"Snowedout Atlanta"

I have to admit, when we heard there was a chance of snow in Atlanta and the whole city was FREAKING OUT, we laughed and thought boy, these people are afraid of 2 inches of snow?  They should move to Boston or Cleveland where 2 inches is a light dusting.  The grocery stores were packed; water, bread and milk were gone.  (I still wonder, what they hell are you going to do with milk and bread if you have no other food in your house?  It's such and odd combination.  I personally would stock up on pizza and wine.)

The snow started around noon on Tuesday.  Thankfully my boss had texted me in the morning and told me to not come into work that day, I was slated to start at 3:00 and work until 5:30.  (I doubt at that point I would have even made it into work, but if I had, it would have most likely taken me 12 plus hours to get home.)  So now free for the day, Landon and I hunkered down for the "blizzard."  Kev had a meeting in Alpharetta, about 12 miles away from our house at 11:00 and was finished around noon.  He called me on his way to another meeting and said the roads were a parking lot.  At this point we assumed that there was an accident and things would start to pick up for him.  He obviously never made it to his 2:00 meeting and headed straight home.  4 hours later, Kevin made it.

The snow continued and when it finally stopped around 5:00, we had a whopping 2 inches.  Now, normally, like I said, I would have found this hilarious that the city was falling apart at the seems over this snow.  A fair amount of the people living in Atlanta are transplants from the north, they should know how to drive in this.  However, I can say that in all my years living in the north there were very few times I've seen the road conditions as poor as they were here.  We simply are not equipped to deal with snow.  There are 30 snow trucks for the entire city, and Atlanta is a big, big city.

So, couple the fact that everyone left work at the same time, and the government officials did not pretreat the roads, you had a massive disaster.  Several of our neighbors had to abandon their cars and walk home several miles because traffic was just not moving.  People slept in grocery stores, strangers homes, children at school!  As of last night I believe there were STILL people trying to get home.  It's one of the craziest things I've ever lived through!

Here at the Freaney household, we enjoyed some extra family time both yesterday and today.  Landon saw snow when he was in Ohio but we never really let him experience it.  So of course, I put him in his snow suit and took him out on the porch.  Vedder was a seasoned pro, so much so that he reverted back to his Boston ways and peed on the back porch.  (Thankfully, he doesn't attempt that when there is no snow or we'd have some real problems.)  It was an early lesson to Landon about yellow snow.

The beginning of the snow.

Vedder's investigating the situation.

Hmmmm, what is this stuff exactly?

Are we going in yet?

                        

I'm not really sure what the big deal is here.

Snow angel! (He wasn't happy about this.)

The roads all looked like this on Wednesday morning.  A sheet of ice.

  

A Fella On The Go

I've created a monster!!!!!  For those of you fellow Atlantans, you know how terrible traffic is here.  For those of you who aren't, be thankful.  Because the crazy rush hour traffic begins at 3:00, I can't just run errands when ever I please.  So, couple errands with trying to work around a baby's nap schedule and you've limited your time as to when you can get out of the house.  With all this being said, we run all errands in the morning.  Someone, who shall remain nameless has become very accustomed to being on the go in the morning and if we aren't on the move… there is hell to pay.  We tried every usual calming method, the swing, the vibrating chair.  Nothing worked.  So, I tried something that I thought would never work... I put him in his crib for a nap, and wouldn't ya know!  Someone feel asleep after a few minutes of crying!  This has since created problems with our afternoon nap, I'm sure it'll all sort it's self out in due time...

Kev's celebrated his 32nd birthday on the 17th, (he's really lucky to be married to such a young, spring chicken.  A lady in her 20's, he's really robbing the cradle!)  Although his day at work was less than savory, I think the boys and I made up for it in some fantastic presents and a nice dinner out to his favorite restaurant, Murphys.  I was a bit nervous as to how our little ball of joy would behave in a nicer restaurant, and I'm thankful to report he was better behaved than the small children at the table next to ours!

Seven months!  We're on the downward slope of year one.  Thanks to the addictive website, pintrest, I have already began plotting out Landon's party... Yikes.

We're still introducing new baby food flavors to Landon, some of our favorites so far are peas, squash, and carrots.  Besides the baby food, we've began offer Landon small pieces of bananas, pears or sweet potato while Kevin and I eat dinner.  He's been slow to warm up to the concept of "real" food, and by slow I mean he makes these over dramatic gagging sounds and usually forcefully spits out the piece of food.  As of the past few days, he's moved on from spitting food at us, to putting the food on the left side of his mouth and "chewing" it and eventually swallowing it.  This has only been successful with bananas and sweet potatoes.

I don't want carrotttttsssss

For as uninterested as he is in trying to eat solid food, he's equally interested from drinking from cups.  Everything that has one open top- an open box, a toy with an open top, anything with an open top is a "cup."  I told Kevin about this earlier, how babies place objects into categories that they know.  For example, because we have a dog, Landon will assume everything furry with four legs is a dog- cats, tigers, bears, etc.  (I'm brushing the cobwebs off the things I learned in college… hey, at least my college education isn't going completely to waste!)  Well, in this house, everything is a cup, and Landon is just SURE that all these "cups" have liquid in them.  Since the doctor said it was okay to let Landon have small amounts of water, we've introduced a cup with water to him and he LOVES it.  Most of the water doesn't actually makes it down the hatch, but he thinks it's cool who are we to deprive him!

Kevin and I tried a couple of little adventures with Landon, and I can hardly say they went off without a hitch.  In fact, I'm sure this child thought we'd lost our damn minds.  Our first "adventure" was to take Landon to the small playground in the park next to our house.  We thought, surely this child will LOVE to swing.  He loves to jump and swing around in his jump-a-roo, this is going to be amazing.  It was a big, fat, flop.  He gave us a stern look of irritation and we promptly scooped him up out of the swing before we ventured into full on meltdown.  His brother didn't help the situation by barking at him as he swung past.

Get me out of this thing! 

Adventure number two was the bathtub.  Landon loves to splish and splash around in the tub we thought surely he's going to love to "swim" around.  So, my ingenious idea was to fill up the big tub with water and have Kevin put on his swing trunks and play with Landon in the tub.  He acted as if nothing was new and he wasn't in a giant tub with his dad.  I, personally, think it would have gone much better had Kevin let me fill the tub up with more water.  I also think I imagined the tub to be much larger than it actually is.  This child probably thinks we've absolutely lost our minds.

We have our first "word."  Landon decided that he didn't want to be Switzerland and instead of saying mama or dada, went with good ol' baba.  Maybe he's just also a fatty that likes to eat.  He just loves to randomly start screaming BABABABABA.  It gives us quite the chuckle.  We're starting to test out "gaga."  Hasn't caught on just yet though.  I'm sure the next word will be "mama."  It sure would be a great thing to rub into Kev's face. ;)

Is it baseball season yet?

YOU'RE KIDDING!

Daddy had a late night meeting one Friday, so Landon and I went out on a date... 

Apparently he doesn't have any table manors. 

Brotherly love.

Mom, I swear, I think I can catch him. 

I.  Love.  Blocks.

Put me in coach!

My favorite chew toy is a lotion bottle.  Oh, and I like dog toys on my head.

Celebrity meltdown.

I'm not getting into mischief!

Baby mix me a drink.  Most hilarious book ever.  

Laundry baskets double as a hilarious baby jail.

I'm going to get youuuuu....

9 lives, minus 2

I promise I have a happy, uplifting blog, full of lots of Landon pictures and updates.  However, things have been overly crazy here the past few days and have prevented me from finishing up that blog.  For now, I figured I'd take the time to tell you about our sweet, bionic dog.  We know that he would prefer all the focus be on him, but I really do wish that he'd find other ways to gain our attention.  

Kevin and I were overly thrilled when we thought we had found a sweet gal to care for Landon and Vedder two days a week.  We were even more thrilled when a neighbor watched her sweetly bundle them up to go out for a walk.  On her third day of work we couldn't have been more disappointed and sadden by what happened on her watch.

While I was at work on Monday I received a phone call from a stranger telling me that she was driving my dog to the Brookhaven Animal clinic because she had hit him with her car.  It is the phone call that will stop time and bring you to your knees.  My first thought was that Vedder, who has been known to sneak out of the house, had gotten loose and was making his neighborhood rounds and someone in our community had hit him.  After many hours, and finally speaking to a random person who had witnessed the situation, we uncovered the truth.

A dog from another neighborhood had gotten loose and had run out into the middle of the street.  While some kind people were trying to catch the dog to return him home, a car had stopped and was waiting for them to safely retrieve the dog.  In the midst of her being stopped, Vedder decided he wanted in the action and ran out into the road, and under the car.  I'm assuming, (and sincerely hoping she wasn't that negligent) that this girl didn't notice that Vedder had run out into the road and was under this car.  When the woman driving removed her foot off the break she hit my poor, sweet pup with her car.  When he squealed she knew that something was wrong and immediately stopped.  Everyone on the scene, except the ex-nanny, called the local vets to see who could see Vedder immediately, and had the equipment to check for breaks.

Someone on Monday was certinally looking out for our little family because Vedder walked away from the situation with nothing but severe bruising.  We have had a couple scares of there being blood in his stool, and some insertional issues.  However, these were nothing but scares.

Kevin and I were so incredibly sadden that this girl was not paying attention to our son and allowed for this to happen.  It made us worry and wonder if she would let this happen to Vedder, would something happen to Landon?  Further more, it wasn't just that this incident happened at all, because accidents do happen, it was how she planned on handling my injured dog.  By bringing him home, and would have, under our assumption told us that he was hurt when we got home.  Had it not been for these strangers, I would hate to imagine where we would be right now with him.

The patient is doing well overall.  He's very slowly recovering, which is very difficult for Kevin and I to see.  He usually bounces back with such ease.  He's been milking us for all the treats, and new toys he can get and I'm sure he's just lapping up the attention he's taken away from Landon.  

In the meantime, we've since fired the nanny (over a voicemail, because she refuses to answer my calls or call me back.) And hired a new one through a friend, of a friend.  As of today, I feel like we're finally making a turning point in the situation and we can put this awful week behind us.

A little play surely helps recovery!

What?  It's just my size!

Resting in his brother's room. 

War and Peace, Blog Style…

I know, I know, I haven't blogged in what probably seems like ages to you, and I'm sure each and everyone one of you are just dying inside to know what's been going on with the Freaney Gang.  Well, we have been very busy bees here in the Freaney household.  Between keeping up with the normal day to day hub bub, keeping a baby and his puppy brother happy we thought we'd added a trip to Ohio, a baptism, Christmas and visitors to the mix.  To say things have been crazy in this house would be a serious understatement.  As of today things are back to normal and back into the swing of our regular routine.

With that being said, go grab yourself a snack (maybe throw dinner in the crock pot,) make a drink and buckle in for a novel.

The rush to meet Santa here in Atlanta begins in August.  No.  Joke.  The "good" Santa is at Phipps, the high end mall here in Atlanta.  In order to see Santa you have to register in August in hopes to get the magical email that tells you had been selected to meet the big man himself, if and when you get the email you then select your date and time.  We must have been in the later round of emails because our only dates to meet Santa were in the beginning of November.  Since Landon is so little I knew that he'd look like a completely different baby if he had his picture taken in the beginning of November.  So, I took the risk, forgoing our appointment and hoping that maybe we could snag one of the coveted canceled appointments.  After several days of calling to no avail, Kevin and I finally struck gold.  We had gotten a canceled appointment to meet Santa.  I was so excited you'd think that someone told me I was meeting the real deal and he was giving me a brand new Prada.  The entire time we waited in line Landon was as chipper as could be, laughing and smiling.  However, we are now on the verge of stranger danger and he was not so sure of what he thought of this man we call Santa.  As you can tell by his face.

We have a six month old baby!  A whole half year.  Where.  Is.  Time.  Going????  I had a feeling that with the holidays that the 6th month would creep up on us.  I just didn't think that it would come so fast.  I know I say this every month but I just can't believe the time goes by as quickly as it does.  Wasn't he just in my uterus last week???

                            I love being 6 months!                                What's my puppy doing?

We decided to go ahead and have Landon take 6 month photos.  We were so so excited to have the photographer capture our happy, giggly son.  However, Landon had other plans for our photo shoot and things did not go as planned.  In the information packet for 6 month photos the first thing she said, is that the baby really needs to be able to sit on their own to get the type of pictures you want.  Landon can sit by himself for short periods of time, long enough for someone to snap a couple pictures.  Unfortunately Landon took a massive spill at the beginning of the shoot and DID NOT recover.  He was not a happy camper, which made it very difficult for the photographer.  Kev and I were so embarrassed and we were sweating bullets trying everything we could think of to get him to smile.  Nothing worked.  Some how though, the photographer must have been a magician because his photos turned out wonderful!  I'm so glad we decided to do them.

My absolute favorite.

This is what he was really like the entire 45 minutes.

Before we left for Ohio Landon had his 6 month check up.  The doctor was pleased with Landon's development.  Our chunker weighed in at 18 pounds 8 ounces.  That put him in the 73 percentile.  He's 27 inches long and in the 92 percentile.  Overall, Landon is the average size of a 9 month old baby.  Maybe he should slow down on the growing!  My goodness!  It's a good thing he is outfitted with an entire new wardrobe of new clothes because a lot of things are going into the "too small box."  

Because we were traveling to Ohio for Christmas we decided we would exchange gifts before we left.  We knew Santa would leave a few things for Landon in Ohio, so we weren't too worried that he'd feel sad on Christmas morning.  He was a pro at opening the presents, and true to a 6 month old he was more interested in the wrapping paper than the actual gift.

Don't worry Landon, your brother is happy to help you unwrap your gifts! 

After the craziness with our flight to Ohio for my sister's wedding we decided that we would need a serious prescription of zanex if we flew with not only a 6 month old baby but also his puppy brother.  Between the flight, renting a car, and figuring out the logistics of getting an ungodly amount of Christmas gifts for Landon back to Atlanta, it just made sense to pack up the SUV and road trip it.  I have to say that we were really nervous about how driving with the boys for 12 hours would go.  Vedder tends to get car sick, Landon is a baby who we knew would inevitably scream, we know it could get ugly and be a very long, miserable 12 hours.  We went in expecting the worst, prepared for anything, and thankfully we were pleasantly surprised by both boys.  On the trip up we stopped in Cincinnati to stay with my good friend Ashley.  It's about an 8 hour drive to Cincinnati so we figured it'd be a good gage to see if we could make the journey straight through to go back to Atlanta.  The stop was not only nice because we got to visit with good friends but we felt a lot more confident about the ride home.

Hanging out in the car!  What a trooper!! 

On the 22nd we had Landon baptized at my family's church in Ravenna.  It was so meaningful to not only have Landon baptized in the same church my sister and I were, but also to have the person who married Kevin and I preform the baptism. We were so very lucky to have so much family there to support Landon on this special day.  Words cannot express how much it meant to the three of us to have so many there.  He's one lucky fella, that Landon!

Looking all spiffy in his baptism outfit. 

The rest of our time in Ohio went by like a blur.  There was a lot of time spent packing ourselves up for the day, getting in a car and trying to see as many people while we were in town as possible.  It was really rather stressful.  Thankfully I'm not pregnant this Christmas season and I was able to have a glass of wine or two to aid in my sanity.  Overall, Our first Christmas with Landon was great.  We had so much fun with all our friends and family.  Landon, needless to say was spoiled rotten.  He received enough toys to sufficiently fill up a cabinet in the living room, and enough 9 month clothes to outfit an entire day care for 2 months.  Best of all, was seeing the joy and happiness this little babe brought to everyone this Christmas.  Everything seemed so much more light, fun and magical this year.  

Visiting Grandma Freaney on Christmas Eve

Puppy brother is bouncing around somewhere! 

Doggie made a guest appearance! 

Of course we left milk and cookies out for Santa at our hotel, I even made sure we had  a little tree!

Santa came to our hotel!

Landon Clause opening the first of many presents at Grandmas Freaney's! 

Someone was pooped from his busy Christmas day!

Merry Christmas! 

Gram with her Great Grandson, Grandson, and Daughter

Shortly after we returned to Atlanta, my mom and step-dad came down to visit.  Our time in Ohio was so hectic it was nice to have some one-on-one time with them, and it also made our lives a bit less stressful at the holidays.  Knowing that they were coming down relieved some of the pressure to squeeze in as much time as possible with them.  While they were here we went to the aquarium with Landon for the first time.  I was more focused on Landon's face the entire time then I was the fish.  He was in such awe of everything around him, his eyes were wide and his mouth agape.  We loved experiencing something new through his eyes.   

I have to share one of my favorite recent things, it proves that Landon is growing on Vedder… I woke up and followed my normal routine, I padded groggily downstairs to warm up a bottle for Landon.  Vedder wasn't in bed with Kev and I but I just assumed that he was sleeping under the bed like he usually does.  However, when I came up the stairs I see him stretching as he comes out of Landon's room.  He clearly had gone in there to sleep.  It warmed my heart.  I have a feeling eventually Kevin and I will loose our warm smuggler to a cute little boy.  

Landon was being really cranky one Sunday so we decided we'd let him open a present.  Clearly, we thought this will cheer him up!  Here he is opening his very first present.

Vedder was the photographer for the day.  He's available for hire.  Please call 1-800-Sir-Vedder to book your next event. 

The day after Landon opened his first present, I turn my back for two minutes and he's rolled over to the tree and attempted to open more presents.  Addicted?

Enjoy the rest of the photo bomb...

Sitting up playing with his activity mat. 

Our little pianist.  

Date night with my boys!

Just being cool in a cart. 

A family of jeans.  

The Garden Lights at the Botanical Gardens. 

Part of my family depicted in gingerbread.  We don't own a doggie cookie cutter.  Maybe I should invest in one for next year. 

Snuggle time!  Vedder preferred to say under the sheets. 

The boys in their matching loungers. 

My boys having hotel snuggles.  

Silly mommy! 

Hanging out in my jumper! 

NYE with my main squeeze (shhhh don't tell the other boys!)

Best thing in 2013, by far, was this guy.

Ohhh, Dad, I really need you to get this order booked and blue.  Time's ticking.

Great job Dad!  You did it!