Happy Birthday, Grandma!!

We love you!

Amazing stats

First, today my friend Kristen came down to visit us for lunch. She and her husband Chad live on the complete opposite side of town, so I never get to see her. We had so much fun!! Grant showed her all of his toys and ran around like crazy when she first got here. She was here for three hours, but it wasn't nearly long enough to completely catch up (especially when Grant's running around and demanding quite a bit of attention). I will post a cute picture of her and Grant when I get it uploaded. I wish she lived closer!!

Everyone reading this probably knows that I'm very politically inclined. Grant and I listen to Rush Limbaugh almost every day.....it helps me to feel connected to the outside world while I'm chasing a toddler around nonstop!

Anyway, last week on his show, Rush talked about a recent article from the Wall Street Journal. Every year, they break down who pays what percentage of taxes in the US. It was staggering. In 2007, the top 1% of all taxpayers (those who make $388,000 or higher) paid 40% of all income taxes! Well, you might say, all those millionaires probably make 40% of all the money, right? No......they account for 22% of all the income, yet they pay 40% of all taxes.

Next: the top 10% of all taxpayers (those with a household income of $108,000 or more) pay somewhere around 70% of all income taxes.

And.....this was the most mind-blowing to me: the top 50% of all taxpayers pay 97.1% of all taxes. That means that the bottom HALF of all taxpayers in the US only pay a total of 2.9% of all income taxes. Wow.

And Barack Obama claims that he wants to cut taxes on struggling low-income families?? How is this possible??

A first!!

Today we visited Bay Area Presbyterian Church for the 5th time. We've really been enjoying meeting so many great people there, and I'm pretty sure we're going to join at some point soon. Grant has done really well in the nursery (in general) in the past few months, and today was his best day EVER (in any nursery!). We took him to his room to drop him off, and usually when he sees the ladies coming to get him, he'll turn and hold tightly onto Dean and start crying. Today, there was an older lady named Eunice who we had never met before. She held out her hands and asked Grant if he wanted to come to her, and he held his arms out and went right to her!!!! Yes, this is Grant I'm talking about! We signed him in and talked to her for a minute, then we said goodbye and Grant WAVED GOODBYE TO US! We never heard him cry as we walked away. I couldn't believe it!

Later, he was busy riding a rocking toy when we went to pick him up. We were told that Eunice (who only stayed in his room for the first hour) just loved him. He was the only child in the class at that hour, and she apparently thought he was the sweetest thing. I'm glad he at least acts that way around some people! :)

It makes me so much more optimistic about Mother's Day Out this fall. We've decided for sure to do it.....I am still a little concerned about how he'll react, since it starts pretty much the same time the baby is supposed to arrive. But he's been doing so much better when we leave him, and I know that I'm going to need some time to spend with just Drew when he comes. And....Grant gets so bored around our house, so I think some structured activities will be really fun for him. I just know it will be SO hard for me to leave him!

Grant has been throwing fits and hitting like crazy in the past couple weeks, and it made last weekend very frustrating at times! On Saturday, we went to Dean's company picnic up in northern Houston at a neat place called H&H Ranch. Grant only slept about 40 minutes on the way up there, so he was tired and hot from the very beginning. He had a few meltdowns and we ended up leaving while he was literally kicking and screaming!

This was taken just after we got to the "ranch". Here, Grant's watching a paddleboat go under the bridge.

All the managers had to spend some time in the dunking booth. Here's a little boy throwing a ball, about to knock Dean down. While Dean was doing this, they had a pinata for the kids in another area. This was a DISASTER!! I took Grant over to it, but he doesn't yet understand about sharing. So he saw the kids hitting it and kept trying to walk up next to them. I kept dragging him back (which caused a fit each time). When it was finally his turn, he loved it! He actually did pretty well hitting the pinata too. But......I knew this would happen.....he threw another huge fit when his turn ended. I ended up holding him sideways (holding his arms and legs to his side) to take him away from the area. What fun it is to have a toddler!!

Then we got a piece of cake to share before we left. Grant had fun eating it with his fork and his fingers....until we tried to take it away from him. Another eruption....and this time a bunch of people were sitting around us, just watching. This time, Dean carried him sideways as we said our goodbyes and took him to the car. Quite embarrassing!
Then we drove over to the Woodlands, and I got together with some of my good friends from college, who were staying up there for the weekend. It was SO much fun to see them.....we hung out at the pool for about 1.5 hours, then Dean and Grant came to pick me up. Grant actually was on his best behavior while we were with them....he pointed to lots of objects and named them (he likes to show off now that he can do this!). Here's a picture of all of us: Jessica, Cindy, Liz, Margaret, and me:
After leaving, we decided to stay up in the Woodlands for dinner and to explore for a while. We ate dinner at the mall's food court, then Grant and I rode on the carousel! He was nervous at first and wouldn't sit on a horse, but he eventually did when we started moving:
Then came the last big fit. We went to the outdoor shopping part of the mall, and we let him out of his stroller so he could walk around. He walked straight over to this fountain and started climbing it! I thought that surely he wouldn't make his way all the way up, but he did....all by himself. So Dean dragged him down.....twice. Each time he threw a complete fit, hitting and kicking. So we decided that it was time to go. We were saying that he could have had a lot of fun if he had only obeyed.....we were planning on letting him walk around and play for a while, but I know we can't expect him to reason like that at this age. Anyway, the day was tiring and very frustrating!
On a better note, here are a couple of cute pictures from earlier this week. Grant likes peanut butter sandwiches, but sometimes he'll open them up and just lick everything off the bread. He makes a huge mess when he does this, but I always think it looks really cute!

Happy Birthday, Nana!!

We love you!!!