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.