Santa and his wife made a special trip to visit with Landon at our home. Landon's reaction was priceless. Landon saw Santa walking up to the door Landon opened the door and held up his arms to give Santa a hug. Landon wasn't the least bit scared and really enjoyed the visit, as did all of us. When Santa asked Landon what he wanted for Christmas Landon immediately said "a bike". This was the first time we had ever heard Landon say the word "bike" and we didn't know that he knew what one was. Needless to say, Santa's elves have been working overtime to make just the right bike for Landon.

    Landon had a check-up appointment in Durham on Tuesday. Everything went well. Landon is eating everything he can get his hands on. He is gaining weight and all of his labs look great. The doctors are very happy with Landon and his ability to bounce back after his surgery.

 It’s been more than a month since we have updated Landon’s blog. It’s time for an update. It has been difficult to sit down and write about the passing of my mother, Landon’s great grandmother. My mother had Alzheimer’s. She had been bedfast for more than a year. She had been living with us and Kathy had been her primary caregiver during that time. During the last year of her life my mother had lost the use of all but her arms and hands and near the end she could barely move those. Most of the time she didn’t know where she was or who we were. I have to say that my mother received the best care we could possibly give her, Kathy made sure of that.

   Today is a sad day for us! Landon's great grandmother Ann Joines passed away this morning on Oct. 11th 2011 in Sparta NC. Landon loved his Granny very much and our family is very greatful we had the chance to spend the last year and a half with her. We lived next door to my husbands parents who took on Granny's care the last 2 years. Landon enjoyed sitting on Granny's bed and reading his books. He also enjoyed being there when Kathy would feed Granny. Landon liked sitting in the rocking chair in her room with her and showing her his toys.

   Well so much for Landon getting rid of his passy. After two days without his passy Landon found 3. He was so happy to see his Passy he was laughing and trying to hug it. So as you can imagine we still have the nasty passy habit. Landon has been so cute the past few days. He is becoming more independant and more vocal everyday.

   Last night Landon was talking with his grandmother over the computer. He could see her and vice versa. Kathy was blowing bubbles with her gum and Landon was trying to pop them. It was very cute and Landon talked about it all morning.

   Today is our first day without a passy. It has been rough but I think we can get through it. Landon has ask for his passy all day and we have not given in. This is going to be a hard process because he loves his passy. That has been his life support system for all of his life. We decided to wait until after his transplant to take it away, knowing that it might be his only comfort during this change. But now he has lost all the passies he had and I refuse to buy anymore. Landon is 2 and a half and he need to move on. So many things in his life have changed and it is time for him to be a big boy! he has gone through more than any adult I know and he has to move on. Please pray for us as we try to break this habit.

WOW! This is incredible! I just received another couple donations toward the Grandfather Mountain Marathon, that I ran to raise money for Landon's transplant related expenses. This donation puts us over $12,000 for the marathon run. That comes to more than $450 per mile. When I first thought about running the marathon, as a fund raiser, I believed that $1000 would be fantastic. I had no idea it could get this big. It's been two months since the marathon and the donations are still coming in. As people hear about Landon and the marathon they just keep making donations. We may not be done yet. This donation also puts us more than half way toward our ultimate goal of $75,000. That is our goal to help with Landon's transplant related expenses. We can do it!

   On Thursday we laoded up the whole family and went to Taylorsville. Roger had to get his stuff moved back to our house there, Jeremiah had a doctors appointment, I had errands to run and some family members wanted to see Landon. It was non-stop the whole time we were there. Roger moved some stuff and left with friends. He was gone Thursday night and Friday night just to come back to the house for 2 hours to move more stuff and then leave with friends to go to Charlotte. A friend of his has a band and they were play in Charlotte Saturday night. he is going to get a ride with another friend that goes to State back to Durham later tonight.

     We had an exciting weekend with the whole family.  Movies at home and lots of spring cleaning. We are wanting to make sure there are no chance for Landon to get sick.  Things are going so well with Landon we don't need any more set backs.  Other than that we had planed on going back to the capital, to see the bugs at the Science Center. Today was just the perfect day to do that and it was so fun for the whole family. Yes even our 18 year old found lots of joy in seeing bugs!  They had the huge Sperm Whale, from when I had went, way back in the 5th grade. The whole place seemed much bigger than it was 24 years ago.  They have 4 levels in all and it has amazing things for the kids and adults to learn from.

   Today we had to take Landon back to the Children's Clinic at Duke to have his central line repaired. We were not sure that it would work due to the line being clotted yesterday and being unable to get any heprin in it. The staff and a Child Life worker come up to help and she brought the IPad with her. This helped Landon to hold still while the team tried to repair the line. After they cut the line and put a new end on the line was slow to draw from and hard to flush, but after a few tries everything started to flow properly. We are so happy that it worked. Our goal is to not have a central line at all but for right now we may need it for lab draws and hydration fluids. Landon got to get a prize out of the treasue box which made his day. He chose a 3 in 1 Mickey Mouse game set with cards,checkers and a puzzle.