Hunt Family Connection

Wil’s birthday week and airplanes

Wil’s birthday was on Tuesday, but we’ve been celebrating in little ways all week long :) And just like he likes it – there aren’t really any pictures of it! We started celebrating before mom left last weekend when she gave him her present – a new math-themed clock for his classroom. There are pictures of that, but I promised I wouldn’t post them on the blog – apparently he wasn’t looking his best – tee hee :)

On Monday night we went out for a family birthday dinner at Eugene City Brewery. Unfortunately Wil’s meal wasn’t as tasty as he had hoped, but we did have a good time being out together…and Graham really enjoyed his meal of mac&cheese, potato chips, a few fries (with ketchup of course) and jello. After dinner we went to the AT&T store and picked up a new phone for Wil – a very good birthday present I think.

On Tuesday night Wil went out for dinner with a couple of his friends while G and I stayed home to make rice krispie treats (instead of a traditional bday cake) – of course we had to munch on a few of the marshmallows while putting it all together! We also gave Wil the rest of our birthday gift – reservations to go yurt camping in June :) It will be Graham’s first camping adventure and promises to be quite fun!

Last night I made turkey-noodle hotdish – nothing fancy, but a favorite of Wil’s….he had two plates full and was contemplating more :) 

This afternoon Wil heads to Portland on an overnight field trip to the zoo with students and teachers from his school. This also sounds like it will be quite an adventure, but it an entirely different way than our camping trip!

Tomorrow night Pa-Paw and Grandma Chery are coming over to babysit while we use tickets they gave Wil for Christmas to see SPAMALOT at the Hult Center. We’re very excited for our date night – I haven’t been to a show in quite awhile.

All in all, a pretty good birthday week for Wil I think. Thanks to everyone who has sent good wishes, cards, and gifts – all is appreciated :)

I’m also still hearing about Nana and airplanes from Graham, even though we’ve chatted with Nana on the phone and she is very clearly now at HOME with Papa. It inspired me to put this scrapbook page together about how Graham likes to spot airplanes while we’re outside. As the plane flies overhead he waves at it, then says, “bu-bye airplane!”  Definitely something I wanted to remember….

Find out more about this page HERE

So I don’t forget…

Graham and I spent some time outside this afternoon – he loves watching for planes and when he spots one he gets very excited, waves, then says “bu-bye airplane!”  Also heard MANY times today - “Nana? Airplane??”

Nana was here….

…and boy did we enjoy having her come to visit :)

My mom got into town a little over a week ago – the same day we had the ultrasound. It seems like that was quite awhile ago, and at the same time it feels like she just got here. Time flies when you’re having fun, and being spoiled by your mama!

She did TONS of work to help me get ready for G’s birthday party and made my very favorite potato salad – yum! She definitely made the party much easier to pull off – very big help.

While Wil and I went to work, mom went to work around the house….scrubbing floors, cleaning out my fridge and freezer, and doing loads of laundry – the kinds of things that either never really get done, or gets done here and there when I find a spare moment.  She also cooked and had dinner ready for us every night after work – what a treat! Not only that, but when dinner was over each night, she encouraged me to relax and go play with G while she cleaned up the dishes.

Mom kept G home from daycare on Tuesday and Thursday and they had all kinds of fun together. The weather was so nice this past week that they were able to spend a lot of time outside. They played at the park, walked to Shopko (“chop-KO” according to G) and hung out in the backyard. G helped Nana make cupcakes and do more laundry too :)  Graham went to daycare for his birthday on Wednesday, so mom was able to come to lunch with me and my Wednesday lunch friends..and on Friday I took a personal day off from work and we went shopping at IKEA in Portland and also stopped at the outlet mall in Woodburn. When I lived closer to home, mom and I would shop and lunch together often – it is one of the things I miss most about being so far away. We had a very fun and successful day of shopping (more on that another time).

Yesterday we took G to Saturday Market…

It was a little chilly, but nice to get out and about. Wil watched G after lunch so mom and I could do some more shopping around town (had to get to Ross!) and we had a very YUMMY turkey dinner together last night.

I took mom to the airport very early this morning and was quite sad about it. While I love living here in Eugene, there is no doubt that I miss my family VERY much. I’m very lucky that we get back there as often as we do, and that they are willing to come here often too….sometime I just wish it was as easy (and cheap!) as closing my eyes and wiggling my nose to be there with them or vice versa.

I can’t begin to thank Mom/Nana enough for everything she did while she was here – I get a lot of good help and support from friends and family here, but there really is nothing like having your mom around. I find myself thinking about this little girl growing inside of me, and hope that she loves and wants me around just as much :) 

Graham is TWO!

In honor of Graham's 2nd birthday, I thought I would post a slideshow of pictures from this past year. I can't believe how quickly the time flies by, and how much he has grown and learned over the course of a year.

G is talking more and more every day, and we are always amazed by just how much he understands and is able to communicate with us.  His very favorite thing right now is basketball :)  He LOVES to be outside and is really enjoying the b-ball hoop we got him for his birthday. He's a very happy little guy (most of the time!) but he knows exactly what he wants and will let you know when he's not happy about something.  He's very affectionate and often asks for hugs - he's very good about sharing his hugs and kisses with others too....like grandmas and grandpas :)

We've all come a long way in these past two years and look forward to all that is to come in this next year.  It's exciting to see Graham communicate more of his thoughts and observations and I can't wait to hear even more about what's on his mind. We're very proud and lucky to be Graham's parents and are definitely celebrating him today....

Graham’s 2nd birthday party

What a great day for a birthday party! It was bright, sunny, and at times VERY warm. We invited Grandma/Grandpas to come celebrate with us and each set was represented :) Graham had an awesome day – was soooo tuckered out by bedtime.  I’m pretty tired too, so will make this brief and share a few pictures.

We got the party started after nap time and opened presents first….

Graham got lots of fun things from his grandparents….clothes, books, a backpack, puppies, and food for his kitchen (and other things I’m not remembering at the moment I’m sure!)

From mommy and daddy Graham got a basketball hoop for the yard…

…and a new bike…

…which he promptly jumped right on and wanted to ride!

We spent some time visiting and enjoying the weather while Graham went for a bike ride with Pa-Paw and shot some hoops.  We grilled hot dogs and cheddar dogs, had potato salad made by my mom (YUMMY!), and some other goodies. We all tried to save room for the big finish….

That’s Clifford on the cake (a current favorite of Graham’s) and the blue frosting really stuck with G – even his teeth were blue!

We called Papa after cake since he was the only one that couldn’t make it – we were lucky to have everyone that could come and thank you all for being part of this special day :)  Life is good – more birthday celebrating to come as G’s actual birthday is Wednesday…..

Big News Today!

Read all about it HERE :)

Graham's 1st Guitar Lesson

Graham spends Monday nights with his Pa-Paw and Grandma Chery - they have a lot of fun and once in awhile we get to see what they've been up to.  This one made me smile :)

Graham is very lucky to have such a talented (and patient!!) Pa-Paw.

A very happy Easter!

We had a great day and as promised, I have pictures to share.

The morning was rather uneventful and I had a hard time waking up and getting going. Graham did a nice job of playing and entertaining himself so I could parent from the couch and try to rest.

The Easter Bunny didn’t show up with treats until after nap time. When Graham came downstairs he sat at the table and looked through his basket.

Inside G’s basket were a few Elmo-in-bunny-ears eggs – only one egg had candy in, the others had these little, soft sport balls. I also included a little velcro bunny game. He seemed quite pleased with his goodies. Shortly after that, Jim and Chery arrived to watch us color eggs.

Graham enjoyed dropping the eggs into the cups and didn’t want me to take them out. We only a dozen, but that was just about all his attention span could handle. He also really enjoyed the little stickers that came in the egg coloring kit – I have a feeling I’ll be finding them all over the house for days to come.

Here’s what the eggs looked like when we were all done…

There wasn’t much opportunity to do anything fancy with them – I was pushing my luck trying to do the Packer/Duck egg :)

We had a nice Easter dinner, and while G was trapped in his high chair we managed to get a family photo.

Strapping him in is about the only way to get G to stay still these days :)

If you want to see all of the pictures I edited from today, you can find them here: EASTER SUNDAY

Graham seems to be a little off tonight – he didn’t eat much at all today (which is rare) and he felt warm to me when he woke up an hour or so after bedtime. I took his temp and it’s 99.8 – not a fever, but a little warm. I thought maybe his pjs were too warm, so I changed him, let him hang out in our bed for a bit, then took him back to his room. He’s been coughing a little more this weekend too. Hopefully it’s just a low level kind of bug that will leave him alone soon. We’re gearing up and want to be in best form for Nana’s arrival this week.

Life is good – we are healthy, we were able to spend the day with family, and we have much to be thankful for.

Catching up…

Busy week I guess – I’ve been meaning to update the blog, but it seems I fall asleep every night before getting to it!

First things first – I just couldn’t get my act together to get Easter cards out, so I’m planning to make up for that by sharing some fun Easter pictures in the next few days.  The Easter Bunny is bringing a few treats for G and I’m planning to attempt egg coloring tomorrow too – should be plenty of good photo opportunities :)  In the meantime, we wish you a very happy Easter!

Earlier this week Graham got a call from Pa-Paw, who had been visiting Great Uncle Bill in Arizona. It was so cute watching him chat on the phone – seemingly responding appropriately to questions Pa-Paw had asked – I just had to try and get a shot with my phone (thus the blurriness and bad light)…

Pa-Paw got back into town on Thursday night (I think…the days are all kind of running together!) so we decided to go out to the airport and meet him. I took my camera with this vision of a great picture of G running to Pa-Paw as he sees him coming through the gate. What actually happened was a little bit different than that picture in my head :)

We were waiting for a bit and Graham kept running toward the gate where the TSA guy was – we had to keep chasing him down and bring him back. As soon as Pa-Paw appears and it’s OK to go running toward the gate, Graham sees Pa-Paw and starts walking off in another direction, pointing at the ceiling saying “airplane” (mind you, I have no idea what he was pointing to because as far as I can tell there were no airplanes on the ceiling!) So as you can see in the picture, even after Pa-Paw picked him up, G was still obsessed with the “airplane” over there….crazy kid!

Almost as exciting as Pa-Paw and airplanes at the airport – pay phones (ewww!) Graham loves the phone and seeing a bank of three of them in a row was pretty exciting :)

The rest of the week has been fairly uneventful – I spent Saturday doing some extra work (for extra pay!) Graham and Wil had a very busy evening playing catch and kick with one of his balls – the boy is fairly coordinated with the throwing and kicking…not so much the catching yet.

It is now verrrrry early Sunday morning and I’m having a hard time falling asleep – I napped a little bit earlier this evening when I had Graham in bed here with me. He was having a hard time getting to sleep too as he has been coughing – he actually said “hurts” and when I asked him to point where it hurt, he pointed to his throat. I’m excited that he’s getting better at communicating what is wrong, but feel bad for the little guy – I still here him coughing every now and again in there. Hopefully it won’t turn into anything too serious.

Must TRY to sleep – morning will come all too soon.  Again – Happy Easter to all – pictures of our Easter Sunday are on the way :)

Sunny Days and Easter Eggs

As promised, some pictures from our time outside on Sunday…

Graham still loves driving his car outside, and this year he’s much better at navigating :)  He was kind of looking around, looking for something else to do…so I mentioned that this would be a great place to run around (he loves running in the house). He ran out into the yard and then spotted a helicopter flying over.

Here he is making sure that I saw it too. It was actually pretty warm out, so after awhile Graham asked to go back in the house (rare!)

Yesterday Graham hung out with Grandma Chery after daycare – Pa-paw is out of town, so it was just the two of them. It was another beautiful day, so they spent some time at the park together. I spent the time taking care of some household tasks and resting – a full night of sleep continues to elude me….

We got a fun treat in the mail tonight – an Easter package from Nana and Papa! Graham got an egg full of M&Ms (though he doesn’t really know there’s candy in there yet!), Wil and I got some Cadbury Creme eggs (YUM!!) and the whole family got a very fun book called “Good Egg” (very cute book!)  We read the book before G went to bed, and Wil and I both enjoyed an egg before we went to bed :) Thanks for the goodies Mom and Dad!