Old enough to shave???

Grady got a play razor and shaving cream for Christmas from Aunt Ashley and he loves to pretent like he is Daddy and shave!  In the past he will grab Paul's real razor and pretend to shave so we are glad to have an alternative to that! 

He was so cute shaving off his shaving cream while saying, "I shave!"  "Daddy I shave!" 

Graduation! (And some belly pics...)

I graduated with my Master's Degree in Educational Administration last weekend from UNK!  I am so glad to be done and not have to worry about doing homework anymore ! Yippee! 

The ceremony was on Friday morning and then we went out to lunch afterwards.  We had a fun couple days in Kearney to celebrate! 

24 weeks pregnant!

Christmas parade with the Deavers!

4 Little Boys waiting for candy at the North Platte downtown Christmas parade!  (Actually, 5 little boys.  Leo was on Becky's lap.) 

CHEESE!

Parade with the Deavers

We took in the Holiday Parade in downtown North Platte with the Deaver boys!  We got lots of candy to take home, just what they all need!  :)

Winter Fun!

North Platte has a park (Cody Park) that has awesome activities for kids.  In the winter they make a "winter wonderland" type thing that is really fun!  There decorate the rides and start them up for the month of December.  You can also do hayrack rides, sleigh rides, visit Santa in his workshop, roast marshmallows, hot chocolate, apple cider, listen to music, look at Christmas displays, etc.  We went one nice evening this year and we hope to go back to do more of the fun! 

Grady was NOT a fan of Santa!  We knew he would be scared, but we were hoping it would just be a little crying and we could still at least get a picture!  He wouldn't even let us go inside the workshop....  He was screarming and clinging to Paul's neck and there was no way he was going to let go.  So, we didn't visit Santa.  As soon as we started walking away he turned around and yelled "Bye Santa!" and was fine.  Little stinker! 

What we have been up to (In pictures)! Finally!

I finally took the time to get some pictures up of a few of the things we have been doing this fall!

This is Gradyn in Sidney when we went to visit Ashley.  We watched the Huskers win against Iowa State! 

At Isaac's 3rd Bday party trying on the Husker helmet.

The 3 Muskateers!  Grady, Isaac, & Luke



Grady and baby Andi at Thanksgiving with Great-Grandma Marlene

Gradyn & Andi!

Ashley, Paul, Gradyn and I on Thanksgiving

Patrick & Grady cheesing it up!

Cheese!  (We love Wheel of Fortune.  Paul and I love it for the puzzles, Grady loves it for all of the clapping every time they spin the wheel!)

This is at Cabela's in Sidney.  We were trying to look at all of the animals and Grady wanted to get in there with them!

Dressed as Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba for Halloween!

Skeletin Pajamas!

We went to Vala's Pumpkin Patch with Gma & Gpa Guenther & Andy, Cassie, Isaac & Luke!  The boys had a lot of fun, and the adults too!

Daddy & Grady at Valas!

So much to be thankful for!

We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, especially 1 adorable little boy and 1 little girl on the way!  We were very busy this Thanksgiving but got to see lots of family.  We started out in Hebron on Wednesday night with dinner with Dan.  Ashley and I then baked some dessert to take to Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.  We stayed in Hebron on Wed. night and then headed to Fairbury on Thursday morning to my Gma Marlene's for Thanksgiving with the Houtwed's.  Almost everyone could make it so it was great to see everyone!  We were especially excited to see my cousin Kristen's new baby girl Andi, who is already 4 months old but this is the first time we have seen her in person!  She is adorable! 
After an afternoon of visiting/napping for some we headed to Lincoln for a Thanksgiving supper with some of the Luehring's at my Aunt Lori & Uncle Scott's.  We had more great turkey and the trimmings!  Ashley and I took Paul and Grady to Cassie's (our sister-in-law) family Thanksgiving later that night so that they could ride back to Paul's family and Ashley and I stayed in Lincoln to do some black Friday shopping! 
We started our shopping on Thursday night at 10:00 at Toys R Us.  I'm not sure if we will do that again but it was a good experience for one time!  We got what we wanted so I guess that is the main thing!  We then went back to sleep and didn't get up early for the early morning black friday sales.  We went to the mall around 9:00 instead and got lots of great deals there!  Most of our Christmas shopping is done!
When we were done with our shopping we headed to Pender for the rest of the weekend.  We made it for most of the 2nd half of the football game and Paul's family had a lot of people over to watch it and then more family came for a Thanksgiving supper for the Guenther side of the family that night.  We ate MORE turkey and trimmings!  And then we played cards/games/watched more football and hung out! 
Saturday was spend hanging out and then Isaac's 3rd birthday party was Saturday night!  Fun!  Sunday we went to church and then out to breakfast before heading back.  Very busy, but saw lots of family and got to do lots of fun things!

The bad part of the weekend is that Grady was sick for the 2nd time in his life!  YUCK!  Ironically both times have been at Paul's parents.  Last Christmas was the only time he was sick before this and now Thanksgiving!  Hopefully that means that this Christmas he will be fine!!  Paul ended up taking him to the Dr. in West Point on Friday morning after his fever hadn't broken for over 24 hours and he woke up a lot worse.  He had a throat infection and cold in his eyes, plus lots of congestion and nose problems.  He got an antibiotic and looked MUCH better by Saturday morning.  He still couldn't break the fever though until Sunday morning.  So, not much sleep was had by Gradyn for about 4 days b/c he just couldn't get comfortable and breath!  I felt so bad for him!  He looked TERRIBLE too!  It's too bad that when all of the family gets to see him he looks so bad all the time!  He ends up being sick for holidays!  Like I said, yuck!  We are hoping for a very healthy Christmas because it will be lots of traveling around to see more family! 

I hope to get some pics posted soon!  I haven't been happy with the way blogspot is letting me post pics, hence the lack of them lately.  We didn't take that many pics over Thanksgiving since Grady wasn't feeling good and looking so bad, but we do have a few, especially of the 3 boys and Grady and Andi!  I will also try to post some from other things we have done lately. 

More Gradynisms...

Gradyn has been talking up a storm lately.  Even over this past weekend it seems like he has progressed so much more, which maybe is because we were home all weekend with him alone and did nothing so he had a lot of time to absorb a lot of smartness from his mommy and daddy!  haha!  :) 
He is talking nonstop and sometimes too much where we have to tell him to settle down and stop yelling so loud!  We were in Herberger's the other day and he had to yell out our play-by-play as we did it.  "Go try things on!"  "Go pay!"  "Go outside!"  "Coat on!" 

His new thing is to tell us what we/he is doing all the time.  We pulled up to church last night and when Paul was getting him out of his seat he says "Daddy at church" over and over.  He always wants us to know what we are doing!  He also always wants us to have our own posessions.  He has to bring me "mommy's" purse, remote, shoes, coat, water bottle, etc. whenever he sees me without it.  He does the same to Paul.  And, everytime he hands us something he says "Thank You" as he gives it to us.  He loves to remind us to be polite!  When he brings us his own things he just tells us what it is and then puts it back where it goes.  He is VERY in to what possession belongs to what person!

Speaking of "putting things back where they go" he is definately picking up on his mommy's OCD problem.  (Which I don't have when I'm pregnant because I usually don't feel well enough to care so maybe his daddy has a little OCD too????)  He has to have all of his things where they go and in order.  The other day I took off his shoes and threw them over to the "shoe area" and he said, "No Mommy!" and marched right over, picked them up, and put them in the correct spot right next to each other (about 6 inches away from where they were).  A little part of my heart was warmed by this, but another part was annoyed that where I put them weren't good enough!  ha! 

He is such a funny little boy with a VERY strong personality!  We are really hoping this next little baby is more mild mannered......  And, that Gradyn doesn't corrupt her with his crazy ways....

YES!  You may have noticed that I said HER!  We found out last week that we are expecting a little girl in April!  We are very excited to have 1 of each!  Paul is weirded out by the thought of G having a sister.  He doesn't understand how a boy could have a sister????  But, he has said that he thinks G will be very good with the ladies when he is older!  Hopefully that means a very nice gentleman....  :) 

Gradyn is SO SWEET with his little sister already!  Every day, at least once a day, he comes up to my belly and says "Hi Sister" and lifts my shirt up.  We then go through the routine of giving sister a Kiss, then an Eskimo kiss, then a Fox kiss, then a Hug.  Then he says "bye sister" and pulls my shirt down and says "all done!".  It is beyond adorable! 

One last funny little story!  Grady has been very obsessed with his poopy lately.  (I actually just ordered him a potty chair yesterday so we can start getting used to that idea.)  He has always been obsessed with watching Paul go potty and especially our nephew Isaac.  In fact Isaac knows he loves it so before he goes to the bathroom he calls Grady to come watch.  "Grady come watch me go potty!"  And Grady runs in and watches.  Now he will always tell us when we are going potty, "mommy potty" or if he thinks we are going "poopy" he will tell us and hand us toilet paper.  haha!  :)  Anyway, these last couple of weeks he has been more obsessed with his OWN poopy.  (Still has no clue about his own potty.)   Every time he poops (which is a lot) he comes and stands in front of us and tells us and grabs his bottom as he goes.  It is never in time where we could rush him to the toilet, but he wants us to know righ away.  And, he has been doing that with his farts too.  He then says "wipes" and goes to find the wipes and then "diaper" and runs to find a diaper to bring to us so we can change him.  He has also gotten in a bad habit of putting his hands down his diaper to take it off himself and wants to change himself.....which we are really trying to stop! 
ANYWAY, this weekend Paul farted (pretty loudly) and then Grady yelled, "Daddy's Poopy!".  It was hilarious!  He had no idea why we were laughing so hard and I think we actually scared him a little....

Letter Party

I don't usually blog about school but I thought these pictures were too cute not to share!  My class (kindergarten) finished learning all of our letters a couple weeks ago so we had a "Letter Party" to celebrate.  We had alphabet cereal that they could identify the letters with and also try to spell words.  The biggest hit was the Pull n Peel that they could form words and letters with.  It was a lot of fun! 

It was also funny to listen to them talk about what they think a letter party is before we had it.  Aiden said, "There will be a whole bunch of letters EVERYWHERE!!"  :) 

The did all think it was really cool that they could play with their food because we talk a lot at snack about not playing with our food!  

This is Eryka & Addilyn telling each other what letters they have from the Alphabet cereal.

Jane telling Derik letters.

Kaiden & Jaylee spelled out their names with pull n peel.

Aiden spelled his name with pull n peel.

Domingo's name with pull n peel.

Daniel showed me how he could spell Dad.

Josie spelling her name with pull n peel.

Cole spelled his name with pull n peel.



Derik & Deonna figuring out how to get their pull n peel to work.

Matthew, Anisten, & Jane working to make letters.

Anisten spelled see!

Addilyn spelled the!

Kaiden made a K to start his name.

Josie studying her alphabet cereal letters to see what she could find.



milKKK

Grady has mastered being able to name pretty much every body part.  He points to them and says them on his body and can also point to them on someone else's body.  (Even body parts when he is getting his diaper changed, thanks to Daddy...)  :) 
These are the ones he names everyday when we go through his "list" of things we do:
*eyes
*ears
*nose
*mouth
*tongue
*teeth
*hair
*head
*cheeks
*shoulders
*belly
*arms
*hands
*legs
*feet
*toes
*poopy (points to behind)
*baby (when he points to Mommy's tummy)
*belly button

I've been meaning to get him on video doing this, but I keep forgetting!  :)  Maybe soon! 

He has also mastered many animal sounds and can point to the animals and make the sound or say what the animal is as he points them out.  Which is so nice when he can "read" books to himself! 
*cow
*horse
*pig
*puppy
*kitty
*sheep
*goat
*monkey
*bird
*duck
*rooster
*lion
*fish
*tractor (not an animal but does the sound!)

Just recently he has started pronouncing (very well) sounds at the end of word, especially the K sound.  He now yells "MILK" with a lot of enunciation on the K, which is kind of weird but I'm glad he is getting the K sound so well!  :)  He also does this with Book and Duck especially since those are 2 words he says a lot.  Pancake is also a word he says a lot, and it is funny because he will pick the which K sound he wants to pronounce really well, depending on when he says it.  I guess it is still too hard for him to pronounce them both at the same time. 

He has also recently discovered Mickey Mouse because his water bottle at daycare has Mickey Mouse on top of it.  Doreen says he will go stand at the sink at yell "MOUSE!" when we wants a drink, but he has never done this at home yet, he stands at the refrigerator and yells "milk" or the sink and yells "water" or "juice" but not Mouse yet!  However, we were in the Dr.'s office yesterday and he saw a book with Mickey Mouse on the cover and went up and yelled "mouse" and squealed because he was so excited.  I guess we should start exposing him to more Mickey Mouse since he knows who he is now and seems to like him! 

In related news, we have finally found a show that he will watch as well as Yo Gabba Gabba!  I am so sick of Yo Gabba Gabba that I have been searching for awhile!  He is pretty picky about it because it has to pretty much have total music and song/dancing activity.  He gets really mad if it is just talking, so lots of shows do not have enough music for him.  BUT, we found The Wiggles!  He really loves The Wiggles!  Which, can be annoying also, but at least it is something new!  He really doesn't hardly ever watch TV at all, probably just 2 or 3 mornings a week while we are getting ready if he is up too early, but I am so glad we can turn on The Wiggles for him now and he asks for them now and gets excited!  Yippee! 

Another thing I want to get on video soon is Grady saying the alphabet!  Not on his own, but he will repeat every letter after we say it.  He will also count to 20 after we say it and counts to 3 on his own.  We are looking forward to getting him some fun learning activities with letters and numbers for Christmas and his Birthday.  We have kind of been slacking with getting him "big boy" toys/activities......

He seems so grown up and does so many big boy things!  He LOVES to help with everything we do!  We can't open the dishwasher without him there helping!  Anything we do, he does right along with us and has to be the helper!  (See why the toys aren't so necessary because he doesn't really play with them anyway!)  We also give him lots of jobs that are his to do, which he loves, and it takes him away from doing some of the dangerous things with us.  For example, when we do laundry he goes right to the step stool and drags it to the washer so he can stand there and put clothes in as we hand them to him.  He knows this is his job now and gets VERY upset if he is not a part of it!  He also loves to take the trash out with Daddy, get the mail, put the groceries away, put groceries in the cart, pick up his books/toys, put his shoes in a line, and much more! 

We are so excited to see all of the new things to come!  This is such a fun stage he is in now with learning so many new things every day!

My parents are dumb....

See my little hands reaching in the candy dish that my parents so "cleverly" hid from me????????

They are the dumb ones who taught me how to trick-or-treat in the first place..... Now I want the candy!



I am so smart!  I took out a few toys of my toy box so that I could close the lid, climbed up on top and YIPPEE!  I can reach the candy now! 

Mom and Dad have been teaching me how to trick-or-treat and tonight it backfired on them!  As soon as I took out the candy I climbed down and ran to my "trick-or-treating" bag and put in my candy and yelled "Thank You!".  Mom and Dad were wondering how I got that candy so they stopped and watched my tricks in amusement.  :)  Now I can't seem to find that candy bowl anymore!  Where did they put that thing????