9 Months

Grant turned 9 months old on January 5th! Life has been busy this month and he is now almost 10 months old, but oh well!

Grant you are a busy, busy boy and at 9 months you:

• Crawl everywhere, quickly
• Pull up on furniture and walk around things
• Can climb up the stairs, but don't try it too often
• Fall and hit your head most days
• Got your first salon haircut, your 4th haircut so far
• Sleep great at night usually 6:30-7:30 to around 7-7:30
• Nap well some days and not so great others, but still sleep twice a day for 30 minutes to an hour and a half
• Don't love to eat baby food and would rather eat what your sister is eating, but I'm not quite ready for that yet. You love ham and prefer fruit over vegetables
• You drink 4 bottles a day, a mix of mom's milk and formula and you will drink a little bit of water from a straw cup 
• You are in size 12 month clothes, 3 diapers and 3 shoes
• You are slowly getting over your separation anxiety
• Still adore your sister and smile and laugh at everything she says/does
• Did well with traveling over the holidays
• Love to play with the dogs so we have to watch you carefully with them
• Love to be outside, swing with Payton and ride in the stroller, you get mad when we come back inside!
• I think you say da-da on purpose when you see daddy, but no other real words yet
• You have a loud voice and like to show it off. 
• I think you understand when I tell you no, but you don't really care yet
• You are into anything and everything and put it all in your mouth
• You never stop moving, so every picture I have of you right now is blurry
• You are still sweet, cuddly, and love to be held

Christmas

 

It feels like Christmas was much longer then just a month ago! I'm behind once again, story of my life right now.  This year was an IL Christmas year, but travel didn't go quite as smoothly as we had hoped. We packed up the kids and headed to the airport the Thursday night before Christmas only to end up back home late that night due to a cancelled flight. It was a rough 5 hour airport visit as it was dinner/bedtime and we were stuck in DIA trying to figure out if we were going to make it out or not. We made the sad drive back to our house thinking there was a pretty good chance we weren't going at all as the weather in the Midwest caused all sorts of delays and cancellations and there didn't seem to be any open seats until Christmas Day or later. We were crushed and I am pretty sure Janaan would have been on her way to the airport if she didnt have Dick around to help keep her calm.

We came home to a dirty house (I had purposefully scheduled our cleaning lady to come a week later then usual, while we were gone, so we could come home to a clean house and yes I have a cleaning lady, don't judge me!), an empty fridge as we had planned to be gone for 10 days, not a thing purchased or prepared for Christmas/Santa as we were going to do that in IL. It was a sad day. We got some sleep, recharged, and thanks to uncle Kyle's endless searching found a couple of seats on a plane that was scheduled to head to IL from Denver on Sunday. Our trip got cut several days short which was a huge disappointment, but we did make it in time for Christmas and we made the best of our limited time.

On Christmas Eve we hung around the house, had a visit from little Reed and Marilu and celebrated with Kole's mom's side of the family. It was a wonderful, relaxing day/night.

Merry first Christmas sweet boy!!

The kids were of course spoiled by family and got lots of great gifts. Payton modeled her new princess dresses from Great Grandma and Aunt Suzie and clan, she got two of them! Kole's family always take time our of their lives to come and visit us when we are in town and we very much appreciate it. We love getting to spend time with them.

After everyone left we got ready for Santa to come. To be honest we almost forgot! Payton wasn't old enough to understand the last couple of years so this was our first year to write him a little letter and leave a snack for Santa and the reindeer.

I dressed the kids in matching Christmas PJs, I realized this may be the first and the last chance I had to do so without a fight so I took full advantage. It's not easy to find something that suits both a boy and a girl. I loved it and will always cherish looking at the pictures of my sweet, matching babes.

Santa was good to them! Payton had been saying for months all she wanted was a hippopotamus, and she got her wish! It was so fun to watch her run into the living room to see what Santa had brought. She was sad that Santa wasn't there. Apparently we never explained to her that we would come and go while she was sleeping and she wouldn't get to see him. Oops! She recovered quickly thankfully when we explained it to her.

The favorite gift of the day, Benny the Bull!

We opened presents, played with toys and lounged around for a bit before it was time to get ready for the Harms side of the family to come celebrate.

Grayson and Grant are only a few days a part in age and were really checking each other out

Janaan had prepared crafts for the kids to do, Payton had a great time painting frames and playing with her cousins

Family pictures just aren't easy right now

One of Kole's best friends and his wife and kids only live a couple hours away and stopped over to visit for the day on their way home from visiting family. Mckenna is about 6 months older then Payton and little Brooklynn is 3 months older then Grant so it was really neat to get together and let the kiddos play. Adam and Tracie are such great friends, it was so nice to spend time with them, we only wish we lived closer and could see them more often.

We came home the Friday after Christmas and were lucky enough to get to spend the day/night celebrating with my family as uncle Brian was in town. Do you think the kids got enough!? We are very thankful for having such loving, generous families, we love you all so very much!!

We hope all of our friends and family had a wonderful Christmas holiday!!

Cousins!

Payton and Grant are thrilled to announce that they are going to be cousins this summer!! Kelsey and Josh are expecting their first little one mid June and we are all thrilled! Kole and I can't wait to be Uncle and Aunt (it will be our turn to spoil and return!). Kelsey had a pretty rough start, but is feeling a little better now. Thankfully baby Mitchell is healthy and growing perfectly. We will find out soon whether they will be having a boy or a girl, but if you ask Payton her future cousin is little baby girl Luke. We have no idea where it's coming from, but she is adamant, lol!

Kels and Josh we are beyond excited for you to become parents, make us an Aunt and Uncle and add a precious little one to the family. We love you guys!!