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: