Four Day Weekends

I live for long weekends. I LOVE long weekends. Even more now that I can spend them with Grevin! We had another fun filled weekend, thankfully the sun was shining and we got to spend alot of it outside. This is going to be a long post....


Friday morning, Grevin and I headed to Petaluma to get his first real haircut. We had it trimmed back in October and we were way over due for a real haircut. We went to Lions, Tigers, and Hair! and the owner, Chris, cut his hair.  The salon is so cute-they have tons of toys and Grevin didn't want to leave.

Before

During

After

After we left there, we head to the Parish's to hang out with Tanya and Anouk.  Anouk was her cute, sweet self like usual:)

The Parish family were headed to Stockton for a soccer tournament for the weekend so we watched their dog, Bruno, for them.  Grevin loved playing ball with him and chasing him around the house.  When I would sit down to nurse Grey, Bruno would come sit on him!

On Saturday, we had pictures taken for Grevin's first birthday along with a couple of family shots.  These are just a couple of them, there will be more to come.  I LOVE THEM!

 

Sunday, was Valentine's Day.  Grevin was up around 6 am like usual so Zippy got up with him and let me sleep in (this is seriously the best gift ever).  They woke me up a few hours later with a single red rose before heading off to Bruno's on 4th for a yummy brunch.  I had a dungeoness crab and brie omelette.  YUM!  After that, we headed out to Jack London Park for a hike.  It was a little muddy but so pretty out there.

Brunch

Jack London

Monday morning, we headed out for a bike ride.  We want to ride out to Sebastopol this summer so we decided to check out how to get to the Joe Rodata trail that runs from Santa Rosa to Sebastopol.  We rode all the way out to Fulton Rd and decided to head back so Zippy could go to work for a couple of hours.  Needless to say, the bike ride was a hard one for Grevin!

A bright, bright sunshiny day!

Finally, the sun is out, the rain has stopped! Thursday, I met Grammie and Grevin at the park.

Check out this video. Now remember, Grevin stays home with Grammie and isn't really spending alot of time with other kids. Plus, there were no other kids there at the park doing this. It must be an instinctual boy thing!

Eating with a spoon

Grevin thinks he is ready to eat with a spoon by himself. I am not sure if I am ready though!
(just ignore that he is eating straight out of the cottage cheese container. No dishwasher means less dishes the better!!)

Sushi

Every month on Grevin's "birthday" we go to a new sushi restaurant in Sonoma County. This time he was able to enjoy it with us! It was a sweet potato and avocado roll-yum,yum!

11 months

Dear Grevin,
This month has been great and full of lots of laughs-especially from you! You have decided you are a comedian. You like to do silly things to make us laugh. Just little things here and there: like when you say you are "all done" with dinner and you help me take the tray off of your high chair. You like to push it and then pull it back a little and you think it is SOOO funny; like when you mimic us...."ummm" and start doing that infectious belly laugh; when you try to tickle us, splash in the tub,  when you try to find everyone's belly button...the list goes on. I love that you are so happy and that you find the world around you so much fun.

Something else that I have noticed this month, nothing seems to scare you. You love new things, new surroundings, new people.  Even though nothing seems to scare you, you do not seem to be pushing the limits to where you are constantly injuring yourself, falling off things, etc. It seems to be a perfect balance so far. (daddy says I am jinxing us by saying this...!)

You are much more aware of how others are feeling and when you are "in trouble." We were reading a pop up book and you started to tear one of the pop ups...and I told you that you can't tear it up. You burst into tears, burying your head in my chest. Needless to say, you don't pull as hard anymore! One morning, we were cuddling in bed and you were pinching daddy and me. I said you can't do that because it hurts and you would have thought we had beat you with a stick! Then another time you accidentally hit daddy in the face with a hard ball and it really hurt him-he said ouch and put his hands up to where it hurt-and you proceeded to burst into tears and just wanted to cuddle with him...you would have thought it was YOU who had gotten hurt!!

You have become book obsessed (maybe because you actually got to spend time with your Auntie this month?). The second you wake up, you look at your bookshelf and start signing book. If you find one on the floor, you bring it over to me. You have about 4 or 5 books you absolutely love and if it isn't one of those, you can usually make it about 15 seconds before going on to something else. 

You are also taking a few "steps". I don't know if I can call them your first steps though because usually it consists of you flinging your body to the next closest object. I think you just cross your fingers, say a little prayer and hope something will break your momentum as you take one or two steps before leaping onto the next person or closest piece of furniture. Everything has become a walker that isn't nailed to the ground-you will scoot anything around that you can-laundry baskets, suitcases, coolers, your play tables. You smile SO BIG as you scoot around the house.

You also love to be outside. You don't care if it is raining, if it is cold or if you don't even have socks on. You will actually cry when I shut the front door because you want to go outside so badly. I can't wait for the weather to get better because I really don't want to go sit out in the rain!! You have found our "rock" garden in the front yard and you love to pick up all the rocks, hit them together, throw them, and carry them into the house. Hopefully this rains stops soon and we can go back to spending all of our free time outside. You are going to LOVE the summer!

I can't believe the next letter I write to you will be for your FIRST birthday!  Where has the year gone??  I look forward to what this next month has in store for us. 

I love you through and through.
Mommy

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

Ummmm.....

Conversation from last night.

Zippy decided that he was going to go away for the weekend (earlier in the week, he didn't think he would be able to go). He came home last night and said he was going to go ahead and leave in a couple of hours. It didn't bother me that he was going, I just wished that I would have know ahead of time so I could figure out what I was going to do with Grevin. Here is our conversation:

Zippy: I am leaving for tahoe after the soccer game tonight.

Me (sarcastically): Ok. How is Grevin going to get to Grammy's in the morning? Did you just assume I was able to do it?

Zippy: Ummmmmm....

Grevin cracks up laughing....sort of like a " dad, I sooo want to see you get yourself out of this one!"

We both started cracking up. The rest of the night, anytime anyone asked a question, the other would respond with umm...and Grevin would do the great big belly laugh. Then he started doing ummm...to make us laugh.

I love that kid.

A few cute videos

Grevin wanted to show off all of his new tricks!

Watch out ladies, he has his dad's moves!

His first official word. If you ask him to say anything else, this is what he will say if he doesn't know the sign for it!

Tongue, ears, and nose

Lookin' Good!

Tahoe

I love the drive up to Tahoe when the roads are clear after a huge storm. I love seeing the snow piled up on the sides of the road, higher than the cars!

And I like a sleeping baby, too!

What a great weekend! We went to Tahoe with Grammy, Uncle Tyler, Rory, and Auntie Zephy. We rented a condo in Northstar, just a short distance from the village. When Zippy was little, his family used to do this every year for a week and we decided we needed to renew this tradition, even if it was just for a long weekend. The weeks leading up to our trip were full of storms that dumped 8 feet of snow. Luckily, the sun was shining and warm while we were there but there was plenty of snow to play in!

We had so much fun people watching by the firepits, skiing, playing in the snow, sledding, and enjoying playing games together and just hanging out.

The Condo

Grevin loved playing in the snow.

The Wings' condo was just up the pathway from our rented one so they decided to come up to Tahoe to play, too! Even Jared decided to make an appearance for a preview of what girls' weekend will be like this year in Tahoe (plus another two mobile babies!).

The boys are getting so big!

The boys with their daddies!

The big kids even got to play for awhile. Michelle, Brian, Zippy, and I got to go skiing while Grevin and Andrew watched Auntie Zephy and Grammy for us.

We even got to meet Dan Gordon from Gordon Biersch. He stopped Zippy and Brian because they were drinking Marzen.

Now, I am sure Grevin will hate me forever because I made wear tights. I kept telling him I would do it if we wouldn't keep his socks on but he just won't listen! Everyone teased him and I am sure he is scarred for life....but at least his toes stayed warm! It could have been worse, they could have pink butterflies on them!

It was such a great trip. I can't wait to do it again! Zippy says that next year, Grevin will be skiing with him :-)

A little video of Grevin laughing at Zippy.

Grey's Favorite Book

 Grevin is really getting into books lately. When we walk past his book shelf in his room, he starts doing the sign for "book" like crazy! If he sees a book in his reach, he will bring it over to me and crawl in my lap. He usually will only stay there for about a page for most books but at least he is actually letting me open them now. We used to sit down with a book and he would just want to open and close it. "I Love You Through and Through" is his absolute favorite book and will want to read it over and over. When we get to the point where it says we love his fingers, toes, eyes, nose, ears and hair, he likes to grab his toes and his ears. It is so cute.

Reading his favorite book

Here is his sign for book.  It looks a little like clapping but he definitely means book!

Signing

Grevin's signing vocabulary is EXPLODING. He reluctantly did "more" as his offical first sign and now will do "more food" anytime he sees anything he wants to eat. Luckily, it has gone beyond that. I think he is picking up about a word a day right now. Here is the list of words that he will sign:
eat
drink
more
all done
cat
dog
book
bird
ball
hat
fan
where?
brush teeth
again
milk
bath
cereal


He also understands the concept of signs and how a hand movement can communicate meaning. Unfortunately, he thinks he can communicate with me by just flapping his arms around! When he wakes up in the morning and I am changing his diaper, his hands go like crazy. I am not sure if he is cussing me out because he doesn't like it or if he is telling me how much he loves me.

I love signing with him, he gets the BIGGEST grin on his face when you understand what he is trying to communicate.  The problem is that most of the signs are done in front of your body with both hands with slight difference in how you move your hands and what you do with your fingers.  His dexterity just isn't there yet.  Luckily, he can grasp what he is trying to say by context. I guess it isn't that different though from learning to talk.  Like ba-ba could mean ball, bye, bottle depending on the context it is used. 

Here are a couple of signs that I got on video:

"DOG"



"CAT" (not the 'official' sign but his sign for it)