Grady's First Christmas

We had such a fun Christmas in Tucson with the family.  Grady perfected the art of stuffing his face - a fine Christmas tradition!

After Christmas Dinner - sweet potatoes - Grady's stomach was so huge Uncle Gavin took to calling him "The Tank." 

Everyone else's dinner was also delicious, and we got to see not only Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Cliff, and Uncle Gav, but also Great Aunt Dawn and Great Uncle Peter.  I had met them both before, but this was the first time we had the pleasure of really getting to know them.  Here's a shot of Grady with his Great Aunt and his daddy.

I realized a bit belatedly that we didn't actually let Grady open any of his presents this Christmas.  (Oops!)  Here is my attempt at a staged present opening, but Grady quickly became distracted by the cat (aka "tat!").

He sure loves kitties!  (The feeling is not mutual.)

Luckily, there was one forgotten present that Grady got to legitimately open later that day.  He was pretty interested in the wrapping.

Once Grandpa showed Grady how to open it, he was equally thrilled to eat the ornament underneath!

Besides opening presents and eating (and eating the presents), we also went to the desert museum.  The museum is awesome.  It's mainly outside, and we got to see prairie dogs, humming birds, cacti, and Grady got to see a BIG cat - a puma!  Here's a weird picture of the two of us at the museum.

Grady also had fun playing piano with Grandpa.

Riding on Daddy's shoulders -

Practicing moving forward - he was particularly smitten with a gold circle hiding some outlets.  (This video is from about a week ago, but his moves haven't evolved too much.)

And just hanging out with the family!

Grady's social nature really shone through this trip - he barely made a whimper the entire time, and was full of smiles - even way past his bedtime - for everyone.   It was a great trip and a great Christmas!

Christmas is Coming!

Only a few more days until Christmas!  Grady is a lucky boy and has been getting some pretty awesome Christmas gifts over the past few days.

A huge hit was a box of pears, apples, and  other deliciousness from Grandma, June, Jef, Ann, and the kids.  Grady recently discovered pear, and can't get enough of it.  He even eats the skin!  Here's a video of him starting in on his third huge piece of pear.

We also received a gorgeous block set made of natural pine wood from Grandma and Grandpa.  Matt and I ... er, and Grady ... enjoyed playing with them.  They will be a lot of fun for years and years to come. 

As Grady gets more mobile, his relationship with the cats has started to change.  Well, with Besa.  Fuzz continues to just ignore him.  A number of times Grady has made a loud "aaahhhhaaaahhh" noise while lunging and scooting toward Besa.  Besa stares at him with ears down, not quite sure what to do.  I keep trying to get it on tape, but Grady always gets distracted by the time the camera is out.  Here's a video of them just after one of these standoffs.  You can hear Grady practicing his first word - "cat."

Grady is now scooting enough that I can't leave him alone in the room for more than a minute and expect him to be where I left him when I came back.  The other day I left him on his playmat while I went into the other room to get the address for a storytime we were heading off to.  I heard a lot of grunting in the other room, and by the time I came back a few minutes later, this is what I found! 

Sorry, I can't figure out why the picture is so small - hopefully you can still see what's going on there!  Matt and I are looking forward to showing off all his new skills in Tucson in a few days.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Grady moves forward!

Grady has been on the verge of scooting for a while now, and after a couple of random successes over the past few days, he is now squarely moving forward (although it still takes a lot of work!).

Look at these videos to see how much he has progressed even just today.

Here is Grady this morning.  The only way I could get him to come forward was to have him head directly toward the video.  (He's such a ham!)  I don't know how he is moving forward here, but he is.  It looks like he's just elongating his body and then happens to end up further along.

Then here he is after daycare.  He's got more of a cross-scoot going on.

And then just a bit later tonight, he's getting up on his hands and knees and moving forward!

He's heading towards a book here.  Glad to know I didn't traumatize him too badly with all those book injuries I accidentally inflicted upon him in his first weeks of life.

Grady was really getting into turning the pages on the book this evening too!  By the time I finally thought to tape it he was in his pre-bed hyper mood and was kind of over it, but you can at least get the idea.

Pretty exciting stuff!

Grady's First Christmas Tree! (Plus *lots* of pictures)

Today the family went to get Grady's first Christmas tree at a lot just down the street from us.

Although there were a lot to choose from, Grady had no trouble picking out his first tree.

He knows what he likes!

Even though the lot was just down the street, we brought the car to take the tree home.  Once we had the tree and were leaving though, it seemed easier for Matt to just carry the tree the few blocks.  So Grady and I drove home in the car while Matt carried home the tree!  Needless to say, there was some honking and laughing on the way home.

After picking out the tree, it was time to help Daddy string the lights.

 

Uh-oh, I know where this is going....

After the lights were taken away, Grady tried to figure out what the heck was going on - why was this tree in the living room? And why was Daddy putting lights on it?  So strange!

Then it was time to pick out Grady's first ornament to hang on the tree.  We have quite a stock of Christmas ornaments, thanks to both my parents and Matt's parents moving in the past year, plus a huge handful of gorgeous white snowflakes from Matt's Grandma.  Grady ended up settling on a mouse ornament.  (Note: Everything is well above cat-level.)

Then he and Daddy hung an ornament together.

Beyond the excitement of the tree, we all had a fun weekend.  Last night the three of us went to my friend Marti's house for a holiday work party.  While there, Grady scooted forward a good couple inches for the first time.  They have carpeting there, which I think helps.  He hasn't repeated the feat yet.  He also ate three pieces of pita bread while there - we need to pick some up for home! The party was a lot of fun, and the house looked very festive.

Today at swimming, Grady got a ribbon for excellence.  I didn't see the other ribbons, but I'm pretty sure the ribbon of excellence is the best one. No videos from swimming, but you can see from this video how good he's getting.

Daddy's home! Plus lots of videos

Matt got home safe and sound very late on Thursday night.  Grady and I are both very happy to have him home! 

I had to go into work on Friday, so Matt took the day off to play with Grady.  Here's Grady getting a little aggressive with one of his toys!

That made 4 days in a row of work for me - the most since pre-Grady.  My usual schedule now is 3 days, which I started this past week.  It was tough spending so much time away from Grady, but he seemed totally fine to spend the day at daycare.  He really loves it there. 

Grady has also gotten very ticklish lately. 

It was pretty fun to hang off the back of the chair, too!

Today Grady and I went over to Jada's to hang out with his girlfriend Rose.  Like Grady, she's pretty into the video camera!

It was really fun for me to see Jada and catch up.  And it was really fun for Grady and Rose to grab each other's faces.

Rose is really scooting along - it's fun to watch and a little scary to think that Grady will be doing that pretty soon! 

Speaking of which, here's Grady's getting up on his hands and knees. Surprise, surprise - Besa makes a guest appearance.

While Matt and I were watching this on my computer, Besa popped her head behind the screen in exactly the position she's in up there in the video. It was pretty funny.

Matt took Grady to swimming class today.  At one point, the babies were up on this little play structure they put in the water. Grady kept bouncing up and down like he wanted to dive in, and then he did!  A couple times too!  Matt was pretty excited about it when he got home.

Right before bed tonight, Grady was making a noise like "a-Booh, a-Booh," with a really hard "buh" sound.  I imitated him and he could not stop laughing.  I must have done it for 2 minutes and it never got old!  I wonder what goes on in that cute little head of his.

Practicing his moves

This is my first week of going back to work three days a week, and Grady going to daycare for three consecutive days.  His first day back after a week off went well, although he was very clingy when I picked him up.  I think he might have been nervous I wasn't coming back after Uncle Cliff left, then my parents, then Matt, then me this morning!   It made for a cuddly evening, which was fine by me. 

At dinner tonight, Grady decided to practice his strip tease.  This started out as a game of peek-a-boo, with Grady lifting up his bib and then giving me a big smile when he put it down.  Until....

The boy's got moves! 

We both miss Daddy over here.  Grady tolerates me putting him to bed at night, but he much prefers Daddy doing it.

It will be weird not being with Grady tomorrow.  I'm lucky to only be working three days a week, but it seems like a lot all of a sudden! 

End of the holiday weekend

We were all very sad to see my dad and Dotty leave on Sunday, but we had a great time while they were here.  On Saturday, we took advantage of a break in the drizzle and went for a walk on Elk Rock Island in nearby Milwaukie.  It was nice to get out of the house and move around a bit after such a food-filled weekend!   Grady cooperated with having his photo taken.

Well, he cooperated for a while anyway!

We went for a nice dinner on the town before my parents left, and Grady was very well-behaved. 

After my parents left (very early!) on Sunday, Matt, Grady and I went to see a local musician play at a cafe.  He was very energetic and fun, and sang a lot of songs about ninjas.  Grady didn't quite know how to take it!

He warmed up to the music pretty quickly, though.

About half way through, a woman came in from the street and started tossing around balloons and making balloon animals.  I don't know whether she was affiliated with the cafe or not.  She was definitely odd.  Grady was pretty interested in the balloons!  

(Cat, thank goodness you weren't there - a dozen balloons in a room full of toddlers!)

After our fun morning out, Grady practiced getting onto all fours (no crawling still), while Matt got ready for his trip to NYC.  He left last night, much to everyone's disappointment - the cats included.

Grady and I kept busy today, though. 

I finished knitting a hat for him.  It's way too big, but he seems to enjoy it. 

He also had fun pulling it over his eyes and playing peek-a-boo.

Then we headed over to The Warehouse to do some messy art.  I traced Grady's body with a crayon and was going to let him try to draw on it, but the crayons never made it to the paper on the way to his mouth.  So instead he "painted" with mud.  Surprisingly, he didn't try to eat the mud and he had fun hitting it on the paper.

Apparently I held my phone sideways.  Sorry about that.   And yes, I stripped him down.  Don't remind him of this when he is a teenager.

Then Grady had a lot of fun bouncing up and down in his circle of neglect.  He's just recently figured out this feature.

Then I got adventurous and decided to give Grady some green beans.  Poor Grady.  Here he is, so excited for his dinner.

And then the green beans.  Why, Mommy?

He ended up throwing up a bit on the green beans as he did with the peas.  I pureed them for several minutes and didn't notice any stringy things, but Grady apparently did.  The rest will be going into the freezer for a while!

Finally, here's a shot of the kitties keeping me company after Grady went to bed tonight.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We were all very lucky to have Uncle Cliff and the grandparents come visit for Grady's first Thanksgiving.  Grady has been putting on quite a show - he's full of smiles for everybody, and is just generally enjoying having our family around.  Uncle Cliff left tonight, but we get some more time with the grandparents before they head back to Tucson on Sunday.

Yesterday Grady had a fun time with the boys watching some football.  He stayed happy for quite a while just hanging with the boys!  He especially liked sitting on the couch with Uncle Cliff.

Grady also had fun hanging out with his grandpa.

Okay, he might not look like he's having much fun there, but he got pretty into Goopy's glasses.

And they had a lot of fun making faces at each other.

Grady had some good cuddle time with Grandma today, too.

Doesn't he look so big in that picture?

Given that it is Thanksgiving weekend, Grady did his share of face-stuffing.  First up were Cheerios.

Given Grady's love of carbs, I was pretty sure he would be pleased with them.

Yup, pretty good.

He finished them all.

Grady also had a lot of fun playing peek-a-boo with that vest he's wearing above.  He would pull his vest up over his head, then pull it down and start laughing when we said "There's Grady!"  I tried to get it on video, but missed the moment. 

He also tried turkey, which he was not so sure of.  There was a lot of chewing and grimacing, but he did manage to swallow two small pieces.

Still no crawling from Grady, although he continues to kick and really get up high.  He's been making a lot of noises lately, adding "Nnnyah" and one "Cah" to his vocabulary in honor of Uncle Cliff.  (The "nnnyah" is usually accompanied by a very odd face, which includes nose scrunching and lip curling.)  He also was apparently waving and saying "Buh bye."  I missed that, but, even as brilliant as Grady is, I'm pretty sure that was coincidence!  Buh-bye is suspiciously close to "Besa," though, which I am convinced will be his first word.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Has it been a week?

Yikes, sorry! 

Grady has been battling a bit of a virus the past few days.  He is in good spirits, but he has gone through more diapers in the past 48 hours than he has probably in the past two weeks combined.  So we've been pretty much house-bound. He is being a good sport about it, but I hope everything clears up soon. 

I think Grady is getting really close to crawling.  He can get his chest all the way off the ground, and can scooch his bum way up, but he hasn't figured out how to combine the two together yet.  He is getting SO frustrated, so the motivation is there.  I took about 20 minutes of video, but the amount of editing it would take to show you what I mean is probably not worth it - I will try again today.  I'm hoping he starts crawling at Thanksgiving, when Grandma, Goopy and Uncle Cliff are all here. to witness it 

Yesterday I took some photos of Grady for our Christmas card, using the old Santa hat from Michelle & Michael.   Here are some of them:

I had all my Barefoot Contessa cookbooks out yesterday trying to figure out what to make for Thanksgiving (can you believe it's next week?!?).  As most of you probably know, I am completely obsessed with the Barefoot Contessa.  Seems to run in the family!

If Grady's up for it, we're having a baby class reunion tomorrow afternoon, and then his swimming lesson.  Should be a fun day!