Idol worship

I know I say all the time that Drew absolutely adores his big brother. One of the biggest joys for me this second time around has been watching the boys interact with each other. Drew simply thinks Grant hung the moon. He watches Grant almost constantly while we're eating, he gets excited and laughs when Grant does anything silly, and just recently he gets excited when I'm changing Grant's diaper (on the floor)....he'll crawl over to him and try to grab him and mess with him! It's so funny watching him become the pesky little brother.....it puts me in a hard place because I know it must be frustrating to Grant (being climbed on!), but at the same time I can't let Grant push and hit Drew just because he's getting annoyed by it.

But I know that Grant does love his little brother, even though he never cares about going to give him kisses or anything like that. When Drew's taking a nap, he'll ask, "where's Drew?" And the other night he said, "my brother is funny."

Anyway, here are some cute pictures from the other day. Grant likes to get in Drew's bed (his old bed) and jump. Drew had so much fun playing with him and watching him.....

Really quick....

I have been reading other posts and would normally not write my own tonight, but I don't want to take a day off and mess up my promise to write every day!

Mother's Day was fun.....Grant and Dean went to church while Drew and I stayed home. We woke up late and I was just so tired (I am trying to sleep train Drew). And Drew was even more tired....so we just stayed home. But Grant and Dean brought home some chocolates after church.....Grant brought them to me and said, "Happy Mother's Day, Mommy." It was sweet! It's the first year that he MAYBE understands what some of these holidays mean.

We had a very uneventful day.....I never even took a picture with the boys! Oh well...I can take one later and no one will ever know that we didn't really take it on Mother's Day, right?

Today was another day that makes me wonder how in the world I'm going to make it through this summer!! I will go into more of that later.....but the more I think about it, I don't know how a mom survives her first summer (in Texas) with a toddler and a baby who's just started crawling. That will have to be the subject of another post.....it is almost 9pm and I need to go spend some time with my husband!

A few of Grant's favorites

At (almost) two and a half years:

Favorite Foods: cheese, graham crackers, peanut butter, cottage cheese (for such a picky eater, we think it's crazy that he's so wild about cottage cheese....he eats bowlfuls of it!), grapes, anything made out of chocolate.

Favorite Toys: all of his Lightning McQueen cars (and other racecars from CARS, the movie); his tricycle (he calls it his motorcycle); his sand/water table in the backyard; his Little People garage.

Favorite Movie: Of course, CARS. We try to introduce new movies but he's not too interested. Today Dean watched Ratatouille with him (we had it recorded on our DVR), and a few minutes into it, he told Dean, "I don't like this movie. It's a little scary."

Favorite TV Shows: At the moment, he really likes Curious George and Handy Manny. He also still likes Little Einsteins quite a bit.

Favorite Song: Jesus Loves Me. He will start singing it out of the blue and it's one of the sweetest things to me. He learned it at school and always asks for Dean to sing it to him before he goes to bed. He also likes Rock a Bye Baby.

Favorite Books: According to Dean (who puts Grant to bed), right now he likes Go Dog Go, The Runaway Bunny, and Bear Snores On (for anyone who doesn't have this book, it's one of our all-time favorites.....), among a few others. Unfortunately, he's not much into books right now, except a few at bedtime. He prefers to read books that he's familar with, so getting books from the library is no fun.....which is sad to me because there are so many I'd love to get! Hopefully he will outgrow this stage soon.....I think during the day he is just too busy to sit down and listen to me read a book to him.

Favorite activities: being outside.....he's always asking to go for a walk or to go out to the backyard. He plays with his sand table and workbench, pushes his lawnmower, and loves to swing and play with the water hose. This worries me a little because it's getting so hot outside already! He gets so bored inside, he doesn't like to do arts/crafts yet, and he doesn't do very well when we run errands. So I don't really know what we're going to do during the days this summer......

Favorite random objects: He absolutely LOVES batteries. He will just hold them in his hand and walk around the house with them, putting them into containers and taking them back out. He does the same with coins and screws. I have been throwing away any of these things when I see them, now.....especially because Drew is starting to crawl. YIKES!

Milestones this week

I've already talked about some of these.....here's a shot of Drew scooting his way across the floor towards a toy.
This week, Grant learned how to pedal on his tricycle the correct way. He was so proud of himself and tells us to watch him every time he does it. We just got the tricycle about a month ago (from Craigslist!), and I guess we should have bought it maybe more around 18 months to 2 years.....his legs are a little long for it. What he likes most about it is the trunk; he stores his cars and trains in it.
Drew's front two teeth are almost fully in now.....no more toothless grin!

Drew tends to scrunch up his nose like this when he's laughing....

He learned how to play the piano..... :)

And he does really well standing while holding onto something (although he can't really pull himself up on most furniture quite yet).
And here are a few pictures after getting back from a walk one afternoon. Grant and I had popsicles, so I gave one to Drew too. He loved chewing on it.....it was a perfect teething stick!


One more thing.....he has become really attached to mommy at some times. At church, he doesn't cry immediately when I leave, but then he gets tired and cries until I come and take him. And if there are other people at our house, he doesn't even usually like for me to get up and leave him to play on the floor! It's easy to get frustrated at things like this (after all, Grant was very similar), but I have to remember that ten years from now, I will yearn for the days when he wanted only mommy!

Brotherly bathtime

Last Saturday, Drew got promoted to the big boy bath with Grant! We tried bathing them together about 6 or 8 weeks ago (when Drew learned to sit up), but Grant wasn't too keen on sharing his bathtub at the time. Now he doesn't seem to care at all!

Sometimes they just ignore each other...........but we have to keep a close eye on Grant. He's always trying mischievous stuff, like squirting Drew with his squirt toy.....
.....trying to pick him up by the neck to drag him somewhere (where can he possibly be planning on taking him?).....

.....or trying to pour water on top of him......
A couple more......