Grady - 5.5 Months

Definitely dropped the ball in terms of timeliness on this post - whoops!  I'll keep this one short as I do fully intend on doing a 6 month post in a couple of weeks (seriously, a half a year already???).  And, even though the post is a couple of weeks late, the pictures were taken on time!

This might be my favorite picture of the month because it represents the kids and their personalities pretty well:  Liv - I'll be super sweet to you all the time, Grady, but, Grace, don't count on the same treatment.  Grace - Yes, I do have a mischievous sparkle in my eye, and, yes, I do enjoy hanging around the house in just my panties.  And, Grady - What, I have to deal with these two yahoos all the time???  :)

A few new facts about our little guy:

* He's now sporting 2 teeth - the two bottom ones.  These showed up about 4.5 months after a few weeks of some serious drooling and a decent amount of night time waking.

* Speaking of night time...sigh...Grady likes to get up way too much.  Last night (miracle), Grady slept from 7pm - 3:00am, but usually, he likes to get up at 10, and 1:30, and 4:30 or some variation of that schedule.  The one good part of this schedule is that I'm usually only up with him for 10 minutes or so, so I still feel like I am getting enough sleep.  We've been experimenting with letting Grady fuss a bit more than normal before intervention, but I pretty much can't handle hard crying, so I'm just going to have to have faith that things will improve...and last night helps in that regard, too.

* While night times haven't been ideal, the past month Grady made huge progress with napping.  Rather spontaneously, he started freaking out when I tried to cradle/cuddle him at nap time before putting him down.  After some problem solving, I learned he wanted to be held upright with his paci in and his face against my neck.  Now, after a few minutes of this, he's ready to go down, and he typically (there are definitely exceptions to this) drifts off peacefully on his own.  He usually does an 1-1.5 hour nap in the morning and a 1.5-2.5 nap in the afternoon.  He takes a short evening snooze, too.

* We've been loving spending more time outside.  Grady's a huge fan of this and likes being in his stroller, but even more, he loves the Bjorn where he can be upright and seeing everything.

* Grady can be quite the flirt flashing his smiles; he can also be quite serious/studious and shows this by pulling his eyebrows down/scowling.

* YUMMMM baby food!  I decided Grady was ready for this because I noticed him really watching whenever I drank or ate something (especially if I was holding him).  In the last month and a half Grady's tried out and enjoyed (in this order):  rice cereal, green beans, bananas, peas, and sweet potatoes.  The last is definitely his favorite - he's like a little birdy opening his mouth for more. We've just been doing lunch for now, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I added more meals into the day's schedule!

* Grady is starting to compete with his big sister Olivia in the spit-up department - ugh - yuck.

 

* Grady's babbling quite a bit now, and just today was making a noise that sounded a bit like "da-da" but I might be fooling myself.  He squawks at his sisters and giggles when he's tossed around, ticked, or "roughed-up" in any way.  You can also always tell he's excited by watching his kicking and swinging arms and legs.

* Grady still isn't rolling over which I can't believe, but he does enjoy tummy time pretty well.  He also really likes sitting up (with assistance), and I feel like a few more weeks could have him sitting on his own as I can tell he's getting pretty strong in his trunk.  Grady also likes standing up on my lap and working those leg muscles!

Wisconsin Dells!

Definitely behind in posts these days...this one is, sadly, nearly three weeks past due.  I'm going to blame my tardiness on three things:  a really good book series, teething, and lack of sleep due to the aforementioned.  Well, now the books are done, the teeth are through, and, while my sleep (or lack-there-of) is still questionable, it's time to catch up!

Mid-March we headed to Wisconsin Dells for a weekend with the Hoden family and the Huinker grandparents.  It was an absolute blast!  Olivia and Grace (and soon-to-be Grady, I'm sure) are pretty obsessed with their cousins, so when we learned they would be moving to Canada after school's out this year, spending additional quality time with them became an instant priority!  I'm so glad this trip worked out, and I think that everyone has great memories of it!

Without permission I'm going to steal a few paragraphs from my sister-in-law's blog because I liked how she summed up the experience so much!

By Beth:

Every day pretty much went the same...wake up, cook an awesome breakfast, go to waterpark, come home, kids jump in warm jacuzzi tub, dry swimming clothes, eat lunch, nap, go to waterpark, come home, kids jump in warm jacuzzi tub, dry swimming clothes, eat dinner, kids go to bed and parents/grandparents crash!!

There were a few other highlights along the way. Tony's sister Erin and her fam live close to the Dells so they came over Saturday night and we cooked dinner and enjoyed some adult time while the kids went wild. Max got to do laser tag twice while we were there for his birthday present from Amanda and Brian. Max wasn't a fan of the dark slides, Mya loved them, and Ivy did every slide she possibly could have and loved every minute. They got tons of quality cousin time too! Mya and Olivia were inseparable as usual. Thank goodness for Grace's personality...at only 18 months younger than the other two girls, normally you would expect lots of hurt feelings, fights, etc. but she is pretty comfortable in her own skin and loves to entertain so she doesn't seem to mind too terribly that Mya and Olivia are attached at the hip!

This was another one of those vacations that was mostly all about the kids, but it helped a ton having my parents there. My mom took over Grady duties while at the water park and also got the kiddos snacks, towels, etc. Grandpa Rog was in the water with the kiddos the whole time (except for when he was going down the black hole:) All in all, besides losing Max once and Grace twice, and Tara/Tony not being there, it was a great little getaway. I would highly recommend it!