Hunt Family Connection

Our Little Pirate...

The day didn't go quite like I thought it would, but I have to say it all ended well :)

I dressed Graham up in his pirate outfit and took him to daycare this morning. I'm told he had a good day and was the cutest little pirate at the indoor park they went to. Sabrina said he even kept putting his hat back on when it fell off!

I picked Graham up at 3:00 to head to his 18-month well-baby dr. appointment. Grandma Chery met us there since she wasn't going to be home for any trick-or-treating later tonight so we visited with her a bit while waiting for our turn to go in.

Graham was not in such a great mood and did a lot of whining and crying while waiting for the dr. I finally sent Wil out to the car to get the Tylenol. I usually give him some before shots and I figured it would also help with any teething pain he was experiencing. The doctor finally came and everything was going ok (though Graham was super fussy) until she took a look in his ears. Since we had been there on Tuesday, they had become red - it seems he has an ear infection :(  She said that after the age of two they don't always treat right away with antibiotics, but because Graham is at a crucial age for hearing/language development and some other factors, she would recommend treating with antibiotics. Having the ear infection got us a pass on the shots for now - we'll have to go back for a follow-up appointment in a couple of weeks, so we'll try to do them at that time. So there ya go - it's our very first ear infection...

G was in good spirits after the Tylenol set in, so we went ahead with our plans to go out for dinner and then to the mall to check out trick-or-treaters. Dinner was great - G sat in a booster chair right there in the booth with us instead of in a high chair (there were so many kids there that they had run out of high chairs!). He was SUCH a big boy and did an awesome job of eating a lot of his dinner. I haven't seen him eat that much in awhile now, so I was very happy about that. After dinner we wandered over to the mall - it was pretty crazy and busy with kids trick-or-treating at the stores. We were able to skip the candy collection and just walked around, taking it all in.

We ran into my friend Jenna and  her son Jeffrey - he was soooo adorable in his soft and fluffy costume!

The boys seemed very interested in and entertained by each other - and how cute is this....Jeffrey wanted to hold Graham's hand :) We all chatted for a bit then went our separate ways. We walked around, looking at everyone that was dressed up and also made a stop at the pet store to look at the PUPPIES Graham was yawning all the way home, but was in a great mood when we got home and played upstairs with us a bit before bed. We gave him his first dose of antibiotics (it did take two of us 'cause he wasn't so sure he liked it!) and then did the bedtime routine.

The doctor says G will feel much better after only a couple does of the antibiotics, so I'm looking forward to having my happy little boy back....I have missed him. I have stats from the dr. appointment (weight, height, and head size) but I left the info downstairs - it will have to wait until next time. Time for bed - I'm exhausted!

Happy Halloween!

We got a very fun Halloween package in the mail from Nana and Papa this week...

It included some hats that Nana knit for him, a pumpkin cookie cutter, and this coloring book of PUPPIES! along with some new (washable) crayons.  Very fun stuff - Graham tried on all of the hats right away, and then we sat down to "color". Graham was far more interested in moving the crayons in and out of the box than in actually making marks on the book. It's still a pretty new concept to him, so we'll bring them out every now and again and see what he thinks.

The child just LOVES puppies though so he really enjoyed looking at the coloring book.

 

So Graham has been a bit under the weather this week.  Over the weekend he had a fever and I stayed home with him on Monday. On Tuesday he went to daycare, but she called a few hours later and said that he had a rash on his neck, chest, and back. I called the doctor's office and the nurse I talked to said her son reacted the same way when he got teeth and that all of what has been happening was probably related to that....we went ahead and made an appointment to have the rash looked at, just in case it was something else. So at 4:15 on Tuesday we had a dr. appointment - apparently this was one of their craziest days ever, 'cause we didn't get in for about 45 minutes after our appointment time....and we all know how 1 1/2 year olds love to wait! The dr. wasn't able to tell us much - she said it could be a virus, but that they have also learned to not underestimate the power of teething. So we left knowing about as much as when we came in....good times.

The rash is much better, but G is still not eating very well and he is soooo sensitive....every little thing sets him off into tears. He seemed a little better last night - I saw him bump his head on something and he didn't cray (yay!) He has been sleeping through the night the past few nights, so that's good. I'm sure he'll be back to normal soon :) We have G's 18-month well-baby check-up this afternoon, so that will be a good follow-up. I believe he'll be getting shots too, so I'm sure that will disturb him a bit. 

I'm hoping we'll be able to cheer him up with a trip to the mall tonight to do a little trick-or-treating and watch all of the other kids there that are dressed up.

I'm sure we'll have pictures from Halloween and 18-month stats to share this weekend - stay tuned!

Haunted Hayride and Our Weekend

Last night we went to Dorris Ranch for the Haunted Hayride - I'm told it sells out every year, so we were grateful that one of our Birth-to-Three moms offered to call in on the first day tickets were available.

It was very fun to have Kara, Brian, and Sammy join us too :) It wasn't very scary at all - I think everyone's favorite part was the dance routine by the....I think they were zombies?!?  There were even opportunities to learn about the history of the ranch along the way....oh, and they were passing out candy!

It was not Graham's first hayride of the season - last Friday he went with Wil to work because they were going to do a hayride out to the pumpkin patch at Lone Pine Farms. I'm told Graham had a great time out there. On Saturday, we did some exploring at a farm that is closer to our house - Johnson Farm. They had hayrides too, but we passed on that. We looked at all of the produce and Graham and Wil played around in the little hay bale maze set up for kids.

There were a few goats and chickens, so we checked them out too. On Saturday night we noticed that Graham was running a bit of a fever - he was a bit quiet and clingy too. This continued to a lesser degree on Sunday, so I thought he had caught some kind of bug.

Sunday night he was up several times, so I stayed home with G on Monday to give him a little more time with mommy. He is definitely feeling better, but still a bit touchy. Kara asked if it might be related to getting some teeth, and looking back at everything, she might be on to something (thanks Kara!) Chery noticed that he was drooling more than usual, and he isn't eating very well...I wonder if he might be getting his 2-year molars. It remains a mystery as Graham can't tell us what's going on...but I did catch him chewing on his fingers a few times last night.

Definitely need to get up and moving and ready for work - it was nice to be home with G yesterday, but it will be crazy trying to catch up with work :(  Our fall weather has been absolutely gorgeous, so at least we don't have to deal with the rains on top of all of this right now!  Hope it sticks around for awhile - I really do love fall....

Shake it Baby!!

Some very fun video from Pa-Paw and Grandma Chery's house - the boy does love to dance!

Unfortunately, he also loves to play with the buttons on the radio so we only get a little bit of the dancing. Enjoy :)

He's One.....AND A HALF!

That half is so important when you're little :)  And wow - what a difference 18 months can make. He continues to want to be as independent as possible - putting on his own shoes (trying to - on occasion successfully!) and using silverware to feed himself (depending on how hungry he is!) He understands so much of what we say and is using words more - mimicking what we say. He doesn't quite know what it means yet, but he says "thank you" whenever you hand something to him and often when he hands something to you too.

He's very sweet, willing to give hugs and kisses whenever we ask for them. He is also starting to have stronger reactions when he is denied something that he wants. We're starting to roam into the land of temper tantrums.

He's such a good helper - shutting doors that usually stay shut if he happens to find one open, he usually helps to pick up toys when it's time for bed or time to get out of the tub, and he loves throwing away garbage or recycling. He also likes to use a rag to "clean-up" - he helped me clean up the outside of the fridge a couple weeks ago, and when we were outside last night, he was "washing" his car and tried to clean up this puddle of water on the ground!

He continues to be a good sleeper - we're down to one nap 2 hour nap (more if super tired and less on a tough day) and he almost always sleeps at least 10 1/2 hours at night (going to bed at 8:00 and waking up between 6:30 and 7:30).

He's just such a good boy and we routinely acknowledge and remind ourselves how lucky we are. We have an 18-month check-up coming soon - on Halloween actually - so we'll have some official stats at that time. For now, I leave you with one more shot of our 1 1/2 year old :)

a new friend....

I decided it was time I got back to playing tennis and exercising more regularly.  I've lost nearly 15 pounds now, and most of that was with just diet changes. I think it will be important to add some regular exercise to so that I continue to lose weight and tone up a bit in the process.

Sooooo, on Monday night I decided to try and get out to Ladies Night at the tennis club. Wil stayed home with Graham and off I went. As it turns out, our club no longer hosts a ladies night, because not enough ladies were showing up! So every Monday night is now a mixed doubles night....which is great - Wil and I love going to mixed doubles events! However, on the night I decide to get back to playing tennis (and am incredibly rusty) it turns out the U of O tennis team (men and women) were invited to join our mixed doubles night - YIKES!

It was fun to see all of the players introduce themselves and tell us where they are from - I think only a few are from within the United States! And then we were sent out there....I was a bit worried about the whole thing, but shouldn't have been - I am officially "in love" with my new tennis friend, Mikael Myrhed :)
Here's Mike in action (lifted from the U of O website) He's a Senior this year and is from Stockholm, Sweeden.

He definitely toned it down for playing with us, but he was very sweet and encouraging. He also commented several times that my serve was "on fire" and figured that I was hitting at least 85% first serves - how cute!! Wil wasn't jealous of my new boyfriend until I told him Mike was doing math out there on the tennis court :)

Apparently the tennis teams are working on getting out into the community more - I imagine they think if we make some connections with them, more of us will come support them during their matches. Worked on me - I definitely want to make a point of seeing my new friend Mike really play.

There were more of us than U of O players, so for the rest of the rounds, I was playing with other club members. I'm so glad that I went (and stayed) - it felt so good to be out of the house and getting some exercise.

Graham was already in bed by the tie I got home so I got to kick back, drink lots of water and play on my computer some before heading to bed myself. I'm hoping that Wil and I can make regular appearances at the mixed doubles night - hopefully I'll be able to get more than just my serve back on track!

Grandparents who have been on the move vacationing have now returned home safe and sound. My parents were visiting family in North Carolina for about a week so we missed our regular Sunday call. I called last night after work to catch up some. Jim and Chery are back from a little over a week in California, and they offered to pick Graham up from daycare and watch him last night. Wil and I decided it would be fun to go on a "date" and go out to dinner to celebrate the fact that he's done teaching his night class. We went to a favorite steakhouse and had a lot of fun chatting about what's going on in our lives. It's so nice every once in awhile to have a meal out where we're not worried about keeping G entertained too.  Jim and Chery brought G home and I got him off to bed right away. With tennis on Monday night and then dinner last night, I haven't seen much of Graham in the evening - tonight I will be sure to remedy that :)  I'm hoping it's nice out this afternoon so I can get some good pictures of him - today he is a year and a half!!  I don't know where the time has gone, or where my baby has gone for that matter! It really does go by so fast....will save more of those kinds of thoughts for a sappy "G is 18 months" post.

I have a very busy day at work ahead of me - an assessment to administer this morning, a report that has to be written for a meeting I have this afternoon, a computer training, and of course....lunch out with my friends!  Happy Wednesday everyone :)

Time to VOTE!

And what a cute little reminder he is.  Our ballots came in the mail on Friday - can't wait to cast my vote! This little t-shirt I found at Old Navy was a big hit at family music time at the library on Saturday. The music was fun, but Graham was more interested in my car keys.... We stayed to pick out some new library books, then Graham fell asleep in the car on the way home.

After Graham's nap we had lunch and then I went out to do a little furniture shopping while Wil stayed home to play with G. I didn't find much that I really liked, so the search for new living room furniture continues...

I worked on getting a few loads of laundry done and picked up around the house a little, and though it wasn't as nice as I thought it was going to be, Graham and I went out to the little park near our house.

Graham doesn't seem to notice how chilly it is outside and still loves to be out there. So much so that it took some mighty convincing to get him back into the stroller for the walk home.

Graham slept in this morning - we didn't get up until 8ish - yay! After breakfast we went to the grocery store and then to Wal-Mart to get diapers and a few more odds and ends. Not only did Graham sleep in today, but he also took a 2 1/2 hour nap. The weekend seems to be a good chance for him to catch up on sleep - especially when we stick close to home.

We ordered in Pizza and just hung out and played before bathtime. G had fun swimming in the tub and went right to bed after his bath. I'm enjoying this week's episode of the Amazing Race and Wil is playing his computer game across the desk from me. It's a little chilly in here, so I just flipped on the fireplace. I want to spend some time working on my Week in the Life album and I'm looking forward to hitting those flannel sheets before too long.  'Night all!

I love Wednesdays!

I had a great lunch with friends today and got some good things accomplished at work - it felt like a productive day....yay!

I wanted to share some fun stuff that Graham is doing these days, starting with this picture above. Graham is becoming quite skilled at opening and closing doors. He mastered the pantry door some time ago and is actually pretty good at keeping his fingers from getting pinched. He now knows how to open doors with door knobs too - he's not doing it very often, but he is able to get into the bathroom and laundry room when he wants to. He's also very concerned about making sure that doors are closed. If we walk by the bathroom door and it is open, he has to stop to close it. We were at Costco the other day and when he saw someone left the little swinging door open, he promptly walked over and closed it for them. Such a good helper he is becoming :) He also likes to help throw away trash (and pick up after daddy!)

Up until now Graham has been responding "yah" (yes) to every questions he is asked. Just in the last few days I've noticed he's shaking his head "no" sometimes....I don't know where he picked that up, but I don't care for it ;)  He's still pretty agreeable though - I shouldn't complain.

Graham is also starting to say "thank you", but only because he's heard me say it so many times. Whenever he hands me something, I say thank you. So now when he hands me something HE says thank you - it's pretty funny.

Tonight when we were doing the bedtime routine, Graham wanted to keep his Brown Bear, Brown Bear story book in the crib with him. While I read him another story from my chair, Graham was sitting up in his crib, "reading" his book too. He would mumble while I was reading, but stop when I stopped...made me giggle a little bit. He's getting to be such a big boy - I can't believe how the time flies!

Week in the Life Album update

Just a heads up that I put my Week in the Life Album info and progress in a page - you can click on Week in the Life - 2008 over there on the right side of the page or to make it even easier yet, click HERE! I'm determined to get this done this week - will keep you posted :)

Our nice fall weekend...

I love fall - really is my favorite season by far :)

We've had a really nice weekend, but let's back up a bit to Thursday. Graham and I were invited to play with Leila, Savannah, and Matthew - FUN!

 

I had a great time catching up with Leila, and while the kids didn't play together all that much, I think they had a good time too :) Savannah is such a big girl...I just can't believe it! She was sooo very sweet and kept bring Graham toys to play with and inviting him to play with her. Unfortunately, Graham had little nap time at daycare on Thursday, so he was a bit more irritable than usual. Matthew is growing up so fast too - wow! He can get just where he wants to go, and definitely held his own amidst the bigger kids. How odd is it that Graham is considered a "bigger kid" when I'm with most of my friends?! We made pizza and breadsticks for dinner and warm chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Leila is right - we say we're going to do this more often, then all kinds of time passes before we see each other again - life gets crazy, busy I guess.

So that brings us to this weekend.

We had a fun dinner out with Jim and Chery on Friday night at Applebees. Graham did an AWESOME job of behaving himself in the restaurant and quietly (for the most part) ate his food and just hung out while we all visited. After dinner we walked around the mall to get a little exercise :)

On Saturday, we visited the Home Improvement show out at the fairgrounds - it's so fun to look around and let your imagine wander to projects to want to do at home. After the home improvement show, we visited a nearby park - it was such a beautiful fall day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graham also had fun playing around the house with his new play tents. He can now make a basket (kinda!) and he loves to play peek through the top of one of the smaller tents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday, Graham and I did some errands in the morning - groceries and a few things at Target (including new, warmer sleepwear for G - it's getting soooo cool at night!) After a nap, lunch, and some football watching (GO PACKERS!) we wandered over to Wil's classroom to clean up and get him organized for Monday morning. We ended up staying longer than I thought we would be able to because Graham was totally entertained and well behaved (yay!) The classroom looks MUCH better now that I've had a chance to tidy a bit :) Wil was happy with all we got done, and thinks we should make this a part of every weekend...

I managed to finish a medium sized organizational project - my "cleaning closet". This is what it looked like when I started....pretty bad, huh??

It's a closet in our kitchen that is under our stairs, so it slopes. I have been storing holiday decorations in the back and then cleaning supplies in the front. I found that I never really wanted to take out decorations, because I had to move all of the cleaning supplies to do so. The cleaning supplies were quite a mess too, some in buckets, but everything just in and on the floor. Such a mess!

 

I spent the whole day working on it, but I'm happy to show you that this is what it looks like now. I started by emptying the whole closet and decided to store something in the back that I don't need access to on a regular basis - baby gear! Wil helped me bring the baby gear downstairs and take the holiday decorations upstairs. I decided to give the walls a fresh coat of paint - it was pretty gross in there. Once it had a chance to dry, I started reloading the closet. I sorted through the baby gear and only kept what I thought we would use again - the rest went to Goodwill. I bought a little shelving unit and a basket to put some like items together and get supplies off of the floor. The cleaning supplies and a few other things went in, and then a nice little rug we weren't using. On the door of the closet, I'm using a shoe organizer to store some odds and ends like batteries, sunglasses,  gum/mints, etc. It feels much better - I'm not afraid to open the door, and I can find things once I'm in there. Mission accomplished.

Graham has been in bed for about an hour and a half now and I'm trying to get this post finished up, but am terribly distracted by Iron Chef - the secret ingredient tonight is BEER! I have a few more pictures, but will post those in the next couple of days. I plan to head upstairs to my flannel sheets to finish watching Iron Chef :)