Our baby is upwardly mobile!

At least for the most part! Since last Wednesday at Nana and Papa's house, Grant has been walking more and more every day. Before that, he would only take steps when we'd set him in front of us and encourage him to walk (and even then, it was only a few steps before he bent down and started crawling). And he never seemed to care much for walking either....he's a very fast crawler, and I think it was frustrating for him to try to walk and to be so slow at it! He'd take our hands and walk alongside us a lot, but just didn't want to do it on his own.

But last week at Nana and Papa's, he walked to me probably 7 or 8 times in a row, and was so proud of himself every time! And since then, especially since we've gotten home, he'll stand in the middle of the floor and all of a sudden start walking, instead of bending down and crawling! Last night, he made it all the way from the middle of our den, around the couch and over to the pantry in the kitchen (about 15 feet), and today he even went a little farther! And now he thinks it's fun....he'll falter and fall down, then stand right back up and keep going!

He still does crawl quite a bit....especially when he needs to get somewhere quickly (like the kitty litter box, before I can reach him to grab him away from it!). But I think a baby learning to walk is one of the cutest things; with every step, their chubby little legs lift up so high and their little bodies waver from side to side as they concentrate so hard!

A few days ago, we were unloading groceries and Grant just insisted on getting down and walking on the driveway. He'd walk a little, fall, walk a little more, and he eventually ended up in the neighbor's yard. I tried to take his hand and steer him back towards our house, but he wouldn't accept my hand to help him (which hurt a little!). He wanted to walk on his own and go where he wanted to go! But he hasn't completely given up on our help....when he's uncomfortable with the situation or tired, he doesn't want to try to walk on his own....he'll still grab my hand to help him. At least for now!

The picture above is a little old....I've taken a few walking pictures this week, and will try to upload them soon....

Grant's Favorite Foods

Here's a Top Ten list of the foods Grant really enjoys right now (pretty much in this order):

1. Cheese slices
2. Pineapples
3. Mandarin Oranges
4. Toast with cream cheese
5. Eggs
6. Grilled cheese sandwiches (pretty much just toast and cheese, but I will consider it a separate food!)
7. Bananas
8. Cookies (he loves Arrowroot cookies and the Gerber teething biscuits, and he'll get one of these as a treat at the end of his meal if he's been good)
9. Turkey/Ham
10. Life cereal/Cinnamon Toast Crunch- a little soggy, from our bowls at breakfast (he leaves the Cheerios on his tray and eats our cereal up as soon as we give it to him!)

Probably way high up there would also be ice cream and desserts (he loves any taste we give him of our dessert, when we have it), but I don't give him those TOO frequently (although probably more than I should). No vegetables make Grant's top ten list, although he definitely tolerates peas and carrots (at least to an extent). And he does like sweet potatoes, but he hasn't eaten them much since he stopped eating pureed baby food (about a month ago). At Thanksgiving, though, he gobbled them up at Nana and Papa's house!

Thanksgiving trip to Alabama

As I said a couple of days ago, we went to Alabama for the week of Thanksgiving to visit Dean's family. We had a wonderful time. Here are a few pictures:

We had a 1.5 hour delay leaving Houston on Monday, so we didn't leave until 11am (instead of 9:30). Fortunately, Grant entertained himself by pushing his stroller up and down the hallway while we were waiting. He just couldn't get enough of it! He finally gave up and crashed in my arms for a nap at 10:30 (and woke up just in time to take off!). He did great during this entire flight, though....he looked out the window, ate his lunch, and was happy as could be! The same was NOT true on the way home!
After we got into Birmingham, we went to see Aunt Corie's new townhouse. It sits up on a hill and is very nice! Here Grant's meeting one of Corie's cats, George. Gracie, her other cat, was nowhere to be seen while we were there....she's a little scared of strangers.
The next day, we went up to Huntsville to have lunch with Uncle Steve at a Mexican restaurant called Rosie's. Yummy! I noticed it a couple days later mentioned in Southern Living. We'll hopefully go back there on our next trip!
That same day, we went out to Dean's parents' land just outside of their hometown. Dean got to see the goats again (he probably doesn't remember them from our last trip in April). And he especially loved their two Australian Shepherds, who tried to lick his feet! He also loved stretching his legs a little after being in the car for much of the day!
This and the next picture show the pretty colors on the trees. There are tons of Bradford Pear trees on their property, and they were a beautiful red color while we were there. We had a cold snap and rainstorm come through this same night, and Dean's dad said that all the leaves had fallen to the ground when he went back to check on the animals the next day. All over Alabama during our entire trip, it really felt like fall.....I never knew there was THAT much beautiful fall color over there.

On Wednesday, we had a little birthday party for Grant with Dean's family. He got a lot of great presents! Nana and Papa gave him a rocking horse which he really liked! Dean had to push him, of course, but he started to fuss when Dean took him off! We couldn't bring it home on the plane with us, so they'll bring it when they come for Christmas in a few weeks.

Uncle Steve was showing us pictures on his computer, and Grant kept trying to push buttons (just like he does with ours at home!). He even deleted a picture at one point, but Steve was able to retrieve it.
Sitting on Nana's lap on Thanksgiving morning. We were talking to Dean's grandma on speaker phone and Grant kept giving Nana hugs, which of course she loved!
Something Grant discovered while we were there: at one point, he put something in his mouth that didn't taste good, and he made this face (kinda looks like a yucky face). We laughed, so he kept doing it, even when he ate something that he liked! He has kept doing this since we've been home....he'll pick up a piece of food and make the face without even putting it in his mouth!
Ready to go home!
With Papa before going to bed on Thanksgiving night:
One last ride on the horsey on Friday morning:
Eating a biscuit from Nana before we left for the airport. He is becoming a little scavenger and will beg to be picked up if he sees food in your hands!!
I don't have any pictures of Thanksgiving dinner. But we had a fantastic meal with so much food, and we had a really nice time with Corie's boyfriend Pat and Steve's girlfriend Jennifer. I wish I had gotten some pictures of all of them too.

Birthday Party

We had a little birthday party here at our house on the Saturday before Grant's birthday. We had a great time.....I think Grant enjoyed most of it, although he had one big crash while he was crawling across the room, and cried for a few minutes! I think he missed his hand and fell onto his face, which he does every once in a while (especially when he's tired). But he enjoyed "playing" with a few of the other kids who were here. It's just funny when babies have one-year birthday parties; they have absolutely no idea that all of this fuss is for them!

His favorite part of the night was the birthday cake. I made a little cake for him, and he just LOVED it! We've given him quite a few tastes of dessert in the past couple of months, and of course he loves anything sweet (just like his mom and dad, and most babies!). So I had a feeling that he'd dig right into it, and he did! He picked at the frosting for a second, then tried a little bit of it. Then he proceeded to feed himself one handful after another for about 5 minutes, without taking much of a break. I think he started to get a little tummy ache, though....all of a sudden he started crying and wanted out of that chair immediately!

Another thing that was pretty neat: to eat his cake, Grant sat in my parents' "Babee Tenda" chair that's been in our family for almost 60 years! I think my dad was the first one to spend his first birthday in it, followed by all of his sisters. Rob and I also ate our first birthday cake in it, and Evan (Grant's cousin) sat in there for his first birthday in September. I think it's a pretty neat tradition!

I will try to come back later and add a few more party pictures.....I gotta post this now because Grant is awake and we need to get ready for church. Also, I will hopefully get some pictures up this afternoon from our great trip to Alabama this week!

Grant is ONE!

I cannot believe my little sweetie pie is a year old already. Everyone says the time flies, and I've definitely learned that it's true! These past 12 months have been such a whirlwind and probably the most intense and exhilarating of my life. I have learned so much....I was completely naive before having a baby, as are most soon-to-be moms! I remember going to Babies R Us during my pregnancy and having no idea where to even start. All of the baby gear was so overwhelming, and I had no idea how to pick between different products, what products I would even need, etc. Grant has taught me so much....about taking care of a baby, but also so much more. I don't think you really can comprehend what sacrificial love means until you have a child who depends on you for literally everything. My life is completely different than it was just a year ago, yet I wouldn't give anything to have all of that free time back.

I have also learned how to be flexible.....I have learned to do a much better job of accepting things as they are and rolling with the punches when things don't go exactly the way I'd choose. Grant has been the exception to the rules (as books define them) in many cases....spitting up ALL the time, having a really tough case of stranger anxiety from three months old, and never settling into a good nap routine (not being able to get him to regularly sleep longer than 30 minutes), to name a few! I'd do everything the books suggest, and for a while I got so frustrated when it seemed that my baby was just not cooperating! But I finally realized that when I look back 10 years from now, I want to have enjoyed Grant just as he is. I learned (and am still working on this!) that I will never be able to make him do exactly what I want! So I've started to cherish and enjoy all those little quirks about him, and remember that God picked him out just for us for a reason!

It's also just crazy for me to think how much time Grant and I have spent together over the past year. I've been within 50 feet of him for almost every hour of the past 365 days! I'll go out for a Bible study every couple of weeks or to run to the store and leave him with Dean every once in a while (or leave him in the church nursery for an hour or two), but almost every waking hour is spent with him! And I really wouldn't have it any other way; I never imagined how hard it would be to leave him, even for a few hours! And even though he can't speak yet, he knows me better than almost anybody else in the world. He has witnessed me at my worst, in my most upset and frustrated moments, and yet he is so forgiving....he still loves me and wants to be near me all the time. This just melts my heart and makes me want to be a great mommy to him.

Even when I was pregnant, I couldn't contemplate how amazing it would be to have a baby. Grant is the most precious treasure Dean and I have ever had here on earth. I love him more and more as I get to know his funny personality better every day. It's a little bittersweet knowing that he's changing all the time and that he's turning into a little boy before our eyes! But I also know that there are so many fun adventures for us in the months and years to come. I love you so much, big boy!! Happy first birthday!!

The beach....in November??

My parents are staying at a time-share in Galveston this week, so Grant and I went down on Monday to spend the day with them. I took his bathing suit because it was supposed to be fairly warm that day. It was overcast that morning, but by the time we ate lunch (at The Spot....a really good hamburger place right on the seawall) and went to the beach, it had cleared up and was really nice outside. We didn't put Grant's swimsuit on before going out there, since we went straight from the restaurant.

Well, we laid our blanket down and I sat Grant down, thinking he'd just sit and play with the sand for a while. His first trip to the beach was in May (when he was 6 months old), and he was terrified of the water....he clung to us the entire time! What a difference 6 months makes! From the moment I sat him down, he tore off towards the water....like a turtle going back to sea, my mom said! I thought for sure when he got closer and the water started washing up onto him, he'd freak out. But nope, he loved it! He splashed and played like it was a giant bathtub! He kept trying to go farther and farther, so my mom held his hands as he tried to walk out. She'd lift him up by his hands as the waves came up, and he thought that was so funny!

We tried a couple of times to bring him back up to play in the sand, but he just wanted to be in the water. It was so funny and unexpected, especially after his first trip to Galveston in May. We finally took off his drenched clothes and left him in a diaper, but I never even bothered changing him into his swimsuit.

After about an hour, we got ready to leave and he just crashed in his carseat....he fell asleep on the way back to my parents' condo, and stayed asleep until we got home (when he got a nice bath!).

Going back out to the water!
Enjoying some water after a tough day's work:

I bought Grant a new little dressy outfit a couple of weeks ago....at a garage sale! I'm becoming a little bit addicted to garage sales....there are always good ones in our neighborhood and in some of the surrounding neighborhoods. They're mostly people who have little kids, so it's great to be able to buy toys and books (and sometimes clothes) for a fraction of what you'd pay anywhere else.

Anyway, there was an dressy little boy's outfit (with the tags still on it!) for sale for $1 that I found; it was a 12 month outfit, which should have fit Grant perfectly (he can still squeeze into some of his 9 month clothes). So I went to put it on him the next morning for church, and it was quite tight! He looked like a little sausage in it! But I was bound and determined that he'd wear it at least once! And Dean didn't oppose, so I guess it didn't look too girly (like some of the dressy little boy outfits you see). He did look pretty cute....

Park pictures

We've been to the park in our neighborhood so much over the past few weeks. The weather really cooled off for about 10 days (temperatures in the 60s), and for the past 10 days or so it's been in the low 80s. For a while this summer, we really couldn't go outside much at all, so we had to take all of our walks at the mall! That's fun for a while, but it does get a little old! Grant has been loving riding in his stroller in our new neighborhood.....he loves watching the kids walk to school in the morning, and there are always kids and dogs to watch in the afternoon.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from a few different trips to the park recently; this one was a couple weeks ago; Grant spent about 20 minutes pushing his stroller up and down the sidewalk. Of course I had to steer for him! And he was barefoot, so his little feet got a little scuffed up, but he didn't seem to mind!One night the three of us went to the park together; Daddy pushing Grant in the swing, then a picture of the three of us:
These were taken last week; Grant is starting to enjoy the playground equipment. Just in the past couple weeks, he's really been enjoying this swing, and we've tried the slide a few times too (while I'm either holding onto him or riding down with him). He doesn't really care too much for the slide one way or the other yet, but he likes to be pushed in the swing!

Cheese!

Grant LOVES cheese....processed American cheese is his favorite. He perks up, smiles, and sometimes even starts bouncing in his highchair when he sees me get a piece out of the refrigerator for him. A couple weeks ago, we were grocery shopping and I got a package of it for him. He was getting hungry and a little fussy so I opened it while we were in the store and got a piece out. When he saw it, he stuck his tongue out and started bouncing and shreiking in the grocery cart! It was so funny....I love my silly little boy so much.

Last week, I took some cheese out of the refrigerator to make him a grilled cheese sandwich. He grabbed the slice and I let him hold it for a second while I got other things out that I needed. Well, he started trying to eat through the wrapping, so I took it from him after a few seconds. He threw the biggest fit! He has started to do this more often, where he'll get SO mad if you take something from him that he wants. He sat on the floor and cried for probably 30 seconds before crawling back over to me to pick him up. It was probably mean, but I took pictures of him while he was so upset....it was just too cute to pass up, even though it probably made him even more mad at me!

Halloween Pictures.....finally!

I have been so busy and haven't had a chance to do a lot of blogging lately. But here are a few pictures from Halloween. Grant dressed up as a cow; I found a costume at a resale shop a few days before Halloween, with the tags still on it! So I decided to use that one instead of the dragon costume we already had for him. He hadn't slept great that day so he wasn't in the best mood around dinnertime.....so he didn't really appreciate us putting the hoodie part of his costume on! He kept grabbing it and trying to pull it off, but he always tries to pull it forward, which doesn't work!

We had planned on staying here to watch the trick-or-treaters come to our door, but I decided at the last minute to take him up to our church for the fall festival. So we went there for about 45 minutes, then came home and watched a few more kids who came to the door. Grant had a good time at the fall festival, especially searching for duckies in the bathtub! He didn't really understand the point of the game, but he had fun anyway! And he liked looking at all the other kids, of course.

Get this thing off of me!
It's so hard to be a baby when things don't go exactly your way!

Taking a walk to get the mail before the trick-or-treaters started coming around:
Our neighbors had one of those inflatable Halloween balloons in their yard....it was a pumpkin with three ghosts sticking out of it. Grant LOVED that! He stared at it and made noises at it every time we walked next to it over those few weeks. He's going to love Christmas! Here we are standing in front of it for him to watch:

At the fall festival:Checking out the other kids:

Warning: these are my rambling thoughts about photos....very uninteresting, so you may want to skip this post!

I've been trying to get stuff ordered from the Kodak website this weekend, since they're having a 25% sale (including prints) that ends tomorrow. I always seem to do this.....wait and order 500 prints at a time. So now I'm going back to early June and trying to pick the best ones out. Of course I'd like to order all of them because they're so cute and most of them have stories behind them, but I think Dean sees it as a little bit ridiculous that I get so many!

On Saturday, I just finished Grant's photo album (a very large one!) from the first three months, ending in late February.....yikes! Dean cautiously asked me if I was going to keep using that many pictures for his entire first year. But now I need to work on his scrapbook....I'm going to scrapbook his first few months (I've set some pictures aside from the album), then use my scrapbooks as photo albums starting where I ended this last album. I figure I'll just add as many pictures to each page as I can, and basically just label the pictures, instead of doing a lot of fancy scrapbooking stuff. The one thing that I don't like about scrapbooking is that I love to have TONS of pictures. A lot of times with a scrapbook, you can only use a couple of pictures for each topic, because the rest of the page is filled with decorative things! That's why I started off using a photo album for Grant's early pictures....because I had SO many of them!

Anyway, that's what's been on my mind this weekend. We didn't do too much.....watched a lot of football on Saturday (A&M and Alabama both lost, but at least Alabama's was a good game!), and Grant and I both picked up colds. We also hung pictures in Grant's room yesterday....it looks so good! Now we just have the rest of the house to go!

Once I am done ordering pictures, I will post some of Halloween and other things we've been doing.