The Perry's: April 2011

We celebrated Landon's first birthday this past Monday. It was a great day in so many ways. Nanny Judy and I took Landon to the zoo - his first trip. We even noticed 11:11am on the dot so we got to say a special happy birthday to Landon at his birth time. And he really did enjoy the zoo - especially the chimps and the petting zoo (he made fast friends with those goats). Then we got home and discovered the 11 Muscovy duck eggs (that Daisy the duck had been incubating in our flowerbed since mid-March) were hatching. What a fun gift from God to Landon on his birthday!! Then, after a 3-hour nap, we celebrated Landon's birthday with an airplane cake and presents. All in all it was a fabulous day and we thank God for the past year with Landon and every second of every day to come!

We've had a lot of milestones since I last wrote. The biggest is probably that Landon has been walking since April 6. He started out with a few steps at a time and by the following week he was walking more than crawling. Now he's running! He loves going up and down stairs, even just small steps like the front porch or the curb. He also loves trying to climb onto things. His teacher said he empties out boxes and turns them over, climbs on them, and tries to use them to climb up on the bookcases. So we definitely have a monkey on our hands! He also loves being outside...he could literally stay out all day and be content. He's definitely an explorer and a climber. I'm looking forward to swimming in the summer - I think he's really going to enjoy it this year since he loves being outside so much, and also seems to love the water.

Other notables are the fact that he knows quite a few words. We were trying to count them the other day and came up with this list: mama, dada, nana, ba(ll), bo(ttle), du(ck), bye-bye, hi, hey, aawww (don't know if this counts as a word but it's cute when he says it). He's also such a copycat that he does the funniest things after seeing them - from us or the dogs. He lays his cheek down to the floor and says awww; we think he's imitating the dogs rolling on their sides/backs to get their bellies rubbed. He also has learned to kiss and he's mastered high fives, low fives, clapping, shaking hands, drumming, and several other fun tricks. We're working on fist-bumps now.

I hope you enjoyed this update and the pics and videos below. We really just thank and praise God for giving us such a blessing in Landon!

Dad's special gift to Landon:

Happy boy after birthday cake