3 Ladies and a Baby go to the BEACH!

A few weeks back, Grayden and his Momma left Daddy at home and took off for the beach. One of my very best friends, Christa lives in Pensacola, Florida and is getting married in November! Christa and I began our friendship our freshman year of college, and it has continued to grow through graduation, weddings, babies, etc. She was in my wedding and now she has asked me to be in hers! YAY! Now, I wasn't about to make this trip alone with Grayden, and my other dear friend Heather (Schow) who is also in the wedding and the last amigo in our "3 amigos" trio, jumped at the chance to see Christa. And of course, who would turn down a chance to go to the beach!??

It was a great reunion. No matter how long the three of us go without seeing each other, it's as if nothing has changed from the days we spent at Lipscomb together. I really don't know what I'd do without these girls in my life. They are truly a blessing. We had a great visit, even if it was only for a weekend.

The trip to Florida was a long one. It's a 7 hour drive, which should be a piece of cake for me since I'm used to making 9 hour trips to Ohio and Michigan. However, I NEVER drive when we go to Ohio... except maybe for an hour. But, I offered to drive, since we were taking Grayden and I didn't want him making a huge mess in Heather's new car. The trip went well; Heather and I always find enough to talk about. Grayden was a good boy and really enjoyed Heather's attention. He did have one ridiculously long tantrum that caused him to lose his voice a few days later. He screamed for about 45 minutes straight, which was a little miserable, because we were stuck in rush hour traffic and weren't moving. But it may have been a bit of a blessing too, because just before he started screaming, the conversation between Heather and I had hit a bit of stall. So Grayden's temper tantrum timing was perfect. :)

Saturday was a very busy day. Grabbed delicious bagels at the awesome bagel shop, spent hours at David's Bridal trying on bridesmaid dresses (Grayden was very confused by all the mirrors there, he kept running into them. He always looked very confused afterwards...), spent some time laying out at the beach, spent time with Christa's family, took Grayden to to the beach for the VERY first time, and had a delicious dinner on the beach. Grayden wasn't really sure about the beach when we got there. He didn't want to walk on the sand and when I sat him down next to the water, he cried. He seemed very confused by the concept of sand and often looked at me, like "Mom, why is this stuff on my hands? I can't get it off..." But overall, I think he enjoyed himself. I know he really loved spending time with his "auntie" Christa and "auntie" Schow.

Here's some pictures of our trip!

Heather, Jen and Grayden

"Mom, what is this stuff??"

Christa and Heather

Gone but Not Forgotten. Warning: Long Post.

Oops. Forgotten blog. We're still here! Over the past month, Grayden learned to walk and we moved. So, blogging has been the last thing on our minds! We lost our camera in the transition, so I couldn't upload photos (or take them). Oh, and our labtop is currently dead. So, I am at work (shhhh) and blogging.

Be prepared for several photos in this blog. It's so hard for me to choose which pictures to post (especially when I wait so long to blog). But since we last met, Grayden has mastered walking and is working on the running part (which has resulted in several injuries.) We also moved. Easter fell in between there with a visit from Gr'ma. And we also took a trip to Dayton, Ohio to celebrate Rob's aunt Peggy's wedding. So we've been a little busy and that means a lot of pictures and updating to do.

So, shortly after Grayden turned 1, we went to Chattanooga for a little mini vacation. Rob had a TCWPA meeting there, and Grayden and I got to come along! It was a nice little get-a-way. I took Grayden to the Chattanooga Choo Choo. Here are the pictures from Chattanooga.

It seemed like we were home for a week after this trip and Grayden started stumbling around and walking! We are so proud of our little man. Here's a picture of his first walk down the hall.

March 26th. We closed on a house. For those of you, who don't know, Rob and I decided it was time to make a move. We had been looking at buying a foreclosed home that needed minimal work. We had been looking since last fall, and had placed a couple offers but had no luck. Well we found one! We are still living in La Vergne, but we found a much larger home in a very nice, smaller neighborhood. (New school district too, yay!) It was nasty. The house was/is nice but it was dirty and needed some TLC.

My mom (Gr'ma) came the first week of April to help with Grayden. This gave Rob time to give our new home the care it needed. It got new floors, new paint, and lots of bleach and cleaning spray.

Easter fell during my mom's visit. Grayden had a good second Easter (better than last year because we didn't even buy him an Easter basket last year, oops). Gr'ma spent the whole week preparing Grayden for his first Easter egg hunt. She bought him several plastic eggs to practice egg hunting. Grayden picked up on it very quickly, but soon tired of putting all 24 eggs in the basket before dumping them out. He learned that it is much more fun to dump eggs out than put them in. After 2 eggs in, it was basket and eggs in the air. Still we were very proud. He learned to say "egg" in the process.

Easter pics below!

Grayden was very unsure of the man dressed as the Easter Bunny.

Grayden looking at his Easter basket. He was a little excited.

Gr'ma bought him bunny ears.

Here we are on the deck of our new house!

And here we are on the front porch of the new house.

So, we moved into the house Wednesday, April 15th. We are still living out of boxes and still have painting and work to do. But we're taking it one weekend at a time. I'll try to post pictures of the inside/outside of the house soon. I found my camera yesterday, so I can take some now!

Went to Ohio last weekend for Rob's Aunt Peggy's wedding reception. We had a great time with the family. Would love to post pictures of our weekend, but since my camera was tucked away in boxes, I didn't take any. Oops.

One last update, Grayden has been advancing with his speech. He says ball, egg, Momma, Dadda, and Riley (or "ie"). He does say grass sometimes.

Love you all! Thanks for sticking with us, even when we go MIA for a while!!!

Grayden turned 1, Black Bean and Chocolate Cake Style!!

He's 1! He's really 1! I can't believe Grayden has turned 1 year old.

His birthday was March 5th, and this post is a little overdue, but we've been busy celebrating! Not to mention, life with a 1 year old is much more busy! So, Grayden asked his momma and dadda to throw him a big birthday bash with all the people he loves the most, so we looked at our calanders and had a party on Saturday, February 28th. He also requested to have his most favorite food, black beans. But because you can't invite over 20 people over and just have black beans, we created a menu that consisted of chicken tacos, black beans, rice, chips and salsa. I made Grayden's cake, because I decided early on that I wanted to bake and decorate every birthday cake for my children. This was my first attempt, so be kind in your comments! :) Hopefully by the time he turns 18, I'll have mastered the cake decorating!

The turtle cupcake cake!



After the first course of black beans.

With Momma and Dadda.

Thanks again to all the family and friends who came to his party and celebrated with us! He's loving playing with all his presents! For those who couldn't come, we definetly missed you!!

Getting just a little sleepy!!

And Final Update:

Grayden went to the doctor a couple weeks ago, but hasn't been for his official 1 year check up and shots. But his last weight put him in the 15th percentile and his length was below the 3rd percentile. He's 21 # and 26" long... I'm hoping he has a growth spurt soon!!

Food update: his favorites are graham crackers and black beans. He's drinking milk and juice from a sippy, and has been weaned from the breast milk! Yay! He eats pretty much anything but he still won't eat bananas unless they are from a baby food jar. Weird, I know.

I'll try to post again soon... but don't hold your breath!!

Oopps... We're back!!

So, I haven't quit blogging. Just super busy. But I promise I'll be back up this week to catch you all up on Christmas and there-after! Grayden turns 1 in just 2 1/2 weeks!! I can't believe how fast he's grown.... He's not quite walking yet, but pulling up and walking up and down the couch. He's so mobile, and FAST! We'll be in the kitchen and I turn around, and he's already in the bedroom. He's hilarious. He laughs all the time and his new favorite food is graham crackers and black beans. What a combo. And my favorite, we catch him singing. Not real songs, but he does like to make up his own tune. I can't begin to tell you how much fun we are having with him and how much we love this little guy! Every day is a blessing!

Here are some pictures to get you through until I have time to really sit down and blog...

With his cousin Luke and Mamaw.

Grayden and cousin Blair at Christmas

Buckeye Fan!

With Grandma at Meagan's wedding

CHRISTMAS!

And here's a recent one of all of us together:

Catch Up! Thanksgiving Part 1:

So I'm WAY behind on my blogging. I guess I'll have to post multiple posts this week to catch everyone up. Let's start with our first Thanksgiving....

Rob, Grayden, Riley, and I drove to Rob's parents for Thanksgiving. We left on Tuesday night- and got to spend Wed-Sunday with everyone. We had wonderful thanksgiving with D, Phyllis, Randy, Lynsi, Gr'ma and Gr'pa! Phyllis did a great job with her cooking- the homemade sweet potatoes and stuffing were awesome! (we have to give her praise, because the boys always mock her cooking). Grayden even enjoyed his Nana's cooking-

He really did love his first Thanksgiving. He seemed to understand the concept of Thanskgiving really well for a 8 1/2 month old. He ate... ALOT, (turkey, green beans, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and Gr'ma's famous yeast rolls). And after his huge feast, he took a nap. (Typical boy on Thanksgiving).

Friday- we did our black- Friday Christmas Shopping EARLY in the am. We almost lost our minds and bought a 50 inch plasma just because it was on sale and we were there early enough to buy one. After standing in line, getting the ticket, standing in line again to get everything else we needed- we somehow came to our senses. (i'm not sure if it was the fact that we realized it wouldn't fit in our car, the fact that it was 6 am and we were finally awake, or the fact that we realized that we had just bought a house...whatever it was, reason finally set in.) We gave the ticket to another woman who wanted one, and ran out. I'm so glad we didn't buy that plasma, but it was REAL pretty...

Later that morning, we got to spend some time with Mamaw and Aunt Peggy. AND Aunt Peggy's new beau!! (who is NOW her fiance!!) We had a great day with the family, and even managed to get some xmas shopping done.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, the brothers and sisters and Grayden drove to Westlake to see the newest Hartman, baby Luke!! (we got to see Danny and Jenna too!). We had the best visit with them, and are so excited about our new nephew, who is SOOOO cute! Luke and Grayden seemed to enjoy each other... (well I guess I'll let the picture speak for themselves.)

I hope they'll like each other more when they're older... Anyway, our 1st thanksgiving was so much fun, and I'm glad we got to see everyone!!

Thanksgiving Part 2: TO BE CONTINUED...