Our Christmas festivities were great this year, starting with decorating the tree and visiting Santa at the mall. We had saved the tree topper for last so Parker could put it on, but she was scared, see video. Our girl has a bit of acrophobia.
The visit with Santa went very well this year. Parker kept saying she was going to sit on Santa's lap before the visit, but I didn't believe it until I saw it. Graham didn't know what to think about the bearded stranger, just kind of warily checked him out. Even though we went on a Sunday morning, the line was long, but both kids did great waiting.
Afterwards we grabbed some lunch and rode the carousel in the mall.
It was our turn to host the annual Goforth Christmas Eve party! Greg has a large family, most of which live in the area. We had 25 adults and 17 kids, by far our biggest party yet. We used our new smoker (the Pit Barrel Cooker, which we highly recommend) and cooked 23 lbs of brisket and 10 lbs of wings. It was a good time and so nice to see everyone.
Christmas day was low key with hanging around the house opening gifts, followed by a walk.
We went to Papa G and Sandy's for dinner that evening and had a great time visiting with Sandy's mother, two daughters, and granddaughter.
Our sweet boy is eight months old! He is as active as ever, pulling himself up on anything and everything. His teachers at daycare call us any time he bumps his head (it's a rule they have, in addition to filling out an incident report) and so we hear from them often. He still army crawling although it has transitioned to up on his knees a bit...still just on elbows. But boy, is he quick! He is cruising around all the furniture (hence the falling and head bumping). As our pediatrician said, "cruisers are bruisers".
Graham loves to eat finger foods and even though still uses the raking method, he gets a fair amount of food into his mouth rather than the floor. Aside from the typical puffs, cheerios, and other snacks, we have started giving him "real" finger food. He has had peas, green beans, pasta, sweet potato, ham, turkey, cheese. He loves mac & cheese. Graham has even had Chipotle (black beans and tomatoes). He has had scrambled eggs too, but we are going to hold off on those for awhile as it gave him a rash. The same thing happend to Parker when she was little and she outgrew it.
He has started taking one less bottle a day, all bottles are 6 oz. Most days he has one in morning, around 6:00 am, then one around 10:00, one around 2:00, and one before bed around 6:45. He takes two naps a day around those 10:00 and 2:00 marks.
Graham is a happy kid and is so even keel that he had a very bad double ear infection last week and we didn't know! I took him to the Dr. on a hunch just because he hadn't slept well the previous two nights. This was after a diagnosis of an ear infection in the left ear a week and a half before. Although this time, it was both ears and it was as bad as they have seen. He is still on antibiotics and healing up nicely.
This picture is from the Dr and I have no idea why the coloring is like this. I promise he was not oxygen-deprived.
He still loves his baths and luckily for his, pees in them much more rarely.
Another big milestone, riding in the grocery cart like a big boy! Here is first time with Parker and he has been since by himself.
As you can imagine, it gets more and more difficult to pose Graham for monthly photo shoot. Here is the best we got!
We took advantage of our first snowfall of the year by going out for a walk and playing in it and then building a snowman. Graham was all bundled up for our little walk and just enjoyed being outside.
That same weekend, Parker and I had a girls date to see Rodgers & Hammersteins Cinderella at the Rochester Auditorium Theater. Parker did great sitting through the show. When it was over I asked her what her favorite part was, she said "I don't know". So I said my favorite part was all of the dancing and she said her favorite part was the dresses. Go figure!
