March 30, 2013

Grady: 8 Months!


Grady is 8 months old!  With his two teeth in, he is looking like a little bunny just in time for Easter. I cannot say that I have always had the baby that people would call "such a happy boy", but these days Grady is definitely "such a happy boy" and showing it with a new big, nose wrinkled, snorty kind of laugh.  While this does not sound cute in writing, I promise that in person it would get a return smile from just about anybody.  I have had many people tell me that this was their favorite baby stage and I can see why, Grady is an absolute joy and cracks us up every day!

Grady tid bits at 8 months:
  • Grady is weighing in on the unofficial Johnson scale at 18 pounds.
  • The little hair he has appears to be the same color as his skin, very very white. 
  • His new favorite thing on earth is Gerber puffs. I love hearing him crunch his food.
  • He has gone from grabbing a handful of puffs and trying to shove them into his mouth hoping that one lucky morsel makes it in to being able to pick one up at a time and even taking bites. 
  • Apparently it is hilarious when we tell him to "chew chew chew".  
  • He now knows when he is being funny and plays it up which makes us laugh even more. 
  • Being held upside down by his legs and being swung from side to side is a favorite pastime. 
  • He is so close to crawling, but does not appear to be the most coordinated child.  He can get on all fours and get one arm up, but has not quite figured out the moving forward part.  It is hilarious and sad to watch at the same time because he gets so frustrated.  He'll figure it out soon enough.
  • He may not crawl, but he has perfected the barrel roll and can turn himself 360 degrees scooting around on his tummy so he pretty much can get to where he wants to go.
  • He is successfully sleeping at night without his swaddle!  Thank goodness he won't be asking his college roommate to wrap him up at night. 
  • He is definitely the observant type.  Every morning he inspects his room and if there is a new picture, toys left out, a blanket on the floor, etc., he will inspect it from every angel as we move around his room. 
  • He loves his swim lessons and is the best floater in the class, probably because he is the youngest and doesn't have the strength to fight it so he just gives in and chills out on his back.
  • While not a constant babbler, we are appreciating his more frequent "buhs", "dahs" and  now that he has teeth "ssssss" and "ffffffff".  
  • The best new noise (other than his snorty laugh) is when he holds his hand or a toy up to his mouth covering and uncovering his mouth quickly (think children imitating a Native American pow wow).   It cracks us up.   
  • Grady thinks it is hysterical and has the best laughs when daddy rubs his head into Grady's belly.  Grady rubs Chris' hair and giggles uncontrollably.
  • You want to give Grady a kiss?  He'll happily return it with a wide open mouth slobbery kiss! 
  • Eating grass is a new hobby.
  • If he wants our attention and is not getting it, he'll scream"Ah!" and then we scream "Ah!" back and it goes on and on. 
  • He is still NOT a sit still and hang out on the lap kind of kid, in this respect he is just like he was when I was pregnant.  The kid is a busy body and we love him that way even if it means we go to bed exhausted :) 
We love you so much Grady bug! 

Swimming with daddy


 Hanging in his big boy jammies. 

A typical Grady face.

Finally warm enough to play outside - yipeeee!







"Chew chew chewing"

 Grady's serious side

Grady's fun side


Spending time with Grandma outside


Grady's open-mouth kiss!



Still working on those crawling skills

Learning to crawl is exhausting!



March 19, 2013

Of Late

We have not been up to much exciting of late, but have been enjoying time at home and the warmer spring weather.   Here are some pics of what G buddy has been up to.

We found a home for the monsters!

Showing off his two teeth (you have to look closely).

Enjoying being outside.


A boy and his dog.

 Shimmying out of his clothes and giving us a good laugh. 

My boys. 

The boy who loves to stand is learning to stand on his own, hooooray!

Meeting up with old friends. 

Realizing restaurants are cool because restaurants have ceiling fans. 

Doing lots of faceplants and prep work for crawling. 


Celebrating Saint Patty's day with all his green stuffed animals, apparently a favorite color.



Preparing for the big swim lesson number 2. 

Just being cute. 




March 9, 2013

Big Dreams



I have a dream board, think Pinterest, but with real thumb tacks and pictures torn out of magazines. It has big dreams and little dreams on it from personal improvement goals to new recipes to home improvement projects. One of the first things that Chris and I decided to put on the dream board when I made it years ago was a pool (definitely in the bigger dreams category).  We've dreamed about and planned for the possibility of a pool for years, but never knew if we'd be brave enough to actually pull the trigger.  Once we had Grady we really started talking about it since the "kid years" are the prime pool years.  This winter when it was 5 degrees outside and we dreamt of Boise's sweltering summer days, we bid the pool out, fretted for a couple weeks, and nervously bit the bullet.  This Friday the trucks rolled in and destroyed our front yard, took 5 trees out, and dug the entire pool in a single day.  It was an exciting, terrifying, and momentous day for us.  We are thrilled and so thankful to be able to do this for Grady and for our family.  Needless to say, we are dreaming of summer already!

Friday morning.


Friday at lunch. 

Friday evening. 


What good is a swimming pool without swim lessons?  We also started those this weekend and it was so so FUN!  I don't want to think about how much pee and other kid germs were in this pool, but despite that, our water boy Grady and I had a great time enjoying the pool.  He loved "swimming".  Daddy is up next week!

My swimmer. 



Into the pool we go


It was a success!


In other news, we have a true babbler.  Grady has made screams and squawks for a long time but no real noises with a hard consonant. I heard him say "da" while feeding him breakfast on Friday and by the time I got home, he had gone from one "da" to about a billion, the kid won't stop.  I know it is dorky, but it is just so fascinating how a  light can turn on with kids and all of the sudden they are off with a new skill that just the day before they didn't have.   

Speaking of milestones, the kid is getting closer every day to crawling. YIKES!


 Buddies.