Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Solitude is...

a quiet moment cuddling with my little one. 

It's 9:45.  The dishes are done.  The toys are picked up.  I've showered for the day.  Leon is finally in bed.  All I have left to do is love on my Grady and remember how fast he's growing.  Quiet moments like this are few and far between these days with how busy and crazy life has been.

A few of my photography friends and I decided to take on a photo challenge for the year.  We've called it 12 for 2012.  Each month we pick a theme and a technique to explore to go with it.  We also promised each other that we'd challenge ourselves to do more self portraits.  This month's theme was "Solitude is..." and the techinque was "embrace the grain".

Monday, January 23, 2012

Life Recently

Oh man.  I wish I had more time to blog.  I always have cute things to post about and the best of intentions of doing it, but it never happens.  Life around here has been a little crazy.  I never realized how much busier I'd be by adding another munchkin into the mix.  I really should be doing something else - one of the million things on my list, but I thought I'd do just a quick post about life recently for us instead.

Kyle passed his last actuarial exam!  Hooray!  We're so happy.  We found out about a week ago.  However, Kyle had to start studying for the next one.  But there's only one more!  One more and he'll be done.  Life will be glorious again and I'll have a husband again. 

Leon is so funny.  Today, he wanted to color.  He colored one little thing and then asked me to finish it.  He just sat there and watched me and then said "Good job, mommy."

It is also Day 3 of Leon's potty training.  Yesterday, it took every ounce of will power to not put him back in a diaper.  It still hasn't clicked with him yet, but I can tell we're getting close.  I've bribed him, squealed like you wouldn't believe when he does go, and done just about everything I can think of to help the process.  The problem is that he won't tell me he needs to go before he goes.  He'll start going and then say "uh-oh.  potty."  So, we just have to get him to understand that he has to listen to his body and go pee and poopy in the potty chair.  

I'm ready to start doing some portraits again.  However, I'm not sure where to begin here.  I don't have time to do a lot of editing.  The weather is disgusting so I'm limited in that area.   I still haven't found a lot of great locations here and I don't have the time or means to go exploring right now (you know, because I have a toddler and a 2 month old)  This part of life makes me REALLY miss Lafayette. 

Grady is sleeping great and I'm so thankful for it!  He gets up 1-2 times to eat but always goes right back to sleep.  He's got the sweetest smile.  He loves to watch me.  He loves to gaze into my eyes and it's so sweet and sincere when he does it.  Here's some pics of him sleeping with Kyle:


We've been trying to think of ways to revamp our evenings.  We've been in kind of a rough rut of doing nothing and feeling blahish.  Kyle and I are usually so dead by the evening that we eat dinner and just watch TV or cartoons (so we don't have to mess with Leon).  It's terrible.  We're going to start exercising... hopefully.  We've been trying to bust out the games.   We also thought we'd start doing some ABC and counting things with Leon.  Do any of you have fun things you do as a family in the evenings - on just a typical week night? 

We'll Grady just woke up, but there's a few of the billion things floating around in this head of mine to tell you all about.  Hopefully, I'll get better about blogging.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Christmas

On Christmas Eve, we had our tradtional fancy dinner.  This year we grilled ribs and shrimp and made yummy virgin pina coladas. We made then made cookies for santa, watched Polar Express, and then told the nativity story using our new Little People nativity.  It was a good evening!

Grady being mezmorized by the Christmas lights.

Leon's card to Santa:

Sneaking one of Santa's cookies:

Later on Christmas morning:


It was a good one!

Friday, January 6, 2012

Family Resemblance


I didn't see it at first - not until my sister-in-law said something, but my little Grady looks so much like my dad.  He's got the same forehead, hairline, nose, eyes, and well, so many other things.  Having these pics side by side makes me realize it so much more.  Right now, Grady's pretty dark complected - brown eyes, dark hair, even more olivie skin - just like my dad.  I'd been wondering where on earth that came from.  I hope he stays this way.  My dad was one cute kid.  I wish I had some scanned pics to show, but I don't.

Now, we just have to wait and see if he can give that "Kirk look" that my dad is so infamous for giving ;)

hip-hip-horaay!

Leon grew!

My little guy is now wearing 24 month/2T clothes!  That big container is full of 18 month clothes (from every season) that I decided to keep for Grady and the trash bag is full of 18 month clothes to donate.

I can't believe how big he's getting.  I'm even looking for preschools for next fall.  And next week, we start potty training!  I love watching him grow and learn.  He's such a fun kid - so easy to love.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Grady's Quilt

About a week before Grady was born I finished his quilt.  This is my first real quilt and I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.  There's definetly lots of flaws, lots of things I should have done better.  However, I love the homemade look that is has because of all of those flaws.  I did most of it without any help - just using books and online tutorials.  I learned so much.  I really enjoyed doing it and can't wait to have the time to start on another!

Here's a couple more photos:

Grady's room is almost done.  I still have a few more things to do and then I'll post pics. 
 I can't wait to share because it's looking really cute.


Also, Mr G is smiling!  Melts my heart.