And the winner is...

Grandma beats out Goomy by a hair! 

I've been a little lax with documentating Grady these past few days since Matt has been home (yay!).  I'll gear up again tomorrow, but will share this picture of Grady coming home from baby bootcamp this morning.

Happy Halloween!

Milestones

We've got three big ones caught on tape!

Sitting:

Rolling to get objects:

Playing peek-a-boo (and hamming it up for the camera):

Grady's 6 month appointment

Grady had his six month appointment on Monday.  Here he is in his doctor's appointment outfit.

He had his third round of vaccinations, and took them like a trooper (other than about 4 seconds of really big screams!). 

His stats:

Height: 27 inches
Weight: 16 pounds, 12.5 ounces
Head Circ.: 45 cm.

He is still slightly taller than average (60%) and skinnier than average (28%).  He dropped a bit in percentiles for both, but he is within the expected growth range based on his last appointment, so the doctor was not at all concerned. 

I continue to be amazed at how mobile Grady has gotten all of a sudden.  He is rolling to get to objects, and trying SO hard to move forward (but is still just moving backwards). 

Oh, I almost forgot to load this video my friend Susie took of Grady at his swimming lesson on Sunday.  Susie recognized that Grady was a total swim star - she said he was the only baby who didn't open his mouth really wide right before going underwater! 

 Matt comes home from his long trip tonight!  Grady and I are both very excited!

Here's the promised video

A very giggly baby:

Still moving!

Grady figured out today how to string together moving from back to tummy to tummy to back to move across the floor.  He did 3 in a row, and seemed pretty excited with himself!  He is really covering a lot of ground all of a sudden.  For instance, I put him down on one end of the mat, went into the other room to clean the kitchen counters for a minute or two, came back and found this:

I'm excited he's getting mobile, but it makes me sad too.  He's getting so big!

Grady also has been practicing for Daddy's arrival back home in a few days.

I also have a really cute video of Grady giggling, but the video upload stopped working. I'll try to post later tonight or tomorrow.

Pre-Halloween Party

Today Grady and I headed over to Larissa's house for a reunion of our baby group and a really cute costume party. 

Here is Grady in his costume.

He was so unimpressed. 

Here's Grady surrounded by monkeys.

What the?

This is so scary!

Most of the babies were tired, so there was a lot of fussing going on.  But everyone still managed to look really sweet in their costumes.

He's still not sure about the monkeys in that last picture!

And here he is in his slightly less hot (and embarassing) outfit.

 

And here we both are together with our Grumpy paraphernalia.

Happy early Halloween!

Grady loves his daddy

Matt left late last night for his trip. Before he left, he made a short video for Grady to watch while Matt's away.  Grady really loved seeing his daddy!



One more -



I tried to capture some video of Grady moving around, but with limited success.  This one was too cute not to put up, though.



And some unsuccessful movement towards his cow.  This one may only be entertaining for me.

This week's highlights

Grady has turned into a moving machine.  Although he's been able to go from back to tummy for quite a while now, he hasn't had much interest in implementing it.  Lately, though, you put him down on the playmat, come back a minute later, and he's either backed himself into a wall (can move backwards, not forwards), or is on his tummy staring at you like you put him down that way.  It's made for some interesting wake-up positions in the crib.

I am also proud to announce that I finished knitting the first item of clothing for Grady since before he was born.  Luckily, I made it for size 9 months, as I started it 3 months ago!  Here's Grady modeling it:

Yesterday we tried giving Grady broccoli, with limited success.

And the video

We received a little push back today on the "Goomy" nickname.  Personally, I cannot imagine why.  (And it's way better than butter butt).  So I was hoping to get some help from all of you.  Cast your vote to the right or post a comment below for your choice.

Finally, I am very sad to report that Matt leaves tonight for a wedding and then NYC, so Grady and I will be on our own for about a week.  Luckily, we have friends coming into town for the weekend, but we will still miss him very much.  Safe travels, Daddy!

Food

It has been a really fun weekend.  Portland has continued to give us perfect fall days, great for walks to the playground.  Grady has gotten some good swing time lately!

Last night we had our fancy dinner party.  Matt and I think it went really well, and we succeeded in using almost all of our china.  Here are some shots of the table settings, courtesy of Matt.

Pretty fancy, huh?  We had: cheese and crackers and melon and figs wrapped in prosciutto to start; roasted butternut squash soup for the first course; two kinds of quiche for the main course (thanks Susie for the recipes, and Goomy for the pie crust recipe!) along with salad (thanks Goopy!), and mini orange chocolate chunk cakes with vanilla ice cream for dessert (thanks Barefoot Contessa!).  Everything was made ahead of time, so it was very low-stress when everyone arrived.  And it was fun to dress up and see good friends! 

I have been accompanying a few words with baby sign language in front of Grady:  mainly "eat" and "cat."  I noticed yesterday that when I say "Do you want to eat?" and make the sign Grady gets really excited, but I usually say it to him when we're close to the chair we sit in when I feed him, etc., so I thought maybe he was just used to the whole routine and his response was coincidence.  Then today, Grady was fussing downstairs on his mat and I asked him "Do you want to eat?" and made the sign and he immediately started smiling and getting really excited.  Matt and I agreed that he knew what I was saying.  Not sure if he knows the word or the sign, but it's still pretty cool.  That's a pretty big connection to make. 

Okay, sorry a lot of words and no Grady pictures.  Here we go.

Last night Joanna brought over some bread from a local bakery called Little Ts (SO good).  Grady and I both had some for breakfast.  Bread and rice and rice crackers by far seem to be his favorite foods.  (I can't imagine where he gets his love of carbs.)  Here he is working away at it.

Grady and Bes are starting to settle into a nice routine.  Besa humors Grady by standing just out of arm's reach in exchange for getting to lick up stray pieces of food that are constantly flying off of Grady.

Grady was pretty interested in what Besa was doing over there!

Here are some pictures of Grady eating a rice cracker.

 Something on my face?

 Where?  Here?

Did I get it?

Just some generally cute pictures. 

You can see his teeth in these next two if you click on the photos.

Sorry it's been so long

It has been a while.  Sorry - things just get busier and busier over here! 

We are all doing really well.  Grady is having a great time at his new daycare, where they let him play on his own with rocks and sticks. 

Grady has gotten super verbal these past few days.  He started doing this really funny thing where he moves his mouth up and down, but only makes noises half the time.  My friend Jada (of Rose fame) described it as a poorly dubbed kung fu movie.  Great description.  I tried to catch it on video multiple times, but he always got camera shy.  In the process, though, Grady made his first movie.  Warning: This is really powerful, you may want to get some kleenex.

I know, right?

We're continuing to experiment with different foods.  At daycare they are really into baby led weaning, where you give babies small chunks of food or foods they can hold onto and nibble at.  We've been doing a mixture of that at home and of just giving him pureed food.  He responds better to the pureed food and generally has no interest in the texture of anything else.  He did respond pretty well to avocado though. 

And with the obligatory appearance by Besa.

Tomorrow we are having some friends over for a fancy dinner party.  I inherited a set of china from my grandmother, and my dad and Dotty sent me that and my parents' old china set a few months ago, which was the impetus for the soiree.  Matt and I are pretty excited for it, and Grady has a very special outfit picked out.  I'll let you all know how it goes on Sunday.

Oh, one last video before I sign off - this one's from about a week ago.



Our first overnight trip

To celebrate Matt's birthday and Grady's six month birthday, we decided to go to Bend, Oregon.  We had heard great things about it and had been meaning to go for quite some time.  Plus, we figured we would have to take the kid overnight somewhere else at SOME point.  Well, that was our first mistake.  No, no, no.  It wasn't all bad.  Just Saturday from 3 PM on or so was bad....

First, let me show you a screen shot on my phone to give you a sense of how far away from civilization we were on our way to Bend:

That's far!  Grady was a champ for most of the way.  He only got antsy the last 40 minutes or so - and Matt and I were pretty antsy by then too.

By the time we got to Bend, we didn't have time to do much but admire the hotel, unload all our earthly belongings from the car, and get Grady ready for bed.  We ordered some delicious room service and were very pleased with ourselves and our cooperative baby, who slept in his pack n' play like it was nothing.

The next day we started out at the coffee shop across the street for a delicious scone (Matt) and chocolate croissant (shocker, me).  Then we went for a walk around scenic Bend.

Look at those adorable birthday boys!  Then we got a little more adventerous and decided to head over to the Mt. Bachelor region for a hike. 

Grady was really interested in touching different textures.

Grady takes after his mommy and was not so keen on the historical markers. 

Anyway, it was a beautiful hike, but, looking back, we should have gone back to the hotel first for a nap.  Grady really never recovered.  It was quite a night, the highlight being at 5 AM when we finally tried to get Grady to fall asleep with us in bed after 2.5 hours of pffltting and crying (by Grady and us, respectively).  Grady was craning his head madly while I tried to calm him on my chest.  "Let me try," says Matt.  The two then entered into quite a wrestling match!  Matt and I both started cracking up and Grady joined in! 

After pretty much constant sleeping this afternoon Grady seems to be recovered from his sleepless night. 

Oh, one exciting thing is that Grady made big strides with his sitting between yesterday and today.  Here's the little guy sitting up on his own to play with his little dashboard toy.

 (Excuse the spit up.)

All in all, it was a nice - if not restorative - trip.  We definitely learned a bit about how to go about our next overnight trip.  And it was really nice to come home to the kitties!

Happy Six Month Birthday!

Grady turns 6 months old today.  For the most part it seems like time has flown by.  But then look at these comparison shots and you can see how much he has changed!

Here he is at 1 week old.

And at 6 months - a little messier!

The sweater still fits though!

Grady had his first day of Hippie Camp on Tuesday.  Here is his starting outfit.  He had a lot of fun and took 3 naps!  It's a relief having him there, although tough to spend full days away from him!

We also started Grady in a "Music Together" class, where Grady and I and a group of about 10 other parents and babies sing songs and generally make fools of ourselves.  Here's Grady in his guitar outfit for that one.

And here are some generally cute shots from earlier today.  I was trying to capture his two bottom teeth, but he didn't feel like cooperating.

Well we are off to Bend to continue the celebration of Matt's birthday!  Our first overnight trip with Grady.  Luckily we have packed everything we own so hopefully we will be okay.  Wish us luck!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is Matt's birthday.  Grady had earlier gotten his daddy a photo album full of pictures of himself (a tad bit narcissistic that one) and today drew a picture for his daddy using every color marker in the house.  It got not only on the paper, but also on his socks, pants, hands, and mouth.  Whatever, it was a gorgeous picture and very well received!  We've had a fun birthday, even though Matt had to work today, complete with a live musical performance by Michelle, Michael, Scott & Sean.

Grady and I went to a "baby boot camp" this morning - which I got to go to for  free in exchange for advertising on the website!  Basically it was just a strength training and cardio class, but you use the stroller in addition to resistance bands.  It was pretty fun, and thanks to some well-timed cries from Grady, I got a break from a shoulders workout.  Sorry, no pictures.

I do have pictures of Grady's first race on Sunday, though! 

Grady might have started out a little fast, because he spit up all over his track suit.  But he evened out and finished strong!

He hardly looks like he broke a sweat!  Matt did great, finishing the 5K in about 18  minutes.  The race was untimed, so I am pleased to say that Grady and I also finished in 18 minutes but unfortunately you can't confirm that.

Here are some pictures from Grady's third swimming lesson yesterday.  Grady did a really great job, although I had a heck of a time figuring out what exactly I was supposed to be doing.  (No surprise for anyone who ever saw me perform in our high school musicals.)  Here I am having to get some one-on-one instruction before he went through the hula hoop.



Grady was so brave going through - he was under for a couple seconds on the way back!  We don't have a picture of that, but we do have him going through on the way over.



Some other fun things - going down the slide super fast.

Standing on the big blue foamy thing

Staring at the bald guy in class.

 And staring.

This is getting awkward.

Anyway, a fun lesson.  He did cry twice this time, both times when he was climbing up onto the ledge of the pool.  Not sure what it was that bothered him this time around.  Here's a parting shot of one waterlogged baby.

And happy birthday, Matt/Daddy!