Another First

So one of the great things about the first year is that there are so many "firsts." The First step, the first word, the first foods, the first time crawling, etc, etc. We have experienced a first this week, and that was the first lollipop. I think that the pictures tell the story.

It's interesting how much more quickly "firsts" tend to come with a second child. I think that Nate's first lollipop was maybe less than a year ago. Of course, it is a food item, so that kind of explains it with him, but yeah, I didn't really think that Graham would have his first before a year old. Oh well.

Shortly after this picture he managed to suck through the stick, so he was not allowed to finish it, and boy was he mad! I guess I'll have to go the push pop route in the future. I remember when we went to Europe many years ago with Erin's little boy who was at the time 5 months old, and she took a push pop for him to suck on at times when we needed to buy a little time of good behavior. Not a bad idea.....

Graham at the Lake

I tried to put a picture of Graham at the lake in the last post, but it was blurry so I took it out, and every time I put a new photo in it messed up my format, so I just thought I'd add another one in a different post.

Deep Creek Lake Vacation

Ok, so Nate really wants me to get off so that he can play his computer game. (What! He's three!) So instead of waiting patiently, he is sitting here randomly hitting keys. What a monkey.

Anyway, we went on vacation with the Markhams a week ago. We rented a house up at Deep Creek Lake and spent the week there. It was our family, Heather and Meckenzie (Jesse's sister in law and daughter) Cammi, Jesse's sister, and his parents. The cabin was big enough for all of us to have our own rooms, so that was nice. Graham even got his own little room, but Nate just slept in the same room as us.

The first day or two we really just stayed at the house. On Monday our big activity was Wal Mart as well as a few sports stores in the area. Nate and Meckenzie had a ton of fun playing together, and whenever Graham could get in on the action he liked it too.

On Tuesday some of the family went to go find some geo caches, or boxes that people hide places and then post the GPS coordinates on the internet, and then other people go and try to find the boxes. You can sign you were there, and generally leave a token in the box. Our token of choice was a pack of gum. Jesse and I stayed home from that since Graham was napping, but then we went out exploring the area trying to find something to do. We failed. The problem with going to a resort town in the off season is that everything is closed. People were closing up the water activities, but the snow activities had not yet started.

On Wednesday we did get to go and find some Geo Caches at Swallow Falls State Park. Nate and Meckenzie thought it was great fun to be searching for treasure. While there we did hike along the trails and see the falls too. We didn't go swimming though.

Thursday it rained, so we were pretty much stuck at home. I think that Heather and I may have gotten out to go to some markets that day.

A couple of different times we took the kids over to the lake area at Deep Creek State Park. Nate enjoyed playing a the playground and throwing rocks into the lake. Graham just did his own thing, but for a little guy being out of his own house, and dragged all over the place, he did such a good job. He was a trooper.


On Friday we had to cram all of the rest of our fun into one day. We started out by going to a corn maze. The kids loved it. Nate as it turns out is a natural at mazes. Every time we had to make a choice, we asked him, and he always knew the right way to go. Then one time he went into the corn, and jumped out to surprise us. That turned into a really fun game. That game was replaced with Jesse going into the corn, and then jumping out to surprise the kids. That was the most fun game. There were other lots of fun things to do there, like bikes, and a cow train (which Nate refused to ride) and a playground, and the animals you can stick your face out of. Plus, there were all of the young calves that you could go and look at. It was a fun morning.

That night Jesse, Heather and I went to a haunted house and mountain roller coaster. It's one of those where they pull you up the side of the mountain, and then gravity takes care of the rest. You are the one in charge of the breaks, so you go as fast or slow as you want. It was actually pretty fun, but freezing, since you need to have your hands out, and none of us thought to bring gloves to our October vacation.

So it was a fun vacation. On Saturday we just packed up and headed home. The kids slept the whole way home, so that made the drive easy. And, Jana even remembered to feed our cat, so when we got home, Lizzie was still alive even!

Baltimore Care First BCBS Half Marathon

So on the 11th, Jesse ran in the Baltimore Care First Blue Cross Blue Shield Half Marathon. There were I think like 15,000 people participating in the running festival which included a marathon, half Marathon, Marathon relay, 5K and Fun Run. The Half Marathon starts later in the day, so we were able to get up and all go down together. Jesse's dad came with us, and we caravaned down with some friends of ours in our ward. While Jesse ran we mostly just hung out at the Inner Harbor. It was a beautiful day, and the kids were well behaved, so that made things nice. We had a hard time finding Jesse after he finished his race, but finally he found a cell phone to borrow and called us. So congratulations Jesse! Hopefully next year it'll be me!

Graham

So today at lunch Graham turned bulimic. It may have started with food caught in his throat, but then he repeatedly made himself throw up. And by "made himself throw up" I mean stuck his fingers as far back in his mouth as possible until he threw up. He was so mad when I made him stop. Even after I moved him and took away his lunch, and tried to calm him down he kept on trying to do it. I decided to just nip it in the bud, because I didn't want to have him diagnosed with an eating disorder at the age of 2, and I looked back to think that I could have stopped it.
In other Graham news he has been doing such a better job of sleeping through the night for the past month. It is on a very regular basis these days. He also will occasionally stand on his own for a few nanoseconds at a time before he crumples down or leans into something. Last night Jesse tried to get him to walk since he has occasionally taken a step to make it to the couch or something, but he was really not interested at all.
So that's it. I have a ton of projects going on right now, and that is why I have not posted any updates on the vacation (Not that it was that noteworthy, it was more of a relaxing vacation than an activity vacation.) You can see all about my projects on my losingmyneedles blog. That's all for now.

correction

So I just realized that in the post about Nate's animals I said that he found the panda on the flood in the basement, and that may leave many of you wondering about our basement flooding and me not mentioning it and even allowing my child to play with a plush animal that was flood damaged. Take heart, no such thing happened. It should say he found the panda on the FLOOR.
Just wanted to clear that up.

More to come

So I just got back from a week long vacation on Saturday, and I am still in that post-vacation funk. I have a day of unpacking, organizing and laundry, in addition to the errands that I need to run. We have no milk for me or Nate, fresh fruit or veggies, etc etc. (We do however have tons of snacks leftover from vacation that came home with us.)
So I will post about the vacation soon, and Jesse ran the half marathon 2 Saturdays ago, but maybe not right now. In the mean time I did get pictures up on the other website, jesseandlauren.com so you can go and check those out for the time being. More to come soon. I promise.

Cute pics

So here are just some cute pictures that I've gotten in the last week or so.

These first two are of Nate's love of stuffed animals. I keep on meaning to get a picture of his bed at night, because it is getting ridiculous. He needs to take about 6 matchbox cars up to bed, as well as a lego man, 5,000 stuffed animals, and whatever random toys he has been playing with at the time. He found that panda on the floor downstairs a month ago or so. It survived the great animal packing, and he just latched onto it. He loves it best of all.

Often when the door is open I go into the dining room to find both Nate and Lizzie just sitting there looking out the window. Today Mack joined them.

And lastly, just some pictures of the boys being buddies. Nate often is tired of Graham playing with his toys, and getting into things, and being in his way, so they are not friends all that often, but when they are, it's cute as can be. In the last picture, Nate does have a paci in his mouth. He has never been a paci kid, but since seeing Graham, he has started to play with one. Just so long as I don't see it become a habit. I'd hate to have to break him of the thumb and a paci! The middle picture is my favorite because they were having so much fun that time.

Boyds Bear Country

So last week I joined my mom and my niece Paige at Boyds Bear Country in Gettysburg. Nate loved it up there. He is going through a major stuffed animal phase right now, so it was just a wonderland to him. He ran from bear to bear to bear. After a long time he finally got tired of looking at the bears, and he moved on to the escalators. We did that for a few minutes while waiting for Paige and Grandma to be finished looking at things. When it was time to go, Nate did not want to leave. He went running back to the building when he realized we were headed to the car, and for the rest of the day he said he wanted to go to the bear store again.

Graham did pretty well too. He sat in his stroller and was content for the most part. I was so proud of him.

Blanket diving

This is Graham diving into the laundry basket last night to get his blanket. I guess he just could not wait to spit up on it.

You have GOT to be kidding me

So today Graham and I had a battle of sorts. It all started last night. I had just given him a bath, and he was naked save for a diaper in his crib when he spit up all over his blanket and proceeded to crawl through it. Argh!
So no biggie, wipe him off, and get the second blanket out. It's not the one that I usually put him to bed with since it is smaller. I usually use this one to take places with us, but he loves both of them, so it was fine. I needed to do laundry today anyway, so I'd clean the blanket soon.
So I do laundry. His load got done while he was taking his afternoon nap today. So I'm folding his laundry and then he wakes up. I hand him his blanket when he gets up, and he is excited to see it. Within 10 minutes he spits up all over it. Not just a little, a lot of gross stuff. Argh!
No biggie, I still had 2 more loads to put in the laundry today. So I put his blanket back in the wash and was thinking that it would come out right in time for bed. Sure enough, right when it's time for bed, the dryer stops and I go and get his blanket. He is once again excited to see it. He almost tips himself into the laundry basket as he tries to get to it. So he has his blanket and keeps on face planting into it. Within 10 minutes he totally spits up all over it. Gross orange carrot spit up.
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!
At this point all you can do is laugh. There are some pants that have not been washed yet, so I can still scrounge up another load, and very little spit up has gotten on his other blanket, so we can still use that. I swear, it's like this kid is marking his territory. So the only reason that his blanket will not be soiled again today is because he is in bed already. I'm nervous to give it to him tomorrow. Maybe he'll only be allowed to have it in bed, except that that is where this whole thing started!
What a stinker!