Poop on the potty?

I realize that I haven't updated in a while so I thought I would do a quick message before students come in. :)

As usual, Gray is learning more and more everyday. The latest surprising thing happened last night. We were all playing upstairs after dinner and Grayson was running around as usual. All of a sudden he dropped his toy and ran into the bathroom. He sat down on his training toilet and started grunting. After a bit of "work" was done he got up and continued to play. Gray likes to put things in his potty and use it as a chair but we have never actually seen him go over to it and poop while sitting on top of it. (Well, the lid was up but diaper and pants were still on.) Couldn't believe that he took a poop ON the potty last night!!! Let's hope that it wasn't just a fluke and that he might be starting to understand how things down there work. Although... I wasn't planning on starting that journey for almost another year him.

If you have seen Gray eatting lately, you would realize that everything is better when you can dip it. (I remember this stage when one of my neices was into dipping too.) Even if he claims that he doesn't want anything more to eat, if you tell him to "dip it" he will do so and follow it up with the smallest of bites to test out the dipping success. I didn't realize that he understood that phrase until last night when I asked him if he wanted to dip his nugget and he tried it out by dipping it in his rice. Too funny. Don't worry though, I saved the kid and gave him a small dollop of ketchup which he proceeded to dip into and continue eatting.

Other than that, things are gearing up for the holiday season around our house. We plan to pick up the Christmas tree this weekend! Lights are all up. Some decorations (Grayson-proofed ones) are out as well. I have completed 90% of the shopping as well thanks to Black Friday! Once we get the tree up then I can wrap things and it will really seem like Christmas is around the corner. The only thing I am really dreading is baking cookies for all of Eric's top clients. Planning on doing that next weekend... ugh.

Sorry that I don't have any fun pics to post. I will try to take some this weekend while we are down in Portland or cutting our tree on Sunday. :)

Starting the Nursery

Our plans are mounting up lately and now there are no free weekends until next year (as I am sure is typical for most of us out there). So Eric and I decided to clear the schedule this weekend and make some time to work around the house. Included in those plans is getting started on the nursery transformation! We bought the paint a few days ago and I couldn't wait to get it up on the wall. I LOVE painting!! Such immediate satisfaction. Bye bye sunshine yellow. Hello blue and brown baby boy. We are going to do crown molding to match what we did in Gray's room. Also, I thought it would be too much dark color on a solid wall so we are breaking up the wall with a white chair rail in the middle to split the blue and brown. We will see how it looks in the end.

Little Monkey

Eric and I have been amazed lately at how much Gray understands what we talk about in casual conversation. It seems like there is a new word or phrase every day. Perfect example… yesterday… Gray ate a few bite of his lobster & cheese ravioli (yummy!) some green beans and a bit of garlic bread but was signing frantically that he was “all done”. So we cleaned him up and let him run around for a bit while we cleaned up the kitchen. Eric and I were talking about our day and other things when he asked me if I thought Grayson might want a bit of banana to top him off. In he runs nodding his head and signing “please” over and over again. Once he was sure his message got across to us he sat down at his little table and waited for his treat. Gray couldn’t have been more pleased with himself. So cute.

Bubble Bath

Gray always loves playing in the bath, but he REALLLLY likes it with bubbles. He was having such a blast that we couldn't resist taking a few pics of him.

New Camera Shopping

Now that it is November, Eric and I have decided to start looking around for Christmas gifts. Sooooo excited that we chose to upgrade our digital camera this year!! Although our present digital camera has been around for many great times, it is getting older and beat up... and let's face it, has had beer spilled on it one too many times to work perfectly. Because it is too chaotic to try out new cameras in the middle of black Friday we have already begun the search. The front runner right now is a Sony DSLR-330. Still need to go back to the store with our own memory card to be able to check the images on our home computer. One of the other top choices is a Nikon that we had fun playing with...

Looks even better when you click on it to see better resolution. Sad as it sounds, I just can't wait for the next few weeks to fly by so that we can go and get our new camera!!! :)

Halloween Fun

Family Halloween!

Here we are after one of several parties this year. Gray was a dragon, Eric was a hunter, and I was a mail-order bride (package deal special... haha).

Our Newest Addition Update

So we had an ultrasound on Monday to check on the little one. Everything looked great! We got a great peek at the baby laying on its side here...

Then the baby moved around and we got a nice little shot of his legs.... and everything else! Haha!

It is quite apparent at this point that Gray is now going to have a little brother!! Now Eric and I need to actually get started with planning things for the little guy. The original plan was to move Grayson to a big boy room and have the baby stay in the nursery. However, after talking about it a while, it is just too strange to move Gray out of his normal room. So what to do about about the new nursery? Who knows. We are open for suggestions though!

Looking forward to the first Halloween party of the season tomorrow night! Just need to get our costumes put together. The only one of us that is ready is Gray and it is past his bedtime. :)

So many things so little time

I feel like our lives have been caught in a tornado lately. Around every turn there is a change in plan or something hitting the fan.
Examples:

• Two days ago we had to have our brand new vehicle TOWED back to the dealership because it pretty much imploded. Let's just say that the dashboard looked like a Christmas Tree because there were so many lights on in there. Luckily it is completely covered and we didn't pay a cent. Got to pick it up yesterday and it is running just fine now.
• Then yesterday I had a piece of sticky honey candy at the staff meeting and it took off half of one of my molars. Now I am off to the dentist today to see what they can do for me. That'll teach me for craving sweets. I should just stick to chocolate!

Other than that, Eric is getting prepared to go hunting tomorrow and I am frantically grading before progress reports go out tomorrow.

The trip up to Kelowna went well last weekend. It was a LONG time in the car (6.5 hours each way) but it was well worth it. Great to remember loved ones with family members all around. The thing that made the trip a lot more bearable was definitely the DVD screens in the car. No one else wanted to drive because who wouldn't rather watch a movie? Oh well.

Can't wait for Monday when we find out if it is going to be a little sister or little brother for Gray. We are soooo close. Makes me nervous though because after we really need to start going with planning for this little one...

Pumpkin Patch Time!

Today we went to the pumpkin patch with Rose, Keri and kids. Everyone had a great time dressing up and playing on the farm. We went for a hay ride, sling shot apples at targets, jumped in a bouncy house, fed goats, and even had time to pick out some great pumpkins!

Trying on the costume

Grayson decided to show up to Grandma and Grandpa's in his Halloween costume... just to try it out. He had to make sure it was scary enough! He had a great time running around in it and is ready to go to the pumpkin patch now.

First Official Post!

With so many things going on lately, I decided that it might be fun to share with our first family blog. :) Grayson is learning new things every day. Currently he loves playing with the halloween decoration that talks back to him. (It is supposed to be scary, but he thinks it is funny!) We are also fighting with him constantly about food. This is such a surprise because he used to love everything. I know deep down he really likes the food I slave over for him (haha) but he really just wants to be independant and get his own way... the little turkey. I wonder how he is still growing so well when I swear he only eats muffins, ham, yogurt, and plain bread. At his last doctors appointment he was still over the 97th percentile for height though so something is going right.

Over the past summer Eric and I traveled down to Jamaica for a destination wedding. About halfway through the trip I took a pregnancy test and we found out that Grayson is going to be a big brother! (Actually we took 2 just to be sure. Probably would have taken more but 2 was all I had packed!) Needless to say, the rum punch and late nights took a backseat pretty quickly. We tried to keep it underwraps and I ended up drinking virgin rum punch (aka punch) for the rest of the trip to keep up the facade of my old ways.

That was a while back and now I am already 4 months along and GROWING. My body is starting to carry this baby the same way as it did with Gray... out in front and huge. In only 2 weeks we get to find out if it is a boy or girl. We are truly just hoping for healthy. I definitely have a soft spot in my heart for a boy though and would love to see another baby wear some of those little outfits that I just packed up in storage bins in the garage today. We will see.

Other things coming up soon:

• Gray gets to go to the pumpkin patch on Monday
• Eric's 30th Birthday!! - Thursday, October 8th! YAY!
• Road trip to Kelowna - My Uncle Brad passed away on October 1st after a very long fight with Parkinsons. His service is the 10th but Gray and I are planning on carpooling up on Friday the 9th. It will be nice to see family. Unfortunate that we are getting together under the circumstances though.
• Eric's hunting trip - Let's hope that he can actually "catch" something this year... besides shooting a dart at an unlucky squirrel.
• Halloween - Gray is going to be a dragon. What should his parents be? Hmmmm
• My mom's 60th Birthday!!! Woah! :) - November 1st.

That is about all for now. Maybe I will take some new pics today so that I can upload them.