The Lovinger's

I don't know when I became such a bad blogger, but I am going to be more on top of it from now on so when we print this out to keep as a family record I actually have something to look at! (: The background for this trip goes all the way back to sometime in February when I got a text from my brother Cole, saying that he wants to be sure and see Grant before he gets too big. Since I knew that the next time that we would be seeing them wasn't until Christmas I immediately began planning and scheming to see what we could pull off to see them before then... And just because we could, I thought "why not make it a surprise for everyone?" SO I thought that the best way to go about it in order to see everyone that we wanted to, would be to fly directly into Utah, spend a few days there and go to Spokane for the rest of the time. Then fly from there back to Cleveland. We would fly into Utah to be there for my brother's graduation from BYU and then the plan was to ride back with my parents (who were driving from Spokane and back). So I was moving plans forward and bought plane tickets and secretly talked to my mom about how long they were staying, what hotel they were staying at and to make sure they would have enough room for us in the car for the ride home. Nobody knew except my cousin Stephanie who was picking us up from the airport and my sister Paige who was helping secretly coordinate things with my parents. We kept everything a secret the whole two months leading up to the trip(even telling my parents that we might go to Chicago for Cameron's week off- I wanted to go the extra mile to make sure they didn't suspect anything (: ) Everything was looking good until 4 days before we were to fly to Salt Lake. My mom called me earlier in the week and said that she felt horrible and really nauseous. She kept feeling like that everyday and I kept telling her that she really needed to go to the doctor so she could be sure and go to Cole's graduation-little did she know that I had my own reasons for wanting to make sure she went. Finally on Friday she decided to go into the doctor and it ended up that she had three kidney stones and would need to do surgery immediately. When she called and told me that she would be getting that done Saturday morning and that she would really try to make it to the graduation, but would just have to see how it went, I got a little nervous, but I knew there was no way that she was going to miss Cole's graduation. So we kept getting things ready to go and flew out Tuesday morning. When we got there we got to go to Cole and Erin's house and surprise them first. That was fun and it was good to see them and get to hang out. That night we got to surprise a bunch of our cousins who were meeting for a cousin dinner at In N' Out. It was so good to see everyone and even though Grant was really shy it was good to introduce him to everyone too.

While we were in Utah we went out to eat with Cole and Erin, my parents, Erin's parents,Jordan and Amy, and Stephanie. It was a lot of fun. Here are Grant and Erin. Again, he was very shy and unsure of all the new people so he looks pretty stoic and even sad in some pictures...

Grant and Cole

Cousins and spouses and soon-to-be baby McCoy!

Jordan loved Grant and Grant must have liked him (even thought you can't tell in this pic) because he was the only one he would let hold him without freaking out.

Celebrating his graduation with everyone at Texas Roadhouse

Steph and I

Erin and Cole on graduation day

Cole and Jordan and their friends from Spokane who all graduated

Cole and Erin at In N' Out

Cousins and spouses(and Grant)

At In N' Out

We got to see Scott and Sean while we were in Utah too

Even though the surprise didn't go quite as we had planned, it was still great and my parents were TOTALLY shocked to see us. We had planned on being in their hotel room and recording the whole surprise, but our timing was off and they walked in the front door of the hotel while I was getting their room key at the front desk. Still a good surprise.

Hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa the night of the surprise. Grandma was on the phone calling all her friends to tell them about us coming.

We got to go swimming at the hotel which was fun. Here are Cole and Erin at the pool

Cute picture of Cole and Grant in the pool

We also had a chance to meet up with Cameron's best "bud" Kory while we were there. It was good to see Melanie, Jayden and Jeric too!

After being in Utah for four days, we loaded up in the car on Saturday to head for Spokane with my parents. Grant was SUCH a trooper on the 12 hour drive. It was probably even longer than that since we stopped in Rexburg for a bit to see my sister Paige.

Grant in the car on the way to Spokane

Grant and Aunt Paige in Rexburg

Standing in front of the same sign where we took our graduation announcement pictures -only this time we have added Grant to the picture (:

When we were deciding where to go to lunch in Rexburg I immediately knew I HAD to go to the taco bus(not the actual name, but that's what we call it). I got addicted to their AMAZING chicken tacos during our last two semesters there(thanks Kristen!) and had been wanting them SO bad(I think that was my only legitimate craving while pregnant)

Me and my tacos (:

When we got to Spokane, we were able to meet up with Cameron's other best "bud" and hang out for a little while with our families. Here is Jon holding Grant and Cameron holding Sadie. Sadie and Grant are just 2 1/2 months apart

Aunt Brooke played a lot with Grant... and in this picture i'm not sure who is having more fun with the baby toys!

Uncle Scott and Grant

Grant really liked his uncles. Here is Grant and Sean. I love this picture of them!

Playing the piano with Grammy

Getting read to by Grandpa Clint at Great Grandma Margaret's house

And saying goodbye to Grandma Kim the night before we had to fly back to Cleveland.

He was so tuckered out from all the festivities of the day, that he fell asleep right on Cameron's shoulders!

Grandpa reading to Grant

Grammy and Grant- he loved the book they bought for him!

Great Grandma Dagnon drove up to see us in Spokane. It was really good to see her.

Great Grandma Margaret. I took a cute video of them together and Grant snuggles right up to her.

Cameron and his brothers

The tradition continues... Great Grandpa Green is known for balancing kids on their feet. He tried with Grant at Christmas, but it didn't quite work. It was a little better this time, but I love how Grant is looking at us a little nervously.

Easter Sunday

Easter dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Green's.

Grant did great on the way home and slept most of the time on both flights.

These are from a while before the trip, but I just had to document how he is already getting into everything and he isn't even crawling yet! oh boy...

He's also started to pull himself up on his crib

Just a cute one from after church this past Sunday.

This was my mother's day loot. Cameron had to work the night before so he felt bad he couldn't do breakfast in bed or anything on my first official Mother's day, but he definitely made up for it by getting me a bouquet of flowers AND some delicious fruit! It was awesome. This is what was waiting for me on the table after Grant and I got back from church.

This is a bad, blurry picture, but if you really look you can see that Grant now has two teeth on the bottom. It was a rough couple of days(and nights), but he is feeling much better now. I will take a better picture soon since you really can't even tell in this picture and they weren't even all the way in yet in this one either.

I love this picture. Even though it's dark and blurry. Cameron took this picture when he came home one morning after he had been at work all night and Grant had had an especially rough night with his teeth. He has NEVER slept in our bed, and I don't think he would ever do it under normal circumstances(he would never lay down, he would just think it was a big party and be more awake, plus I could never sleep with him by me anyway), but this night he really didn't feel good and would sleep as long as I would stand by his crib so he could see me at ALL time. It was kinda cute. He would fall asleep finally, and then wake up every so often to look for me and make sure I was still there, and when he saw I was there he would fall back asleep. BUT since I was getting NO sleep standing next to his crib, I decided to TRY bringing into bed with me. At first he had no idea what was going on, but then he just laid down on me and slept for a good two hours till the morning. It was nice to at least get those couple hours in with no luck the rest of the night.

Grant had his 9 month doctors visit yesterday and everything was great. No shots this time, which was nice. Here are his stats:

weight- 23 lbs 7 oz (84th percentile)

height- 28.75 in (51st percentile)

All the ladies at the front desk know Grant by name and the second we walk in the door until we leave they are trying to get him to smile and laugh. I don't know what it is about the dr. office, but he can be in the best mood and laughing and smiling all day and as soon as we walk through those doors he is Mr. Serious. His dr. was so excited because she said she got 3 smiles out of him during this visit. We told them we would bring in pictures to prove that he really is happy and smiley MOST of the time.

I Just thought I would do a little update with what we have been up to in the past month. We have had a semi-boring month except for the fun and exciting visit from family.

First off was Valentine's Day. Grant had the most fun out of all three of us since he got TWO packages in the mail from Grandparents and Great Grandparents. He enjoyed opening them and finding the fun surprises inside. Cameron and I are still waiting to go on our Valentine's date since Cameron had to work every night that week... We decided we needed to do a makeup date from our anniversary as well, since I was sick and pretty much ruined that date night too.

Here he is waiting to open the packages.

After "reading" the card for a second, he decided it was better to just eat it (:

SO excited playing with the new teddy bear!

There were a few nicER days this month, so Grant and I decided to go for a run outside on one of those days. We got to the turn around point and Grant decided he didn't want to be in the stroller anymore, so here we are walking for a bit.

ummm... just a cute pic of Grant, why not?

We have spent many days hanging out with these girls (and their mom). It has been a LIFESAVER having them to hang out with on these LONG days of being trapped inside(although I am sure we will hang out just as much when it gets nicer). Here are the kids playing in the princess tent (:

Hanging out watching a movie. Grant LOVES Jenna. You can see the excitement on his face that we let him be a big boy and sit on the couch next to her. (:

All three of us came down with colds at one point this month. Cameron's was done and over with before Grant and I got sick. Here we are hanging out reading books in our pj's and in bed on one of the worse days.

Grant loves my hospital water bottle. He found it one morning when I was making his breakfast and started trying to drink out of it. Now his favorite toy is the straw from it.

Here are a few random pictures from several weeks ago. I had several requests from grandmas to take some new pictures, so here is our impromptu photo shoot.

this one is hilarious... he just can't contain his excitement/happiness sometimes

He took this one himself...obviously

Another random cute picture

The highlight of the month was definitely having Tyler, Nicole and Katelyn come and visit us from Boston for a week. We spent lots of time just hanging out and hiding out from the cold, but we did manage to brave the weather a few times to do some fun things.

Katelyn enjoyed putting Cameron's hat on Grant

Grant dodging Katelyn's kisses

Another one of Grant in Cameron's hat

lunch break between sights in Kirtland

We went to a little nature park/science center that was free(best part) and some cool animals for the kids(and us) to look at. Here are Tyler and Katelyn crawling through a tree trunk

Katelyn checking out the turtles

Cameron showing Grant the snakes

Outside there was some deer,bald eagles, skunks, foxes, geese etc.

not sure what was going on here, but this was just one morning right after we all woke up.

We went to the pool one day as well and that was fun. It was Grant's first time in a pool and I think he really liked it.

Here is Cameron showing him how to float

Big smile

Tyler, Katelyn and Nicole

on dad's back

Bath time- haha, just had to throw this picture in there. I'm sure later in life they will both be so happy that this picture was up on here for everyone to see.

Grant thought Katelyn's splashing was hilarious

I love this picture... He has recently learned how to say "DADADA!" and "MAMAMA!", he has no idea what they mean, but he says them all the time. This was him right before church last Sunday. He is right in the middle of saying DADA! So cute-if I do say so myself (: