Trains and apples

We've been too excited about the imminent arrival of Grandma and Grandpa Wilkinson in a few days to do much of anything, but we've managed to keep busy with a few odds and ends since the last post.

I spent more time than anything else these past few weeks trying to get a decent picture of Clara and Grady.  Holy cow, this is hard.  I'd do something silly to make Clara laugh, and then Grady would imitate me, resulting in general mayhem.  I have many, many outtakes.  Still working on the "intake."

Grady imitating me acting weird - notice the nice smile from Clara

Grady smiles, Clara looks weird. 

Grady imitates me, Clara smiles....

This one's kinda cute

Me: "Grady, just smile." Grady: "I am smiling!"

Me: "Smile normally!" Grady: "I am smiling normally!"

Clara losing stamina

Things starting to get out of hand

And completely out of hand

Ah well, the quest continues.  

We had a fun outing to see the opening of the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation's new museum/site.  They have three steam engines, and a few other trains as well.  We gave Matt the morning off, and enjoyed checking out the big steam engines and even getting to go on one of the trains. 

Our other big adventure a drive out to Hood River with some friends to do some apple picking.  We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful fall day.  That's Mt. Hood in the background there.

The drive was gorgeous too, right along the Columbia River most of the way with stunning views of cliffs.

Grady loved swinging and riding in the wagon with his friends.

And he was such an impressive little apple picker.  He basically filled the entire bucket by himself.

We saved a few apples, but most we turned into apple sauce and an apple crisp.  Who knew so many apples could fit in a jar of applesauce!

The word of the day over here right now is sleep. Grady is becoming convinced that he no longer needs a nap, a proposition I strongly disagree with.  He's probably napping about half the time now.  Most of the time when he doesn't nap, all hell breaks lose by 5:00.  He becomes very manic when overtired.  Although today he skipped his nap and had a great evening- I'm actually not sure if I'm happy about that.  

Clara continues to be a less than ideal sleeper.  The new pattern now is up at 12, 3, and then up at 6 for the day (although she is crying now at 8:25 - not likely to be a good night).  We will need to work on it, but it's hard to get up the energy to start sleep training.  She is just so LOUD.  

Clara has been working hard on her pincer grasp, and is really getting the hang of it.  Although she prefers the whole fist approach when cheerios are involved. 

Grady continues to make us laugh all the time.  Yesterday he turned on the light inthe kitchen and proudly proclaimed "I TOTALLY just turned on the light."  I feel like pretty much anything that comes out of our mouths eventually comes out of his.  ("You know what you forgot to do, Daddy?  You forgot to give me my milk.") 

He's doing tons of imaginative play now - mostly involving driving his tractor to the farm and stopping at Trader Joe's for some food.  He also enjoys making "soups" in his sandbox, especially strawberry ice cream soup.  (It sounds good, but the ingredient list includes concrete, and a LOT of salt).  

Big week this week with Matt's birthday on Thursday and Grandma and Grandpa coming on Wednesday! Hopefully I'll have lots of pictures for the next post. 

Moving on

It's fall in Portland.  That means crisp apples and mornings, shorter days, and GERMS.  Lots of germs.  Luckily we made it through all our guests before the first wave hit us, but hit us it did.  Grady got it first, with a random morning throw up before feeling pretty much fine.  (Good news is he no longer seems to remember the Thomas throwing up incident.) Clara got it a few days later and got it a bit worse- three throw ups over 24 hours.  And then I got it, and was knocked out.  Unfortunately Matt was away for business when I got sick.  Fortunately for Grady, that meant he got to watch his first movie - Cars. It was a bit hit- so much so that he had a minor meltdown the next morning when I told him he didn't get to watch it again. I'm noticing this tv thing can be both a force of good and evil.... Anyway, we are all healthy now.

So the biggest news over here is that Clara is mobile.  A few hours after Uncle Cliff and Susana left us, she did her first sustained, purposeful scoot forward.

She was content to do these little movements for a while, but then woke up yesterday from her nap and decided she was ready to MOVE.  She easily covered a few yards before I thought to take a video.  Her technique for long distances is to throw herself forward and roll, and then do a small scoot.  It works for her!  She was getting tired out by this point, but you can see the technique.

We're still experimenting with different foods for Clara.  Partly to expose her to different tastes, and partly because it makes for some hilarious photos. 

Where's my cracker?

No seriously.  Where's my cracker. 

In my opinion, Clara just gets cuter and sweeter every day.  Yes, she can't sit still.  Yes, she makes noises like dinosaurs being led to slaughter when she's excited.  Yes, she still wakes up too many times every night. But just look at her!  What's not to love!

Looking French

Grady continues to talk up a storm.  We have started having to take turns at dinner so that Matt and I get a chance to catch up for a moment or two.  After about 30 seconds, he is ready for his turn, at which point he gets so excited to talk he comes out with "Ah buh buh RACE CAR ah buh buh TREE."  He's doing lots of make believe right now - usually involving favorite characters from his books - Uncle Wiggily is involved in most.  He's also getting curious about reading/letters.  He can recite a dozen or so of his books from heart, turning the pages at the appropriate places.  He is starting to work out which letters make which noises, with some degree of success.  "Tuh tuh Truck starts with T.   So does tuh tuh school bus."

He's really into experimenting with his body, especially with finding the limits of what's safe while climbing.

We had two big adventures since the last post.  I had to go to a local street fair for PKC, and the whole family came along.  It coincided with an open day at a historic firehouse.  Grady got to see the fire truck,

and then got to go for a "ride" in a firetruck.  The truck was parked inside, but they streamed a video so that when you looked out through the front windows, it looked like you were driving down the street.  Grady thought that was pretty amazing!

This was followed by a romp through a bouncy house.  What fun!

The other big adventure was Grady's first running race.  The few times I've raced this year, Grady really wanted to race with me, so we decided to sign him up for his first fun run.  When I first told him that we signed him up, Grady said, with a look of awe on his face, "I'm going to run a race.  I'm going to run fast.  I'm going to get sweaty!"

Pre-race excitement

Well, the excitement toned down exponentially by the time we got to the start line.

The course was meant to be a 1K - from the start line to a casting pond a few yards away, around the pond, and then back to the finish.  Grady was not thrilled about this, but did make it a little ways down the pond before turning around and heading back to the finish.

Despite the incomplete, Grady was still allowed a ribbon, and he refused to take his number off for the rest of the morning.

After Grady's race, I ran a 5K.  Grady was the worst. cheerleader. ever.  "Mommy, stop running!  Go home, mommy!"  Despite the lackluster cheering, I made my goal of running at under a 7:30 pace (22:40).

Grady and Clara are doing more giggling together and more butting of heads as Clara becomes more mobile and more able to push back.

She LOVES Grady though - oh man, the world revolves around him.  Grady thinks she's pretty great most of the time too, unless she's playing with whatever toy he wants (which happens to be whatever toy she has).  Here's a bit of sweet playing though - it's hard to tell from the video, but the game is that Grady would run toward Clara and then give her a hug.

We've been busy!

Wow it's been a busy few weeks!  We've had lots of visitors - my dad, Uncle Ralph and his cousin, Cliff and his girlfriend Susana.... 

Clara and Uncle Cliff sharing a moment

Uncle Ralph is the first visitor who rivaled Grady in his desire to make himself heard.  At dinner, Grady started quietly saying "Everybody be quiet."  Until finally he just broke down and started crying.  We gave him a turn to talk and he talked nonstop for about 3 minutes about cars, concrete mixers, and I don't even know what else until he was mollified.

We've also been very, very busy turning our basement into a playroom for the kids.  We are done enough to post picture, but still have some work to do.

Grady was pretty excited about the chalkboard wall.  And he was beside himself at the train table ("Is this a train table?  Is this a train table?  Is this a train table?")

Dad was a huge help in laying the flooring down.  Basically his whole visit consisted of laying the floor and reading "The Worst Person in the World" to Grady in an endless loop.  He says he had fun nonetheless!

Grady's big milestone these past few weeks has been the beginning of potty training.  He has peed on the toilet a number of times now, and is always quite proud of himself for the accomplishment.  For the most part he still chooses to wear diapers, but here's the first shot of those big boy underpants.

Clara's is probably continuing to experiment with foods.  She is finally taking a bottle (hooray!) and has been trying to eat just about everything.

Moving in on Grady's cheese

No Clara!

Mmm.... Bus.

She is really, really close to moving forward.  She is just starting to do it now, but doesn't seem to have control yet over where she is going.

She's also started making saying some syllables - "Ma ma ma ma ma" and "Ba ba ba ba ba."  

Here is the capturing of some gratuitous cuteness.

Grady and Clara continue to experiment with the bounds of playing together.  Case in point -

(I really ruined the moment there.)

And some music-making.

We've been enjoying the last few weeks of summer with sprinkler runs, trips to the farmers market, sandbox playing, playground visits, and other outdoor activities. Hard to believe September is already here!