as Yo Gabba Gabba is one of our favorite shows, it was fitting for the dude to be Brobee (the little green one)! thank you mandy for letting us borrow brody's costume...it was perfect!
last year the dude didn't quite know what to do, but this year he was all about dressing up, trick-or-treating and handing out our candy to fellow trick-or-treaters! even miss mojo dressed up again this year (i think she may have outgrown her mermaid costume...what do you think?)!
our back-up costume was going to be elmo, but brobee was a hit. so thanks to miss lisa, we had a sesame themed pumpkin. although, i thought i was doing everything right with the pumpkin carving marker tool...only to take the stencil off and have nothing marked. argh! so this is my freehand cookie monster and cookie pumpkins while looking at the stencil. not too bad! the dude loved it!
we had bread, peanut butter, water, juice jugs, plenty of tp and paper towels, and most importantly....diapers and wipes!!!
both grady and i worked from home today and thankfully we never lost power! the lights flickered towards the end of the day, but nothing went completely out. this is the second time we've had a bad wind storm come through and not lose power. not sure who's on our side...but thank you!!!
so what was supposed to be an 'outside, let the kids run around at frying pan park' birthday party...turned into a 'what weather is sandy going to bring, i guess we should move the party inside to our house' party! luckily no one seemed to mind!!!
and what doesn't say birthday party like pizza and cake!!!
yes, the cake went over MUCH better this year! the dude was actually excited before the candles were lit, smiling ear to ear while everyone was singing to him, helped blow the candles out and ate his piece like a champ!
graham is what is known as a 'kinder baby!' he LOVES school, LOVES his teachers.....and they LOVE him! so much, that some of them braved the elements to come to his party! and i should also mention that we love them too! he never wants to leave in the afternoons and most mornings he runs and gives his teachers hugs. lately i'll help him take his jacket off at school and by the time i put his jacket in his cubby he's already saying 'bye bye mommy!' so long are the days where he would cry hysterically by the mere sight of me walking away from him. my lil dude is getting so big!!
of course because we moved the party indoors the weather held out. but you know if we had kept it at the park it the heavens would have opened. so towards the end of the afternoon we let the kids go outside and play with some chalk. (just like last year!) well and then graham went exploring in the backyard quick and we ran into risolli (our new doggie neighbor!). they were too cute!
all in all it was a huge success. thank you to all of our friends and family who made graham's day so special!
my little dude is becoming a big TWO YEAR OLD DUDE!!!
after we picked him up from school we headed over to chick-fil-a where we had his birthday dinner and played on the playground. once we got home we had cupcakes on stand-by!!!! they were much more of a success this year than last year!! he probably could have eaten all four of them actually.
thank you uncle tim, aunt andrea, cousin olivia and cousin mason for a brown box full of goodies that the dude could open (we were saving ours for after his birthday party). ANIMALS!!! :) the dude didn't know what to do with himself. he wouldn't put them down and even brought them to bed with him. and yes, we had to take them out of his bed when we went to sleep!!
here's how well he's doing with repeating things! he's getting great with names too. he only has to say them a few times before he knows who the person is
and the moment you've all been waiting for.....stats!!!
weight: 29 lbs 13 oz (73%)
height: 33" (16%)
head circ: 20.25 (98%)
- we're not overly concerned about the height/weight ratio. his percentages have been steady and there's no rapid growth or decrease of either one.
- spouting out words left and right these days. it's almost like he has a new vocabulary everyday!
- loves to hang on the bars at the playground and go down the big boy spiral slide
- LOVES animals!!! especially monkeys, cows and lions.
- gets two stories before bedtime and then sleeps from about 8pm until 645am or so
- still takes one, three hour nap a day
- not too big on vegetables, unless they're green bean or mushroom crunchtables
- LOVES fruit
- when he would only eat my turkey nuggets and not the frozen chicken nuggets...that's all changed. now he won't eat my nuggets and only frozen chicken nuggets, frozen popcorn shrimp
- favorite food is probably a toss up between pasta and pizza
- can sit through 75% of an animated movie
- is a redskins fan!!!
- mommy is definitely #1, although daddy is coming back strong in the dude's book and almost overtaking the 'favorite' lead
- knows most animal sounds, most colors, a ton of songs from school, and is starting on his numbers
because the dude LOVES animals so much, we decided to head down to the zoo. it was a beautiful day, the animals were all out, and we had a lot of good animal spottings.
favorites of the day:
- the alligator and crocodile
- the ducks at the bird house
- the flamingos
- the elephants (real and fake!)
- watching the sea lions swim right in front of him in the underground part of the tank
- and probably his most favorite of all...the orangutan eating peanut butter out of the jar with his fingers (the lucky orangutan had just finished some sort of skill test with a ball hidden in boxes)
i forsee this being the first of many trips to the zoo!
i had planned for graham and i go head to frying pan park this morning to let daddy sleep in. little did i know it was the fall festival at the park!
we got up close and personal with one of the milking cows. graham actually was inches away from actually milking the cow. it wasn't until the lady pulled out the bag balm that he was like.....on second thought!!! so he stuck to the smaller cows!
we ate a fresh peeled and cored apple, took a tractor ride around the entire park, watched the 100 year old cider press make fresh apple juice (this only happens once a year....today!!!), and bought a cow of graham's very own (plastic of course)!!!
success....the dude was out cold on the way home and stayed asleep when i put him in his bed.
for the past couple months we have been dealing with these temper tantrums at least a couple times a week. it's like a switch is flipped and he goes from super happy cool dude to crazy angry hulk mad dude! i guess it's payback from when i was younger!
we try to let him work it out on his own all the while reassuring him that we're here for him when he calms down...but yeah, that doesn't usually work. so most of the time we end up looking at him and telling him to breath and relax. sometimes that works, but not very often! for awhile we were spending A LOT of our weekends sitting in timeout in a fit of crying hysteria. we're just hoping that soon he'll understand that he needs to use his words when he's frustrated.
we've been doing good at keeping calm and even keeled. but sometimes i have to just walk out of the room and let him deal with it on his own. or i have to tag daddy into the situation while i step out for a second before blowing up myself.
this was the first night time tantrum. i had fallen asleep downstairs and on my way to bed (around midnight) i did my regular check-in on him before i went to bed and he heard me come in the room. i tried to back up undetected, but no luck! there went the waterworks! i sat in there for an hour with him and no luck getting him back down. finally i had to tag grady in so i could get some sleep. grady tried the 'i'm sleeping' approach, but graham didn't quite get it. after another 45 minutes or so graham had calmed down, was rolling around on grady and then ended up crawling into bed and falling asleep.
of course i could hear the wailing from his bedroom, so i didn't exactly fall asleep. ah, gotta love being awake from 12-2am and then up again at 7 when he's up for the day!
so is this the terrible twos??!!
if so, i'm afraid of what the threes will bring! i hear they're worse. :(
it's that time of year!! one of my favorites indeed!
PUNKIN TIME!!!!
we were debating going to a couple different farms, pumpkinville, etc. but i'm glad we ended up holding off. we LOVE the meadows farms down the street from us. moon bounce, hay bale maze and super fast (and fun) tube slide! and the best part....it was all FREE!
the dude had a blast and picked out a couple punkins to go with mommy's bigger one.
hmmmm....now comes the bigger question....what to carve on them!
i might be a little biased....but man, the dude looks good in orange!
we originally set out this morning to go watch the dude's bestie, criostoir, play flag football. hmmmm, but something else caught his eye! a playground with a HUGE spider ball climby thing (that's the technical name for it) and a VERY tall telescope ledge. his other bestie, bella, decided to keep him company!
i won't lie, i was a little nervous with him so high, even though there were bars around him....but i took a deep breath and he was fine. bella did an awesome job watching him while he was up there too.
after exploring the rest of the playground, the dude ended up back at the spider ball thingy. i got his usual 'no! go away!' comment, so i calmly backed up and started snapping the shutter. the dude is a little spider boy! he climbed all the way to the middle where there was a little place for him to sit. he was so proud of himself...as he should be!
