Cake Pictures

As promised, here are pictures of the cake that Christi decorated for the shower. (click to enlarge)

Top view


Side details. It was like this all the way around.

What do you think? I think it's pretty awesome, personally. I'm biased, though.

Eventful Weekend

The Cherry Blossom Festival was here the past 2 weeks. It's probably the biggest even that happens in Macon. As my friend put it, it's the most non-Japanese Japanese Festival in the world. There were a lot of activities the past few days. It all culminates with a street party on Saturday night and an Arts and Craft Festival on the weekend. Unfortunately, both of those got rained out due to some pretty nasty weather rolling through. That didn't keep up from being busy, though.

Friday night we had a big family get together on Christi's side of the family. Most of her cousins were there, coming from as far as Tennessee. Her aunt likes to come down and see the Cherry Blossom Festival as well as visit with Christi's grandmother. We ate at Jeneane's, a local country cooking style restaurant, and spent most of the time catching up with some family members that we haven't seen in a few months. It was a good time.

We started off Saturday by waking up earlier than normal. Why? Because we had to be at the race registration early to pick up our race packet. Yep, Christi and I ran a road race. Part of the Cherry Blossom Festival is the 10k / 5k runs. We ran the 5k and there was a pretty decent crowd, probably 800 or so. It was good. Crowded pretty early, but fun. I think we'd definitely do it next year. I was unsure how much I would like it, but there's definitely a rush while doing it and a sense of accomplishment when you are done. Our time wasn't quite what Christi was hoping for, but I thought we did well.

After that I spent 2.5 hours doing 2 homework problems. Yea, this class is that exciting. While I was doing that, Christi and her mom were working hard getting decorations and food ready for Jason and Lynn's wedding shower. They were throwing this shower for Jason and Lynn later that afternoon, so there were a lot of finishing touches to put on things. Christi decorated a cake she and her mom made; it was stunning. The level of detail on the cake was incredible. I should have a picture of that posted soon. I think you will agree with me.

Sunday we tried to go to the Arts and Crafts Festival, but when we got there most of the vendors were packing up or trying to decide to stay open or not. About 10 minutes into walking around it started to rain again - hard. We decided to skip that this year (it ended up getting cancelled shortly after) and go eat lunch. Landon made the biggest mess out of a Cracker Barrel biscuit. He loves them, but he also loves to break them into tiny pieces and push the crumbs everywhere. That's becoming a trend, unfortunately.

Christi did a Zumba class later in the afternoon and I did some work around the house while Landon slept. We wound down a busy weekend with some grocery shopping (prices are going up a lot!) and threw a Kashi pizza (delicious!) while we watched Despicable Me. It was a great movie and Landon loved it, especially the minions. He had the biggest smile on his face whenever they came on the screen.

That was our weekend. As you can see, we were running around (literally) while getting some things done. It was a fun few days despite the crummy weather. How was your weekend?

My Picks

Later than planned, here are my bracket picks. They aren't looking very good.

East Bracket

Round 1 Winners
Ohio State, George Mason, West Virginia, Kentucky, Xavier, Syracuse, Georgia, North Carolina

Round 2 Winners
Ohio State, West Virginia, Syracuse, North Carolina

Sweet 16 Winners
Ohio State, North Carolina

Elite 8 Winner
Ohio State

West Bracket

Round 1 Winners
Duke, Tennessee, Arizona, Texas, Missouri, UConn, Temple, San Diego St

Round 2 Winners
Duke, Texas, UConn, San Diego St

Sweet 16 Winners
Duke, UConn

Elite 8 Winner
Duke

Southwest Bracket

Round 1 Winners
Kansas, UNLV, Vanderbilt, Louisville, Georgetown, Purdue, Texas A&M, Notre Dame

Round 2 Winners
Kansas, Louisville, Purdue, Notre Dame

Sweet 16 Winners
Kansas, Purdue

Elite 8 Winner
Kansas

Southeast Bracket

Round 1 Winners
Pittsburgh, Butler, Utah State, Belmont, St. John's, BYU, Michigan St, Florida

Round 2 Winners
Pittsburgh, Utah State, BYU, Florida

Sweet 16 Winners
Pittsburgh, BYU

Elite 8 Winner
Pittsburgh

Final Four

Ohio St over Duke
Kansas over Pittsburgh

National Title Game

Ohio St over Kansas

So, there is my gloriously terrible bracket. My East and West bracket are somewhat respectable. The other side... ugh. Terrible. I'm just hoping for some good games now, as I have no chance of winning my pick'em group.

March Meltdown

How is your bracket doing? Mine is sinking fast. I picked some upsets, but they were wrong. The upsets that did happen weren't on my bracket (except Richmond).

I still have 13 of my Sweet 16 teams left, but the way it's been going that number could drop significantly. I went chalk and picked the #1's to get to the Final 4. I know, that's no fun, but I really felt like they were better than the rest of the field. I usually pick at least 1-2 non #1's to make it, but this year I didn't. So, they'll all probably lose next round. In the title game I had Ohio St beating Kansas.

I'll post my full bracket here soon. Tell me how yours is doing!

Landon 15 month checkup

We took Landon to the pediatrician last week for his 15 month checkup. I can't believe he's already 15 months! Where did time go? Just last week I thought he turned 1, and now we're 1/4 the way through year 2. When you first have a baby, everyone, especially people who are already parents, constantly tells you to enjoy the moment and time will fly. I don't think they could be more right.

The visit went well. Landon was 31.5 inches tall and weighed 24 lbs 2.5 oz, both in the 65-75 percentile range. Just for the record, I guessed 24 lbs 2 oz. Christi was 23 lbs 8 oz. Both close, but I was spot on this time. I'm usually way off while Christi is the one who is very close. I guess you're entitled to one lucky guess, but don't tell Christi I said that. All skill is what I told her.

All in all a good visit. He did get 1 shot, but he handled it pretty well. There were some tears, but he quit soon after. I was impressed. The main things we have to work on is getting rid of the pacifier and expanding his food palette. We've already tried some new foods and he's doing pretty good, but not great. He appetite comes and goes, which is to be expected. He's too busy to eat sometimes, which is perfectly normal, apparently. There are some foods he likes more than others, and we have to ensure that we are not constantly making his favorites. If he doesn't like or want the food, we also have to make sure that we don't turn around and cook something else or give him his favorite food if he won't eat. He has to learn to eat what we give him. I think this will be the most difficult, because we want him to eat and be full, not hungry.

That the main things we learned. He's starting to throw some temper tantrums, and we're really unsure what is the best way to handle them. He gets in these moods, usually when he is tired, that if he doesn't get what he wants or you tell him he can't have or do something, a major throw down is coming. He can turn it on fast, and you can tell it's not his "real" cry, but it's not easy to ignore or get him to calm down. I guess this is where the difficult work begins. Any ideas or strategies, please let us know!

That is what we are up to now. We are trying to keep up with him, but he's bigger and faster. He will wear you out quickly. I can't imagine where he will be in 3-6 months. We have some friends with children that age. It's amazing to think he will be there shortly. The big thing is going to be talking (and talking back to us). Kids learn so fast. He's saying some words, not all of them are understandable, but he's trying hard to speak. In a few months I'm sure he'll be talking non stop and we'll be wishing for the "quiet".

Thanks for reading. More updates to come soon.

Landon 14 month pictures

It's been a while since some pictures of Landon. I like to do it once every month or so, but I'm admittedly slow at posting pictures. I try to mix in updates and thoughts on other subjects between picture updates, but really I know all anyone cares about are pictures of Landon. Well, today is your lucky day. He are pictures of Landon from the last month (click to enlarge). Enjoy!

Spiderman!


Smiling behind the pacifier. Working on getting rid of that...


Running to get his mommy


Really into whatever is on TV


Playing with the remote


He loves the remote. The buttons are fun to push, especially when he can make the TV change channels


I didn't do anything! Promise!


He loves this chair. He also loves to stand up in it instead of sit, even though we make his sit down every time. Maybe it will stick, eventually...


Playing outside. Tough to get a lot of good pictures since he is always on the go!


Waving at the camera


Soo tired. Falling asleep sitting with daddy


Getting all dressed up for church


Playing with his toys




Pulling his clothes drawers out and laughing about it because he knows he isn't supposed to do that


Landon doing one of the things he loves most - opening and closing the door. He's so close to being able to use the door knobs. Scary


Riding his train. He can climb up on it by himself now and he loves to press the buttons (sound familiar?)


Using hands and feet!


Ready to get pushed around the house

I already have some 15 month pictures uploaded. I'll post some of them shortly, when I get some more to add with them. Hard to believe how fast he is growing! I can't believe how big he is getting. Time is flying by.

Random Blog Stats

Several months ago I started using Google Analytics with this blog. I was wondering if people were really coming to the site anymore. I haven't been posting that much, and I don't think the content has been particularly outstanding. If you are unfamiliar with it, the service tracks everything from page views to the screen resolution, operating system, browser, etc of your visitors. It's an abundance of information, and a little scary how easily accessible all of that information is. Just a small segment of code and you have an an abundance of information.

I've gotten visitors from Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia. Why? Most appears to be from using blogger.com's random next blog feature (yes, it also tracks what page you came from, if it was a link to my site.) I'm not a big fan of that, so I'm looking how to opt out of that. I don't know if you can, but the fact that random people all over the world are looking at pictures of Landon is a bit unnerving. The blog was not really intended for that. I guess ignorance is bliss; I never thought anyone outside of friends and family would be viewing this content. I know, the easiest way to lock that down is restrict it to certain email addresses, but I find that annoying and being able to send a friend a link is a lot easier. Maybe security needs to start winning over ease of use? I have a feeling the blog would die if I made that change, what do you think? If you have a blog, I'd recommend using the service, if only out of curiosity. Being able to see all of that information is pretty cool. I'm a big geek, so maybe it's just me and my fascination with numbers and patterns.

Anyway, what have things been like for the site? Well, here's the past 2 months worth of visitors

Here is a list of the cities based on city of origin of the IP address.

And a map of the cities, just for fun

Make sure to click on the pictures to enlarge them. Pretty interesting stuff. That's just from the past 2 months. What is interesting is that I've had 51 unique visitors, so most visits are repeat. The majority of others are people clicking through the blogger feature until they find something they like, which isn't this site because those average times spent on the site are less than 3 seconds. Not all are like that, though. I've apparently got a fan in Pelotas, Brazil (5 visits) and 1 in Shenzhen, China (2 visits, over 5 minutes each time). Hello, random internet friends. Also have some "regulars" in Franklin, North Carolina (4 visits) and Farmville, Virginia (3 visits) as well as 1 time visitors from Hull, Massachusetts, and New York, New York who stayed on the site over 5 minutes each. Who knew Farmville was a real city? They should setup a Farmville museum and get all the fanatics to come visit the real Farmville, but that might require stepping away from their virtual farms, so it might fail gloriously. Speaking of failing gloriously, check out this Verizon iPhone fail. Yes, it's old now, but so awesome.

Why did I post about this? Well, mainly because I thought it was interesting. Also, I wanted to show how easy it is for anyone to collect information about you when browse online. Ever wonder how ads seem to magically fit where you live or what you like? Thank Google. It goes a lot deeper than this, since they can also track what products you search and click on and then predict what ads you will most likely click-on. Invasion of privacy or convenient feature? Hopefully everyone isn't freaked out too much. No, I'm not using this for anything other than seeing if people still visit the blog and, in turn, if it's worth keeping up with it or if no one cares if I shut down for good. Also, I'm pouring over this information often. I honestly have not looked at is since before Landon's birthday, at least. I noticed the lack of comments (likely due to lack of posting) and remembered I could see how many people were visiting. It looks like there are 3-5 everyday viewers. Sorry to disappoint you 3-5 with my lack of posting. I promise I will try to be better.