My momma thinks I look like my daddy!

My momma also loves the rolls on my legs. Aren't they cute?

I'm just so handsome

Food....or not!

Warning: If you don't like "seefood" skip over this post!

Sigh....

This is what I get when I try to feed Grady food complete with gagging sounds. Nice, eh? Please tell me that SOMEDAY he WILL like food? I hate that he hates food! I feel as if I am going to be nursing this kid til he is off to college!

Gibson's big day!

Today was Gibson's first Gymnastics class. It's through the city, so it was nothing fancy, but he had fun. He didn't get the whole "do what the teacher says, follow the class and wait your turn" bit, but hopefully he will in future classes. "Coach Ben" was really good with him. Gibson is the youngest in the class (by about 6 months). There are 2 other boys and 2 girls, he is the same size as the 4 year old girl in the class. The coach had to pretty much reign Gibson in the whole time we were there, thank goodness it's only a 1/2 hour class.

AND We made cookies tonight because Gibson was watching the cooking channel and requested "I make cookies, mommy", so we broke out the cookie mix and whipped up a batch.

(Please disregard the wet shirt, he dumped his water cup on him for "fun" just prior to this and the batteries he is holding, I had to change my camera batteries in the middle of this and he grabbed them off the counter before I had a chance to throw them away.)
Do you like my cookies? "I did agood job"

This is what it looks like...

...when both kids go to Costco. Gregg wonders why I don't go with both of them. He quickly learned the answer to that burning question. He doesn't want all 4 of us to go to Costco again for a while...although it doesn't help that we picked SUNDAY of all days to go. Sheesh, we clearly weren't thinking!

Cate comes to visit!

My friend, Gabby, stopped by today with her daughter, Cate (as it goes with several of my friends, we had stuff to exchange!). Cate is 11 months old and she is the same size as Grady, or should I say Grady is the same size as her. So, either she is really tiny or Grady is a brute. Although, it's probably a little of both. Isn't she the most beautiful little thing? She is just so cute! Cate is trying to walk. She just seems so little, probably because she IS the same size as my 7 month old that is no where near walking and is still commando crawling.

It's a post about me!

Or rather, it's a post all about my hair and these cool new hair ties I found while reading a blog that belongs to my sister's friend, Kim. She did a post about these Trash Ties and I thought they were really neat and so I decided to get a couple. I ordered a long on and a set of short ones. The short ones are almost too short for my hair because I have so much, but the long one is great! I was messing around yesterday with them and took a few pictures so I could see what it all looked like. Of course, I can't recreate anything that I did yesterday, I guess I need more practice. I was really surprised at how well they held my hair up. I was a bit worried since I have a lot of hair and it is heavy.

and for those curious, I am still shampoo free and I am loving it. My hair is so soft and it's great! I wash my hair every other day and it's really nice the 2nd day now. There was a time when it was ugly the 2nd day, but now I am liking my hair better the 2nd day because it seems to have a little more body!

On a side note, please disregard all the piles of laundry you see in my bedroom in the 2nd picture! It was laundry weekend here at Casa de G's and I had ALOT to catch up on. Thankfully, it was all folded and put away today and I only have the small load that is currently in the dryer to deal with tomorrow. Whew....one task down, 30 more to go!

A Walk on the Trail

Today we went to a local park here that has a great set of boardwalk trails or "bridges" as Gibson likes to call them. We played at the park for a while then decided to take the kids on a little walk to get them to burn a bit more energy before lunch and naps. We went with Tamara, Chloe & Keith and then Kristi, Ethan & Gwen. Tamara brought Rosie the dog and it was the highlight of Gibson's day to be able to hold the leash while we went on the walk.

Ok, how cute are these two walking the dog? Adorable!

Chloe is quite the budding photographer! Isn't this a GREAT little camera?

Go to Seattle, Mommy

Today, Brooke and I had plans to get together and so last night we decided that we wanted to load up the kids in the mini-van and head to the downtown Seattle Old Navy and then ride the street car or the "bullet train" as Gibson calls it. At least by riding the train it would be something fun (and cheap, only $1.50) for the boys instead of just them sitting in the strollers the whole time while the Moms shopped (and shopped we did, we spent over an hour in the little boys section of Old Navy, guess that is what happens when there are 4 boys between the 2 of us!). We had a good time and got some GREAT deals at Old Navy. Gibson keeps talking about "Kai ride the bullet train with you" (you is really me, he gets them confused). Grady, of course, slept through the whole adventure...

Gibson requested a picture of the Space Needle, so here it is. He had to know where it was at all times while we were on the car, he was so upset when the buildings would get in the way and he couldn't see it.

Funny Gibson sayings

Gibson is cracking us up lately. All the sudden he has become very polite, he says things like:

"Dis smells a good, mommy" when sitting down to lunch or dinner.
"Tank you bery much"
"Your Yelcome" he says this one often and alot of the time will say it for us if we don't get it out fast enough.

Today he says to me "Tank you for changing my diaper, mommy"

Sadly, Gibson isn't calling me "Honey" anymore. I thought it was kinda cute, I am back to just "mommy" now. It's alright, I'll take mommy, it's the best name ever.

His other new thing is to say "GRADY (yelling that part) It's ok, I come get you" when Grady is crying or stuck somewhere and mommy isn't moving fast enough or my hands are busy or I leave the room without Grady in my arms (he doesn't like to be by himself where he can't see me).

First night with the wedge...

It wasn't horrible. It wasn't great. He was up at 11:00pm, 1:00am, 3:00am, I was up the entire hour of 4:00am trying to get him back down, back up at 5:30 and then up for the day about 6:30-6:45am. So, while I did get to sleep in my own bed without having to hold a child and he did sleep in his own bed, it was still a bit of a rough night.

Some kind of obsession? Or just curiosity?

Gibson Grady

James & the Giant...er...Grady & the GIANT Wedge

Well here it is....the wedge. Grady & I went down and had this made today. Doesn't look like much, eh? It's sturdy, although made out of foam, and he is going nowhere when he is in it. He took his first nap in it today and he slept for....AN HOUR AND A HALF! He never does that unless he is being held! And on his back even! I did have to swaddle his arms down, which the lady said I might have to do, but he did great!

So, I have some hope. Although until he sleeps in it at night, I am not going to get my hopes up too high!

I wanted to write a little more about this. Those of you who are worried about him being strapped in. There is no need to worry. He needs to be strapped in so he doesn't get out and get somewhere he shouldn't be. Also, Grady is/has always been a child that likes to be held close. When we use to swaddle him we had to swaddle him very tightly and often times the minute I would get him swaddled he would calm right down and go to sleep. That is how he is.

Tonight I was out and so Gregg put Grady to bed and he said Grady did well going to sleep, although Gregg had a little bit of a tough time figuring out the wedge at first but all is good now and we will see how long this lasts tonight. The Therapist said that there is a "learning curve" to the wedge and it might take a couple of nights to get use to it. I am preparing myself for a few more nights of sleeping in the chair.

When I was at the appointment today, I talked to the Therapist about Grady's oral aversion and she gave me some great pointers about getting him onto some new textures and trying some new food (we still aren't really doing that, although I did get him to eat a bit of peaches today). This Therapist had alot of hope that Grady would outgrow all this with the right "coaching". So, I felt really good after I left the appointment and was really glad I got to talk to her.

Our Trip to Lincoln City, OR

We're on our way, the mission of the day, starts when we say Amtrak, AMTRAK! The Engineer will guide us with Dad right beside me, "all aboard" onto the rails....We're going on a mission to the beach house, 5, 4, 3 2 1, everyone into the van/train....

(sung to the Little Einstein's Rocket song, which is a constant thing around here as it's Gibson's latest obsession)

So, Lincoln City is about 5 hours south of us here. It's on the Oregon Coast. It's a really beautiful area. My Aunt Wanda and Uncle Steve have a beach house there and we love to go but don't nearly get to go as often as we would like. We have had this trip planned for a while, and we have been looking forward to it a lot. We decided that since Gibson loves trains we would see what it would cost to have he and Gregg ride the Amtrak train from Seattle to Portland. After some checking and a AAA discount, we found that BOTH of them could ride the train down for a total of $41. So, tickets were bought! I dropped them off at 6:30am and Grady and I headed down to pick them up in the van. It was a 3.5 hour train ride for them, and it took me about 4 hours with the stops I made to feed/change Grady and to eat breakfast. Normally it's about a 2.5-3 hour drive. We beat them to the train station by about a 1/2 hour. I really had a nice time driving down. Grady slept most of the way and so it was really easy. Gibson had a BLAST on the train. He loved it, and is still talking about "rid-en the Amtrak train".

Waiting for the train....(excuse my no make, red face. I had a hives breakout on my eyes [kinda random not sure what caused it]) and couldn't wear any make-up until it cleared up)

They arrive....Gibson was oh so not happy about having to get off the train.

Shortly after we got in the car, this happened...

While we were at the beach house I figured it was time that I make my kids some fleece blankets with Aunt Wanda's embriodery machine. So, she hauled everything down for me (thanks again, AW) and we sewed...and sewed....and sewed. It probably took us about 15 hours to do these 2 blankets.

I showed Gibson what I was going to do on his blanket and he immediately latched onto this piece of paper of the railroad crossing sign. From then on it went everywhere with him. We still have it only now, it has been shrunk in size because he ripped the paper.

The "m-chine workin'" as Gibson says

All done! Don't they look GREAT? I just love them!

THE BEACH!!! Gibson loved the beach. He asked almost every waking minute to go down there.
He wanted to "throw rocks at water". It was a good way for him to burn some energy so we took him down there everyday for at least a few minutes!

This is the Oregon Coast Aquarium at Newport. It's a great little Aquarium. It has a really cool shark tank and lots for the kids to look at and it has a several things that are outdoors, so that is really nice not to be stuck inside for the whole visit.


Gibson would not touch anything in the feel tank. He kept saying "I no likey dat".

Ok, these crabs, or "craps" as Gibson calls them, were as big as he was! They were cool!

This is the bridge in Newport. It's really beautiful.

This is the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse. It was only in use for 3 years and now you can tour it and since Gibson has this new obsession with lighthouses and was asking to "go inside lighthouse" we thought it would be fun to take him. He really enjoyed going inside. He called it the red lighthouse. The other lighthouse is brown and he wasn't tall enough to go in it (short by 2 inches) so we told him it was closed until he was taller and so he kept saying "brown lighthouse closed today".

Ok, this is crazy! This thing made of hair. Yes, HAIR. Kinda gross when you think about it. I had to take a picture.

The view from the lighthouse

Some shots from around the house this weekend.

Naptime....so sweet!

This is the view from the beach house. Nice, eh?

Ok, this was from the ride home. We had stopped at the Evergreen Flight Museum where they have the Spruce Goose so that Gibson could see the planes and helicopters and after that we fed him lunch (or tried to, he wouldn't eat it) and then got back into the car. I was telling him that he needed to take a nap and he kept saying over and over "I NO take a nap, mommy" So, I would say "Ok, that's fine, you don't have to, but you have to be quiet and not yell because your brother is sleeping" rinse and repeat. Then this....follow this sequence of pictures, you will see that he is fighting going to sleep really hard...finally, it happens!

Reading....It's this cute new thing he does. He tells us the "story" of whatever it is he has.

We had a great time. I apologize to my Aunt Debbie for the lack of pictures over the last week. I guess I need a laptop so that I can update wherever I go. I will have to work on that. Although, Gregg and I both commented on how nice it was to not have a computer to deal with. At least this post makes up for a week's worth of pictures ;)