8 Months

Gray Man is 8 months old today!  This month has been an exciting one for us because Grayson has conquered some huge milestones.  Here are some things we noticed about him this month:

• Grayson weighs 20lbs, 2oz and he is 27.5" long.  He is definitely growing but we have noticed it is starting to taper off and not be so rapid.
• He is sitting on his own without any support and also able to sit up from lying down without any problems at all.
• Grayson has mastered the army crawl!  This boy is all over the place now.  We think he would prefer being on the move rather than staying in one place.  He still crawls on his belly using mostly his arms and his right leg to propel himself.  The left leg is more of an accessory that drags behind him.  
• Shortly after crawling, he started to pull himself up to stand.  He will grab his activity center or the couch and just stand right up.  Every now and then he uses his mouth for support.  It didn't take him long to figure out how to sit back down either.  It is pretty funny to turn on the video monitor and see him standing in his crib.
• He loves making different sounds but our favorite sounds he has made are "ma-ma" and "da-da".  He started saying "ma-ma" earlier this month and "da-da" just recently.  We don't think he knows those names are associated with us but hearing him make those sounds melts our hearts.
• Grayson's first tooth made an arrival!  We were very lucky that he didn't get too fussy during the process.  He had a couple of moments but nothing a little baby Tylenol or some Orajel couldn't fix.  We are definitely continuing to reinforce the "friends are not food" rule since his little mouth is now sporting a sharp weapon.
• He continues to be a good eater and seems to be enjoying solids.  He has cereal in the morning with his 11am bottle and some sort of veggie or meat with fruit at dinner.  So far we have not found anything this boy doesn't like. 
• Due to his new found mobility, we have been teaching him the word "no".  Outlet covers are on and cabinet locks are being installed this weekend.  Although safety measures are in place, little man loves to crawl over to an outlet and reach out.  We tell him "no", he stops and turns to look at us with the most devilish smile and starts to laugh.  It may be a game to him, but eventually he will realize we mean business.  :)
• Grayson loves to swim.  We have taken him to the pool a couple of times and held him out in front of us so his body can float.  He immediately starts to kick and giggle.  I love that he is so comfortable in the water and can't wait to get him in classes so he can learn how to swim and be safe.  
• He is still wearing size 3 diapers.
• He is wearing some 6 month clothes but alot more 9 month and even 12 month clothes.  
• Grayson is sleeping 10-11 hours at night.  One thing we love about him is that when he wakes up, he just sits up in his crib and plays with his taggy blanket, schnoolie, giraffe or jelly cat.  He doesn't cry or scream out for us, he just happily plays until we come get him.  

Everyday we are thankful for this bundle of joy in our lives and can't get enough of him!

First Tooth!

Standing like a big boy!

Daddy's idea of fun

Little Man got a few new toys.  This is a workbench
that makes sounds and lights up.

Grayson's Father's Day gift to Shane that he made at daycare.
I thought it was funny...that face cracks me up!

Below are a couple of videos showing Gray on the move and standing up.

Brooke

On a different tangent, my "little" cousin, Brooke, graduated from high school a couple of weeks ago.  She asked me to take some senior pictures for her so she could send out graduation announcements.  The only time we could connect was a hot and sunny afternoon.  I had to battle with the sun alittle but I was able to capture some good pictures of her before she heads off to college.  I love this girl so much and have been part of her life since she was born.  I am so proud to see what a beautiful woman she has become.

Start of Summer

This year seems to be flying by for us.  Shane's already out of school, I'm up to my ears in pool stuff and little man is almost 8 months old!  I don't want to post too many things about his latest accomplishments (there are alot) because I want to save them for his 8 month update in a couple of weeks.  For now I will just give a recap of the last couple of weeks.

We had an all-cousin slumber party on June 8 while my brother and sister-in-law went out with some friends for the night.  Aaron and Andrew really seem to love Grayson and as you can tell in the photos, Grayson seems to love them, too!  I was pretty worn out from working a swim meet all day so the boys just hung out and watched a couple of movies that night and I went to bed early.  Saturday morning Uncle Nay-Nay (aka Shane) got up and made pancakes for everyone.  I can't wait for when Grayson is alittle older and he can really play with them!

Aaron, Grayson and Andrew

Uncle Nay Nay figuring out what 3 boys would be like. 

This weekend Shane and I headed down to the lake to get away for a couple of days.  We had not been down there since the end of December so we figured now was as good a time as any.  Thursday we drove down and just spent some time around the house.  On Friday we drove over to Crockett to spend the day with my friend Nikki and her family.  Her parents have a house there and her dad is home from Russia (he lives there 9 months out of the year) so she flew in from Miami to see him.  It also gave us an opportunity to meet Payton and introduce Grayson to his possible future wife.  :)  We hung out at their house all afternoon talking and playing with our babies.  It was so good to see all of them and makes me wish she lived closer.  Saturday we spent more time relaxing around the house.  Shane borrowed a neighbors kayak and went out on the lake for alittle while.  We put a baby pool on my parents deck so Gray could splash around and he went on his first tractor ride with Grandpa!  My dad has a photo with each of the grandsons on the tractor so now it was Grayson's turn.  I packed his nicest overalls for this occasion.  It was cool that evening so we took the golf cart out to look for some deer and meet/visit with some of my parents neighbors.  It was a great weekend and I am glad we were able to get away. 

My little gentleman trying to hold Payton's hand.  :)

Our babies are just 4 months apart.

Cuddling with little Payton.  She's just as chill as Grayson.

Taking a nap on daddy's knee

The lake is exhausting.

Pool Time!

Mean muggin' his momma

This photo captures his laugh exactly.  

Chillin in his tea cup adirondack chair.

Driving the tractor with Grandpa!  He loved the knob on the
steering wheel.

Driving the golf cart.  Eyes on the road, Grayson!

I also want to take a second to acknowledge one of the greatest father's on the planet!  Shane is such a great dad and Grayson is super lucky to have him as a dad.  I always knew Shane would be great with kids as I watched him interact with my nephews, but I never truly knew how he would fit into that "father" role until I saw him with Gray.  I wanted to get him something special for father's day.  The week after Buckley passed I emailed a girl that did a portrait of my friend Courtney's boxer to see if she would draw one of Buckley.  She agreed so I sent her a bunch of pictures of him and she began working on the drawing.  A few weeks later she called me to tell me it was ready so I met up with her to get it.  As soon as she showed it to me, I cried.  She captured Buckley perfectly.  His eyes, his smile and his personality were all portrayed in this simple pencil drawing.  I had it matted and framed then gave it to Shane late last week (I couldn't wait because I was so excited to show it to him).  We have it hung up in our bedroom to always remind us of our little Buckley!

Buckley's Portrait

The final product

Not only was it father's day yesterday, but it was also our 7 year anniversary!  Neither one of us could really think of anything we wanted/needed so we are planning to spend the day together on Friday.  Maybe lunch, a movie, shopping...who knows.  Just spending time together is all we really need to celebrate.  Love you, Shane!!

Look Who's on the Move

Grayson is officially on the move!  He has been showing signs that he was ready to crawl for about a week and this weekend he made it happen.  It's not completely coordinated/crawling on the knees, but he is capable of moving and no longer staying in one spot.  Here is a short video of how he is managing to get around.

He has also said his first word!  I know it isn't directed towards me, but "ma-ma" is coming out of his mouth! It is probably the word he says most often next to "ba-ba".  I love hearing him say "ma-ma" more than anything though.  :)

7 Months

How can it be that our little man is already 7 months old?!  I'm not sure if it is because work has been so busy, but I feel like this last month flew by too quickly.  Here are some things we noticed about Gray this month:

• He started eating solid foods.  We started him on rice cereal for a week and he did fairly well with it.  We then moved on to oatmeal cereal and he seemed to like it alot more.  After a couple of weeks, we then incorporated some veggies into his diet starting with sweet potatoes and now carrots.  He eats oatmeal at school with his 11am bottle then has a veggie at night with his 6:45pm bottle.  He does a great job leaning forward and opening wide for the spoon.
• Grayson has been sitting up on his own for a couple of weeks now and doing really well.  He still topples over from time to time when he's reaching for a toy or just wants to collapse on his boppy out of pure joy.  It's so fun to see him sitting on the floor happily playing with toys while Shane and I make dinner or sit down on the floor with him.
• He is not far from crawling.  Grayson can get up on his knees and rock back and forth then push off with his feet.  There are no coordinated movements but he still manages to make his way around the living room.  
• He is starting to pull himself up on stuff.  Mostly when Shane and I are on the floor playing with him he likes to climb us but he seems to enjoy standing and putting weight on his legs.
• He is wearing size 3 diapers.
• He is in size 9 clothes, but still able to fit in a few 6 month outfits. 
• Grayson typically sleeps 10-11 hours at night.

As always he continues to be the happiest, sweetest and cutest baby ever!  I don't think I will ever get tired of hearing the ladies at daycare tell me how cute he is and how much they fight over who gets to feed him or snuggle with him when he's ready for his nap.  

This past weekend was pretty crazy.  The pool opened so I spent all day Saturday, Sunday and Monday working.  Shane's parents and grandmother came into town to see Grayson so he was home with them all weekend.  Unfortunately I was not able to get any pictures while they were here since I was not home that much this weekend.  They really seemed to enjoy seeing him and how much he has grown/changed since they last saw him in December.

I plan to be around the house more this weekend so hopefully I can get some more photos of him.  Here are just a few from this past week:

Someone loves to stick out their tongue now.

Rocking on his knees

He learned how to push the buttons and make his activity gym play music.

Standing like a big boy!

Natural Swimmer

Grayson went swimming for the first time this weekend!  I had a soft opening at the pool on Sunday so Shane brought him up to see all of my staff (the guards from last summer kept asking about him) and also put little man in the pool for the very first time.  Despite the 90 degree temperatures, the water was a chilly 75 degrees and the wind was blowing.  None the less, Gray really seemed to enjoy it once he got in and spent some time getting used to this new environment.  If you have never seen the pool, there is alot of spraying water, a big bucket that dumps 600 gallons of water every 5 minutes and other noises that can really distract the attention of a 6 month old.  After a few minutes in the water with daddy, and a couple of laps around the lazy river, he seemed to get the hang of it!  We're all signed up for Parent & Tot lessons in July but I plan to incorporate some private lessons into his weekly schedule once the pool opens during the week.  :)

I had just put his feet in for the first time and the wind
was blowing a cold mist from our trio.  I think he
was alittle cold at this point.

I love the pool (and drool)!

Clinging on to daddy....rather tightly

Naturally he loves the water!

Jessica is one of my pool managers, good friends, and
a big fan of Grayson's.  She just graduated from OSU and
bought Gray a shirt from her alma mater.  

Mother's Day Weekend

Despite having to work this weekend, I had a great first Mother's Day!

On Saturday I spent a majority of my day at the pool for guard orientation and training.  That evening we had my dad's family over to meet the newest member of the James/Doyle clan, baby Athan Thomas Doyle!  My cousin, Casey, has a son!  He was born on February 3 and he is absolutely precious!  Casey is still over in Japan but baby Athan and his mother, Erin, live up in Alexandria, Virginia so she came down to meet all of us and introduce us to little Athan.  Shane grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and we all just hung out at the house.  My parents, brother's family, aunt, uncle and other cousin were all together again and we had such a great time catching up and watching our two newest members meet one another and interact.  This was the first time many of them had met Grayson, too, so it was baby overload for everyone!  Casey and I are only 11 days apart so I am super excited that Grayson and Athan are just a few months apart.  I hope they can grow up together and be good friends.  My cousins are trying to convince me they are future Texas Tech roommates but I keep trying to tell them that we want Grayson to get a quality college education so he will most likely be about 500 miles southwest in College Station!  (Gig'em!)  We really had a great night and can't wait to see them all again.

Grayson (6 months) and Athan (3 months)

My cousin Brandi with her new nephew

My aunt Nancy and uncle Tommy

Erin and Athan

Erin holding both boys

Cousin kisses!

We are trying to each Grayson that "friends are not food".
Here he is wanting to put Athan's head in his mouth.
It looks like he is hoping to get permission to do so from one of us.

Our new favorite face.

Sunday morning Grayson must have wanted to wish me a "Happy Mother's Day" early because he was up at 6am ready to go!  At daycare he made me a tile with his footprint and a quote from Dr Seuss.  He also got me a laptop!  I'm not sure what sort of gambling ring he has going on at daycare that allowed him to buy me such an extravagant gift, but I have to hand it to him for being so resourceful at just 6 months.  :)  

Baby Gray's footprint tile

Me and my bubba

Sunday afternoon I had more training at the pool and then I took my cousin, Brooke, to get her first tattoo!  She has been bugging me to take her for years but she just turned 18 in October and I told her she could only get one with her father's permission. She finally convinced him to say yes so we made an appointment.

Since it was Mother's Day she wanted to get something for her mom to remember her by. Brooke was only 6 when Donna passed away so she has very small memories of her. She knew she always wanted a pink breast cancer ribbon on her foot but also thought it would be neat to get something in her mom's handwriting. We went through cards we had kept from her and I found two that had the words "I love you" on them. Donna had such pretty handwriting. 

The tattoo only took about 10 minutes but she squeezed my hand the entire time. I literally thought some of the fingers on my right hand were broken when she finally let go. :)  She did really well though and it looks so good!  I'm excited Brooke now has something she can look at everyday to remind her of her mom.  She is going to McNeese State in the fall to play soccer so I'm going to miss her!

I don't think he had started yet which is why she is smiling.  

Holding on for dear life!

This is on the outside of her right foot.  

Summer has officially began and my days are long and extremely busy!  I will do my best to post updates, but don't hold it against me if the blog is stagnant for a couple of weeks.  :)