Christmas Summary

Normally I would take the time to put all of these pictures in chronological order, write some descriptive comment by each one, tell the whole long and detailed story of whatever I am updating about and, in the end, have a very nice post to add to our blog to be printed and added to our "blog journals", but I just don't want to take the time to do that this time. Updating the blog has been on my "to do" list for a LONG time and I just want to have it done so I can look back and remember Grant's first Christmas, (I know, bad mom who chooses to not do her son's first Christmas the justice it deserves in the memory books). So here is a QUICK summary of our Christmas and lots of pictures:

We flew out on December 22nd to go home to Spokane for Christmas. Grant was really good on both flights, even though he was super tired once we finally got to Spokane. He LOVED all the family and ALL the attention he got while we were there. He got some great new toys and books from his grandparents and got to meet some family that he had never met before. Cameron stayed for a week and then had to go back to work. Grant and I stayed an extra two weeks and had fun just hanging out. Grant made 2 trips to Pennys for pictures and we got some really cute ones of him and our family. I think it's illegal, but I am going to scan them in here and put them up when I get all of them. Both the Lovingers and the Skeltons had the flu going around and even though we tried REALLY hard not to get it, Grant and I both still ended up getting it too, but really not that bad. Our 3rd wedding anniversary was on December 28th and we didn't do too much because that was the day that I got sick. We did go see Harry Potter and went to my favorite restaurant in Spokane, but I couldn't eat anything since my stomach was not doing so well. We will try to plan a "re-do" anniversary date sometime soon. Grant and I flew back on January 8th. I was really nervous to so the long flight by myself, especially with Grant and I still not feeling good, but Grant did AWESOME. I seriously couldn't have asked for anything better. The flight attendants loved him as usual and we were both very happy to get back to our house and see daddy again! Overall, it was a great Christmas and it was so fun to be home and with family.

So in no particular order, here are the pictures from the trip.

ok,I lied. I just have to put how much I LOVE this picture. Grant LOVED his Great Grandma Margaret and she LOVED him just as much.

Lied again... this was me trying to recreate the Tom Cruise "Risky Business" dance scene.

lie #3... This picture was taken just before we left for Christmas. I had to document some of the fun "man dates" that Cameron and our friend/downstairs neighbor Jake have been doing. This particular night they were enjoying some root beer and watching a movie. We LOVE having friends literally 10 feet away(if that).

These are some funny videos. One of Grant's new talents is blowing raspberries. If you do it to him, he will do it back, and sometimes we just hear him doing it for fun. The other video is Cameron and Grant playing with a stocking stuffer that Grant got. I think he was a little tired because he usually doesn't laugh quite this hard at things.

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.