Things we did this weekend...

1. Attended the kids' Christmas pageant at church on Friday night. Saw one of our favorite little boys from Bible study run amok on stage, flash the audience, and growl unexpectedly into the microphone. A little girl scratched her rear end and got her skirt stuck in her tights. One preschool girl sat and scowled through the entire program. Jingle bells were flying (literally). All in all, it was a very entertaining way to share the Christmas story.

2. Woke at 5am to hear Graham standing in his room running the plastic part of his pacifier across the rails on his crib. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. (pause) Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap...

3. Went to the eye doctor Saturday morning and had my eyes dilated. Couldn't read the signs and did a mostly illegal u-turn in front of a policeman, but didn't get stopped. Phew! Proceeded to finish our Christmas shopping. Woohoo!

4. Cleaned the house Saturday evening and baked 2 cookie bouquets, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Look for more of these in the future...





5. Hosted a Bible study Christmas party on Sunday afternoon. The food that we made wasn't great, but I don't think they minded us practicing on them. The kids all decorated gingerbread houses.



(See the house on the end? The little girl's mom described it by saying, "You know those houses that have way too many inflatables in their yard...?")

6. Went to a kids workers' Christmas party on Sunday night. The PG-13 ornament I brought for the exchange ('Naughty' on one side, 'Nice' on the other) was well-received, and we almost came home with the re-gifted one Will took. Argh. I forced it on someone else at our table. hehehe... Graham tried to eat the electrical outlet on the floor, but otherwise did very well.

Lollipop Kid

Graham had his 9 month check-up today. He is skinny (25^th percentile), long (75^th percentile), and has a big head (75^th percentile)…he is going to be a lollipop!!!

He has also decided that he is willing to go in the cabinets for a closer look...

And he likes his tunnel (and we like it because it gives him a good hairdo).

He can also clap his hands and climb an entire flight of stairs.

Thanksgiving

This year, Thanksgiving was a week-long event. It started out with a visit from our dear-but-not-so-near friends from college. Matt & Leigh Ann came up with their daughter Kaelyn, and Allison & Andrew came with their son Nathan. We met up for the Ohio State/Michigan game, and the kids played together while everyone else talked and ate a ton of food. (Didn't really watch the game much.)





I guess bubbles are best viewed from this position...



We drove on Wednesday, and Graham had a good time with his extended family. We forgot to take very many pictures, but here he is with his cousin Jenna:



He also got to read books with Great Grandma Smith:



Regular (as opposed to 'Great') Grandma & Grandpap Smith gave him an early Christmas present: a Little People Nativity set.



It was a good trip! Now we're waiting to hear news from Joe & Gwen...

A Busy Bully.

Graham is very busy these days, as seen in the video below. See if you notice these things:

1. He steals a racquetball container from the other little boy I watch. Note that he would rather play with a racquetball container than the 50 other toys nearby that have been created for children his age.
2. He likes to make noise with the racquetball container, even though it is not inherently a noisy toy.
3. He tries to chew on the container, even though he has a pacifier in his mouth.

Fun times

Graham's first Halloween Eve was spent in the back of our trunk. We did a Trunk or Treat through our church and he was dressed as a giant hotdog, while Will and I were hotdog vendors. It was fun seeing the kids running around, and Graham enjoyed eating candy through the wrappers.




Graham's cousin Emily let him ride her pony, so we have a video of his first equestrian effort. The video is terrible (my fault), but you get the idea.





And finally, he is a big fan of books. Not reading them, just pulling them off the shelf.



Can't believe Thanksgiving is around the corner!

Last weekend.

Last weekend we went to Will's home because his grandpa passed away. It was pretty sudden--he had a stroke on Monday and passed away early Friday morning. He was a godly man who brought his family up to know Christ, and we are sure that he's in heaven now. It was hard to watch his family and friends grieving, but it hit me that as time seems to be going faster and faster as I grow older, it really won't be long before we see him again.

On a personal note, I guess I owe Grandpap Beckley a lot. He brought his daughter up to know Christ, and she brought her son up the same way. Will and I met in church, and he is a wonderful man, so if it hadn't been for his grandparents, we might not be together now. That thought makes me appreciate them all the more. :)

The Evolution of an Oatmeal Eater

I have been making baby food. It's actually really easy, although it takes some time, and when you freeze them in ice cube trays, it makes the perfect amount to be popped in the microwave and fed to Graham. So far, I have frozen a ton of applesauce, as well as prunes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and blueberries (which were the only food I probably won't do again).

The other day I was looking at a box of baby oatmeal. "Why do they charge so much for this?" I asked myself. "I can buy a whole canister of adult oatmeal for half of what I paid for this box." And so my quest to create baby cereal began. I put the oatmeal in the food processor and ground it up. And ground it again. And again. For some reason, it just wouldn't turn into those nice little flakes you get in the baby cereal box. We decided last night to try it anyway. Even after warming it up, it looked kind of gritty and goopy. We figured Graham could handle it. Here's what it looked like:

1. Yay! I get cereal! I love cereal!



2. This is NOT my normal cereal.



3. What IS this new devilry?



4. Egad! MAKE IT STOP!!



That's when we threw it out. It wouldn't even come out of the bowl very easily--I had to waterblast it, and it slid out like a giant slug. Then we gave him some baby cereal, upon which we decided it was worth the extra dollar.

Of TV trays and toilet paper

Graham has changed so much in the last few weeks--from real crawling, to pulling himself up, to furniture cruising. The other evening we were eating dinner in the living room and Graham wanted to be part of it, I guess. First we saw some fingers, then some crazy red hair, and then a face.



Last night we came back from a meeting. I put him on the floor, kicked my shoes off and took off my jacket (which takes what, 5 seconds?). When I turned around, there he was in the bathroom:



He's also moved down to 2 naps a day, which was rough at first, especially with Will gone so much. (Hopefully that's over!) He's got 4 teeth now, so when he bites, I automatically scream uncle. And if there are any parents out there who might be a teensy bit jealous that he's already upwardly mobile, take comfort in the fact that he is not yet sleeping through the night. Not even close. And he eats toilet paper.

A Conversation.

As I was walking away from the checkout line at the grocery store yesterday, a sweet little lady (for our purposes, I'll call her 'Pearl') came up and started fawning over Graham. Here's an excerpt:

Pearl: "Oh my goodness! What an adorable baby! Look at you! Red hair and blue eyes! Tell me that is a girl."

Valerie (noting that Graham was, indeed, wearing blue): "Nope, it's a boy."

Pearl: "Oh, well, you are just going to be a heartbreaker! Look how cute you are!"

Valerie (noting that Graham was still in his pajamas which were now quite dirty, had a slobber-covered chin and a big scab by his eye where he scratched himself...): "Thank you."

Pearl: "What did you name him? Oh, don't tell me. I've got a name in my head that I think it is."

Valerie: "We named him Graham."

Pearl: "Oh, Graham, what a sweet name! You look just like a Graham. I was going to guess Bruce."

----

She went on for a little while longer and I just smiled. I think she really meant every word she said, but it sure came out funny.

Corn Maze

Will's mom, sister, and cousin came down last weekend to hang out with Graham, and we tried out our first ever corn maze:





Somehow I had forgotten how tall corn can be. They had some problems with damage from Hurricane Ike, but overall, it was pretty fun. I think it would have been a lot more challenging at night, but we had enough trouble with daylight. :)

In other news, Graham likes to eat bubbles in the bathtub:



At one point, he had a perfect little beard, but I didn't get the camera quickly enough.

Graham's tree

We stole an idea from Matt & Leigh Ann and planted a tree for Graham. Now every year we'll take his picture next to it and see how they've both grown. However, I think we'll fail to mention the fact that "his tree" was only put in because the one that was there died and we already had a gaping hole in the front yard. He did pick it out, though, by pulling a bunch of leaves off of it in Home Depot and sticking them in his mouth.



I think we should have bought him a weeping willow instead of a silver maple. He sure got a kick out of this one...

Hurricane Ike

Who would've thought that Hurricane Ike would reach us up here, give us 3 days off from work, and leave us otherwise unscathed? I know a lot of people who had storm damage or power outages from it, but we just had a yard full of twigs. It came through on Sunday with a lot of wind (but no rain to speak of) and blew trees down all over the place. Our power flickered, but all we lost was our internet access for the evening. Then Will's work site was closed for 3 days because they couldn't get the power back on. SO... neither of us had to work until today, and we basically got to sleep in every day and hang out as a family. We realize just how fortunate we were not to lose power so I don't want to seem insensitive, but it was one of the most fun, productive, and unexpected vacations we've had. :)

Yesterday afternoon we decided to go out for lunch and visit a local kids science center, where we saw a glass blowing demonstration and some cool stuff that I hadn't seen since college.

Graham's favorite was the wavy mirrors, although I think he was confused by them:





And here's our infrared family portrait, which I think should be our Christmas picture. One thing to note--the big purple splotch on Graham's bib is from his drool...



Back to work today, but I can't complain. :) It was a nice break!

Graham update

Graham turned 6 months old on Saturday! He is really getting big now, and has several new skills that he likes to show off.

#1. Crawling around on his belly, and rocking back and forth on his knees. He intersperses this with smacking things with an open hand.



#2. Getting teeth. He's got 2 on the bottom, which makes for a cranky Graham and cranky parents when we're not paying attention and he bites us.



#3. Sitting up. This is the playing position of choice these days.



#4. Eating solid foods. No longer content with rice cereal, Graham has now moved on to such delicacies as sweet potatoes and squash. This means that when he spits up (which he still does constantly), you can no longer read what his bibs say and the carpet now has orange spots.

#5. Chewing on water bottles and girls' heads. Cyprus was very patient.




He went to the doctor yesterday for his checkup and at 27.75" and 17lb 2oz, he is still in the 90th percentile for length and 50th for weight. Other than recovering from his third cold, he's very healthy!

3rd Annual Hootenanny

Every Labor Day weekend, a group of Will's college friends get together for what they've labeled a "hootenanny". This year it was in PA, and when we found out it was going to cost almost as much to drive as it would to fly, we bought plane tickets. On Friday, we woke up at 5, got to the airport with Graham and 7 (count them, 7) carry-ons (turns out a lot of baby gear thankfully does not count as carry-on luggage). Anyway, we parked, took the shuttle, boarded the plane, and got situated just in time for them to announce that there was a maintenance problem and everybody had to get back off. Here we are with our 7 carry-ons (and Graham) waiting in line to be rebooked.



That's when we found out that our flight wouldn't leave until 5:00 that evening, so we went home. Brian and Cheryl, who hosted everybody, were really sweet about coming to pick us up 10 hours late.

Mostly we hung out at the house and brushed up on our ladderball and ping pong skills, but we also went to the zoo in our matching Hootenanny tshirts. :) This is the most bizarre and bendy camel I ever saw:



You can tell what Graham thought of it by the expression on his lips:



We had a great time! Thanks, Brian & Cheryl, for hosting this year!! :)

Caleb's Wedding

My brother Caleb married Christina Kennedy on August 23rd, and we drove back for the occasion. Graham did not enjoy the car ride out there, and for the last 45 minutes, he cried in the back seat. Until, that is, I discovered that if I let him pull my hair, he was quiet. The last 15 minutes was constant hair-pulling, but it was worth it not to listen to him scream.

Friday and Saturday were a flurry of activity, as expected, and they got hitched without a hitch. Graham fell asleep before the ceremony on a couch in another room, so after I did a Scripture reading, I stood in the back with him while he quietly snored. This meant that I missed the funny part--the minister reached into his pocket to pull out a string for an object lesson and accidentally dropped a huge wad of $20's on the floor. And left it there, not wanting to make a scene. My brother-in-law Adam was going to send Kaiden over after it, but he was sitting on my dad's lap. I love this picture... It's what we used to do with Dad's watch when we sat on his lap during church.



And here we are after the ceremony:



Here's my favorite picture of Risa:



Rebecca was the cake-cutter, and as it turns out, they hold those tiered cakes together with 3 giant wooden dowel rods, like something you would use to attack a vampire. The problem here was that they were buried in the cake and affixed with what seemed like cement, so we couldn't pull them out. Had to borrow a pair of pliers before anybody got any cake at the reception, and we were glad they weren't going to save the top layer.

Uncle Dave did a fantastic job taking pictures! Caleb and Christina are now somewhere in Italy on their honeymoon...

Random Grahamness

I love it when Graham wakes up in a good mood and just lays in his crib and talks to himself. This is what we woke up to last Saturday:



We recently started him on solid foods, hoping it would help fill his belly up before he went to sleep at night. That hasn't worked yet (he's still eating upwards of 12 ounces every night at bedtime) but we're sticking with it. I incorrectly state in the video that it's his first attempt at solid foods, since technically that was the chocolate chip cookie back in June...



And finally, here's a picture of him enjoying his swingset. He got some mad static hair from it...

Dealing with premature hair loss.

Graham has been pulling out his hair for about a month now. I think it's falling out on its own anyway, but he likes to tug on it while he's going to sleep. It's coming back in, but it's not as red anymore, which is a little disappointing.

Here's his favorite way to go to sleep these days:



And here he is playing on the floor in the office:

Not deer after all.

Okay, Gwen, you were right. It wasn't deer eating our tomatoes and peppers after all... It was several tomato hornworms. Gross.



And this is what they looked like when Will got done squishing them.



The irony is that we don't even really like fresh tomatoes. It seems like a lot of work for some homemade salsa... :)

Wildlife Woes

The other day as Will and I were pulling an impressively large pile of weeds from the garden, Will came upon a brightly colored frog. He ran inside and we grabbed the camera, thinking it would make a great picture (always thinking of you, gentle reader). Unfortunately, this was the closest we could get:



Well, that would not do, of course! I stood back out of the garden about 10 feet and said, "Why don't you make him jump and we'll get the picture then?" So it began. Will poked and prodded him and made him move a few times. Suddenly, as if the gates of Hades were behind him, that frog made a monstrous leap and (you guessed it!) HIT ME RIGHT IN THE SHIN. It left nasty slime all over me, which I was sure was poisonous, but it wasn't (a slightly disappointing revelation). I should have taken a picture of it, too, because that was all that was left of the frog. Now I know why God used that particular plague.

Lately I've been noticing Daddy Long Leg spiders all over the porch. For whatever reason, they've decided to take up residence by the front door this year, and they just keep showing up and dying there. Seriously, one tickled my foot once when I opened the door without looking, and there were long spider legs all over the place for awhile. I say "were" because when I went out to get the mail this afternoon, I noticed one above the doorway. I came inside, puttered around, and went upstairs to check on Graham. When I leaned over his crib, A SPIDER JUMPED OFF OF MY HEAD ONTO HIS MATTRESS. Close your eyes and think of how disgusting they are, then multiply it by twelve. I grabbed Graham (glad to see the maternal instincts kicking in) and attacked the spider with a tissue. Then I went outside and attacked his siblings with a broom and a vengeance. Now we'll see if Will notices how clean it is when he gets home.

And deer are eating our peppers and tomatoes. :(

I will save someone the trouble and write it now... Frogs and Daddy Long Legs and deer, oh my!!

The glass is half smudged.

Graham enjoyed licking my water glass tonight:





The flowers we grew from seeds are actually doing well! Unfortunately, I didn't think about the fact that Morning Glories are so named because they only bloom in the morning. Oh well, they're pretty for a few hours each day...

Graham update #4

Graham's 4-month appointment was yesterday morning. Luckily, Will took him this time so I didn't have to hear him scream after getting his shots. :/ He is healthy and average in everything except his height, which is still in the 80th percentile. No stunted growth around here.

He is quite an active little fellow and spends his days in his fancy new playgym, doing lots of tummy time, reading books, playing with his mommy & daddy, and taking very good naps. He's still been waking up once during the night to eat, but it's usually between 3 and 4 now. He even slept through the night once, although he hasn't done it since, and I didn't sleep much because I was worried about him. :) Alas, he doesn't like to be rocked to sleep anymore and prefers to be laid down in his crib with his pacifier. It's been nice because I'm watching another little boy now and I can just lay him down, but I miss the days when he fell asleep on me.

We went to visit Will's family over the 4th and Graham enjoyed meeting his extended family. He actually did really well for being passed around for two days... Here he is in Emily's Princess chair, which was definitely his favorite:



When we got home, I fed him, put him on a blanket, and went outside to help clean out the car. When I came back in a few minutes later, he had moved about five feet away by "scooching", which is a technical term for almost crawling. He didn't move much more for this video, but you get the idea:



He also enjoys talking. This is a conversation he held yesterday with a bedspread:

Fun times.

Well, Rebecca and the kids left on Friday morning, which was sad. It is SO quiet around here now, and Graham was just getting used to sleeping through lots of noise. We had some good times with them last week before they left... Went shopping a few days for some things Rebecca needed. One thing to note--don't let a child with a pacifier stand by a rail on the second floor of a shopping mall. Just as I thought, "I wonder if Risa might drop her paci overboard...", there it went. No worries, a woman on the first floor yelled up at me about "my binky" loud enough for the entire mall to hear. Such helpful people around here!

We saw Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Very cute movie, and interesting enough to keep the kiddos entertained. And Rebecca cried through part of it, heehee! That was entertaining to me. :) We also brought out the riding mower and let the kids drive. The look of pure delight on Risa's face just cracks me up, and the fact that you can hear Kaiden from across the yard is impressive.





Graham misses his cousins very much, I can tell. He talked to Kaiden on the phone the other night. Mostly he just squealed, but I'm sure he was saying something riveting. Recently he has started sucking his thumb with gusto, and he can chew on both thumb and pacifier at the same time:



In other news, we have had a lot of rain. We used to joke about needing a drawbridge for our driveway, but apparently it's not a bad idea:



Have a great 4th of July!!!