Friday, November 7, 2008

My little monkey

Some recent pictures of Drew:

And speaking of monkeys....

Last night Dean brought Grant upstairs to give him a bath. He was getting the bath ready (while Grant was running around), and he yelled out to Grant that he needed to change his diaper. A minute later, he walked out of the bathroom to find Grant and couldn't find him anywhere. When he walked into his room, there was Grant, laying ON TOP of his changing table, just waiting to be changed! We still have no idea how he climbed up there. Like a typical boy, he is always trying to climb higher and higher on top of things!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Happy Late Birthday, Aunt Corie!

We hope you liked your card! Love, Grant and Drew


Friday, October 31, 2008

Airshow, Pumpkin Patch and Visitors!

We were busy last weekend! The airshow took place on Saturday and Sunday, and we live really close to Ellington Field. So we heard the planes all day, although it's hard to see much from our backyard. But when the Thunderbirds performed, we climbed up on our playground equipment and were able to see quite a bit. It was awesome!! Grant got scared a few times when it was really loud, but mostly wanted Dean to keep lifting him up so he could see more. He kept saying, "big jet", "loud", "take off" and "awesome" while it was going on!

Drew slept through the whole thing!
Also, my friends Karen and Margaret both came to visit on Sunday. It was so great seeing both of them.....Margaret's little boy David just turned a year old and is precious!! Grant and David enjoyed jumping into Grant's ball pool in his room. And Margaret made a wonderful chicken spaghetti dinner....it had a lot of vegetables, but they were all blended up! Grant ate a bunch of it.....ignorance is bliss, right??? Which reminds me.....my friend Jennifer gave me a copy of the Jessica Seinfeld cookbook that's supposed to give you ways to sneak veggies into your kids' meals. I'm excited to try some of them......

Karen and Drew:

Margaret, me and all of our boys!
And last.....on Monday, I took the boys to the pumpkin patch at a church down the street. It was a beautiful day but COLD and very windy! Grant had fun looking at (and trying to tip over) the pumpkins. He ran all over the place! And poor Drew was trying to sleep in his stroller but the wind kept waking him up!Bending down to give Drew a kiss (while he was crying):

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

NEWS!!! .....and Drew's 1-Month Update

First......I am finally learning what it's really like to be a mom of two kids.....I feel like I have NO free time! Before I write about Drew, I want to share this fun news, which I've been meaning to do since last weekend but haven't had time to sit down at the computer for more than a couple of minutes.

Dean's sister Corie and her boyfriend Pat got engaged last Friday!! We are so excited for them. Pat came here last Thursday for the day (from Alabama!), so we were able to see the ring. It's absolutely beautiful, and looks exactly like something Corie would pick out (which apparently she did, without knowing that Pat knew!).

Pat said he might propose over the weekend, but apparently he couldn't wait......Dean called Corie on Friday afternoon and Pat had already popped the question! If you want to read the full story, click on Corie's blog from our Links List (Bluebonnets and Bouncy Balls.....see her post from Oct 26).

Congratulations, guys!!!!! Here's a picture of Corie and Pat with Grant when he was about 5 months old:

Like I said before, things seem busy now! My mom came into town two weeks ago (and stayed the week), then Dean's parents were here last week. It was so nice having them here to help watch Grant.....and he loved having so many people to play with! So this Monday was the first day I was alone with the two boys in a couple of weeks. We haven't had any catastrophes yet, but it takes us a lot longer to get out of the house than it used to! And it seems like every time we go out, I inevitably forget something I really need (like a burp cloth, pacifier, one of the boys' diaper bags, etc).

But we are doing well.....Drew still sleeps a lot, and he is getting so much bigger! People still say he looks tiny, but I think he probably weighs over 11 pounds now (just a guess, but it's been three weeks since he weighed a little over 9lbs at two weeks). I look at him and I think he looks pudgy and SO much longer!

And he LOVES to be held.....in fact, many times he has a hard time sleeping if he's not in someone's arms! This can get a little bit frustrating.....he'll be sound asleep when I lay him down, and many times he'll stir and wake up after a few minutes. And he doesn't sleep nearly as well as Grant did in his carseat. When Grant was this young, I could take him out to run errands and he'd sleep for hours in his carseat/stroller. Yesterday Drew and I went to the mall, and I ended up carrying him around with me for most of the trip! But I do still love holding him.....I am enjoying my little guy so much!

At five weeks old, there aren't a whole lot of milestones to report! But he can hold his head up fairly well now.....he really looks like a bobblehead doll! And he's increasingly alert when he's awake.....he turns his head and gets fascinated by the TV (for a minute or so!). And he hasn't smiled yet, but he'll make some cute cooing noises and gets visibly more excited when you make eye contact and talk to him.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the past two weeks, while Grandma, Nana and Papa were visiting:










Wednesday, October 22, 2008

23 Months.....wow!!

First.....today is Drew's one month birthday!! I can't believe it! I will post a few pictures of him later, but I want to finish this post that I started yesterday about Grant.....

It's been a few months since I wrote a list about things Grant has been doing. What a silly little boy he's becoming! And it's obvious that he's almost two.....of course we've been having terrible-two-type behavior since shortly after his first birthday, but now the huge mood swings are even more glaring. One minute, he'll be a perfect, sweet little angel, saying cute things and trying his best to be charming! The next, he'll get angry over something (usually very unimportant), and he'll start screaming and throwing himself all over the place! He really likes to bang his head on the floor now.....and that makes him cry even more!

But it really has been a good time.....and at least he hasn't gotten any worse since Drew was born! I am always just in awe at certain things he'll say....he'll say words and name objects that I've never taught to him! And he repeats almost everything we say. He's getting to the point where he knows he's being cute. He'll say something that makes us laugh, and it encourages him to do it more!

Some things that define Grant these days:

- He has become possessive over his stuff. When he's holding his trains or pretty much anything else, he'll say "my choo-choo," or "my milk," etc. He even holds the object up against his tummy as if someone is trying to take it away from him (when we're not!). He's even started using "my" with things that don't make sense. For example, yesterday he said "my wash hands," and today he said "my night-night" (he pretends he's going night-night by laying on the couch or bed and covering himself up).

- He LOVES to wash his hands now. We used to keep his stool in the downstairs bathroom, and he'll decide he wants to wash his hands at random times. He'll open the door and turn on the water......then he tries to make a huge mess! The whole time he's in there, he says "wash hands" over and over. But this led to one too many messes, so now his stool has been removed!

- He has learned to say "bless you" and loves saying it when people sneeze.

- I try to ask him questions about school when he gets home. I can tell that he's thinking, but he rarely answers my questions with real answers (except saying yes or no). But he learned his teacher Lisa's name, and now he'll say "Lisa" all the time! Once I asked him what he ate for lunch, and he said "Lisa." Again, he figured out that this made us laugh.....so now he'll just randomly say "Lisa" and he laughs because he thinks he's so funny!

- He demands to use a fork when he eats. And he doesn't even like his little boy fork....he wants to use ours. He's pretty good at it too!

- He does something we call his "funny walk." He'll squat as if he's about to sit, then he'll take small steps while he's still squatting! Now he will do his funny walk on demand when we ask him to do it!

- He will smile and say "cheese" (sometimes) when I take his picture.

- His taste of books is changing. Now he prefers books with lots of detail in the pictures. He never used to like Goodnight Moon much, but he loves it now because there are a lot of small objects he can find and point out. Hopefully this means he'll be open to reading library books again. He'd gotten to the point where he only liked certain books and would squirm and fuss when I tried to read something he wasn't familiar with.

- When he's about to get a spanking, he starts calling out towards anybody in the room who he thinks might save him! He'll call "mommy" to me when Dean's about to spank him, and yesterday said "Nana, Nana!" when I grabbed him to give him a spanking. It makes it more gut-wrenching to spank him when he sounds like he's about to be tortured!

- He calls me "mommy" more and more now, instead of "mama." But he will say goodnight and goodbye to me pretty easily now.....it's a little sad! It's much harder for him when Daddy leaves than when I do.

- Speaking of Daddy, he's REALLY attached to Dean now. When Dean leaves for work, Grant has a hard time and throws a fit on the floor. It's so sad!

- A few days ago when I put him down for his nap, he laid down before I left the room, looked at me and waved, and said "night-night." He didn't cry at all or throw his pacifier. Amazing! Then last night, I put him to bed (which is rare now), and he copied me when I said I love you, night-night, and see you tomorrow!

What a big boy!!!