Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Grayson at 15 Months

Grayson is almost 15 months and he is so fun right now! I have a talented friend over at Bello Lume Photography that saw Grayson's cake smash at his first party and offered to do a photo shoot! In true toddler fashion, he wanted nothing to do with his cake during the photo shoot. :) But, as I mentioned before, she is so talented, that you would never know! She still captured the cutest pictures of him!


I definitely failed on the monthly posts for him like I did for his sister throughout her first year, but here are some things that he is up to now. :)

*He is still our little peanut and wears mostly 12 month clothes.


*He has the most ear piercing scream when he doesn't get what he wants...or if a toy is taken from him (ahem...Rylie. :) ). Here's to hoping this one goes away eventually!

*He loves food! His favorites right now would be graham crackers, goldfish, grapes, blueberries, roasted red pepper hummus (this one kind of makes me smile...I will give him a cucumber with hummus on it and he will suck the hummus off and hand the cucumber back to me for more), ice cream (duh), chicken nuggets, meatballs, and french fries.


*He is starting to talk a lot more. His current words are Daddy (so cute! It's not Dada anymore...definitely Daddy!), Mama (not very often, but when he really really wants something), cracker, ball, bye-bye, baseball (he is his father's son!), apple, and uh-oh. He really is starting to imitate any words that we say, so we have also heard Asher (during a Skype session with Jeff and Laura), but I can't get him to repeat it.

*He also says Rylie (usually only at the top of his lungs when she is a little ways away and he wants her attention), Papa, and much to the happiness of both of our mothers, he has also said Grandma (more like and-ma and made her day after foot surgery) and Mimi (this one was to get her attention when she was focused on Rylie...have I mentioned he can get a bit jealous?! :) ).


*He is very, very active...as in never stops moving if he is awake. He actually runs now, which is adorable and so scary all at the same time.



*He sleeps...finally! After about a year of torture for Mommy, the switch has been flipped! Lately he has been sleeping 12-13 hours straight at night and takes two 1-2 hour naps. Heaven!!

*He is a climber! Anything that is more than 2 inches off of the ground must be conquered. Also quite nerve wracking for his parents.


*His favorite toys are anything round (aka a ball of any size or shape), his ring stackers, his shape bucket, and his Elmo that hugs.

*He loves books. He will actually sit fairly still for quite awhile if he is being read to. His favorite books right now are the Fisher Price "Who is on the Farm", "Little Puppy" finger puppet book, "My Day", and "Picaboo Farm". We read a few every night before bed and he goes running for his room and the chair when I tell him to say night night. :)


*He would rather be outside than doing anything else...unfortunate for him that it happens to be like a million degrees outside in Phoenix right now and Mommy is just not that desperate. :) Luckily for him we have these large glass doors that he can stand at and look outside all day long if he so desires.

*He loves to make animal sounds. So far he has mastered a cow (moo), sheep (baa), lion (roar...which he makes sound fairly vicious), chicken (bock bock), and duck (quack quack...and my personal favorite). We are working on dog and cat. :)

(And then he was over the cake, balloons, and photo shoot!)


What a fun and spunky little man he has become! He adds so much to our family and definitely keeps us all on our toes. We love you Grayson John!

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Rylie's First Day of School 2014

It is hard to believe, but Rylie started school! We decided to put her in the Chandler School District's community preschool at Hancock Elementary. They follow a modified year-round schedule, so she starts earlier, gets a 2 1/2 week break in October, a break at Christmas, and a 2 1/2 week Spring Break. It's really too hot to do anything here right now, so why not start school?!

She was very excited to go to preschool, and she actually didn't realize until the morning of that this school would be taught in English (not Spanish like her preschool last year). I think that made her even more excited because she would understand everything that was being said. :)





Walking in to her new school!



After I picked her up, we headed to get a treat and talk about her day. This happened not long after getting in the car...apparently, preschool is very tiring!


She perked up pretty quick when it was time to pick out a cupcake! She was so excited about her day that we got quite an earful! :)

Grayson enjoyed this tradition as well. :)



Thursday, July 17, 2014

Huge Waves and Sand Castles

Our day at the beach was spent at Newport Beach. We decided to wait to go until Monday to try and avoid some of the holiday weekend crowds. It worked, but the waves were so huge that there wasn't much swimming. Neither kid really cared as long as sand castles could still be built! :)






After the beach we met up with Blake and Sarah for dinner. Grayson had pretty much hit the wall from the whole vacation, so Brandon or I spent most of our meal outside with him. :) I love this picture of Rylie and Sarah...she definitely loves her Auntie Sarah!


Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Day Date

While we were in California, Helen gave Brandon and I such a great gift. She took both kids for an entire day! No time schedule or anything! We headed out in the morning for our date day.

Our first stop was, of course, Starbucks. :) With coffee in hand, we headed to Roger's Gardens in Newport Beach to walk around and relax. It is this beautiful plant nursery that grows some amazing things! Next up it was a stop at Home Goods for some fun shopping for the house and then onto an amazing lunch at the Crab Cooker! There is nothing quite as good as amazing seafood right next to the beach. After a very relaxing lunch, we headed to South Coast Plaza for a fun afternoon of wandering the mall and shopping. We love doing this together. We met up with Blake and Sarah for dinner at BJs and then went for drinks and cigars (for the boys) and dessert (for the girls) at Taps. Seriously, such a fun and needed day!


Inside of the Crab Cooker.

Crab cakes and clam chowder started our meal off perfectly.

Yum...just yum.

Walking across the outdoor walkway at South Coast Plaza.

Such a great patio at Taps.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Meeting Baby Haylee!

Brandon's brother, Brian, and his wife, Sheila, had their beautiful baby girl about a week before we got there. Rylie was so excited to meet her and it was amazing how much difference a year makes with her and babies. :) She loved to hold Grayson...for about a minute. I'm pretty sure she would have never put Haylee down the entire time we were there if it had been her choice. :)





Mimi with all her grandkids!

Papa Ruben with his grandkids!

Brian and Sheila live really close to Vince's (a family favorite from his childhood), so of course, dinner there was a must! Grayson is a big fan of the spaghetti as well. :)

Friday, July 11, 2014

July 4th and a Baseball Game

We headed to California this year for the 4th (watching fireworks in Phoenix when it's 110 degrees outside is not the most pleasant thing in the world). Helen had bought tickets to the Angels baseball game that night. We love being at games on this holiday and it was going to be Grayson's first baseball game. I was pretty much planning on having to spend a majority of the game walking him around and keeping him occupied, but he actually did amazing! He loved all of the activity around us, and of course, as long as he was eating he was totally happy.




Checking out batting practice.



Rylie had been looking forward to cotton candy and was so excited that it was pink!

I love him.


Watching fireworks after the game. We were pretty excited that the Angels hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 9th inning to win (going into extra innings did not sound super fun at that point). Grayson was so tired by the time the fireworks started, he was pretty much in a daze the whole show.



Rylie was so cute with Grayson. She kept walking over to check on him and make sure he wasn't too scared of the noise. :)

I thought this was fun...here is Rylie when she was Grayson's age at the same stadium on the 4th of July. :)