A day at the Maxwell house pt. 2

After brunch Landon and I took a three hour nap :)

When we finally woke up, I put sloppy joes in the crockpot and then we started a project we've been meaning to do for months.

I made the mistake of telling Ryan that he shouldn't pursue a career as a sculptor haha. You ladies out there with creative husbands, know better then to disrespect their work. Ryan then made me finish it and it was indeed much harder then it looked to inscribe Landon's name in the clay with the little plastic pencil thingy they give you. We both had a fun time making a memory that we will keep forever. It means so much to me to have this piece of Landon, as he is right now, frozen in time :)

FYI: Make sure your child's hands are clean before you press them in the clay. If you don't you will find all your hair that he's pulled out through the day. Just a note ;)

Right after supper, we started getting Landon ready for bed. As soon as Landon got the ok to take real baths, we began a very strict bedtime routine. Ryan and I take turns with what we do each night. So as I cleared the table, Ryan got the bath ready. Landon loves his baths and they relax him so much. After bath I gave him his massage. That may seem weird to some of you, but most nights he loves it. His therapist has shown me how to massage his incision so that scar tissue doesn't build up. This particular night he was kind of fussy so I cut it shorter than most nights. Then we got his pjs on and daddy fed him. I held him while Ryan read him a story, then we pray with him and put him in his crib. This is what we do every night. Bedtime routine has been a lifesaver for us. Since almost the first night we started it, Landon began sleeping through the night. His therapist told me that it's considered "sleeping through the night" when a baby sleeps 7 hours. Landon usually sleeps from 7PM to 7AM. I'm not sure what sleeping 12 hours is considered... we just consider it "a blessing" :) 

This is not only a blessing because it means we get to sleep through the night, as well. It's also a blessing  because it allows Ryan and I to spend our evenings together as a couple. I asked him if he wanted to play a game and he asked if we could play his war game. 

Ryan got out his game board, which is a huge piece of ply wood that he found in the dumpster and fixed up into this game board that takes up our whole living room. They should really put "cannot be played if you live in an apartment."on the box of this game. Although that probably wouldn't stop my husband. I should of wrote about the day he was using his power saw to make this board, on our dining room table! Our apartment was shaking and wood was dropping to the floor (well that part was my fault since I couldn't ever seem to hold the pieces while Ryan was busy sawing). I told Ryan someone was going to complain to the office. His reply, "I'll just tell them that if they don't want me to have to do my hobby in the apartment, they should provide me with a garage with electricity."  haha I love my husband! 

So I play Ryan's game with him. I even put together my own models and plan on painting them all pink. Why?? I've asked myself this question a million times. Believe me it's not because I love it, but I love my husband. I have found that in marriage, you can lose connection with your spouse very easily. So although I think this game is weird and requires way to much time and money, I let Ryan play it because he enjoys it, and I want to make the effort to care about what my husband cares about (no matter how strange it may seem). Instead of seeing it as a waste of time (come on, I could of been on Facebook or pinterest ;) I choose to look at it as an investment in my marriage :) It made Ryan's day that I played with him and, I have to admit, I had fun too :)

We knew we couldn't go to the capitol to watch the fireworks because there would be WAY to many people, but we had the great idea to go to hillside park. We figured if there was a lot of people there we would just go home. We were surprised to find that there were only a couple families there. 

Walking up the hill, we kept putting Landon's head up straight and he kept laying it back down on his Kota puppy. It was too stinkin cute! Ryan and I laughed so hard.

It was so beautiful up on the hill. everywhere your eyes looked, in the distance, you could see fireworks lighting up the night sky. Ryan Said it felt like we were in a war zone. You could hear and see the explosions of the fireworks and you could slightly hear the orchestra playing at the capitol. It was beautiful! As we were sitting there I thought about our last 4th of July. We had only been married a month, at the time. We were at the capitol and I told Ryan that in a couple years we might be bringing a stroller with us haha God must of LOLed :) I am just blown away when I think of everything that has happened to us in a years time. I think of how extremely blessed we are to live in a country where we could get Landon the help he needed. No, we didn't get to join the other hundreds of people who were gathered at the capitol like we wanted to, or even get to be with our families at home like we wanted to, but we got to be us and that was an even bigger blessing :) 

Ryan thinks that i'm silly that I treat every 3rd of the month like it's Landon's birthday. The other day I told him, it's because there was a time when we didn't know if Landon would be ok. We didn't know if we'd see his 1, 2, or 3 month birthday, we didn't know if we'd ever get to celebrate the 4th of July with him, thats why moments like yesterday and the day before mean so much to me. You don't know what you have until you think you could lose it. 

Thank you for spending a day with us :)