Things I taught her

Apparently, I inadvertently taught Grayson to say "um".

How its used in sentences lately:
"This is ummm (big pause), mag-i-no-yas (for magnolia buds we collected),"
"This is ummm (another big pause), harmonica (as pictured above)."

Justin jokingly pointed it out that she picked it up from me. I told him he'd be saying "umm" too if he had to answer all of the questions I was asked all day. Especially with my pregnancy-brain (lack there of), it takes me a while to think of words for things. And if I just pause while I'm thinking, without a word to fill the space, Grayson loses patience and starts repeating the question over and over again (eek). I just told him neither of us will be working on a public presentation anytime soon where "um" might be a problem.

Also big in her language use right now is using the word "not".
I was dressing her the other day and she said "pants" to which I said yes, pants. Then she adamantly clarified "mama, not pants, these capris". Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, these are capris.
Other examples include:
"Not cucumber, this zucchini."
"Not motocykees, this bicycle."

And just to add on to the last post....I vacuumed up a broken glass the other day and walked down the hall to put the vacuum away. She ran behind me, patted me on the behind, and said "good job mama". Sweet, but while we're on the subject of the broken glass, let's not talk about how I have also inadvertently taught her to say "shoot" too. Whoops. Working on correcting that one.

This big girl...

...is going to be a big sister! Little peanut is set to arrive January 9th.

Typical conversation these days:
Justin: "Grayson, do you want a sister or a brother?"
Grayson: "brother"
Justin: "Do you want a brother or a sister?"
Grayson: "sister"

Life expecting #2 is a bit more busy than life expecting #1 where I sat at a desk most of the day, but I've felt much better now that the first trimester is a few weeks past. We still have rough days though, like yesterday. Let's just say it was a bit challenging to train and discipline an almost 2-year-old while feeling exhausted. We did have this brief shining moment:

I threw dirty clothes down on the floor in front of the washing machine (we have stacked front loaders, wash is on the bottom, dry is on the top). Grayson was sitting there and I asked her to help me stuff things in. She picked up two items and put them in. I finished up loading the masses and as I was bent over, she came over, patted me on the back a few times and said "good job mama". I laughed out loud.

Pool Friends

A pool in town ran a ridiculously good deal on membership back in March, so we decided to join along with a few friends. John is missing from this photograph, but I finally got a picture of at least the majority of the crew. Left to right: Ollie, Anna Cate, Mac and Grayson, all one or two years old. It has been so much fun this summer. Grayson frequently says "go pool?", then "cups" soon follows because her favorite activity is to stand by the side of the baby pool and pour water in and out of cups and watering cans.

Here's Grayson and her BFF Anna Cate. Anna is four months older but Grayson is catching up to her on height. These girls love each other in a big way.

4th of July

Still catching up...

4th of July at Riverbank with cousins. It doesn't get much better. Playing in the baby pool on the dock, swimming in the lake, boat rides, eating dinner on the dock, Peeps painting the girls' toenails (Grayson for the first time), wearing red white and blue, staying up late and NOT crying at the fireworks. I lost the bet with Justin on this one because Gray didn't cry at the loud noise. I had to watch him eat a corn dog at the pool the next week without ordering one for myself and without asking for a bite of his. Seriously, our pool has the best corn dogs in town. It was a good betting prize, promise.

Happy Father's Day! (a little late)

Feeding the "duck ducks" at the bog garden. As a side note, Justin has taught Grayson how to blow on the duck call. Its comical.

Back in action...

Our computer is finally restored, so here starts my attempt to catch up on the highlights of the last month.

Grayson had her first tummy bug. To be exact though, for record keeping, she "frew up" on Peeps, as they were walking into the Barnes and Noble, 20 minutes after he picked her up so Justin and I could head out on a date night. Ewe. Let's just say that I about barfed AFTER MayMay 'returned her to sender' pretty well cleaned up and stripped down. She went immediately into the tub and then onto the couch. Thankfully there were no more 'incidents' at home and the slight fever passed on by in a day or two. I did panic a bit when I heard her say "uh oh" in the monitor at 4am, but it was a false alarm.

We went to Raleigh for the high school graduation of a dear friend Kristen (far left, Lauren her older sister is on the right). The girls were my "real life baby dolls" when I was a kid and they moved in next door. Grayson was enthralled by them. She also really liked her first BBQ and hushpuppies experience at the party.

She decided to take over this table in our kitchen as her new favorite playspace. I have since moved out the cookbooks to another shelf because daily she insists on playing in her "fort". Notice the woobi on the floor by her feet. She drags it all around this house and goes into full panic mode when I wash it to try to make it turn back to a normal color.

This picture is fuzzy, but she was admiring her new "high pig tails". Her hair has gotten so long and everyone comments when they see her on how blond she is turning.

She is still talking up a storm. Actually, its fairly non-stop. And she wants audience participation. Because she will repeat a word or phrase over and over and over and over until you acknowledge it and discuss it with her. "I sit down right here" and "mama/daddy sit down right here" are favorites. Equal to her obsession with motorcycles, which she calls "moto-si-kees" (with a long "i" sound).