mr. Noah. I pray that he will continue to love learning and reading!