Little Kitchen Helper

pan+flour+cups+spoons+apron = a current favorite activity

When you have 2.5 girls in the house . . .

. . . you do things like wear librarian dress up glasses.

It's a Girl!

No picture until the scanner is back up and running but Grayson is excited to be a big sister to a little sister in about 4.5 more months! Everything looked healthy during the ultrasound and she is growing right on track. Grayson was a surprise until delivery so it was fun this go 'round to find out ahead of time. We're all really excited!

Uh-oh

Of course she had to see for herself instead of listening to the 10 times that I said "You are too big for the bucket" before this happened.
Notice in the first picture the woobi was behind her. Apparently she needed some comfort since I was taking so long to take pictures between laughs.

Toddlers on Vacation

A day in the life of two toddler friends on vacation always starts with a good sippy cup of milk in pjs.

Then the fun really kicks up in pink life jackets as they throw rocks into the lake, fill up the baby pool, splash in the baby pool, see if they can fit the big float along with all of the American flags in the baby pool, and then take a dip in the big lake with their daddies.

The fun continues after a good nap, hamburgers for dinner, and practicing somersaults together.

Ending the day on a boat ride with their mommies and baby siblings-on-the-way. Thanks for such a fun weekend together Heritages!

Summer Firsts and Fun

It's still fun to experience firsts...

First time in an inflatable bouncer.




Other summer firsts...
First time eating cotton candy (if only one bite; the "icekeem" won over on the sweet treat that night).
First time sipping an Icee (note to self, no more high fructose corn syrup...even at a 5 sip limit..whew).
First time using the potty and wearing big girl underwear (we're low key here for the start but it's going well so far).
First double-scraped knees from running down the sidewalk. (with Dora band aids to make it all better of course).

Other summer fun...
Spending nights at Shu-Shu's house. I don't have any pictures to document this, but with mom on summer vacation from school, Grayson got to go several times to spend one night at Shu-Shu's house. Boy did they have fun. Grayson is still talking about it.

Her hair has gotten so long that she now can sport pigtails, ponytails, and braids.

This doesn't really qualify as fun, but I wanted to make note that Grayson gets bit by mosquitoes just as often, if not more, than me. So we have not had much summer fun in our yard. She looked down at her bites on her legs the other day and said "oh my goodness!"

Maymay and Peeps took her to Yum-Yums for her favorite summer treat the other week, ice cream. If you ask her what things taste like (even kale that we had for dinner tonight), she says "sta-berry icekeem". I sure wish kale tasted like strawberry ice cream to my taste buds.

We're also enjoying the summer "fun" (moments of fun, moments of not-so-fun-more-like-a-part-time-job) of finally renovating our attic . More on that later. Grayson likes to call it "Grayson's room". I personally think it will become Maggie's room because the dog adores anything carpeted over this hardwood floor she has to lie on all the time.

All in all, we sure do love summer in this house.

What a Difference (almost) 2 years makes...

July 2009: (left to right) Anna, Brooke, Grayson, Charlie, Maddie, with Eli down in front


November 2007: Grayson (in a daze from shots that day), Brooke, Charlie, Maddie, & Anna

With 3 more babies on the way, our small group is quickly growing!

Speaking of two years....if you ask Grayson "how old are you?", her response is "one two almost" (with no pauses for commas, like she's counting 1-2-3 but replaces the 3 with 'almost').

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.