little trooper

Drew had his 15-month checkup today. The poor thing had more encounters with needles than he probably cared to have. His iron has been a little low at his past two visits. So today, along with his normal vaccines, he got his finger pricked to test his iron count again. Our doctor came back a few minutes later saying that it's lower now than it was at 12 months. It's still on the borderline and not horrible, but she told us to go ahead and get bloodwork done at a lab, just to try to see what's going on.

So after naps today, we went to the lab. I've never had good experiences with LabCorp (I went while I was pregnant with Grant and had long waits each time). This was a new place (CPL), and much nicer.....there was nobody else there, so we went straight to the back. The lady drew blood from his arm, just like for an adult (I assumed that they might do it differently for babies....not sure why!). I held him and he just stared at his arm as she poked the needle into it....and didn't cry until a few seconds later, when she moved it around to find the vein. He cried until it was over, but thankfully it only took about 30 seconds to fill up both vials. Then a minute later, he and Grant were running up and down the aisle and he acted like nothing had even happened.

Tonight before I put Drew's pajamas on, Grant pulled one of the band-aids off of his leg (he had one shot in each leg this morning). Drew brought the band-aid to Dean, fussing a little bit. Dean realized that Drew wanted him to put it back on! After Dean stuck it back on, Drew started walking around proudly again.....I guess he thinks a band-aid makes him a big boy. Later Dean traded it with a spider-man one. He was so proud of it!

Drew is still very small, in terms of weight. He only weighs 23 lbs (25th percentile). His height supposedly puts him in the 65th percentile, but I'm not sure I believe that. His 12-month clothes mostly still fit (except a few pants), and Grant had long outgrown 12-mo clothes by this point. Drew still seems little to me! All of his four molars have just poked through, so the doctor asked if he's been especially fussy. He hasn't! With all of the issues we have, at least I am very thankful that they both handle teething remarkably well!

Here are a few band-aid pictures from tonight:
Pointing it out to me....

Pointing it out to Daddy:

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas.....it was very quiet (just the four of us all weekend) and we just had a lot of playtime and relaxing around the house (as much as you can relax with two small kids!). The boys took marathon naps all weekend, except for one day, so it'll be interesting to see what happens today, now that Daddy's back at work! I'm betting that Drew goes back to his normal 45-minute cat-nap.

These are some pictures we took on Christmas Eve. We went to our church for the Christmas Eve service, but found out when we got there that there was no childcare. Grant did fine sitting in the sanctuary with us for the first few minutes, but Drew quickly got restless and tried climbing under chairs. We knew he wouldn't make it through the entire service. So the boys and I went to the back (Dean had a speaking part and I knew Grant would freak out if Dean got up to leave him by himself). Once Dean was done with his reading, we left. We got all dressed up to only be there for 10 minutes! But these are some pictures I took later that night.....


Trying to give Grant a kiss:


So impolite!
I haven't uploaded Christmas pictures yet. The boys got SO many toys....we had to take a break from opening gifts because they got tired of it! Grant has had a blast playing with all of his stuff over the past few days. He gets rather possessive, though....he can sense when Drew is coming close, and he'll quickly cover up his toys with his body, saying, "no, these are mine! I'm playing with these!" Drew got a lot of fun stuff too, but of course he mostly wants to play with big brother's presents!

My big gift from Santa was an iPod! I set it up last night and tried posting a trial post from it. But for some reason, it doesn't recognize this box as a text box.....so I could type the title, then nothing else. I'm not sure what to do about that. But other than that, I'm loving it. It's great being able to quickly check my email from downstairs, without having to come up to the study (we don't have a laptop). The only problem is that Grant is fascinated by it too......he is a little obsessed with looking at my "new phone" (he doesn't understand that it's not really a phone) and threw a fit today when I told him he can't hold it.

It always makes me a little sad when Christmas is over.....now that I'm older, the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas seem to go by in a flash. So my Christmas CDs will still be playing in the car for a while longer! More pictures hopefully soon.....

Little guy is 15 months old

With his best friend blanky:

Giving blanky a ride in the school bus:


Drew turned 15 months old on Tuesday. He's still not saying much (although he at least makes halfhearted attempts to repeat words when I prompt him, something Grant still wasn't doing at this age). He can throw a pretty good fit, but I don't think he's quite as extreme as Grant was at this age. And something that's especially fun about a second child is watching how much he admires/emulates Grant. Some things he's learned from big brother:

- The other night Dean was clipping Grant's fingernails, and Drew was looking over Grant's shoulder, sticking his finger out so his could be clipped too!

- Bedtime is a long process in our house. It's the boys' favorite time to play. When Dean finally drags Grant to his own room, Drew follows and tries climbing into Grant's bed for even more playtime. He's even tried getting under the covers just like Grant sleeps!

- If I tell him that I need to change his diaper, he goes straight over to the little couch and plops himself down, then waits for me to come.

- When Grant washes his hands, Drew tries climbing onto the stool to wash his hands too.

- At mealtimes, when I'm about to set something on Drew's plate, he'll pat his tray right where he wants me to set his food.....he learned this from Grant too.

- He has even learned to throw fits just like his brother. Grant will lay on the ground and jerk his arms and legs around when you're telling him something he doesn't like. It's hard not to laugh when Drew does the exact same thing!

- He and Grant love watching Little Einsteins together. It's their favorite show right now. Drew hears the opening song and immediately climbs onto the couch, then starts patting his lap, ready to blast off! Watching them do all the hand motions together is always one of the favorite things about my day......they take it so seriously and they look so cute sitting next to each other.

People have asked me if things are getting any easier. I do think that life is getting at least a little bit more predictable now. The boys play well for a few minutes at a time, but every playtime only lasts about 2-5 minutes before ultimately leading to a big screaming fight. This happens almost without exception! So that gets old very fast....but I also know that this is something I'll be dealing with until they're out of the house!

We just took a super fun trip to my parents' house in Bryan, where we saw Grandma (in town from Michigan), Rob and Evan, aunt Marge, and Jodie (my cousin), her husband Dan, and James (almost 5) and Claire (almost 3). We had a blast with all of them.....Grant loved playing with all of his cousins. I took tons of pictures, so I really will try to post some! I always say that!

We're going to have a very quiet Christmas here, just the four of us. Grant learned today exactly how Santa will come down our chimney, so I think he's excited for tonight. He is expecting Santa to bring his Chick Hicks hauler.....he's been waiting for it for months! And he just loves taking the presents out from under the tree, finding which ones are his, and stacking them up. It'll be fun to see how he reacts tomorrow morning.....

Merry Christmas!!!!

Truth is stranger (and funnier!) than fiction!

I heard this story on the news on the radio this morning, then saw this article on the Fox News website. This article is a little short and doesn't give a lot of details. But according to the news report I heard, the 4-year-old little boy (I think they said his name was Hayden) thought Christmas wasn't coming soon enough. So one night he sneaked out of his mom's bed and found a beer at his house, then went to a neighbor's house and apparently got in through a door that wasn't locked (what are people thinking?!). There he opened all of the presents under the neighbors' Christmas tree.....and one of these gifts was a little girl's dress. A while later, he was found down the street, wearing the dress and obviously under the influence! I just laughed out loud when I pictured what that must have looked like!

Poor kid.....it would be a very funny story except for the extra details here in this article.....apparently the boy's dad is in jail and his parents are getting a divorce. Poor little kid....

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Tennessee investigators say a 4-year-old boy was found roaming his neighborhood in the night, drinking beer and wearing a little girl's dress taken from under a neighbor's Christmas tree.

The child's mother, 21-year-old April Wright, tells WTVC-TV the boy "wants to go to jail because that's where his daddy is." Wright says she and the boy's father are going though a divorce.

The boy, found outside his house in Chatanooga on Tuesday, was taken to a hospital and treated for alcohol consumption.

Hamilton County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Janice Atkinson says the incident is being investigated but the department declined to release the report.

The boy's mother says she met with child protective services and was told she will get to keep custody of her son.

Not quite like I expected.....

Yesterday at Grant's school they had the preschool Christmas program. This is Grant's first year officially in "preschool," so his class was the youngest of all of the classes participating. I was so excited about it.....you see this portrayed in movies all the time, where moms and dads sit in the audience proudly watching their child singing, and it's almost more fun if they don't do exactly what they're supposed to do. Grant has never been in front of a big group, so I had no idea what to expect.

So Drew and I got there a few minutes early and sat along the middle aisle, where all the classes would be coming in. I wanted to videotape Grant walking in with his class. A few minutes later, all the older kids filed in, then Grant's class walked in last. Grant was holding his teacher's hand, and he saw me as he got close to my row. Without hesitating, he turned and started walking in to sit with me. His teachers tried to grab him to take him with them, but he started screaming and crying. So to avoid a scene, I just told his teachers I'd take him.

At the same time this was happening, I was thinking, "no! He can't do this! He needs to go stand up there at the front so I can watch him perform! That's why we're here! This isn't supposed to happen!" I tried talking him into going up there, but he would have none of it. His teacher Ms. Machelle tried coming back after the first song, but he refused to go with her. And I know Grant.....he would have screamed and made a huge scene if we had dragged him up there at that point.

So anyway, I was frustrated for a few minutes....mostly at myself for sitting there right where he could see me! I never thought he would react that way.....he seems to be over the "there's Mommy....I need her!" stage. But maybe the whole situation was just a little weird for him.

We stayed until the program was over, then went to Grant's classroom for his Christmas party. The kids ate lunch, and Drew was hungry too....he found an empty seat at a table full of girls, and he sat there and waited for some food! Then he'd stand up and walk around and try taking food from other kids' plates. It's pretty funny to watch....I guess he's too young to be bashful- he'll just go after anything he wants! He also tried taking Grant's brownie out of his hands....and this led to a slightly embarrassing yelling match between Grant and Drew. Thankfully most of the moms there have more than one child and have been through that themselves!

Miscellaneous

Here are some pictures we took this morning before taking Grant to school. The boys want to be outside so badly, and the front yard is the least messy place to play right now. Here's Grant with his "racket" or "fishing pole," depending on what he wants it to be at the time:

A very rare overalls day for Drew (I think overalls are cute on little boys, but they're bulky and I hardly ever grab them when I'm looking for something for him to wear). His poor little eyes are red.....Grant had the same thing last week but apparently it's just a cold symptom and not pink eye (according to our doctor):

Drew has learned from Grant that when you start walking down the sidewalk away from our house, you have to wave and say "bye."


Drew has been asleep for over an hour and a half, so I know I'm pressing my luck by trying to do a blog post! Any time I decide to hurry and quickly post something before he wakes up, it never quite works out.

I haven't even logged on to our blog in the past week....this Christmas season just seems so busy! We managed to finally put up our tree about five days ago, but we still haven't decorated it. Just on Saturday night, we put the majority of our outside decorations up (although we still aren't quite finished). It's been incredibly cold and rainy....one of the coldest Decembers on record so far. So we're kind of having the opposite problem we had this summer....now it's difficult to be outside because it's too cold! And we haven't been outside in our backyard to play in probably over a week.....we've had so much rain and everything is just yucky. I guess if I were a good mom, I'd let my boys play in the mud and standing water. But most days, I just don't feel like doing that!

But it has been fascinating to watch Grant this Christmas season. It's so much different than even last year.....he doesn't understand the real meaning of Christmas yet, but he can appreciate the magic of the lights and all of the festivities. Quickly, some of the highlights from this Christmas season so far:

- He loves Mickey's Christmas Carol.....thanks, Mom, for the DVD!!! He wants to watch it over and over when we're in the car. It was one of my favorite cartoons growing up too, so it's fun for me to see him enjoy it so much.

- He is just amazed by Christmas villages at the craft stores. He could stand there and look at the little houses, churches, and toy shops for hours. It's fun seeing which details he thinks are especially cool. He likes to point out the dads, moms, brothers and sisters. And he loves the carnival rides too.

- So far I've only wrapped a few gifts. But the other day when Grant saw the wrapped presents, he quickly learned which ones were his and which were Drew's. The next morning, the boys loaded some of the gifts into their shopping cart and took them into the den. Before I knew it, Grant was saying, "markers!" I ran in as Drew was walking towards me, showing me his new puzzle that he had just unwrapped. Little stinkers! At least Grant's opened gift was just markers, and not some other toy that he'd immediately want to play with (and would have led to a huge fit when I told him he had to wait until Christmas).

- At Target last week Grant found a car that he'd never seen before, and his heart was set on buying it. I told him we couldn't buy it that day, but he could ask Santa for it. So he starts pulling me down the aisle, saying, "I want to go ask Santa" (as if he just needed to go ask for Santa's approval really quick, then come back to get it). He just doesn't quite understand! And he still doesn't get the concept of days, weeks, minutes.....the other day he said, "Christmas is coming in a few minutes." To him, I guess "Christmas" is just an indefinite time in the future, and hopefully it will come sooner rather than later!

Leaps and bounds better!

Last November we took both boys to the doctor together.....Drew for his 2 month checkup, and Grant for his 2-year checkup. Grant was horrendous! He freaked out at the beginning when the nurse tried to weigh him, and the wailing never stopped until we left. It was completely chaotic, with two nurses in the room (one for each boy), then our doctor had to talk to us over all the screaming. Grant had been great at 18 months, so this was completely out of the blue, and made me nervous about ever taking him again!

Today we went for his 3-yr checkup. So much better! I was guessing that it would be, because he's been there a few times this year (although only once as a patient) and hasn't freaked out. Plus, it's a lot easier to reason with a three-year-old, I now know. I'm sure age three will have its issues, but Grant is starting to seem like my easier child now....he has actually become a somewhat reasonable, rational person! He still has plenty of crying fits, but he understands a lot more about the world around him. And now he knows that doctor's offices are just normal places where the people are very nice. So he can assume that nothing horrible will happen....whereas a two-year-old might not be able to see things in such a big picture.

Anyway, he is fine (and big....around 90th percentile in height and weight....although his weight included a ziploc bag full of Teddy Grahams that the nurse must not have noticed). He said some funny things to the nurse and he was just relaxed as could be (he also knew that he had candy waiting for him if he was a good boy). We had to take a potty break.....we're now at the point where he does pretty well leaving the house with underwear on......and then he had to get a few shots. Of course he hated them for a minute, but immediately was asking for his candy afterwards. So they must not have been completely awful!

PACIFIER UPDATE: "Anonymous" wrote a few days ago suggesting the Paci B Gone website. I looked at it and it looks interesting. Thanks for the link, whoever that was! Basically, it's a 7-day program that involves teaching your child about a pacifier fairy who comes in the middle of the night and will take his pacifier in exchange for a stuffed duck. Every morning the child wakes up with his duck and then gets rewarded with stickers, etc. for making it through the night without his paci.

The main drawback is that it costs $60 (they say it's fully refundable if it doesn't work). And Grant isn't really into stuffed animals too much, so I have a feeling he might not be so excited about waking up with a stuffed duck instead of his paci. So I'm trying a couple of other things, and I might do this if it seems like we're getting nowhere after a couple months. Mainly, the past few days I've really been trying to crack down and only let him have his paci for sleeptimes. And I'm trying to distract him when he randomly asks for it any other time. If he hurts himself or gets in trouble, he'll immediately ask for it. And once he thinks about it, he has his mind set on getting it! So I'm trying to distract him with Little Einsteins (his favorite show right now) or by suggesting we go outside. And yesterday we bought him chewing gum......hey, if it works on a nicotine addiction, it just might work on this pacifier addiction! He has no problem chewing it, and Drew cannot understand why he can't have some too! So we will see how that goes.....

Snow, etc.

It's happened two years in a row now.....snow in Houston! It started snowing at our house early this morning....before 9am. The boys and I went to Kroger, and it looked almost like a snowstorm when we came out of the store. Huge flurries and lots of wind to blow them sideways across the parking lot. We rushed home so the boys (both of whom normally dash towards the door every chance they get) could have a chance to play in the snow. But apparently my little guys belong in Texas, where it rarely gets below 50 degrees.....we tried going out twice, and both times we were back inside within three minutes! They just weren't happy being so cold, and they weren't very impressed with the huge white chunks falling out of the sky.

So instead of just sitting at home, I packed them back in the car and we drove around for about an hour. I bought some Exxon coffee (my favorite....half coffee and half cappuccino) and both of the boys slept while I enjoyed the snow. It accumulated quite a bit this morning, but it stopped snowing before noon, and the snow slowly melted on the ground. It snowed again later in the afternoon for a few hours, but we didn't get any accumulation out of it.

I heard on the radio that this is only the 34th time in Houston's history that we've had snow. And today was the earliest it's ever snowed here. And.....tonight it's supposed to be 25 degrees, which will break the record low for Houston (for this date). So much for global warming, right? Oh wait, excuse me.....now it's conveniently called "climate change," to give them an excuse for when the weather does silly things like actually get colder instead of warmer!

Tonight for dinner we made chicken nuggets and french fries (not from scratch, just a basic frozen meal). We usually have a fast meal like this once a week, and tonight Dean did all the work while I was trying to get other things done. Grant and Drew both just love this meal....it's (sadly) just about the only time I can get them to eat the same thing as we're eating! As we sat down for dinner, Grant took a few bites and said, "This is really yummy. Daddy's a good cooker."

Then later he was putting together the extension pieces for our vacuum (very gross, I know!), and he put three of them together to make a very long stick. He said, "this is called my new invention." Then he'd look through it like a telescope, and he pretended he was shooting with it. I guess we're getting into the imaginative years!

Trying to catch up!

I don't like getting so far behind.....I would love to blog every day, and I'd definitely have enough material to post every day. The boys are playing together so much now.....they love wrestling and petting (or chasing) the kitties together. Drew is becoming a big boy right in front of our eyes.....he'll do things that make me think, "huh? when did you learn that?" And Grant is saying so many funny and witty things too. I write down some of the especially funny/memorable things in a notebook, but I rarely have a chance to sit down and share them on the blog. The days just speed by so fast (and my free time is so very limited!).

Here are some pictures of Grant's birthday party. A few weeks before his party, I'd ask him what kind of cake he wanted. First he said he wanted a Chick Hicks cake. A few days later, he wanted a Captain Hook cake (he's on a Peter Pan kick right now). I'm not sure why he picks the villains as his favorite characters! We talked him into a Lightning McQueen cake, and this is what the lady came up with.....Grant was so excited about it and wanted to show it to everybody. It says "Ka-chow!" on the top.....


Our little man has become more addicted to his pacifier again after our trip to Alabama. It always happens after trips. So it was difficult trying to separate him from it during his party. He ate lunch with Andrew and John at the picnic table....he and Andrew were very proud of themselves for sharing with each other.
Jacob kept yelling, "Ka-chow!" during cake time. The little boys all loved looking at the cake and they all were saying, "I want the Lightning McQueen piece! I want the Mater piece!" Those were just little plastic cars sitting on top of the cake, but apparently the boys thought the cake underneath them was very special!
Present time!
Look at these cool cars, Mommy!
Drew was not a happy camper that day.....he wanted to be held almost non-stop. He obviously didn't feel well (you could see it in his eyes), but nothing ever came of it. When he wasn't being held, he had a great time playing in the ice cooler!

Fun little coincidence!

The boys and I made an impromptu trip to the Galleria today.....we had a fun time! I love our little trips to the city. Today we saw the ice skating rink and the giant Christmas tree. Grant wanted to go out onto the ice, so I explained to him that it was a giant ice cube, and it's very hard to walk on it. Then, while we were searching for the Disney store (it has recently moved), we found a ride-on train over at Santa's North Pole. Grant was so excited, so we paid $6 and had a blast during our three-minute ride. He said, "this is really cool!" a few times and asked Drew if he thought it was cool too. They both stuck their heads out the window and had such fun. As we were leaving the area, Grant looked up at me and excitedly said, "it's Christmastime!"

We found the Disney store, where Grant looked at lots of Cars and Handy Manny toys, and Drew had fun bouncing balls all over the place.

The only negative about going into town is that the boys take their naps in the car....by the time we get home, they wake up and they will not go back to sleep (even if they only slept for 30 minutes). So to kill some time and hopefully allow them to sleep a little longer, a lot of times I'll just drive around town for a while before heading home. Today I was driving on Montrose, and I noticed a street called "Drew" as I passed it. I had my camera and thought I'd turn around to take a picture of it. So I turned at the next street and made my way back towards Drew St. I couldn't believe my eyes when I noticed that the intersecting street with Drew St. was called Grant St! What are the chances that I would have ever found this intersection?! Crazy!!

Three!

November 18, 2006:


First birthday:


Second birthday:

My big boy is three today! Wow! Three seems way too old for my little guy.......who, by the way, is still quite addicted to his pacifier and still isn't potty trained! Like most moms of little kids, I hear multiple times per week (at stores, at church, at the park) from older moms saying that it goes by so fast, telling me to enjoy every moment when they're little, etc. Of course I know this is true, but I think part of me still believes that this toddler/preschooler age is never going to end. I just can't picture my kids as 8 and 9 year olds! And in a lot of ways, I don't want to!! We definitely have our challenges right now....anyone who knows me knows this! But the boys are so sweet and fun right now too, and lately I've been noticing the days just slipping by so quickly. So I feel like I'm starting to get a sense of the brevity of my kids' childhood.....and I know that before I know it, I'll be one of those older moms!

This morning Grant came downstairs and noticed his wrapped presents sitting next to the fireplace. This is definitely the first year he's grasped the concept (he was too little even last Christmas). We picked up donut holes on the way to school for his class to eat for their snack (I tried making chocolate chip cookies last night but they ended up way too flimsy for 3-year-olds. So we will have to eat them ourselves!). Then Drew and I had a good time at Sam's while Grant was at school. I finally became a Sam's member! Drew had a blast looking at toys and frozen foods. We found a really cool car for Grant for Christmas (and bought a couple extras for gifts). Then on our way back to pick Grant up, we were 20 minutes late because Bay Area Blvd was down to ONE lane at a fairly large intersection (for construction). At lunchtime!! And no police officer directing traffic. This infuriates me because the traffic is backed up for a mile (just in one direction), and the lights are timed just as they normally are. Then about a mile from this huge backup, I see a cop sitting in his car waiting to pull people over for speeding!

Anyway, after picking Grant up and apologizing profusely to his teachers, we got into the car, and what does Grant notice? The new cars sitting in the back of the van! I knew I should have hidden them. He asked me to get them out when we got home, but I rushed the boys inside and he didn't ask about it again. He tends to remember things like that, so hopefully he'll forget about this one.

Off to make Grant's cake.....hopefully before my 45-minute napper Drew wakes up.....

And....we had a great time in Alabama. It's been busy and I haven't had a chance to write about it yet. Hopefully soon....

Leaving.....

Today we're leaving for Steve's wedding in Alabama. Steve (Dean's brother) and Jennifer are getting married on Saturday. We're looking forward to a (hopefully) fun road trip.....I'm hoping that the boys will take good naps in the car and let us drive some long stretches. More when we get back!

Halloween/air show weekend

It was a jam-packed weekend! On Friday Grant had woken from his nap just as the Blue Angels were practicing for the air show this weekend. I love living close to a military airport (we live basically across the street from Ellington field).....we get to hear (and sometimes see) all kinds of planes flying around our house. And the airshow is especially cool. This year the Navy's Blue Angels were the headliners.

So on Friday afternoon, I heard super loud airplanes and knew it must be them. I was standing in the kitchen when it got especially loud. I looked out the kitchen window as two of them flew by, then turned in opposite directions. One of them pretty much flew over our backyard....you could see the blue and gold paint as clear as day. So awesome! Grant wasn't so excited.....he was pretty freaked out by the noise. I tried taking him out in the backyard with me, but he buried his head the whole time and kept saying, "it's pretty loud. I want to get out of here." He felt better after we came inside and I explained that they were good planes, and they keep us safe.

The funny thing is that Drew (usually a very light sleeper) slept through most of it, until the last few minutes of their practice run. That night when Dean got home, I told Grant to tell Daddy the names of the airplanes he saw. He said, "I saw the Blue Rangers." But he remembered all weekend that they were "good airplanes that keep us safe" (although it didn't make him any more excited to listen to them).

Saturday:
It didn't really feel like Halloween, because of the air show and college football on TV. Saturday is a weird day for Halloween, I think. But Grant was excited about going trick-or-treating (he was too little to understand last year). We had a good time! We walked just down our street and back, but that was plenty for the boys. When we still had a few houses to go, Grant decided he just wanted to sit in his wagon and start eating his candy.

The pirate and the scarecrow:






Trick-or-treating:


At our neighbor/babysitter Elizabeth's house. Grant picked out his candy, and Drew decided he needed some too!




After trick-or-treating, we went to our church for a while. Grant's friend Graham was a pirate too....we didn't plan it!


Grant was surprisingly very good at sharing his candy. He kept handing pieces to all three of us that night.


Unfortunately, yesterday I had a disastrous experience at the bank with both boys (Grant almost set off the fire alarm, among other things), so we promptly came home and Grant watched as I threw his candy bag in the trash. Then he got about ten whacks with the paddle. I'm so tired of this stuff.....they both act horribly in stores, but at least Drew is still a little young to know better. Grant definitely knows better.

That place where everyone takes their kids in October

It's been almost two weeks ago now since the boys and I went to the pumpkin patch. We had a nice cool Monday morning and decided to go. Last year Drew was so little, so pumpkin patches weren't tops on my priority list. I remember driving past the (very picked over) field a few days before Halloween last year and being mad at myself for not going sooner. So this year we went with plenty of time to spare.....and I think this particular church must have just gotten a new shipment of them.....there was hardly any room to walk or sit!

The boys had fun....Grant was being his outdoor self and running and jumping all over the place. He had fun collecting all of the small pumpkins in the wheelbarrow, and of course he wanted to play chase (meaning we chase him). He'd notice an especially large one and say, "look at this big pumpkin!" And he had fun jumping off the hay bales.

Drew was my photogenic one this year.....he's always loved being outside, but I think even more so now that he can walk. He was giddy just walking around exploring the place. Especially at the beginning, he was interested in the pumpkins, trying to move them and even trying to taste them. And I was able to make funny noises to get him to smile for the camera. It's actually very difficult taking a good smiling picture of Grant right now. In the first picture, I had asked him to stand next to Drew. He knows what this means.....he walks over, looks at the camera and says "cheese!" about three times before running off. But his "cheese" face never ends up being a very good smile!

I don't know what it is, but pumpkin pictures are just so darn cute. It probably has a lot to do with all the colors.....the green of the trees and grass and the bright orange of the pumpkins.....it just makes for a great background. For me, I have to take some pictures and then step back and just enjoy watching the boys for a while. My tendency is to take pictures every second because the place just lends itself to great photos!