And the next American Idol is.... Landon Thomas!!

A few weeks ago, as I was singing Amazing Grace to Landon at bedtime, he looked up at me and finished part of the song! I honestly couldn't believe it! A few days ago he started singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (with some words left out...that's when I took this video) and can now sing the whole thing correctly. :)  He can also sing most of Itsy Bitsy Spider and part of the Alphabet Song.

Grady then decided he wanted to sing it too! :)

Here are some other pictures just for fun! :)

Grady came up with this outfit one day. :)

Landon loves to sneak into the bathroom and rip up the toilet paper!

Spending some time at the lake...

Landon decided to take a break on the trail and sit....

Birthdays and the end of preschool....

Landon turned 18-months old on May 11, which is hard to believe! Everyday he just seems to turn more and more into a little boy - no more baby left! At his 18-month doctor's appointment, he weighed 24 lbs, 1 oz (48th percentile) and was over the 90th percentile for height (can't remember the exact measurment). Landon is really a funny little guy...we can kind of see him being a class clown down the road! :)  Here is a perfect example....

He'll do things like this a lot, and then excitedly say, "Look Mommy!" (or direct it to Brandon or Grady) and then start hysterically laughing. It's just so cute! He'll do other things like dangle his shoe from his toe or pretend to burp and think it's just the funniest thing. We just can't help but laugh at him! 

Landon's talking a lot these days and now says about 150 words. He seems to pick up words and phrases pretty quickly and has started saying two and three word phrases, such as "Bye-bye Daddy," "Night-night Grady," "Head hurts" (if he bumped his head), "There it is," "Here you go Mommy," "Eewww...a bug!," etc. Earlier tonight, he was sitting in his highchair, and I took something out of the oven, and he said, "Heiss(a)! Heiss(a)!" Most of you probably have no idea what that means, but it's German for "Hot! Hot!" I grew up thinking that was something everyone said, but realized later that wasn't the case. Ma (my grandmother) said it all the time, so I say it too, which is where Landon picked it up. Soon after that, he ran into the kitchen from the living room and said, "Puter boom!" (computer boom). That definitely wasn't something I wanted to hear! :)

In other news, Gramps celebrated a big birthday in April! He turned 80, so we went up to Boone last weekend for a late celebration. The boys of course had loads of fun, and Grady loved helping Gramps blow out his candles.

Today was Grady's last day of preschool for the year. It was kind of sad because he'll be going to a new preschool next year that is a lot closer to our house, so it was hard saying goodbye. I always have a hard time with goodbyes and new phases because I feel like time is going so fast, so of course this prompted me to go look at pictures from the beginning of the year and year before. This is Grady's first day of preschool in the 2-year-old class (September 2009).

And here is Grady on the first day of preschool in the 3-year-old class (September 2010).

This is a picture after we picked him up today.... He got a pail/shovel filled with goodies from his teachers.

Finally, here are a few other pictures of the boys.... Our neighbors gave Grady and Landon capes yesterday. She had some left over from her daughter's birthday party. (She made these for party favors, which I thought was a brilliant idea!) You can tell the boys love them!

Landon spotted a plane so was looking up at it....although in this picture it looks like he's about to take off flying in his cape!

Here they are looking for ants. Grady was determined to find an ant that would eat his cracker. :)

Easter...

The boys had a great time celebrating Easter! Aunt Kelly and Hannah came to visit about a week before Easter to keep us company while Brandon was at a conference for the week. (Thank goodness because I might have gone crazy if I didn't have some adult interaction for a whole week!) The kids had a great time together as always. We went to the Museum of Life & Science one day, which was a lot of fun. (In this picture below, Grady is covering his nose because he didn't like how the animals smelled!) :)

No trip to Chapel Hill would be complete without a visit to Roses to stock up on Carolina gear! :)

We also went to the park during the week and went over to Aunt Carleen and Uncle Kevin's new house for a visit. They have chickens, and one actually laid an egg while we were watching. Then they all went over to dig for worms to feed to the chickens....I'm not exactly a huge worm fan, so I'm glad their aunt is willing to do this with them! :)

After a nice visit to the park....

Once Brandon got back from his conference in Baltimore, we all headed down to Pinehurst for Easter (and Uncle Louis drove up that same day). The next day Uncle Kevin helped Grady decorate eggs (which is a tradition he started with Grady when he was just about 10 months old).

On Easter morning the kids went to an Easter egg hunt, where the Easter Bunny made a special appearance!

Mimi and Popeye with all their grandkids!

These two little girls came to the hunt late, so didn't get any eggs, so Grady shared with them! :)

Here is Grady opening one of his many Easter baskets (with chocolate already all over his lips)! (We've always had a tradition where the Easter Bunny hides all the Easter baskets, so we continued that! They had a great time searching all over the house for their baskets after they got up!)

Every Easter we get to see our extended family from Ohio and Charlotte (my mom's brothers and their families), which is always a lot of fun! Here is part of the crew after church on Easter...