1 Year Old!!!

I cannot believe my baby is one! It seems so crazy that one year ago he was this tiny little thing, spitting up everywhere and crying all night and now he's walking and crawling and babbling and pointing and grunting and learning and understanding me when I talk and calling me "Mama".

I haven't posted in awhile and I have so many updates like how he's walking all over like a champ and he can stand up on his own without pulling himself up on a piece of furniture and how he says real words and points at things he wants and then points at himself to make it really clear. How he's started hanging on around my neck when I pick him up and he gives me real hugs but still the wet sloppy open mouth kisses and when he wasn't feeling good he perfected the "mama" with a whine that just broke my heart. And he is getting so funny, he wrestled with a pillow for a good 15 minutes tonight and was laughing the entire time; he laughs when you tickle him and he shrieks and giggles when the dog sniffs him.

I have so much fun with this little boy everyday and now he is ONE! We went to Leavenworth for his birthday and had ice cream for the first time and saw all the lights, tried on a few hats, looked at EVERYTHING in the Christmas store and generally had a good time. And yesterday we had his birthday party. We had a "very hungry caterpillar" theme and he loved getting so many fun presents and playing with his little friends Katilyn and Eli. He also loved my carrot cake but didn't get nearly as messy as I thought he might!

I have course included tons of pictures below. Some of his birthday and some of life since the last post. I again renew my promise to post more often :)

Dave and I got him a rocking camel for his birthday. He actually figured out how to rock it himself and has a pretty good time on it... but he needs to grow a bit before it will work properly.

LOVES the play table his Auntie Laura and Uncle Kyle bought him!

The birthday cake. I baked it and Dave decorated it. The caterpillar at the bottom was Dave's when he was a kid.

The piano I got when I turned one is now the piano Grayson got when he turned one :)

Eating cake :)

Helping Daddy make a fire

Grayson's first snow! Dave stayed home from work but it was too dry to make a snowman so we are anxiously awaiting the making of Grayson's first snowman

We went to a light display at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. We all loved it! I've decided that we will go every year and it will be our new family tradition :)

My little one socked elf! (He is only happy when he has taken one sock off... he fusses and fusses till he gets one off and then is perfectly happy walking around the rest of the day with only one sock on. I can only imagine what kind of mother people think I am when we go out...)

We went out to a tree farm and picked out a Christmas tree this year. I think Grayson had a pretty good time but I'm sure next year he will be much more excited about this activity.

Helping Daddy with the christmas lights

Pointing out his favorite ornament. He wasn't very helpful at decorating the tree... he didn't want to let go of the ornaments. So we put a few on and let him point at them and then put the rest on after he went to bed.

Walking!!! And San Diego

Grayson took a few steps on Halloween! At first it was just three; and then he took five, and then three more. He is getting to be such a big boy!!! And while it is very cute... I'm not sure I'm entirely ready for him to be running around yet. He seems to be a bit wary of it and hasn't taken off yet... but I hear that's pretty normal and then all of a sudden they take off! :)

We flew down to San Diego the other day to visit new cousin Emily. Here is Grayson ready to go!

The morning was going very smoothly until we got to the airport and Dave told me that he forgot to put the stroller in the car. So I ended up carrying Grayson through the airport and security to the gate where they told me the plane was full and they couldn't move me from my middle seat. After we boarded the plane, we had an hour delay... trying to keep a child who really needs a nap entertained in the middle seat while sitting at the gate... not fun! Anyways... he fell asleep while taxiing down the runway and even though he woke up 45 min later... we ended up having a pretty nice flight.

Passed out on the airplane

We are having so much fun down here even though it is super hot! Little Emma is too adorable and while Grayson isn't interested yet... I enjoy her a lot!!

Checking out cousin Emily

Exciting Week

It's been a very exciting week in our house! Grayson started crawling a normal crawl, he got a head shaved hair cut, and his first cousin was born! We are so excited to go down to California and visit Auntie Laura and Uncle Kyle and our new cousin Emily. But until then... here are some fun pictures. :)

Hitting tupperware together while Mommy cooks dinner.

Bath time after our fancy new hair cut!

Talking to Daddy before bed time

Crawling like a big boy!

Saying goodnight to doggy

For some reason this cabinet won't open...

But he's figuring it out... it won't be long now... :(

Figured out how to climb up on his box to get a better view out the window... I took the bumper off of his crib so we don't have a climbing out accident

It's Been Awhile...

I know it's been awhile but since my camera broke I've had a hard time getting pictures and therefore haven't been blogging because how can you have a good blog without good pictures? I'm sure some of you check this just to see the pictures anyways :) Here's my new favorite photo just to start this blog off right!

So... what is new? Grayson is becoming more and more interactive. And we are having sooo much fun!! He has started clapping (which I think is the cutest thing ever!), he gives high fives, and this morning Dave taught him how to click his tongue! He says mama and dada... though not always at the correct times. One of our new favorite games though is he'll say "mama" and I say "Grayson" and we go back and forth calling each others name :) I adore this game! But now he finds it more fun to say mama than dada which makes Dave sad so we'll be working on that. He also says kitty... and loves to chase the cats around the house saying kitty and laughing. If by chance they let him get close he gets so excited that he starts flapping his arms and screaming which of course scares them away. Because of this... no cute Grayson and kitty pictures yet. And it turns out that he is starting to learn animal noises... everytime we read a book with a cow and say moo he says "mmmmm" which I have taken to him saying moo. :) He is also getting quite good at cruising around the living room and will even let go and stand on his own. He will walk holding on to my hands and the other day was walking holding on to just one of my hands! I'm sure he'll be running around before we know it!

Aunty Laura came to visit a couple weeks ago and they had sooo much fun together. Though VERY sad... we did not get any pictures of them together. However... Aunty did go to Target with us and bought a few shirts and our new favorite toy!

Grayson loves making this sing it's big long song... but his most favorite part of this toy is that it has a volume switch on the bottom. Everytime I turn the volume down he flips it back over and turns up the volume all the way. With all the fun buttons on the front... this stupid little volume switch on the bottom is his favorite... go figure...

Since it's starting to get colder out, Boomer is inside more often which is of course VERY exciting to Grayson. His favorite thing to do is play with the tags on Boomer's collar... which is an improvement from trying to always poke Boomers eyes... I think Boomer is happy about this as well. :)

That's about it for now... I'll be better about updating now that I have a camera I can use again. Until next time... enjoy the random pictures and cute Grayson army crawling video below! :)

Grayson's first pumpkin!

Loves his books!

Ready to watch the big game with Daddy

Reading his book

Playing with Great-Grandma

Look out!

Music and Zoo Day

So the day started out like every other, Grayson and I were planning to go to the zoo so we got up and I fed him breakfast and then put him on the ground to crawl around while I ate. He crawled over to our radio/cd player that for some reason I have sitting on the ground... another fine example of my excellent baby proofing skills... and he turned on the radio. He seemed satisfied with the music coming out of the speakers and crawled away and into the living room. After a few minutes he must have decided he didn't like the song that was playing because he crawled back over, turned the radio off, and hit play on the cd player. He seemed happy with the selection in the cd player though because he crawled away and let the cd play in it's entirety. I have such a smart baby :)

Soon Cassie came over and we loaded both babies and both strollers into our car... not the Escape... the car! :) And we headed off towards the zoo. It was Grayson's nap time and I figured he would just fall asleep on the way there... no such luck. It is far to entertaining to have another baby riding with you in the back sleep to worry about things like napping! But we had a great day at the zoo!!! We saw giraffes up close because they were letting people feed them; we saw zebras and elephants and bears and penguins and lions and gorillas. I saw more animals but those are the big ones we saw up close that Grayson was interested in looking at. He seemed to like looking at all the animals but I got a couple good smiles while he watched one of the gorillas swinging between the trees.

Watching the zebras

Grayson and Mommy at the zoo!

Kaitlyn was trying to steal his Winnie the Pooh... flirting already :)

He finally passed out as I was standing in line to order a sandwich for lunch. I was just about to order and a little boy came over and was looking at Grayson in the stroller with a strange look on his face so I bent over to see what he was looking at and Grayson's face had fallen forward and was resting on his little snack tray and he was out! Poor kid!! He was so tired that he fell asleep before he even had a chance to eat lunch. I leaned his sit back and he turned his head and opened an eye like he was going to wake up but then his eye shut and didn't move for half an hour.

So sleepy!!!

Once we got home he decided he hadn't had enough animals for one day so he played with Boomer and Maverick for about an hour before taking another short nap.

Loves his puppy!

And his kitty!

His face in this picture just cracks me up

All in all we had a very good day! Even though he was so tired he was quite the trooper! And tonight he went to bed before 7 because he couldn't seem to keep his head up while eating dinner.

So sleepy!

And now... a couple random pictures.

Thanks for installing this gate Grandpa!

Daddy reading Grayson a bedtime story

Mommy and Grayson relaxing after dinner while Daddy cleans up :)

"Baby Proofing" and other thoughts from this week

So Dave and I kept talking about how we need to baby proof the upstairs of our house so that Grayson can crawl around and have a good time and I don't always have to be saying "no" and pulling him away from things... which in the end just gives us a frustrated, crying baby. The thing that really kicked us into gear was that Grayson finally figured out how to open the kitchen drawers. Below is a picture of him looking quite proud of himself after opening his first drawer which happened to contain none other than the baby proofing items I had bought.

We have spent the last couple of nights moving things around and putting protective covers on outlets and locks on all the drawers and cabinets. This turned out to be quite a project since we don't have the best cabinets in the world and not all the drawers are the correct size to allow for the locks to be installed. Dave had to make some adjustments (ie he cut chunks out of the back of the drawers) in order to put latches on all of them. This morning though everything was done and I was excited to let Grayson crawl around without me having to yell at him.

Everything was going quite nicely until he crawled down the hallway. We have a flashlight in the outlet and Grayson figured out how to remove it in about 20 seconds. And then decided the best part to put in his mouth would be the plug... so that had to be relocated. Then while I wasn't looking, of course, he figured out how to pull himself up on the fireplace bench... There is absolutely nothing wrong with this except that Dave had left a lighter out the night before and I snatched it away just before it went in the mouth. He then cruised his way to the other end of the fireplace where he managed to get a CD in his mouth before I knew what had happened. Apparently I'm not so great at baby proofing... and also... this little guy is going to be trouble! :)

In other, unrelated news, I have recently been clothes shopping for Grayson. Up until this point we have been extremely lucky in the clothing department and I've only ever had to buy him the occasional pajamas or sweatshirt, however he just went through a major growth spurt and needed the next size up in clothes. So for the first time... I got to go shopping! It was so much fun to pick out outfits and clothes and while I still need a few more things to complete his fall/winter wardrobe... I'm almost there. The problem is he needs a winter coat. And every nice, actually has a chance to keep him warm coat is between $45 and $60!!! I feel like that is a lot of money for a coat that may not even fit him all winter! So I'm holding off as long as I can to see if they start to go on sale or in case he grows a bunch again... but soon I may just have to suck it up and buy him a coat.

Finally Grayson has two new favorite activities, besides showing me how crappy I am at baby proofing the house. One is to blow raspberries into the air when I feed him foods he decides he doesn't want to eat that day... it case you don't know how this turns out... there is food everywhere including all over me. And when I say "no Grayson, that is not what we do with food"... he smiles at me with his lips still closed so that any remaining food in his mouth oozes out of his smile. It is more fun than you could possibly imagine.

His second favorite activity, now that he's realized he can get himself where he wants to be, is to chase the dog or cats around the room. Though he gets the biggest kick out of chasing the dog, I think because the dog is so big. But Boomer is pretty much scared of the small child moving towards him so he jumps up and moves away every time Grayson gets close. Which Grayson and I both think is pretty funny. I think Boomer is so scared because Grayson is always grabbing at his eyes and nose and he knows he's not allowed to do anything about it. But the other day Grayson got close... and it turns out all he wants now is to play with the tags on Boomer's collar. Boomer was not happy that I made him lay still for these pictures but now that he knows what Grayson wants he doesn't jump up and run away so quickly anymore.

So excited he gets to pet the puppy!

A random picture because I like the face he's making :)

In the Army Now!

In the last week or so, Grayson has become a master of the army crawl. While his most favorite things to crawl towards are the things he's not allowed to touch or play with such a power cords and items small enough to be choking hazards, he's recently discovered that he can get to anything in the house and there are even things mom will let him play with other than his standard toys!

For example:Today we discovered the blinds at the sliding glass door...

He's gotten VERY good at moving from his stomach to sitting and back and is quite pleased with himself that he can crawl to something and then sit up to play with it.

He has also figured out how to sit himself up in his crib facing towards the door so that when he starts yelling in the morning or after his naps he can be sitting up ready to greet you as soon as you open the door. We recently lowered his crib after he figured out how to sit. But Sunday he also figured out how to pull himself to a standing position. So we had to lower his crib to the lowest setting and move it away from his window... he's getting so big!!!

Another favorite thing to crawl towards... and depending on Mom's mood... he sometimes gets to play with it:

MMMM... cat and dog water! It was clean today so he played in it for quite awhile and as you can see... was VERY happy!

Saying Hi to Boomer

He really wants to pet the kitties but they don't want anything to do with him... and for the moment they are much too quick for him.

And life wouldn't be complete without a couple random yet super cute baby in the bath photos... so enjoy!!!

BABY BUTT!!! :)

A note to Auntie Laura: Thank you for the fishy on my mommy's shower cake! I love that it is a bath toy. It is my favorite bath toy and one of the tastiest toys I own! I love you and can't wait to see you soon! Love, Grayson