Random Update

Well we have not been up to anything too exciting lately. Cameron has been working a lot and we have just been having fun hanging out together on his days off. My friend Jessica came to visit at the beginning of November. She flew in from San Diego and it was tons of fun seeing her and showing her around Cleveland. I turned 23 on Monday and we did a few fun things for that as well. Here are a few pictures from these events and just hanging out.

Our awesome downstairs neighbors/friends made me this sign for my birthday.

They also decorated the stairway, it was a great surprise as I took the laundry downstairs in the morning.

In our house we have whiteboard as the backsplash in our kitchen. It is fun to keep lists on and just to write notes on. This is what Cameron did the morning of my birthday. He also had put TONs of notes around the house for me to find and cleaned up! It was the best!

Later in the day Cameron took me to get some new jeans and then out to Red Robin. Here are the boys enjoying their meal.

After Red Robin, we came home and Cameron took Grant while I took a birthday nap. Here are Grant and I just before my nap and right after Grant had fallen asleep on Cameron's lap. He was sitting with Cameron while he was doing something on the computer, then we looked down and he was just slouched over asleep, so I took him and put him in his crib for a good nap.

We hung out for a while and then bathed Grant and put him to bed. We took the monitor downstairs to Jake and Jill to listen in case he woke up and we headed out for the night. Well, the plan was to head out for the night, but it ended up only being like an hour and a half. We were going to go bowling, but the place we were going to go was CLOSED, at NINE... kinda ridiculous for a bowling alley, but whatever. So we decided to use one of the gift cards my parents got me and get half price appetizers at Applebees. Here we are in front of Applebees, although you really can't tell where we are since we didn't quite get the sign in the picture.

Here are Jessica and I at the Lake. It was freezing cold and raining so we only stayed long enough to look for a minute and take a picture.

Taken by Jessica when she was here

One day while she was here we headed down to Amish country. Cameron and I had never been and we heard it was fun, so we decided to check it out. Here we are in front of some of the pretty fields and fall trees.

On another day, Jessica and Grant and I went down to see the Cleveland botanical gardens. They were featuring two different exhibits at the time, Costa Rica and Madagascar. It was really cool and I think Cameron would love it, so we will for sure be going again in the spring. Here we are at the gardens.

Grant and I at the outside portion of the gardens

Jessica took a few pictures of Grant while she was here and I think a lot of them turned out way cute. Here are some of my favorites.

I LOVE this one... he looks like he is looking right at someone and sticking his tongue out at them. Cameron said he looks like he should be one of the members of KISS! haha...

Here are a few random pictures from the past month or so. Back in October our heat went out for the night, luckily it wasn't too cold outside yet, but we still wanted to bundle Grant up for the night, so here he is with his layers and hat just before bed.

Headed off to take a bath!

Holding onto his teddy bear and watching his mobile

His shirt got a little stuck as we were taking it off. I thought he looked cute and chubby, so I took a picture.

Dad and Grant on my birthday

Grant LOVES his nightly baths and gets SOOO relaxed in them. He just lays there floating and hanging out. He just lays his arms straight out to the side and yawns EVERY time, just a few minutes after we put him in the water... he knows taking a bath means it's bedtime! Here are a few pictures of his bath time and a video of the yawing part(at the end of the post)

Cameron was playing with Grant and started making different noises. We soon noticed that Grant was trying to imitate the noises, so here is a video of that.

Cameron's Birthday, Trunk or Treat, House, Grant and the best night of my life!

Well I started this post about two weeks ago. I spent three of Grant's nap times(believe me these are precious times) working on it and getting everything written out just perfectly. I had it TOTALLY ready to go, hit publish, and every single thing was deleted. I guess I had forgotten to sign back in each time I worked on it so nothing was being saved automatically like it usually is. So after two weeks of being mad at my blog I decided to suck it up and start over with the same post. But because I am still a little bitter, I am not going to write the detailed amazing post that I had before. So here is the short and sweet version of what we have been up to.

Cameron's birthday was on October 23rd. The night before when Cameron was putting Grant to bed he said "ok buddy if you really love me you will sleep in on my birthday". Well Grant gave Cameron his first official birthday present by sleeping TEN straight hours that night. He had been sleeping long stretches before this, but had always woken up just once in the middle to eat during the night. That was his first time sleeping straight through and it was AMAZING. Since that night he has started sleeping 9-11 hours straight through much more often than he gets up to eat. Here is a picture of him sleeping in his crib to commemorate this glorious event in history. (sorry it's blurry, the light was off and I didn't want to use the flash) oh and mostly just for me to remember, he was 10 weeks old at the time and slept in his crib and not wrapped.(oh, this is what I referred to in the title as the best night of my life...it truly was the best night EVER(I know, a little pathetic, but i'm sure all you moms out there know how this feels).

The next morning Grant helped daddy make banana pancakes for breakfast. They were yummy.

Here is Grant squishing the bananas

"look mom, I'm making breakfast!"

After breakfast Grant took a nap while Cameron opened some presents. Grant still likes to prop his chin up on hi hands... has done this since birth

Then we all watched the BYU football game. Grant was especially excited about this part of the day.

The next week was our ward's trunk or treat. We could only find ONE costume that was anywhere near Grant's size. Luckily it was this adorable little football. Cameron and I both approved. At the last minute we decided we would dress up as well, so Cameron put on his BYU jersey and went as the football player and I threw on my BYU sweatshirt and wrote BYU! on my face with blue maker and we ran out the door. We ended up winning the award for the best family theme costume (:

The player and his football

the swarm of kids getting their candy

Our cute little football

The football and his number one fan(haha, cheesy, I know)

Here are some pictures of our new place. We have since put up more pictures and finished off our bedroom(which there is no pic of here), but I haven't had time to take update pictures yet so here is basically the gist of what it looks like, just with a few more things on the walls.

The bathroom(obviously)

the living room

living room

dining room(looking from the living room)

dining room(looking from the kitchen)

kitchen

Grant's room

I will add pictures of our bedroom and maybe a video of the whole house sometime in the near-ish future

I went to the store and came home to this

It actually happens quite often since Grant still loves to be held and will fall asleep in our arms and Cameron likes to take that opportunity to get in a nap himself (:

For the longest time we were not able to get Grant to take naps at all unless someone was holding him the whole time(at first he wouldn't even sleep at night unless we were holding him), but we have finally found somewhere he will take decent naps without us holding him. He has the coziest little swing and for about the past month or so we we have been able to lay him down in there for a nap and he will stay asleep long enough for him to be rested and for me to get some things done(YAY for the swing!)

Just had to throw in some random pictures of Grant.

Here he is praying peacefully at church a few Sundays ago

Several weeks ago we started putting him in his bumbo. He likes it ok, but gets bored unless someone is sitting with him and talking to him. He loves to be talked to all the time. Most of the time any problem can be magically fixed if we just start talking to him. And lately he has really started talking back(not in a bad way, but like he wants to contribute to the conversation) (:

Now that he is sleeping so well at night he is much more rested and wakes up very happy in the mornings. He has a good ten minutes of smiling and laughing before he realizes he hasn't eaten in ten or so hours and he's starving

Here is a video of me getting him up. I had been in earlier and turned on his mobile so I could get an extra few minutes to get ready before he woke up. He will normally chill for a while once he is awake and just talk to himself, but I think I was taking an unusually long time getting ready so I turned on the mobile.

Boston, Moving and Grant

Our life has been super busy and crazy the past few weeks. We decided that we wanted to start looking around for a cheaper and smaller place to live. We loved the house and area we were in, but knew we didn't need all the room and really wanted to save some money. So we talked to our landlord on Monday September 20th about being able to get out of our lease early if he could find a new tenant. He was a little reluctant, but said he would start to look for someone else and if he could find someone he would let us out of our lease. He said not to expect anything and that he might not be able to find anyone before our lease was up in February. We knew it could take a while, but started to look for new places just in case, and it was a good thing we did. We knew that some friends of ours in our ward were looking for people to rent the upstairs unit of the double family home they were in, so we went and looked at that, but told them we had no idea if or when we could even move in. Our landlord posted our house online on Thursday evening, had someone email him wanting to look at it an hour later. They came and looked the next night and wanted to sign a lease the very next day and needed to move in the next week. Our landlord wanted time to paint so that meant we had to be out in four days, WHAT!>?? Anyway, it all happened SUPER fast and was really crazy, but it was also such a huge blessing to find someone so quickly so we could move before the winter and start saving money immediately. They signed the lease on Sunday Sept. 26th, and we were completely out of the house by Thursday Sept. 30th. It was THE fastest and craziest move I have ever done. Luckily our new house wasn't too far away so we just took load after load to the new house in a truck that we borrowed from a friend of Cameron's from work.

So being in our new house that Thursday was good, but we just had boxes and stuff EVERYWHERE. It was so chaotic. Luckily Cameron had work off Thursday and Saturday that week, so we spent all day both of those days unpacking and trying to at least get the bigger things like beds and other furniture in its place. Saturday night Cameron's parents flew in from Spokane to visit. We had had this visit/trip planned for months so it was totally random that we ended up moving into a new house the same week they came. We picked them up Saturday night and went straight back to our old house to do some last minute cleaning so we could get our deposit back from our landlord the next day. Anyway, I just wanted to give a quick rundown of the move. I will have to post pictures of the new place a little later though because we are still hanging pictures and finding places for random things.

One of the days we were moving, we couldn't borrow the truck from Cameron's friend so we rented one from Home Depot. It was $70 for the whole day, not too bad. And we sure got good use out of it while we had it.

This was the first night that we stayed in the new place. We had to move so fast, the gas company didn't have time to turn on the gas before we moved in, so we had to bundle up grant in fleece pj's, his fleece wrap, a hat, and thick socks. We also borrowed a little space heater to put in his room. (oh, and no gas meant that Cameron and I got to take cold showers for two days.. yes, it was quite the adventure)

On Monday we took Cameron's parents to Kirtland. It is fun to get to take people there and see different parts each time we have visitors.

Tuesday morning we all loaded up in our car and picked Cameron up from work(he had worked the night shift Monday night). We were there at 7:30am to pick him up. On our way out of town we stopped in Hyrum, OH at the John Johnson farm. Cameron and I hadn't been there yet and it was a really cool stop.

This is us in front of the John Johnson Farm home. Hyrum, OH

It was a chilly and rainy day so Grant got to wear his football jacket for the first time. It was super cute.

Then began the DRIVING...
Grant got very used to being in his car seat with all the driving that we did on this trip.

Although he still doesn't love his car seat, he was really good and either happy and playing or sleeping most of the trip, and that definitely made it nicer for us.

On the way to Boston we stopped at Niagara Falls. It was really cool to see and was most likely a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all of us. It was pouring down rain when we get there, but we didn't have time to wait it out so we bought ponchos for all the adults and made Grant one out of a plastic grocery bag. It actually worked great and people thought it was super cute/hilarious.

Grant and Grandma ready for the rain!

Our family in front of the falls.

After Niagara Falls we jumped back in the car for a few more hours until we got to Palmyra,NY. We got there Tuesday evening and just hung out at the hotel that night so we could have a full day of sightseeing on Wednesday.

This is us at the Hill Cumorah. It was beautiful.

All of us in front of Joseph Smith's home in Palmyra.

The view from the back door of Joseph Smith's home looking back to the Sacred Grove.

Looking into the Sacred Grove

It was a beautiful day to be there

Such a great experience to be able to feel the spirit there

We stayed one more night in Palmyra and got up bright and early Thursday morning to head drive the res of the way to Boston. Thursday evening the grandparents watched the grandkids while the parents got to go see Wicked! It was awesome and definitely lived up to all the hype.

This is at Nicole and Tyler's apartment. Cameron with the two grandkids. It was bedtime and Grant was having none of this picture taking stuff.

Grant was obviously done and Katelyn looks like she wants to get out of there.

While we were there we all got to go on a Duck Tour. You ride in one of these tankers that takes you around the city on the roads and then into the water. We went right at sunset and it was a very good way to see the whole city and get tons of cool facts and information about it in a short amount of time. definitely worth going on.

Waiting for out tour to start

Grant bundled up for the tour. It was open without windows and got pretty chilly down in the water so we had him in his football jacket, hat, and pants for the ride. He fell asleep about five minutes into the tour so I help him wrapped in a warm blanket the whole time.

Ready for the tour to start. We aren't sure what Cameron and Katelyn are looking at.

While in Boston we also got to go to an apple orchard and pick apples and see all the great fall colors of New England. We picked tons of apples and at the end we got fresh apple cider, cider donuts, and carmel apples.

Our little family in the orchard

Grant fell asleep, but we didn't want him to miss out on his first apple-picking adventure, so we helped him pick a baby-sized apple.

Katelyn picked a few of her own. Here she is enjoying the fruits of her labor.

The whole fam(well everyone that was there...we missed you Scott and Sean!)

Grant wasn't so sure why we were sticking him in the dirt against the rock hard pumpkins.

The main reason for the whole trip was to celebrate Katelyn's first birthday. Here she is with all the presents and decorations. It was super cute, way to go Nicole!

Grant watching Katelyn eat her cake and i'm sure wishing he could have some too!

We had a GREAT trip to Boston and can't wait to go back for Thanksgiving!

As promised, here are a few random pictures of Grant since the last post...

Here he is after falling asleep on his play mat. I was playing with hi and left the room for a minute and when I came back he was asleep! I was shocked because it used to take so long to get him to sleep and you would have to rock him just the right way. (He is now much better and sleeps MUCH better at night as well, thank goodness)

I just took this picture to show that he still likes to prop his chin up with his hands all the time. He has been doing that since he was born.

He has started smiling and laughing since my last post and now is very smiley most of the time. Here he is on his playmat with his very best friend "Mr. Octopus"

This was actually at Grant's one month check up. This was taken just seconds after he got shots. he made the nurse feel so guilty with that sad little pouty lip of his.

We have had fun dressing Grant for church. Before he was born one of our friends made us a onesie with a cute little tie on the front. He wore that a few times, but quickly grew out of it. We have had fun finding cute fabrics and making our own for him. This was this past Sunday just before church. he always gets lots of comments at church about how cute his ties/outfits are.

Playing with dad.

smiley boy

He LOVES to lay on his changing table and get his diaper changed...or really any other time we will let him be naked. He will just kick and kick and laugh and smile the whole time. We like to see him so happy which has resulted in many many peeing incidents while we let him have his diaper off.

Just hanging out

This picture is a little small because it is off my phone, but this was the first official smile we were able to document. And to this day I think it is one of my favorite pictures of him.

We are loving our new place and liking getting into a good routine everyday. I love being able to stay home with this happy guy all the time and love even more the days Cameron has off and all three of us can spend time together.

Grant's Two Month Stats(at his Dr. appt. on Oct. 4th-two weeks ago):

Height: 23 1/2.... 50th percentile

Weight: 12 lbs 13 1/2 oz 75 percentile

I dont' remember what his head circumference was, but it was 50th percentile as well

He got two shots, one in each leg. At first he didn't cry, but his face went instantly BRIGHT red almost purple...and then he cried.

A couple videos for family!

The other day Cameron was playing with him on our bed and clapping when we noticed he was trying to clap too. He would watch Cameron clap and then bring his hands together...although the only thing his hands know how to do when they come together right now is go straight to his mouth, so he would pull them away from his mouth and try again.

This is just a short clip I took while he was playing on his playmat with Mr. Octopus. As soon as I took the camera out he wasn't laughing or smiling as much, but you can still hear a little laugh and watch him enjoy his play time!