A few weeks ago, I took some photos of Grayson one morning. These are my favorite two:
There are a few more here. He’s getting big, isn’t he?
We went to his two month checkup this past week, and the doc said he’s doing great. He weighed 13.7 pounds, and was 80th percentile in weight. He got four shots, and took them like a man… well, a man that’s two months old and doesn’t like shots 😉
So let’s see. I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble because I’ve been very delinquent in updating this website. For that I apologize.
That said, here’s what’s been going on since the last post:
On Thursday, Jack got up, and it happened to be his birthday. He turned two years old, officially.
We took him outside in the backyard and took some photos of him in his dad’s maroon t-shirt again:
He had fun taking those photos… he didn’t need help standing up this time either 😉
We opened a few gifts from the family on Thursday, just so we didn’t have that many gifts to open at his birthday party we were having on Saturday… can you tell he liked the fire truck:
More photos from the gift opening on Thursday.
That afternoon, around 4:00 or 4:30, friends starting arriving. We were hosting Christine’s family, and Mike Elmquist and Bob Beuerlein for Thanksgiving dinner this year. Mike was in town for Aggie Yell Practice that night, and was a buddy of mine in the Aggie Band years ago. Bob got back in the U.S. after a year in Iraq on Monday, 11/20, and wasn’t very far away (at Ft. Hood.) so we asked him to come join us too.
Christine has prepared most of the side dishes, and Mary and Frank had cooked the turkeys. Mike and Steven brought the desserts.
As soon as we had the table set, I had every one get together so we could take a group photo:
Dinner was amazing. Everyone had a turkey hangover and was in bed by 9 p.m.
On Thursday night, Bob, Mike and I went to Yell Practice on the south lawn of the State Capitol. And cool enough, right before Yell, we were drinking a beer in the bar in my office building, and we ran into Rev, the A&M Mascot, and we got to take a picture of Bob with Rev. Pretty cool:
On Friday morning, 12/24, Greg and I took Patrick and Jack to the t.u. vs. Aggies football game.
Whoop, the Ags beat last year’s National Champs 12 to 7. Greg and Patrick weren’t real happy about the outcome, but we all had a good time going to the game together. Actually, Jack sort of wussed out before the game started (he’s two, what do you expect) and Bob got to go instead of Jack, but again, we all had fun.
Here are some photos from Yell Practice wth Bob and from the game with Greg and Patrick.
A few more random shots:
I have photos from Jack’s Birthday Party on Saturday that I’ll get posted soon, and some movies from the past week or two too… not enough time in the day folks!
Last night, I asked Jack to say names of family members, and here’s what we got: Jack-says-Names.mp3.
If you listen to the mp3 file, listen to these names in this order:
Cute, huh?
Then tonight, while I was editing those names, Grayson started cooing to his mommy. It was pretty adorable, especially because we think his first “coo” was so lound and unexpected that it actually scared him into making the second “coo” sound.
BTW, if you want an MP3 of Jack saying your name, just leave a comment and Paypal me $3, and you can use that MP3 as a custom ringtone on your polyphonic phone. I always knew I wanted to be in the ringtone business….
update: 11/21/2006: I just listended to the MP3 this morning, and it’s funny to me how hard it is to understand Jack still, if you don’t know his language… To clarify: He says “uncle” as if he’s saying “Buncle”. He says “Peggy” and “Shadel” all wrong, but he’s definitely saying those two names. He says Evan, Mike, Steven, Raymond, Debbie, Momo, Nana, and Papa pretty well. We’ll keep trying… He’ll be able to talk by age 5, that’s the only promise I’m making at this point. Up next, colors and numbers.
Halloween came and went this year, and it was Jack’s second halloween, and Grayson and Maly’s first.
They were all so cute.
Jack was a race car driver and Maly was a Purple Dinosaur:
Grayson was a baby frankenstein:
Maly and Grayson were really just along for the ride, but I think Jack sort of got what we were doing by the second or third house. Here’s a photo of Jack getting his first piece of candy on his own during Halloween:
The funny thing is that after getting a piece of candy from the neighbors, he actually went inside their house almost like he thought we were just going over for a visit. And since they don’t have kids, I think he figured out we weren’t there to visit when he realized they didn’t have any toys out 😉
Like I said, Jack really seemed to have fun:
And Josh, Elise, Christine and I also had fun taking the kids out for Halloween.
Here’s the rest of the photos from the night.
I took my laptop into the shop this week, and forgot to get all the photos I took between when Grayson was born and Monday off of it, so I haven’t posted a lot of photos from the hospital and the ride home, and the first week at home, so here are some photos from this past week:
This week has been really great for Christine, Jack, Grayson and I. Especially for me.
I’ve gotten to bond with Grayson and Jack and I’m really thankful that I work for a company that’s supportive of family and understands how important family is to me.
Ok, that out of the way.
I thought you might want to hear how Jack says “baby brother” so here it is:
Click to download the MP3 of Jack saying “Baby Brother”.
Heh, who do you think he sounds like?
And since I had a few minutes, here’s a video of Jack and Grayson on the dining room table:
Last week was heaven. Thanks in large part to Nana and Papa.
Christine and Grayson came home from the hospital on Monday, October 16th around 3:00. Michael, Christine brother that flew in from New Orleans on Saturday after Grayson was born, drove our car up to the hospital for us, came up to the room and helped us pack ourselves out, and then drove the other car home.
Grayson was soooo small in the car seat, but he was too cute too. Christine sat in the back seat with him and sang to him as we drove the 10 or 12 blocks from the hospital to the house.
When we got home, Frank and Mary were there to greet us with Wesley and Patton.
Once we were home, we quickly settled into a routine. The routine with Grayson is a little different than it was with Jack. Mainly because we now get to play with Jack where we used to take naps 😉
Actually, Mary was a huge help with the baby the first week. Christine remarked on Sunday how she realized as Mary and Frank were leaving that she didn’t even really change a diaper for that first week. Mary pretty much took over taking care of Grayson and Jack while Christine healed, and I went to work for that first week.
Frank was in charge of helping out around the house with little handywork projects, and cooking. He also was in charge of helping me smoke the cigars we got to celebrate Grayson’s arrival.
Jack was in charge of being cute, and helping take care of his “baby brother”. He’s doing pretty good at it too.
Grayson was responsible for telling us when he was hungry, wet, poopy or tired. He was also respondible for sleeping as long as possible between being hungry, wet, poopy or tired. We gave him his first bath, and had his first doctor’s appointment.
I got to sleep a full night of sleep every night that first week, and Christine got plenty of sleep too. All thanks to Mary.
Then, on Sunday Mary and Frank went home to Dallas.
On Sunday night, Christine and I had to finally start learning how to be real parents to two kids at the same time.
Sunday night and Monday weren’t too bad. Christine and I took turns sleeping through the night, though, I think I got plenty of sleep. Christine woke me up at 8 or so, saying she’d been up since 5 a.m. So, I took Jack outside around 9 a.m. to play while Christine and Grayson slept.
At 10:00, Heidi, our neighbor, brought her twins Mason and Norah over to play in the sandbox. I realized I’d locked myself out of the house, so we all went over to their house to play. Jack had a blast playing with the kids, and we let Christine get some good rest.
Around noon, Christine and Grayson joined us all for lunch at Heidi’s (Heidi cooked us all some mean grilled cheese sandwiches and apple slices).
Then Jack took a nap. I took a phone call for work, and then took the MacBookPro into the Apple Store for repairs. When I got home, Jack was waking up, and we headed back out in the front yard to play. Norah and Mason joined us again, and the kids played chase in another neighbor’s front yard, until it was dinner time.
Marc and Rowan came over for dinner on Monday night, because Marc had to pick Cyndi and their baby daughter up at the airport. I cooked a hearty pot of Macaroni and Cheese and some hotdogs and broccoli. Ummmm… so healthy!
Last night, Jack went down a little late at 8:45 p.m. (he was a little wound up after playing with Rowan) and then Grayson woke up around 10:30 to eat. Then the poor guy ate a little, pooped a little, burped a little, and then did it all again… until 1:30 in the morning. I finally got him to sleep around 2:30 a.m. after walking around the house with him for an hour on my shoulder. Once I had him asleep I was worried that he’d wake up again if I put him in the basinet, so we fell asleep on the couch, and the whole house slept until 6 a.m. this morning.
Christine got up and took over for me for a couple of hours, and then I helped her get Jack out to door to school.
I’m going to take another nap now.
It’s funny… we’ve done this before, but now we’re learning how to do it again, differently.
On Saturday morning, at 5:57 a.m. Christine gave birth to our newest son:
Grayson weighed 9 pounds at birth and was 21 inches long. He has a full head of dark hair and dark dark blue eyes.
Christine was awesome during the labor and delivery. She really did a great job, and I’m very proud of her.
We spent Saturday resting and visiting with family and friends, and Saturday night resting. We got upgraded to the suite at St. David’s. If you ever have a baby there, and get the chance to get into the suite… totally take advantage of it.
I got to sleep on a full sized pull-out couch, and we have plenty of room for visiting friends and family.
On Sunday, we rested more, and visited more family and friends…
Grayson is adorable (no, I’m not biased) and we all think that at first he didn’t look anything like Jack when Jack was born, but I’m starting to see resemblances as Grayson turns a day old, and now a day and a half.
He’s also got a very healthy appetite and is a much better eater than Jack was right at birth. Within 30 minutes of being born, the kid was already on mom’s breast trying to eat something. I think it too Jack a few hours to get around to trying to eat.
Thanks everyone for the well wishes. We’re all doing great.