Recent happenings

This summer is off to a crazy busy start! I'll try my best to recap what we've been up to.

The weekend after Gray's birthday party we went on vacation with Paul's parents. I finally just posted about that, mostly with pictures. We were home for a few days and then headed to the beach with my family.

Gray had his last bottle a couple of weeks ago. Weaning from the actual bottle wasn't that hard but he is still TICKED off about us giving him a sippy cup with something other than water in it. He is not a fan of whole milk, as I predicted, and we have been at it for weeks now. We've tried different brands, mixing in formula, mixing in breast milk (we saved some frozen milk just for this very reason), and we've tried a hundred different sippy cups but all with very little success. He loves water so much that he is only interested in drinking just that. We have found that if we don't give him water at meals he will sometimes be thirsty enough to drink some of his milk but he isn't anywhere close to getting the amount he needs. Since the bottles got let go Gray has been, as Daddy would say, "crushin" some food. It seems like it went from him eating a little table food here and there to us making him three meals a day in no time. And this boy can put away some food too. He normally eats a waffle and a banana or yogurt (sometimes all three) for breakfast, a grilled cheese or peanut butter sandwich (not a fan of jelly) and fruit for lunch and we try to give him what we are having for dinner but meats and veggies are often hard to get down him.

After months of taking a few steps here and there, we have an official walker. On our first vacation a couple of weeks ago Gray really started to take more steps. When we got home, he was taking a few more steps at a time and doing so more times throughout the day. By the time we got to the beach a couple of days later, crawling was a thing of the past. We've already had a few injuries but other than that, I wouldn't say our lives have changed all that drastically. Oh if I had a penny for every time we heard "just wait until he starts walking". I swear I'm going to write a "JUST WAIT" blog post one of these days. Anywho, the first minor injury came from Gray falling into the TV stand at the beach. He busted his lip and there was blood involved y'all. It wasn't fun for me but he only cried for a minute and I know there will be much worse to come. The next minor injury came from falling face forward into the edge of the island in my friend Lindsey's kitchen. He's got a real good shiner from that one but it sure didn't seem to phase him.

We've been seeing a lot of this lately.

One might think that is just our sweet boy lying down for a rest. Nope. That would be our boy throwing himself down on the floor in the midst of a tantrum.  Several things are to blame for this behavior-1) He is going from eight teeth to 13 teeth, two of which are molars, 2) Two weeks of vacation and constant attention, especially from grandparents, temporarily ruined our child (I say that with a only tad bit of sarcasm) but most of all 3) We have a toddler and this is normal. It doesn't mean we aren't disciplining through it though so it's made for some tough, long days.

Paul and I celebrated four years of marriage. I am constantly humbled by the fact that God gave me Paul as a husband and I am so thankful for our marriage. I can honestly say the past four years have been the best of my life and I try not to take a second of it for granted. We enjoyed a nice date night at the beach that of course included food. We went to The Flying Fish at Barefoot Landing. I'd never been before but we will no doubt go back-it was DELISH!

I've been working out a lot lately and I have to say I am loving it. Like, I honestly can't get enough of it. It has been years and years since I've worked out this consistently and really enjoyed it. There are a handful of classes I take and Lindsey and I get to work out together most days, which makes it even better. Gray loves going too, although he is having his first stage of some serious separation anxiety. He has started clinging on to me for dear life when I drop him off but he gets over it very quick and plays great the rest of the time. I am hoping this is a short lived phase.

We hung out with the Sowers on July 4th. We celebrated America's freedom the way any other person in the south did-food and fireworks. Gray thinks Mason and Landon (and their toys) are so cool.


Thanks Pinterest! An easy and pretty healthy 4th of July snack.

I have been tutoring a lot. A lot of my students wanted to continue tutoring this summer and a couple of them are doing twice a week. Thankfully I worked out times with all of my students on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'd rather have a couple of long days than have to tutor for just an hour or two every day of the week. Paul is home with Gray most of that time but there will be some days when Gray will be hanging with my Gram or a friend or going to the first part of Daddy's soccer practice.

We got a new (used) car! We decided it was time for Paul's '94 Prelude to be replaced. We would normally drive a car until the wheels fall off and even though that car was almost 20 years old, we never had any problems with it and it only had 150 thousand miles on it. But the car seat wouldn't even install all the way and it wasn't safe for Gray. Paul has had to have him in his car a lot more often and we weren't comfortable with our precious cargo riding around in it anymore. Paul put his car on Craig's List just a couple of weeks ago and it sold pretty quick. We got a little more for it than we thought we would which was such a blessing. Within 24 hours of selling his car, God provided the perfect new used car for our family...a Honda Pilot. We decided on a Pilot because we wanted a third row seating option but didn't want a mini van and were pretty dead set on buying another Honda. But we knew God would have to work a miracle for us to find one we could afford that didn't already have a ton of miles on it. And that He did. Let me introduce you to the mommy/daddy-mobile that we hope to be driving for another 10 years...

Paul's summer is officially jam packed from this point on. He is doing several soccer camps and is having practice with his high school team three days a week, along with a couple of weekend trips away for tournaments. Come August Gray and I will see even less of him so we are going to soak up what little time we do have for the rest of this month.

I think that's about all for now. Y'all have a good week!

A week on the Chesapeake

The weekend after Gray's birthday party we spent a week in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay with the Hicks family. The drive was really hard on Gray but it was worth it to get to spend a week with family and these beautiful views...

The neighborhood we stayed in came with access to a small private beach. The water was pretty cold but a huge plus to being on a bay is that the water is so calm and we didn't have to worry about big waves knocking Gray down. We had quite a fussy boy most of the week due to FIVE teeth coming in all at the same time. He didn't love the beach but he didn't hate it either. He napped really well every day so Paul and I had some nice relaxing down time.

These eyes.



We usually only give Gray his paci in the car these days but we gave in more since he was so fussy with his teeth.

Be still my beating heart.

Gray got some good quality time with Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Laura.

 

Thanks again Nana and Grandpa for a wonderful vacation!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

One year photo shoot

We took Gray to Lindsey's house for his one year photo shoot just three days after his birthday. We'd had it on the schedule for a long time and I had been so excited about the pictures. We went that afternoon to buy balloons for the shoot and right as we walked out of the party store a big storm came out of nowhere (this storm ended up leaving us without power for three days, which is a whole 'nother story). The power went out everywhere around us, including all of the stoplights on the busiest road in Winston-Salem. Because of lights out and trees down, it took us over an hour to get home and I can't recall a time that I was more scared in a car. Gray was way over due for nap by the time we got home and we were without power which meant it was hot and his noise maker wasn't working. Him not getting a good nap was the least of my concerns at that point because how would we have a photo shoot OUTSIDE in this kind of weather?! Our balloons were only going to last a few hours (not to mention I was going to hate wasting 20 bucks on balloons) and Lindsey was leaving the next day to go out of town so the pictures had to happen. Literally minutes after Gray woke up from his nap, the sky cleared and Lindsey was about to wet her pants when we got to her house because "the lighting couldn't have been more perfect!" It actually worked out better than if it had been a sunny day because Gray's eyes are so sensitive and they water so bad in the sun. Once Gray knew all eyes were on him, it didn't matter that he didn't get a good nap in and he was hamming it up. I'd been telling Lindsey that I didn't think there was any way she could top the Easter pictures but I was sure wrong. I don't think they could have turned out any better. You know how it goes when I try to post a "few" of my favorites, but here is an attempt...



You can't tell by the lighting but the ground was soaking wet. Lindsey's husband had to put layers of trash bags under this basket so it wouldn't get ruined.



This sailor suit has been around for quite some time. My brother wore it when he turned one and both of my nephews did too.

Once again we are so grateful for Lindsey's time and talent. These pictures are such treasures already and will be forever.

Gray's first birthday party

We decided on a tractor theme for Gray's party because for months now, he has been more interested in his tractor books than any other ones. When we decided to go with this theme, I was dead set on not have a John Deere tractor party. I've got nothing against it but I really didn't want everything to be green and yellow. I wanted more of an old school red tractor or tractors of all kinds theme. But after hours of searching online for party supplies, I found nothing like that but tons of John Deere stuff. So we went with it and soon enough I was excited and over all the green and yellow.

We found Gray's birthday shirt and party hat on Etsy. He refused to keep the hat on for the picture Lindsey took for the invitation but we did manage to get a few of it on at the party and for his one year photo shoot (hopefully it won't be another month before I post about that). We also found the invitation template on Etsy and just had them printed at Staple's. The picture quality did not turn out good at all once they were printed (you can't tell that here) but other than that I was very happy with them.

I had a really hard time deciding on a time for the party. We couldn't afford to feed everyone dinner and I knew whatever afternoon time we picked would be during someone's nap time so we decided on 3:00-5:00. My friend Kristen had a great idea of putting the cake cutting time on the invite so people could come then if they couldn't make it to the whole party. Apparently RSVPing is a thing of the past so it was hard to know how much food and cupcakes to have. Some of our closest friends were out of town and couldn't make the party but that's just life and we were thrilled to have been able to celebrate with the number of people we did.

We originally wanted to have the party at our house but we wouldn't have had room for even 10 people so we decided to rent a room at our church (free for members). The only room they allow birthday parties for kids is really old and really ugly. So we did the best with what we had to make it cute. Paul and I decorated the night before and I am so glad we did because it took us a couple of hours and the day of the party still didn't leave one extra second. Kristen made a Happy Birthday banner to match and I made a collage in the shape of a '1', along with a banner of pictures from each month of Gray in his first year. Lindsey's boys happen to have about a hundred John Deere tractors and they were very generous to let us borrow them for decorations and for the kids to play with at the party. My good friend Ashley also had some awesome JD tractors that we borrowed too. Other than that, most everything else was bought online. All of the food and drinks had a tractor or farm theme and Paul actually found all of those ideas online (not Pinterest if you can believe that). I love how involved and excited Paul always is when it comes to this kind of thing! The labels we used for the food were from the same Etsy store that we got his invitations printed. They were flat cards so I just taped a folded index card to the back so they would stand up. I found some cake ideas on Pinterest and Abbie worked her magic. We decided to just do a small smash cake for Gray and cupcakes for everyone else. The birthday boy was in a foul mood on party day. Something outside woke him up from his nap and he was ready for another one about the time we were walking out of the door. But it was his party and he was gonna cry if he wanted to.

I'll let the pictures speak for most of the rest.

 

 

The hay bales were rice krispy treats; the haystacks got gone quick and didn't make it into the picture ;)

We also had Oreo cookies that served as "tractor tires" and the eating utensils were called "pitchforks and shovels" but I didn't manage to get a picture of those.

Chips and salsa, hummus and veggie dip

Fresh farm produce, right out of the back of a John Deere!

A taste of the south-sweet tea!

Water trough

I didn't get a picture of the party favors either but we gave out John Deere balloons and JD stickers.

The room had all different colored chairs and Paul had a good idea to only leave the green ones out to go perfectly with our green and yellow theme. Each table had John Deere confetti and a toy John Deere tractor for decoration-so easy!

 

One great thing about the ugly room was that it opened to a gym so there was plenty of room for tractor riding, basketball and running around.

 

Mommy and Daddy even wore the party colors!

Thanks Lindsey for capturing the few smiles he managed to give us that day :)

And the sweet kisses in between tantrums



Does he have a really cute ticked off face or what?

There were many mixed emotions about the cake...

From "I'm so excited I want to pick the whole thing up and eat it!"...

To... "I'm not real sure about this."

"I'm a sweet boy again."

"Don't you touch my cake. I don't want it but I don't want you to have it either!"
 

"I warned you-don't touch my cake!"

"Seriously guys, what is this? Couldn't you have put black olives on the top instead?"

"Yay! I've decided I'm a sweet boy again and I like cake!"

"And now I'll even share with Mama!"

"And now I'm officially over it and I want down; there are tractors to be played with!"

I think that about sums it up. A big deal was made for Gray's first birthday party but it was all for us since he won't remember a thing. We plan on having pretty small birthday parties from here on out and I can promise you there will be another John Deere party with the same decorations before Gray is old enough to have an opinion about it!