Grayson's belly laugh

Grayson started smiling at us at around 2 months and smiles and coos often, but doesn't let out a big belly laugh too often. This particular evening it was after his last feeding of the day and we were having our usual evening chat. I was pulling out all the stops to try and get a good belly laugh from him and the fake sneeze was a success! I think we could have sat there and done that routine all night! I just can't get enough of those first giggles!

For the love of the ride

Every Saturday I go for my long training rides while my wonderful Tim stays home with the boys. Today was slotted for a 70 miler, but I started coming down with a bit of a cold Friday morning and just felt yucky all day. I took some Mucinex with the hopes of an over night cure so I could be in tip top shape for my ride. Well that didn't happen...plus, the weather channel was forecasting thunderstorms all day, so it was a little iffy if I should go in the first place. So after hemming and hawing this morning I finally decided to go. I mean, even if I stayed home and tried to rest, the likely-hood of that happen is very small with a Brady and a Grayson around. There is no way I would have been able to lay on the couch and mope and do nothing. So, oddly enough, a 70 mile bike ride is more rest and relaxation than I would get at home. My bike rides are my time. I get to go out and be by myself and do something completely selfish and for me only. Plus, when I get home from these long rides Tim has either cleaned the house or started supper or done something on my list of things to do. Then I get to lay down on the couch drink a beer and take a nap and it is completely acceptable. Any other day that would never happen! So even though me and my cold went out and rode 71.6 miles averaging 15.6 mph for 5 hours, took a wrong turn, went 5 miles and two 10% grade hills out of my way, and rode a super hilly course, it was totally worth it!

Rollie Pollie

Today our little baby Grayson rolled over for the first time! He rolled from his stomach to his back. I laid him on his belly in his crib for a bit of tummy time while I cooked supper and when I went in to check on him he was on his back! So I flipped him over to his tummy again, went in a few minutes later and lo and behold he was on his back again! And he was just as pleased as punch with himself-giggling and squirming all over the place. Every night after Brady is in in bed, after Grayson's last feeding and just before I put him down for the night he and I have a chat-he seems to be his liveliest at night-when he bables and coos and laughs. Tonight I put him on his tummy and he rolled over another 3 or so more times. So, it is confirmed, he has added rolling over to his bag of tricks! Go Grayson!

Thumb sucker!

Well folks, it seems we have a thumb sucker on our hands. Brady was never a thumb sucker and was always very fond of his "fia" (pacifier)-and still is, much to my mother's dismay. The kid was off of a bottle by 1, potty trained by 2 and only requests his fia at bed time, so I say hey, it's not hurting anything, let him go to college with the thing! Perhaps it will keep the girls away! Haha! So anyway, it has come as quite a surprise to me that Grayson is a thumb sucker and doesn't really care for the pacifier. He is now able to bring his hands to his mouth voluntarily (one of those great mini-milestones!) and has discovered that his thumb is just so convenient and he loves to suck on it. Here are a couple pictures I captured.

Tomato's!

Even though we live in an apartment I refused to give up a chance at a mini garden. I planted a tomato plant and a basil plant (I planted a cilantro plant as well, but ripped his roots in half when I was transplanting, so he didn't last long-oooops!). They both have done really well! As picky/weird of an eater as Brady is, one of the things he enjoys to eat is cherry tomato's, so I am always sure to have some on hand. In WA I had quite the garden (for a first timer that is) which included a tomato plant, and I would constantly catch Brady picking the tomato's off and eating them. Here in MD the plant is right next to his sandbox and in close view for me to catch him trying to pick the tomato's. He ever so patiently waited for them to ripen and finally one day we went out and picked the tomato's! Here is a photo of his excitement and my lovely patio garden.

My fat girl pants fit!

While I was pregnant with Grayson I gained the recommended 35 lbs. I exercised and ate very well throughout the pregnancy-with exception to my evening ice cream of course! So then my precious baby Grayson is born and low and behold I am left with an extra 20 lbs. I took a full 2 months off of serious exercising to allow my body the appropriate time to bounce back from the rigors of child birth. I still ate well and was active running after Brady. Then when I hit that 2 month mark and I got my double wide jogger I hit the trail running-literally! So now I was jogging 3 times a week and cycling 3 times a week and I was certain the weight would just start melting off-WRONG! So after seeing no progress I decided to do the ol faithful food journaling and calorie counting. And by golly it has worked! The inches and pounds are just melting away! As for my fat girl pants...all you new momma's and old momma's alike know what I'm talking about when I say once you've had a baby you now have many "stages" of clothes. You have the coveted pre-baby holy grail skinny jeans and all the other clothes that go along with that stage. The stage when you decided to get pregnant so you had to be in the best shape of your life before you started packing on that baby weight. Then you have your maternity clothes which you have stages for as well. You have your first tri-mester clothes which you really didn't need to be in maternity clothes yet, but you just couldn't wait to get into those cute maternity clothes and panaled pants! Then you have your normal maternity clothes. Then you have your last 4 weeks of pregnancy maternity clothes. The shirts that are big enough to fit 3 small children in! This is the stage you felt like a house! Once you give birth to that sweet little miracle then you vow to not buy any clothes until you have lost all of that baby weight. This leads to this next stage when you haven't lost your baby weight as quickly as you wanted to but you just can't stand to wear those panaled maternity pants for one more day, so you go out and you buy some "regular" clothes that are a few sizes larger than you ever wanted to put on. These are what I call my "Fat girl clothes". Well folks, I am happy to report I am back into my fat girl pants! Oh happy day, Oh happy day!

Bros

Here are a couple of cute pictures of the boys together.

I was taking a picture of Grayson in his new outfit from Larry and Pat and Brady wanted in on the action. Brady was so excited to hold his little brother.

I nestled Grayson into the cracks on the couch for a quick second and I jokingly told Brady, "Here, hold your brother", and this is what he did. Too cute!

Then he let go and they sat here on the couch together like this. Two bros, hangin out.

Birthday weekend road trip

This past weekend was mine and my nephew Davids birthday, so the boys and I (minus Dad) headed down to North Carolina to visit Doug, Karen and David. They were up here to visit just after Grayson was born and Brady hasn't stopped talking about the fun he had with cousin David, so I thought our birthdays were the perfect reason for a visit. They live only 30 minutes from the beach, so we headed to the beach on Saturday and had a great time! We finished up our visit with a morning at the park and a treat from the ice cream man! It was a wonderful weekend and am so glad we were able to make the trip. You can also view a video from the weekend on Doug's blog www.douglasquaderer.wordpress.com. It's 12 minutes long, so be sure to have a few minutes to view it.

Opening birthday presents from cousin Brady as soon as we got there at midnight!

Opening presents from Mimi & Papa

There was a lot of running, chasing, wrestling and tickling!

Buds!

Look Mom, he does cook!Fun in the sun! Grayson hung out in his cabana and enjoyed the lovely ocean breeze.

Picnic time!

Brady couldn't wait to start digging in the sand!

Grayson's first dip in the Ocean. I dipped his toes and that was about it-back to the cabana he went.

Tuckered after a fun day at the beach!

Fun at the park!
Look how cute he is and so big!
Popsicles from the ice cream man! De-lish!

Crazy bugs!

When Nana (Tims mom) was here in June she got Grayson this really neat mobile. The little bugs fly around and in the center there is a globe that lights up and projects shapes onto the shade. He loves it! As soon as I lay him down in his crib and turn it on he just starts grinning from ear to ear and babbles away. And he sure does let you know though when the music stops! I always send Brady in to turn it back on. Brady is always ready and waiting to be my little helper-especially if it means he gets to push buttons!

Run, Wiggle, Paint & Giggle

I found this great place called Kidville that offers many different classes for little ones. They offer Art, music, gym and enrichment classes. He has been taking one throughout the summer called Run, wiggle, paint and giggle and he loves it! He gets to go once a week for 1 hour. The class focus is preparing them for pre-school. Unfortunately the 2 year class didn't fill up, so he had to take the class with the 18-24 month olds, but he loves it anyway. He shows the little ones how it's done! Each class they have music time, story time, bumpy ball play, block play, arts and a different spotlight toy each week. This particular week the theme was monsters and they got to play dress up in monster costumes. The younger kids didn't seem to like it so well, but Brady thought it was pretty cool. And this week was pretty special because Tim got to come to class. He was in clinicals in the evening rotation so he didn't have to go in until 2 pm, so he was able to come and play with Brady-although Brady doesn't really care that either one of us is there at all! He just marches right in and dives into class. He's getting so grown up!

He loves his teacher Melina

They play with scarves during music time then they sing a song to clean up the scarves and put them in the bag.

They sing a song and drum on these balls and sit on them and roll off them.

Playing monster dress up

Block Play

3 state bike tour

This post is once again about me. I know everyone only checks blogs to see pictures of the cute little kiddies, but I'm sorry to disappoint, this post wont include pictures of the kiddos....next one, I promise! So, today was my long ride for the week. I'm adding 5 miles each Saturday until the ride in October and today I was up to 40 miles. We have some family friends here in the area who were having a special Thanksgiving in August for some friends visiting from Austria who wanted to see what all the turkey day fuss was about. They invited us down for the festive occasion and since they live about 40 miles away I thought how perfect, I will ride my bike down! So I charted a course that started from home in Maryland, continued through DC (most of DC was crossing the Key Bridge), then into Virginia. It's a little crazy to think that I was in 3 different states today! It was a really good ride. I followed various trails throughout the route. But of course, I'm "Quad", so this ride doesn't come without drama. At about mile 35 I run into a stray rain storm! Not just your nice little summer rain shower-no, I was being pelted with rain and I could barely see through my glasses or keep my eyes open! It was crazy! So after completely soaking me the rain let up. Then at about mile 42 miles I had to cross an intersection and a car was in the crosswalk so I was trying to figure out how to get around him...do I go in front of him, in back of him, unclip and wait for him to get out of my way? Whats a girl to do?! During all this hemming and hawing the guy saw me and started to back up to let me cross. Well needless to say as he backed up I was starting to unclip then decided not to cause he was backing up but by this time I was past the point of no return and fell over. Yup, just completely fell over sideways like a horse with all those cars at the intersection to see. Sooooo embarrassing! Scraped my knee and my ego! Grrrrr! But, in the end I made it through all 46 of my 40 mile bike ride in 3 hours and 23 minutes. Good stuff!