Christmas Time

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! As you can see above, Santa arrived just fine. Gray came down the stairs and went straight for his new big-wheel. Even though we know it is going to be a while for him to get full use out of it, Gray likes to sit on it and scoot around.

This year Grayson learned how to open up presents. We didn't want to show him that the wrapped boxes under the tree actually contained gifts until Christmas as we were a bit worried that he might just help himself to everything that was under the tree. I think he might have been a bit suspicious though after he moved one of the presents and it started talking to him. (It was a toy car for one of his cousins.) That poor box had a tough time from that point on because Gray never wanted to leave it alone!

One of the presents that Eric and I were excited to get in the mail was our new camera!! YAY! It went on sale just days before Christmas so we ordered it. We don't really consider it a Christmas present... more like we just took advantage of the sales of the season. :) At least we have it before the baby arrives, which was our ultimate goal.

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).