Happy Birthday Grayson!

 I can't believe my "baby" is 2 already!!  Grayson's birthday was yesterday, the 26th, and he had a very fun day!  Last year we were in Arizona and didn't have any family to celebrate with, however we had wonderful friends able to share in his birthday.  This year, my parents were visiting so he woke up on the morning of his birthday with a present to open.  He was very excited about the trucks and "helped" Grandpa Sand put together the road for them to run on.  However, the road is put together with links and he quickly figured out how to take them apart.  Not sure Grandpa would say he was a help because of it. :)  He was very excited to go to the store that morning to pick out his Elmo birthday balloon and after practicing throughout the day, he will now say "two" when you ask him how old he is.  

I was very thankful to have my parents here this year for Grayson's birthday because it allowed me to get some things ready for his little party that evening.  While Grandma and Grandpa took Grayson to the park to play before lunch, I was able to work on his birthday cake and get it decorated.  When he got home and stood on the chair to see what I was doing on the counter, I got a huge grin because he saw his "Cars" cake. :)  Made the headache of the cake experience worth it to see how excited he was about it!

We were also blessed to be able to have Will's Uncle Lou and Aunt Jayne come up from Jekyll Island to celebrate with us!  They brought Grayson some puzzles for his birthday and he got to impress them with his skills at mastering puzzles. :)  He loved the "Wee-Wee" puzzle that had a fire truck, police car, and ambulance that made sounds and had lights!  However, when he woke up this morning and started doing the puzzle, he freaked out and ran away crying when it started making noise.  

My friend Mel, and her two little girls, Shelby and Harley, came to celebrate Grayson's birthday as well.  And Will's friend, Jake, who celebrated Christmas with us this year came too.  Grayson LOVES Jake!  Probably because Jake seems to bring him a cookie and a cool present when he comes!  After dinner, Grayson had a grand time opening the rest of his presents!  Of course Shelby and Harley wanted to help him open some, and poor Shelby (who is just a few months younger than Grayson) wanted so badly for the presents to be hers. :)  

I made a "Cars" cake for him this year since he LOVES the movie and anything he sees with the cars.  Any time he sees the movie at the library he always wants to get it and then he'll ask to watch it every day.  Of course when he watches it, he'll only sit through about 30 min of it at a time, but could care less if he watched the same part over each time!  Rather than trying to build a car out of cake like I had with his train last year, I borrowed an idea from a friend and put some cars characters on top of his cake.  The cake was quite the ordeal and there's no way I would have gotten it done had my parents not been here!  There were 3 trips to the store on Weds in order to get two layers of cake made after a failed attempt at making a cake from scratch that morning.  Then the strawberry filling recipe I found in Real Simple ended up being very runny so my mom tried to thicken it with corn starch that night to see if it would work.  Thurs morning I decided to throw out the strawberry filling idea and just went with cream cheese frosting and sliced strawberries for the layer.  The decorating ended up being the easiest part out of the whole cake experience and I was able to get that done only because my parents were here to keep Grayson entertained!  Despite the headache of it, everyone thought it was delicious and best of all Grayson loved his Cars cake!  Will took the leftover cake to work this morning and said it was a big hit among his co-workers, even at 8:30 in the morning. :)  

This morning Grayson was excited to come downstairs to play with his new toys. His favorite is probably his "Tow-Mater" truck from Jake!  He waited all day for Daddy to get home so he could put the bubbles in it and take it outside!  They are currently outside trying it out!  Mommy raided her teaching supplies as well for some of his birthday presents and he had a fun time sorting his new bugs by color.  It took a few times modeling how to sort them, but he quickly got the hang of it and started sorting the bugs on his own!  He's doing great with colors too now and would say the colors of the bug he was sorting correct probably 80% of the time!

Grayson had a fun birthday and we wish we were able to share the experience with more family and friends!  Hopefully, through the blog you were able to feel that you were there with us celebrating!  Happy birthday to my little boy!!!

Getting bigger every day!

Ryley will be 4 weeks tomorrow!  I can't believe how old he is already!  He is getting stronger every day with holding his head up and still an easy baby most of the time.  Of course his fussy time is typically evening right when Will and I are ready to go to bed!  His mommy is hoping that he'll start to go longer stretches soon at night with eating so she can get some more sleep, but is thankful he's not a baby that has his nights and days mixed up and wants to be awake all night!  He'll just wake up to eat then typically go right back to sleep. :)  For now, my mom is still here to help until Weds. and my dad flew in as well a couple days ago.  It's nice for the extra help during the day!  We'll see how well laundry and dishes get done once she leaves! :)  

Grayson is still doing well adjusting to life with a baby around.  We've noticed only some small changes in him as far as being very clingy to us and not wanting to leave our sides at times.  He doesn't get upset with Ryley though and is becoming more gentle with him.  He loves to give his baby brother hugs and kisses as well. :)  Grayson also loves to "help" us by throwing away "stinky wet" (as he calls them) diapers for us and getting Ryley's blanket, burp cloth, or binky when we need them.

Grayson or Ryley??

People have been asking if Ryley looks like Grayson.  Grayson was a little bit smaller in weight than Ryley at 2 weeks, due mostly to the fact that he lost almost a lb in the hospital after birth from the cleft palate issue.  They're both close in height, and Ryley has a little more hair than Grayson did and it's a little bit darker, but not much.  I put some pictures of Grayson and Ryley at right about the same weeks in age.  The first two are Grayson and the last are of Ryley.  Do you think they look alike?  Or can you tell the difference in them?  It'll be interesting to watch Ryley grow and see if he continues to change or look more similar to his big brother.  :)

Ryley...2 weeks old!

It's amazing how fast time goes!  I can't believe it's already been 2 weeks since Ryley was born!  Of course, having two kids is definitely more time consuming than just one and I'm realizing I haven't posted pictures like I said I would!  I'm determined not to become one of those parents that has a MILLION pictures of the first born and only a handful of any kids after that!  Here are some pictures from the last couple weeks with Ryley, as well as Grayson!  

I turned the big 3-0 on the 12th.  It happened to be the first day alone with the boys since Will had to go to work and my mom flew in that night.  Will got me a cake and he and Grayson sang "happy birthday" after dinner that night while Ryley slept in his bouncy seat.  

Grandma Sand is now here for a couple weeks and Grayson is loving having "Papa" here!  Our goal by the end of her visit is to get him to stop calling her "papa" :)

Grayson has found it fun to sit in Ryley's bouncy seat and tip backwards since he's so heavy.  At least he's only tried to climb in Ryley's swing once!  

Ryley had his 2 wk appt today.  He's 9 pounds now and almost 21 inches long!  I'm guessing they didn't get a good measurement when he was born for height since they measured him at 18.5 inches.  I find it hard to believe he's grown over 2 inches in 2 weeks!  He's doing well though and so far has been an easier baby than Grayson was with sleeping (knock on wood!).  Hopefully it stays that way and continues to get even better at night!!  

Dancing with cousin Addie

My sister, Laura, and her daughter, Addie, came to visit for a week after Christmas.  Grayson and Addie had fun dancing together.  This video was taken a day or two before Ryley decided to join us!  

Christmas Morning

I finally got around to downloading video from Christmas.  Here is Grayson on Christmas morning.  

Aunt Laura and Addie Visit

My sister, Laura, and her daughter, Addie, came to visit for a week after Christmas.  They got here on the 27th from Ohio and stayed until the 1st.  Of course their visit seemed too short to me since we ended up having Ryley while they were here so I felt like I only got to spend the first couple days with them and then I was either preoccupied with contractions or in the hospital for the rest.  :(  In the first couple days they were here however, we did manage to have some fun around town.  We found our new favorite ice cream shop with them, and had fun playing at the park.  

Addie reading "Tickle Monster" with Uncle Will

 The winter here in Savannah, feels more like fall to me.  It had a crisp fall breeze part of the time they were visiting and finally trees are starting to loose more leaves.  This meant lots of leaves to play in at the park!  First though, Grayson had to do his favorite thing with Addie and feed the ducks. :)  

Afterwards, as we headed back to the playground the kids found the big piles of leaves and played in those for a long time.  Grayson found it lots of fun to play with Addie and would try to do everything she was doing. He loved trying to throw them high in the air like her and would fall down into the leaves when she did.  Eventually, he found a bench and had fun putting one leaf at a time through a crack in the bench.  He also had fun tackling Aunt Laura.  I guess this was just the first of multiple trips to the park for them since Laura had the kids on her own part of Friday and all of Saturday.  They ended up going to the park each day and having lots of fun again with the leaves.  In fact, when Will and I took Gray to the park this week, the first thing he said when we got there was "Addie??  Where she go??"  Too bad they don't live closer for us to see them more often!  At least we're within driving distance now!

One of the last evenings that I spent with them, Addie, Grayson and Will had a tea party.  Addie had brought her new tea set mat that she got for Christmas and Grayson had fun pretending to drink and giving Daddy a drink.  

Later on, Grayson showed us his dance moves and then Grayson gave Daddy a horsey ride while Addie rode on Will. :)

It was wonderful to have my sister and niece here for the week, I just wish I could have spent more of it with them!  It was great timing for her to meet little Ryley though before she had to leave.  Grayson loved playing with his cousin as well and still talks about her when we do something that he had done with Addie last week.  Hopefully we get to see them again soon!