Winter Activities

As we'll soon be able to say it's spring (even if it doesn't really feel like it), I thought it was about time that I posted some of my favorite pictures from winter. 

As the girls get older, they definitely enjoy spending time outside a lot more.  For whatever reason we didn't do nearly as much sledding this year, but the girls and Brian spent a lot of time building forts, tunnels, and igloos out in the yard.  Maybe this had something to do with the absolutely enormous piles of snow that we had at the ends of our driveway!  Seriously, those piles were (so glad I can now use past tense) taller than I making it ridiculously difficult to shovel. 

When it comes to outside adventure, Olivia is probably the bravest - but not by much.  Maybe she's been hardened by more recesses outside or something, but Olivia isn't nearly as troubled by cold and wet as Grace, and, for those of you who know Olivia and how sensitive she can get, this is actually surprising.  When it comes to sledding though, both get a bit nervous, but typically if we can just get them to try it once, we'll be good to go.  Both of the girls really wanted Grady to play outside with them throughout the winter and were disappointed when I said he couldn't...next year maybe!  Anyways, I'm glad it seems like we're able to get outside more with each winter...I hope that more playing and perhaps snow shoeing and cross country skiing will be in the eventual future!

Enjoy the collection of pictures - they make for a long post!

Set 1:  Sledding at Christmas with the Hoden family...this was before we had much snow - crazy that two feet of snow covered the ground for most of the winter after this!

Set 2:  Building snowmen with Auntie Thyme on a warm day shortly after Christmas.

 

Set 3:  Building an igloo with Daddy!  This was one of those days where Grace wimped out and came inside.  And, don't panic, the red splatter on the snow isn't blood - it's snow paint!  :)

Set 4:  A warm day after many, many, many cold ones filled with lots and lots of snow!  The girls and Brian decided to make use of the swing set, and Liv, especially, enjoyed practicing her jumping skills!  I think the three of them were outside for close to two hours, and the fun didn't end until after a picnic lunch outside!  Obviously, after all the polar vortexes, our concept of "warm" has been dramatically altered.

 

Set 5:  And, lastly, not Grady's first, but one of his first walks outside enjoying the sunshine and fresh air!

Mr. Grady - 4 Months

 

A few new facts about our little man:

* He's soooo close to rolling over from his back to his tummy.  Clearly the picture shows you!  All he needs to do is kick his leg and he'd have it!  A new favorite little game is me holding him by his feet and rolling him back and forth...I should mention Grandma Linda started this fun and I've just continued it.

* Besides really enjoying his activity gym and being pretty darn good at entertaining himself for 15-20 minutes, Grady has started liking his Bumbo a bit more.  He's not as fond of his swing anymore, and I rarely put him in it, but he does still like hanging out in his little bouncy seat which I drag around wherever in the house.

* Grady's made some decent improvements in his napping schedule although we're still not exactly where I'd like to be.  I've resigned myself to this fact...mostly, I think he just needs to get a little older so we can have longer awake times - then, I think we'll be able to combine his two morning naps into one and stick with our afternoon nap as well.  Grady's pretty easy to get to sleep for naps, and I've started not rocking him quite as much and putting him down when he's drifting off...hoping he'll just learn that sleep is a good thing and to just peacefully give in. I remember that when the girls were a bit older they literally started reaching for their cribs at naptime - hopefully Grady will be like that too.  At night, Grady's doing really well...he goes to bed at 7:00, and he's getting up once - usually around 3:00am and then again anywhere between 5:30-6:30am...sometimes he'll go back to sleep, sometimes not - today he slept in till 8:00.  I imagine the mornings will get more consistent as he gets a bit older.

* He's growing - but, he's not really the "chunky monkey" that I thought!  Grady is two pounds heavier than Grace was at 4 months, but as the boy's and girl's percentiles are so different, he doesn't top the charts like I thought he would.  Grady is 14.2 pounds (32%), 25 inches long (52%), and has a head circumference of 41 cm (18%)...yes, he got the small head from me.

* The pictures from earlier show off Grady's hand/eye coordination pretty well.  He brings his hands up to grasp objects and bring them to his mouth.  And, he manages to hold on to objects for a decent amount of time too.  He still doesn't seem to be aware of his feet, but he laughs if I bring them up to his face when we're playing...ah, to be that flexible!  He also love to exercise his legs standing up in your lap and kicking all over the place in the bathtub especially.

* Grady had his first official cold last week...we ended up bringing him in because he had a nasty cough, was running a low fever, and was really sleepy.  Diagnosis was a respiratory virus and an ear infection.  This resulted in nebulizer treatments and an antibiotic.  It took a couple of days before we got our normal Grady back...poor guy - he was really a trooper through it all though.

* And, as these smiley pictures show - Grady is a really happy little guy.  He's quick to smile, is trying out some giggles, is endlessly entertained by his sisters even though I think they can be rather in-his-face at time, is easily entertained, and is just generally content.  We sure love him!