Playing Catch

This is a video of Paul and Gradyn playing catch! Grady gets pretty excited when the ball comes to him. He's a good catcher, but still needs some work on his throws back.....I'm sure he'll get lots of practice with his daddy!

Family Christmas Day

Paul, Gradyn, and I had a fun family Christmas day today! We went out to lunch, went to the mall to see Santa, and then went to Cody Park.

Gradyn loves the mall because he loves to watch all of the people, wave to them, and try to grab at them! He also loves to ride in the stroller and squeals and rocks back and forth to make it move faster! He is pretty animated! He seemed to like Santa, he checked a couple times to see who was holding him, but was then smiling and laughing! We were a little worried about how he would react to Santa because he has been pretty scared of strangers lately and will definately not let strangers hold him or talk to him. So, Santa must have felt pretty safe to him!

At Cody Park we rode the carousel, had hot apple cider, went on a hay rack ride to look at all of the displays they have set up, and took pictures at all the funny little things they have set up. It was all really fun! And, the weather was actually pretty nice! Not -10 like it has been lately!

After all of that we went to church and then drove around and looked at Christmas lights. Gradyn slept the entire time we drove around and looked at lights. He was exhausted from his big day! It was such a fun day and Gradyn was so excited the whole time! He is so excitable and has a huge personality so it was really fun to see him go crazy and get excited about everything we did!

It was nice to have a relaxing day because we are going to be doing a lot of traveling over the next 2 weeks. We are planning to go to 6 of the Christmas events our families will be having so it will be very nice to get to see lots of family! We are really looking forward to it!

Here are some pictures from our day:

On the hay rack ride!

Riding the horse on the carousel!

Fun pictures at the park! Gradyn loved this! He would smile and laugh and squeal at every one! Even thought it is hard to see that in the picture because his hat covers his face!

Waiting in line to see Santa!

Gradyn's First time on Santa's Lap!

First had to check out who was for sure holding him.

Seemed to like Santa! He was smiling and squealing!

Another Cody Park Pic:

First Haricut & Update

Gradyn got his first haircut on Saturday (December 5th) at 10 months old. Paul had been wanting to get it cut for a couple months now because it was pretty much a mullet! It was over his ears and would go over his shirts in the back. So, I finally decided we could get it trimmed! Jennifer Cox, a friend, squeezed us in to her busy schedule at her salon.
He did great during the haircut and sat on Paul's lap so nicely! He got a little squirmy at the end after he got comfortable with the people and things around him. But, at the beginning he just sat and stared at all the people and things around him, especially at himself in the mirror!
He looks so old and grown up now! And, I think he's cheeks look chubbier! I'll have to take some pictures of him now that it isn't freshly cut so you can see the final product soon!

Here are some pictures of him getting his hair cut and with Jennifer afterwards!

Here are a few little tidbits about what Gradyn is doing now because I realized it has been awhile since I have updated on him:

*He now has 5 teeth and is working on a 6th right now. He has 2 on the top and 3 on the bottom. The 2 on the top were terrible for him to get in! Lots of diaper rash! Ouch!

*He is standing on his own and will take 5 or 6 steps in between Paul and I. He wants to run and dive at us though because he is so excited! So, I think he could do more if he wasn't so crazy!

*He does not want to eat anymore. He will shake his head no and close his mouth tight so you can't even put anything in it. He is getting very adamant about shaking his head NO! I can't believe he figured that out so soon!

*He still wants to be up standing, walking, running, etc. everywhere! He just screams with delight when we let him walk holding on to one of our hands or when he does it on his own. We're pretty sure once he can walk steadily on his own it won't be much of a walk, it will be a RUN!

*He isn't eating many table foods yet because he seems to have a pretty big gag reflex. He gags and throws up a lot, so we are kind of scared to try too many things because of that. He loves Vanilla Wafers, cheese puffs, animal crackers, and Ritz crackers. Those are pretty much the stapes in his diet right now. But, even with those he will only eat so many before he starts whining and shaking his head NO!

*We waves bye-bye and will imitate "bu-bu" after you say it to him.

*He will imitate "da-da" after you say Daddy.

*He is starting to learn to blow kisses, thanks to Doreen at daycare!

*He is still getting up once a night (sometimes more). Usually sleeps from 8:30ish to 7:00, with getting up the 1 time for a bottle and goes right back to sleep.

*He LOVES his oatmeal cereal in the morning! That is the 1 thing he will still eat and be VERY excited about! As soon as he sees the bowl he starts smacking his lips!

*We just put away all of his "baby" stuff!

*We switched him over a few weeks ago to a convertable carseat and just received the 2nd one in the mail last weekend so now both of our cars have the "big boy" carseat. He LOVES the nicer one we got for my car and can sit up tall to see out the window and talks like crazy. He can also sleep very well in it and has lots of room!

*He still needs 3 naps a day (in a perfect world). He usually always falls asleep on the way home from daycare and will sleep for 30 to 45 minutes in the evenings.

We put a 6 foot Christmas tree up on top of a TV stand so he can't get to the tree. The only thing he wants to get to is the Nativity set on the coffee table that he can't reach that well. He has been told "NO" enough that he just stands there and looks at it and hits the table and squeals in delight!

That is all I can think of right now! Please ask if you want to know anything else about him! He is turning into a very busy, "bratty" as Paul says, little boy! Can't believe he is almost 1 year old!!!

Turkey Day & Isaac's 2nd Birthday Party!

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend! We traveled all over the state and got to see all of our family! We (Paul, Ashley, Gradyn, and I) left Wednesday afternoon for Ruskin and had dinner with my Dad, Zoya, and Irina at the farm. We then went to Hebron and stayed with Dan Wednesday night. We were up late that night making the desserts for Thursday.

Thanksgiving morning we finished making the food/desserts we needed to take for lunch and went to church in Hebron. We then went to celebrate Thanksgiving at my Grandma Marlene's in Fairbury with my Dad's side of the family. It was a fun time! We then went back to Hebron to have a Thanksgiving supper with Dan. 2 delicious turkey dinner's that day. After that we left for Lincoln so that Paul and Gradyn could ride to Pender with Andy, Cassie, and the boys. Ashley and I stayed in Lincoln to do some Christmas shopping on black Friday. We did a LOT of shopping and did some damage to the Christmas shopping list. It was a lot of fun. Ashley and I could definately shop for days and still keep going, if we had the money to do it!

After the shopping, I left for Pender and we spent the rest of the weekend there. Isaac's 2nd Birthday Party was on Saturday night. His birthday was on Thanksgiving Day this year! It was an Elmo themed party and lots of fun! We got him tickets to Sesame Street Live in Omaha on January 2nd, so are very excited to see how he reacts to that! The party was a lot of fun and watching him open his presents was really funny!

Also during our time in Pender we went to visit Gradyn's Great-Grandma and Grandpa Guenther so they could see him for a little bit. We took Isaac with and him and Grady had a lot of fun playing with Grandma Betty in her basement with all her fun toys! (Pictures below)

We left on Sunday morning to swing back through Lincoln to pick up Ashley and then head home. It was a lot of traveling and a tiring weekend (I didn't go to bed before midnight the entire 4 nights, which is very unlike me), but a lot of fun! And, it was awesome to get to see a lot of our family. We should get to see everyone at Christmas as we are planning on going to all 6 or 7 Christmas's that are planned! Should be an exciting (and possibly exhausting....) week! :)

Hope everyone is having a great Holiday season! We are getting excited for Gradyn's first Christmas! Should be a very special and blessed time!

Here are some pictures of our weekend:

This is Gradyn in my classroom at school when we went to the Christmas program: