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.