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...