18 Things about Grayson

Grayson just had his 18 month check up and is growing and changing so fast!  I love the little person he has become.

1.  He is talking more and more now - he has around 30 words.  It took him a while to actually talk compared to Owen (which the doctor says is perfectly normal for the second child).  And it is funny that I think he took a while to talk - but he is still above average in his language.  However, Grayson has been understanding what we are saying for a very long time now.  For the past week he has been picking up about one word a day.  It is so fun to work on new words.  Owen gets excited and we all cheer!

2.  Grayson LOVES his Owie Owie!  This is what he calls Owen.  Whenever we go anywhere without Owen or take Owen to one of his classes Grayson says his name the entire time we are out without him.  Then as soon as we see Owen - Grayson runs up to him and hugs him saying "hi hi hi Owie Owie".  Sibling love is seriously the sweetest thing on earth!

3.  Outside of Owen - Grayson has a new buddy, Jude, our next door neighbor.  Jude is 20 months old and the boys play together so well.  When we pull in the driveway Grayson says "juuuu" and Jude yells "hi Gray".

4.  Grayson still loves his bunny and paci.  He uses the "drink" sign when he wants his favorite sleep toys and we say "do you want bunny and paci?" and he nods his head.

5.  Sleep - Grayson sleeps a full 12 hours pretty much every night.  If we put him to bed at 8:00 he wakes up at 8:00.  I am so thankful for a good sleeper!  However because he sleeps so well at night he doesn't nap really long.  He does nap for about 2 hours each day.  We usually start nap time at 12:30, read books and then I rock this sweet little boy to sleep and he wakes up around 3:00.

This never gets old....

6.  Grayson loves to play in the dirt.  He goes straight to the mulch or dirt piles we have in our yard (our yard needs work) and he and Jude will sit in piles of dirt and dig for however long we let them.  He loves sand too - I specifically remember Owen being completely freaked out by getting dirty or touching sand but Grayson loves it.

7.  Grayson has recently become interested in construction vehicles.  When we see one on the side of the road he points and says "uh uh" until I tell him what kind of vehicle he sees (I have learned a lot about bulldozers, excavators, backhoe loaders, etc over the years).


8.  Grayson's two favorite books right now are "Llama Llama Red Pajama" and "The Truck Book...

9.  Grayson still pretty much hates the car - unless he's sleeping that is.  He is getting better about being in the car but it is still so distracting when he whines and cries in the backseat.  I was talking with a friend about how much safer it would be to have one of those glass windows between the driver's seat and the backseat so we could drive in peace and quiet.  The crying rattles me every single time.

 10.  Food - Grayson is typically a really great eater.  Right now he is going through a bit of a picky stage but I know I just need to get through it and keep offering him different foods.  He loves to dip his food in anything Ketchup, cheese, ranch, it doesn't matter, if its a dip he wants it.  His favorite foods are yogurt, oatmeal, fruit, gummies, french fries, broccoli, and mama's green smoothies.  Grayson goes to the cabinet and gets out my blender and hands it to me almost every day and he is not too happy when it isn't time to make him a green smoothie.

11.  Grayson doesn't really like tv - now I know what you are going to say, you are not supposed to let your kids watch television until they are two anyways.  Well of course I don't let my kids watch tv very often but when I was trying to move and pack the house up all I wanted was for Grayson to sit and watch a show for 20 minutes so that I could get one thing accomplished.  And I have learned from Owen that you can actually learn some great things from children's shows when they are the educational kind.  So maybe when Grayson turns two he will be more interested.

12.  Dogs - Grayson LOVES dogs!!  He goes crazy for them anywhere and everywhere we see them. He barks at them and wants to pet them, kiss them, lick them, whatever.  He is so sweet and gentle with animals.  He pets gently and never hits or pulls their hair.  When he rides in the back of the bike trailer I can hear him barking like a dog on most of our rides because there are dogs everywhere on the trails here.

13.  Grayson is sweet, snuggly and a true lover.  I have to say he definitely has his moments (especially with Owen) where he pushes him or tries to bite him but honestly it is probably justified.  Grayson loves people and loves to be hug, kiss and be loved.  He often grabs my face with both hands and gives me a big smooch right on the lips.  I pretty much melt when he does that.  Here he is giving great Grandpa Drapp some of his loving...

14.  Our little guy is a dancing machine.  Since he was very young, the sound of music has always made him bounce to the beat.  This hasn't changed.  He loves to sing, dance and clap when he hears music anywhere.  Here he is at our first kids concert in Carmel...

15.  Grayson has recently started to fight back to his brother Owen.  I believe that Grayson is not going to be a pushover.  When Owen makes him angry or takes something from him Grayson will scream, pinch, try to bite and sometimes hit Owen.  Of course we don't encourage this behavior but at the same time Owen needs to see what happens when he pulls toys away from Grayson.  We often threaten to put Grayson in time out (it usually only takes one threat) and then he doesn't do it again.  I think Owen is starting to see that he has to share and take turns.

16.  Grayson knows all of his body parts - head, shoulders, knees and toes and most all other things.

17.  Grayson loves to take baths.  When we say that it is bath time Grayson will stop whatever he is doing and start running up the stairs to the bathroom.

18.  Allergies - Grayson was at one time allergic to milk, eggs and peanut butter.  Last time I went to the allergist his levels were down so we have started to implement some things back into his diet to see if it causes any skin irritations.  Since we moved here he hasn't had any skin breakouts from any of the things listed above.  I even gave him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and he didn't have any problems.

A Perfect Day for Derby

After my first experience at Derby two years ago.....

I said I would not return unless a few things happened - someone would give us tickets, it would be a beautiful day, and/or I would not be pregnant.  All of those things happened to line up for us this year and we couldn't pass up the offer.

Shopping for dresses and hats with two little boys is exhausting....

 Owen especially liked this hat.  He was so very sweet while I was trying on dresses - he would say "I love that dress mommy, can you buy that one?"

My dad and Karen came up to keep the boys for the weekend so we could head down Friday night and hang out with some of our friends without the worry of waking up super early Saturday morning.
We tailgated with a big group of people in the stadium parking lot.  I didn't get any good pictures but Connor's and Rachel provided a delicious breakfast with eggs, sausage, biscuits and of course mimosas.
This is how adults tailgate...

 This is how the young people tailgate (a big blow up pool filled with ice and beer)...

 Our seats were really great - we had a little box with chairs instead of bleachers and it was shady in the early afternoon.  We couldn't have asked for better weather....

                                           
                                                     

                                         

We did get to see the red carpet where the celebrities go through, however the only celebrities we saw were Kendra Wilkinson and Hank Baskett...

We bet on every race of the day and seriously lost every single dollar we bet.  Luckily we didn't bet too much money - I am sure there were a lot of disappointed people at the track that day, as well as some very lucky winners...

 We brought the boys cute little derby hats - and Owen and Grayson love to pretend to run in the derby race.  Owen named his horse Shockey and Grayson is Chickey - not sure where he came up with that.