Recreation and Responsibility

The other day while I was sleeping, Mike took Grant for a hike.  I'm sad I missed it!  I used to be able to survive on a few hours of sleep but now I'm pretty worthless during the day after working all night.  My age is catching up with me!  It looks like they had fun!  It's weird seeing pictures of him when I wasn't there.  Hopefully I won't have to miss out on too many more of Grant's adventures!

Found a treasure! (A pinecone)

Mike said he loved this little area.  The grate was dry so he could sit on it and still put his hands in the water.

Mike said every time he tried Grant to leave this spot, he would turn around and run right back to it. 

 Grant has gotten to learn a bit of responsibility lately.  He usually loves to be a helper and helps me with the laundry and helps Mike make a fire every morning.  This week my friend Jake at work and his wife gave Grant a fish.  He was beyond excited!!  We have to practically rip him away from it, kicking and screaming.  He came to Wal-Mart with me to get the bowl and food and then came home and helped me wash it out and prepare it for the fish.  He LOVES to feed it and spends a lot of time just staring at it.  He also tries to literally play with it, which we're going to have to work on!  The fish doesn't have a name yet...Mike and I might just name it until Grant really gets talking down.  Until then, its name may be "Ball" or "Baba".

See how his sleeve is all wet?  That's what I mean by him literally wanting to play with it! 

He could stay here all day long!

Thanks Jake and Tabitha!  You made Grant's little one year old life complete!

Maybe next year, we'll get him a puppy! :)

Family, Friends and Fun!

Every time Chase sees Grant now, Grant gets a warm hello.  Chase has learned Grant's name and always greets him with "Hi Gront!!!" It's really cute!

Grant and Chase just hangin'. They are buddies. 

Grant is really into climbing into, onto, over (basically any preposition) things lately.  It's cute but sometimes scary!  He's started to get pretty fearless.

 Earlier this month, Grant and I went with my parents to Flagstaff to see Brian, Melody and their boys.  It was SOO good to see them! We're hoping to get to see a lot more of them once they move closer!

We keep trying to get a good picture of these boys...I guess now's not the time yet!

While we were there, Grant formed quite the attachment to Melody.  He freaked out when it was time for us to leave and kept reaching for her screaming "No, no, no, no!"  Good thing she's his aunt and will be part of his family forever!

Grant formed another unbreakable attachment this month when he met my best friend Heidi's baby, Cosette!  We couldn't pry him away from her!  He just wanted to hug her and kiss her and run his hands through her hair (I don't blame him though, don't you??) CONSTANTLY!  

Personally, I couldn't be more thrilled!  We're going to have to work on some gentleman manners, as time goes on I don't think this kind of behavior is going to sit too well with Jake.

Poor Grant never had a chance!  Look how beautiful she is!!

LOVE these boys!!

We also got to see Kortney, Jhett and their new family member Parley this month!  I didn't get any pictures of Parley and Grant didn't really get to meet her but she is another gorgeous little girl!  Touching her hair is like touching a bunny!  Thanks for playin' with us Kort and Jhett!  It was nice to get out!

Grant, Chase and Jhett and the park.  Look at those red-heads!

Work has sort of been taking a toll on my attitude lately but without fail, every time I walk through the front door, I immediately feel guilty and humbled.  Life is great and I am a VERY lucky person!

Getting to come home to this is the best reminder!

Through the Eyes of my iPod

Good news! I found out I can blog pictures from my iPod! The bad news is that the quality isn't too great but at least I'll be able to blog more easily/frequently (I hope!)

This kid is such a goof! He makes us laugh all the time and we're so proud of how much he's learning!

He now says "ball, baba (bottle), bbbboon (balloon), bye-bye, dada, mama, mom, no, yes, apple" (but he doesn't know what it means yet) and with a lot of encouragement, he'll say "tease" (please). He also says "nana" which means "Mahna-manah". (Which will entertain he and Chase for hours!)

Anyway, here are some random pics from my iPod. (don't be fooled by all the pics of him eating-we're still working on that!)


1. Helping Grandma unload groceries. He LOVES to be a helper! 2. More unloading 3. Grant's first sub! 4. Fresh eggs 5. Grant LOVES this puppy he got from Grandma Velda. It sings and dances and we get to see Grant's dance moves when he plays with it. :)

ONE YEAR!!

I still don't think it's sunken in yet that our little guy is already a year old!  Things have been so crazy busy around here it seems like time will not slow down for anything!  In the hustle and bustle of things, I've gotten VERY behind on posting.  So, even though it's February, we're skipping over the rest of December and January for now so I can at least get these one year pics up!

He was 11 months in Dec. (we'll have to come back to that month some other time).

Here's our handsome little 12 month old!  I still can't believe it!

He doesn't look too different from the 11 to 12 month pics (except for needing a haircut!) but he is changing so much every day!  He's been walking like a mad man and is SUPER busy!  He seems to understand most of what is going on around him and has been growing and learning so much!  He tries to mimic what he sees people around him doing, it's so fun watching him discover his little world and seeing how much he tries and learns!

Random, I know, but if Grant were to make a musical album at this point in time, I'm thinking this would be part of the album art :)

Grant LOVES to be a helper!  He follows us both around all day trying to do what we do!  He's always been really scared of the chickens but we finally got him to help collect eggs.  As you can see, he's still a little timid but he's facing his fears head on!

For Grant's birthday, we had a Suns party!  Well...several little get-togethers, but the main theme was Suns basketball!  Grant loves basketballs right now!  They make up about 50% of his toys and he still takes Mike's and tries to carry it around, even though it's about as big as he is!

Here's some of the orange and purple decor.
(Goes nicely with our blue and red kitchen, I know!)

This is as close as I'm getting to the cake...it was a disaster!  It's supposed to be a Suns' jersey.  Thank goodness Mike was around to fix it so it at least ended up presentable!  Good thing Grant's only one and cared more about the balloons and basketballs everywhere! 

It tasted decent so I'm hoping that's what'll live on in his mind!

One of his new skills is feeding himself.  He's also drinking from a glass alone...he won't have it any other way!

Uncle Chase had a great time!

Some of Grant's best buddies came to play and celebrate at the park.  He loves following these boys around and trying to be like them!  Thanks for coming Jarom, Alan and Harrison (and their parents of course!)  Uncle Chase was also present but fell asleep in the car and slept through the whole thing.

Grant opening his Fun-Dip from Jared.  Thanks Jared!!

I don't know why, but this just seemed like a fitting picture to end the post. We are so amazed at this little man we get to have in our life!  He seems to have such a determined personality and we're so proud of him everyday for everything he's trying and learning.  He brought with him such an overwhelming spirit of joy and love and we feel so blessed to get to take part in his life every day!  I know it's all cheesy but I can never find a way to describe how much we love this little person!

Rewind

If you saw the Christmas card I posted, or have seen my blog lately really, you'd know I'm a little behind.  Time keeps going by and Grant is getting so big!  As much as we want it all to slow down, it's not happening!  We're technically closer to Grant's 12 month birthday than his 10 month but I didn't want to skip all the fun we had last month.

Pretty much the rest of this post is pictures from our trip to Utah.  It was a fun trip!  As always, we never feel like we got to spend enough time with everyone we wanted to and I forgot to get my camera out until pretty much the last day.  Here's what we did get though:

Grant and his cousin Gage are three weeks apart.  It's so fun to watch them interact and know they'll get to grow up together!

I don't know what they're doing here but they
seem to.

We stayed with Emily and Nate.  They were gracious enough to have us come bombard them with nonstop craziness for a week.  Grant was very partial to Emily, he always wanted to be giving her hugs!

Emily had Grant's newest cousin 
Rylee the day after we left...
we have the worst timing!
 I wish I looked half as good as
Emily 9 months pregnant!

We got to see M Jay.  We felt like we hadn't seen him in years...maybe we hadn't, it had definitely been a really long time!

He took Grant on a long walk around the
 mall...itwas a nice break...
Grant's not as light as he once was!

Grant started thinking about taking steps!!

He's almost mastered it now!

I was privileged to get to take a picture with Ave.  Never a dull moment with her around!  

It always surprises me that she remembers us!  
It makes us so happy!

We got to hang out with the newlyweds Josh and Kt!  We played some games and had a good time!

The happy couple...they're as fun as they look!
They also just started a blog at http://josh-seniorseminar.blogspot.com/

Grant had a lot of fun with Josh and Kt's "toys".  They were nice enough to let him play with them!  Their toys are a lot more expensive than his at home!

Once again we tried to get a picture of the three boys together. (Remember last time?)

Decent...if only Trace's face weren't covered.

Grant's fading fast and Trace has a plan.

Mission accomplished.

Gage faces him off...

And now Gage is done as well...

I'm sure you are all very relieved to find out that we did get a few workable pictures of the three of them.

Cousins are so fun!
We're so excited that they have each other!

We got to hang out with Cord and Whit and Tyler and Molli too, and it was SO good to see them all! Like I said, I pretty much only used my camera one day so I don't have any pictures of them. Yes, I am lame when it comes to picture-taking!

On the road again...back to AZ.
Grant went crazy with some Red Vines.
He's such a nut!  I know I say it every-time but
life with this kid is unbelievably
AWESOME!

BTW Fast forward to today and it's our 6th Anniversary
Hope our next year together is as good as our previous one!