Thursday Thoughts

:: Grayson can count to 10.  By himself.  It is still awesome every time he does it!  We noticed that he would count with us to 10 a week or so before his birthday, but now, he does it on his own in various scenarios.  The other day he was standing in front of the fridge while I was cooking dinner and he counted to ten about 3 or 4 times in a row!  He occasionally gets a few numbers out of order, but for the most part?  He's spot on!

:: We still have boxes that have never been unpacked.  Like...lots.  I don't think we'd even miss them if we just tossed them into the trash at this point.  It's almost been 4 1/2 months since we moved!  I think I am so unmotivated because we have ZERO storage space left in this house.  I don't know where any of it would go.  Oy.

:: I'm enjoying my new job for the most part, which is more than I could have said about my last few.  It stretches my accounting comfort zone and I feel like I could learn a lot about corporate accounting with this role.

:: P has been home in the evenings most of the time since we moved back.  I think Gray and I will be devastated when he starts his internal medicine and surgery rotations.  We've been spoiled with these first blocks.

:: My sister is getting married in 16 days!  I am so stoked.  (Do people still say stoked?)

:: This means I am flying solo with Grayson in 16 days.  For that?  Not quite as stoked, but we'll manage.  A fun trip to D.C. will totally be worth it!

:: I made a really yummy dinner on the fly tonight.  Roasted Indian cauliflower with rice and yogurt.  YUM!  I just want to have the recipe documented somewhere.

:: We applied for Gray's passport this morning and then got to have a family breakfast before heading to school/work.  It was a lovely morning, even if we were up early and at the passport office by 7:30.  Side note:  there was NO ONE at the passport office at 7:30 am.  There were 5 stalls for applicants and we were the only ones there.    

G got a haircut on Sunday for his Aunt's wedding

His first attempt at a selfie

Trying on a cast that Daddy made at work one day

Grayson's Second Birthday Party

I started planning Gray's second birthday party by telling myself that I was not going to do as much this year as I did in the previous year.  Well, aside from not serving 40 people dinner, I didn't keep my promise.  About a month and a half out, I started planning his airplane themed birthday party.  Grayson has called airplanes "bigbigs" for quite a while, and he points out every.single.one. that he sees.  (Did I mention that we live really close to an airport??)  I am pretty happy with how the party turned out, although I wish that the main table had looked a little more full.  I always forget how large my in-laws' table is!

We named the airline 'Jet Gray'

 

I cut out every single one of those airplanes - I'm glad I did it over a two week period because otherwise my wrist would have fallen off.  Note to self - don't cut out small objects for next year's party!

These are chocolate airplanes that I made two days before the party with some airplane molds that I bought online.  Although few were eaten, I thought they added a cute touch to the table.  For the clouds, I just hot glued some quilt bunting to floral Styrofoam blocks.

Marshmallow propellers that I made the night before the party.  It took me about 2 hours to make about 35 - not too bad.  These also added a really cute element to the table.

I made this popcorn for Grayson's first birthday as well.  It is a great way to integrate the birthday colors into food.  This year I made blue and orange popcorn.

Grayson had a great time at his party.  He played with all of the kids that came, enjoyed his cake this time around, and had a blast opening his gifts.  He seemed a little confused this year regarding his gifts.  When I told him to thank the gift-giver, he took the gift to them and handed it to them.  Haha, oh well.  He'll get it soon enough.

Whew.  Long post!  Thanks for sticking around!

Grayson is Two!

Gray's last day as a 1 year old

Grayson turned 2 on a Friday, so we blew up balloons the night before his birthday and then took them into his room and threw them in his crib while we sang happy birthday Friday morning.  We enjoy this little family tradition and hope to continue doing it every year (Grayson loves it, too!). 

Gray is changing every day it seems!  His words get clearer, his sentences get longer, and he understands more and more.  He is starting to have more temper tantrums as well.  He has started to have real opinions about things, and doesn't have a problem expressing them if we don't do what he wants.  A big tantrum starter these days revolves around sitting in the driver's seat of my car after we get home from work.  He wants to sit there every day when we get home, and even when I let him, he is still upset when I tell him we're going inside.    

Grayson's two year check up stats are as follows:
Height: 35 1/2 inches - 75%
Weight: 31 lb, 3 oz - 85%
This was our first visit with a new Doctor and Grayson was excellent with her.  He "chatted" with her and totally impressed her during his appointment.  She said that she didn't see any problems with his 2 year questionnaire that we filled out, so he seems to be on track developmentally as well.

Grayson seemed to understand "birthday" more this year.  I think he must have celebrated a lot of kid's birthdays at school recently, because anytime I would talk about party planning leading up to his birthday, he would say, "Ha pa tew," and then we would have to sing the happy birthday song.  

Gray's Language

Grayson is growing up so much, and he has started changing some of his "words" from his own language to the correct English word - and it makes me sad to see them go.  I just want to document some of his words that are so cute before we forget them.

Some of them he still uses, but some of them have gone.

"Muk" - Milk (he still uses this one, all the time)
"Big Big" - Airplane (he has started calling them "panes")
"PuhPuh" - Puppy (he still calls Jack by this name, although he has said puppy)
"Bwookie" - Brooklyn
"CaCa" - Coffee
"WeeWee's" - Toes
"Mease" - Please (also, he rubbed his belly for the longest time to say please.  We loved it)
"Carsh" - Cars
"Aunt Pa" - Aunt Pavi
"Mia" - Banana  (bonus - he calls my Nana this as well...Nana...Banana...Mia...)
"GG" - Gangan
"Ha Pa Tew" - Happy Birthday to you (this song has become an everyday song since his birthday.  We sing it before bed to EVERYONE in the family and any friends he can think of!)
"Da-ee" - Daddy
"Bits" - Grapes
"See me?" - Pick me up?

Family Weekend

The Hubs had a final on Friday which meant that he did not have to study at all over the weekend.  We took full advantage and started the weekend off with a date night.  Gray's Aunt watched him while P and I went to Cafe Madrid for dinner.  It was so nice to enjoy each others company without toddler interruptions throughout the entire dinner and the food was delicious.  We called it an early night because P had been up late studying the previous two nights and he was wiped out.

The next morning, we had donuts (courtesy of Aunt Pa) for breakfast and hung around the house for a little while before deciding to go to the park.  It was actually not too hot outside, so we walked to a nearby park and let Gray investigate.

After that, it was nap time and then we headed to Hobby Lobby for Birthday Party supplies.  Gray wasn't very excited about that, but we took him to The Purple Cow for dinner and a shake afterward.  He loved the shake - surprised? ;)

When Grayson was drinking our shake, one time he took a sip and then said, "mm mmm goo(d)"  He is such a sponge right now - imitating everything - it is a lot of fun. 

 On Sunday, we kept it pretty low key with family and the Cowboys game.  I'm furiously making decorations for Gray's birthday party that is this weekend.  I told myself that I wasn't going to make it a big deal...but alas...here we are again. 

Wordless Wednesday - Sept. 11

Dr. P

The day after Grayson had tubes put in his ears, The Hubs defended his dissertation.  P worked the last 4 years in a lab doing research on staph (umm...there was a lot more to it...right...) and it all culminated with his dissertation and its defense.  P's parents and I were able to attend his presentation (in a room with about 30-35 people) and then we had to leave while his committee drilled him with questions. 

During that time, we picked Grayson up from school and then got back to the building in time for P's dissertation reception.  The good news?  He PASSED!  One Doctor down...one to go!!

Oh so relaxed

Let the champagne flow!

Silly, silly boy

P's prof giving a lovely toast

Wishing he could treat himself to a beverage

It has been FAR too long!

Well, I never really intended to take a 3 month hiatus from this blog, but I hope to be back!  I am so sad that I don't have the last 3 months of Grayson's development documented in some manner.  He  has changed so much since my last post - our lives have changed a lot since that last post! 

We moved to Dallas at the beginning of June, and that was a story all on its own.  Let's just say that after initially only renting one Uhaul, we ended up with an additional one which was also packed to capacity and a caravan of 4 cars/trucks got us to Dallas safely.  On our way into Dallas, (our plan was to move in with my parents until we were able to find a rental home) we stopped by a rental house at 11pm to view it with our realtor.  We couldn't actually get in to see the house - turns out those lock boxes won't open at all hours of the night - so our realtor gave us a tour through the windows.  I'm sure the neighbors thought we were casing the joint!  We came back the next day, liked it, and by the end of the day, we had the keys to the house.  The next morning, the movers unloaded our Uhaul trucks into this house.  Craziest 3 days ever. 

I started my new job 10 days after we moved to Dallas.  I am enjoying corporate accounting so far!  Hopefully I'll still be saying that at year end! 

When I started my own job, Grayson needed a new school.  We didn't feel like we saw that many schools close to us, so we signed him up for one that we weren't 100% happy with because we didn't have any options.  Grayson had a very difficult time at first, but after about a month, he was doing much better at drop-off.  Unfortunately, a combination of things made us decide to look for a different school.  He started at a Montessori school near my office this week, and although we are going through the rough drop-offs again, I really think this will be a great place for him.  They even have show and tell on Fridays!!

G's first day of Montessori School 9/3/13

Gray has been pretty fussy and had a low-grade fever for the last month, and we have his 2 year molars to thank for that!  As of now, his two bottom molars are in, but it seems his top ones must be coming soon.  We have not had to give him "me-sen" (medicine) for the top ones yet, but I think they are going to start coming through soon.

Our move to Dallas means a new step in P's schooling.  He completed his PhD(!!) and is now back into the medical school groove.  He joined back up as a 3rd year medical student, so he is in the hospital or doctor offices on a daily basis and studying when he gets home.  This is a crazy new schedule for the whole family, so we are trying to become used to Daddy either being at work late, or studying instead of playing with us in the evenings/weekends.  It is challenging, but we're making it work, and it is precisely why we are happy to be near family!

Grayson's vocabulary/speech has been improving by the day it seems.  We have started working on 2-3 word sentences with him, and he is really getting the concept.  A funny story from last week:  I had put all of the dinner plates on the table and Grayson was in his highchair and P was still at his desk.  Suddenly Grayson said: "Daddy, eat, NOW!"  Needless to say...Daddy came right to the dinner table after that!  

Another reason that I want to get back to this blog is that I have barely taken any pictures of G since we moved up here.  With the exception of one day and some cellphone pics - this is basically it!  Sorry that they're all blurry.

Double-fisting cellphones - toddlers these days!