birthday celebration part II

we headed out west this morning to go to grammie's house.  she's scoped out a puppet show that we'll be going to for graham's birthday (part II).  we got there a little early, so we walked around, played a little croquet and got some plain 'ol energy out.

then it was time for us to head to downtown martinsburg to the wonderland puppet show theater.  the show of the day was the three billy goats gruff.  it was a pretty cute place.  puppets everywhere and little ones for the kids to play with.  when the show started graham even got a special birthday serenade from a puppet doggie, he loved it! (again...he's liking the attention his birthday gets him this year so far!)

we were a little squirmy through the show, but once i got him on my lap he seemed to calm down.  we watched the show and then took some photos with the puppeteer himself and two of the billy goats.  we even got grady in on the action (oh how he loved that!).  :)  

first puppet show was a success.  thanks grammie!

birthday celebration part I

today we celebrated the dude's birthday with the murray's and grammie.  we did things a little differently this year and decided to head out to chuck-e-cheeses for the festivities.  the kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves and graham LOVED having everyone sing to him for his birthday!  

we ate some pizza, played lots of games and ate some cake.  we picked up a whistle, curvy straw and a bracelet using the tickets won from all the games we played.  

good time had by all!

happy (early) birthday dude!

we're grabbing our hats...

...and wishing grampa a texas-sized birthday!!!

special delivery...

...from the mouse himself!!

graham was awestruck from receiving a postcard signed by mickey mouse!  he wouldn't put it down!

thanks cousin olivia and mason for thinking of graham on your disney vacation!

Ryder's first!!!

today we headed to cox's farms for ryder's first birthday party!

of course graham fell asleep on the way to the party, but we got him to wake up a little while after getting there.  luckily!  he had an AMAZING time.  

the dinoslide was the main attraction for him!  daddy stood in line with him and took him down the slide.  he wanted to do it again, but the line was even longer than before.  so we took him around to the rest of the park.  

we saw some cows, walked through the stands in front of the milking stage, played in the hay and played in some kid-sized eggs!

happy birthday ryder!!!  i can't believe it's been a whole year already!

miss keigan

aunt star (now known as aunt bacon) and keigan came up for the weekend!!!  and grammie also came on friday night to have one big sleepover!  it was too cute, when graham woke up on saturday morning his first words were "can i go downstairs and play with my best friend?!"  he LOVES keigan!

he showed her how to aqua doodle and gave a gentle kiss.

then we had some cute moments from miss keigan that i had to capture.  i think aunt bacon might need to invest in a doorway jumper as she seemed to really like it!

graham shared his woody doll (like i said...he REALLY likes keigan!  he would have to to share that doll with her!)

oh, and keigan LOVED miss mojo!  mojo let keigan pet her and keigan let mojo kiss her.  best friends for life!

only one thing that will be a challenge when our new one arrives.  graham didn't want keigan to nap at all.  luckily keigan was just hanging out for a couple minutes when i took these pictures, but graham was always excited to get in the pack and play with her. 

we had so much fun visiting with everyone, but we're going to have one sad boy when everyone leaves!

iphone photos

apparently i forgot to send myself a few awesome iphone photos from when grana and grampa were here!

love all of these!

ticonderoga farms

today we headed out to ticonderoga farms for anjali's birthday party.  it was great to see all the kiddos again, and all the adults too.  it had been far too long!

graham LOVED the huge potato sack slide.  we often times found him coming out head first out of the tunnel slide!  if only we had one of these in our backyard, the dude would be worn out all the time. sliding down the slide and then running around and climbing up the huge hill.  i definitely let grady handle that one today!  :)

there were some chickens and ducks to watch.  another super bouncy air pillow.  and hay ride and a COW TRAIN!!!  but this one was unlike one i've ever seen.  the cows went up and down as the ride went along.  too cute to watch.  apparently graham and alex got the one that bucked the most.  they loved it!

oh....and graham used the big boy swing for the first time!  YEAH!!  no more baby swings for us.  now on to teaching him how to swing himself!

adventures in potty training

seeing as it's a three day weekend, and graham has been sitting on the potty at school everyday, we decided this was the weekend we would transition to big boy underwear and really start potty training.  we set off on the every 30 minute routine and rewards for any sort of success.

wow, saturday we only had a two accidents!!!  

hrumph....sunday we only had one success.  i like how grana described this as the 'i have to go back to kindergarten' syndrome.  although this would be the 'oh...you mean i have to KEEP going potty' syndrome!

monday we had another successful day!  only a couple accidents again.  

the dude is definitely on a roll!!!

mickey party

happy second birthday mister adam!!!

great country farm fun

not only did we go to great country farms to photograph the big reveal today....we also went for some farm fun!

it started with some giant air pillow bouncing...

followed by some playground playing...

then some animal feeding....

ended by a walk back to the car.

fun times today.

little GC

daddy's making a workbench....

...so graham is overseeing the job!

down with FPP

we were bound and determined to take grana and grampa to our favorite place...FPP (frying pan park).  they've heard us talk about it so much and seen so many pictures, they had to experience it for themselves.  again the day called for rain, but we took advantage of sun we had in the morning and was able to spend a good hour walking around and seeing all the new baby animals including:

 - baby chickens

 - baby ducks

 - baby cows

 - baby pigs

 - baby goats

(apparently it's been a busy summer at FPP!)

as usual it was a good time had by all and graham proceeded to take an epic nap!

pool time

so the clouds lifted a little in the afternoon and we were able to make it to the pool for a bit.

grandpa and grady soaked up some rays while us girls hung out in the little pool with graham.

it's nice having the whole pool to yourself!

udvar hazy

we were planning on heading out to frying pan park this morning...that was until it looked like it was going to pour.  so on our way to the farm we decided to take a detour and go to the udvar hazy national air and space museum instead.  and oh man...are we glad we did.

first we see this bad boy parking before we walk into the museum!  a dragon trike.  it was pretty awesome.  this trike had it all...down to the dragon eggs behind the tail pipes.  the guys were so nice too and let the kids sit on it for a photo opp.  i don't think graham knew what to do he was so mesmerized.

but wait...it gets better.

so we stop by the info desk to get a map and find out that there is a special event today that involves helicopters and emergency vehicles outside.  so outside we went and graham was even able to get inside the airport fire engine.  that thing was HUGE! 

we head back inside and check out the discovery shuttle.  it's always amazing to see a space shuttle in person.  graham seemed to be more impressed with the uniforms and smaller space items.

big boy room!

we were able to enlist the help of grana and grampa to turn graham's little boy room into a BIG BOY room!  

so after a successful trip to ikea and target and a fresh coat of paint....voila!!!

i still have to buy some robot wall decals and figure out what to do on the wall with the book cubes.  but as of right now, something tells me the dude likes his new room!

really appreciate your help grana and grampa!!

guess who's here!!!

grana and grampa!!!!

hooray!!!!!

and guess who had to show grana and grampa their new monsters inc. book.  yes, they both had to take a turn reading it to him.

love*

rainy day

it's soggy and rainy outside, so that means.....

...chibis indoor playground time!!!  

i don't know if i can even count the number of times graham went down the slide.  well and i have to admit...it is a pretty fun slide.  it's deceiving how fast it is!  graham found it pretty funny when mommy or daddy would come out at the bottom.

feeling puney again

ugh...not how i wanted to start a morning.  graham woke up and felt pretty warm.  took his temperature and it was a nice 103.  dosed him up with tylenol and let him kind of chill out for a little bit.  when i went to check him in 30 minutes or so, the poor kid, i could feel heat radiating off of his body.  i knew something wasn't right.  i took his temperature again and it was still 102.  yup, made the executive decision to take the dude to patient first.

5 minutes until we were at patient first i had flashbacks to when he was 7 months old and headed to the doctors.  yup, i turn into the parking lot and graham starts coughing...but not a normal cough.  ugh...with the third of three coughs comes the vomit.  commence mommy freakout mode!  i speed through the parking lot and get to patient first.  luckily i had some towels in the trunk and i was able to get most of him clean.  shorts were toast though, so i had to call grady and have him come bring me some, since of course that was the one thing i didn't have in the diaper bag.  

i could tell that graham was definitely not himself when he fell asleep on me in the waiting room after we had been checked in.  he barely even woke up when they were taking his temperature and weight.  it wasn't until we got to the exam room that he kind of woke up and was somewhat himself.  

as we waited for the doctor, we were able to distract him a bit with a movie on daddy's phone.  

definitely not the news we wanted to hear from the doctor though.  

STREP!

oh no!!!  this is graham's first case of strep, and if he's anything like his mom...it won't be his last.  for his sake, i hope it's his last.  or at the very list, one of a handful of times he gets strep.  

well...looks like someone will be staying home from school tomorrow!

super graham

thanks to miss colleen and mister cormac, we have all of criostoir's old super hero costumes.  yes, they're a little big for graham, but that doesn't stop him from wanting to put them on all the time!

let me introduce to you....batgraham!

and here we have spidergraham and wolvergraham!

keep being cute kid!  it looks good on you!