Grandma & Grandpa Visit

Due to some previously scheduled time off work for my Mom, Grandma & Grandpa decided to make a last minute visit!  They drove in and arrived Friday afternoon and left Monday morning.  We had gorgeous weather and Parker had so much fun playing with both of them.

On Friday night, we walked into the village and had dinner at Pittsford Pub followed by ice cream at Pittsford Dairy.

On Saturday, we just hung around the house (I got to go to Wegman's all by myself, a rare treat).  Parker showed G&G the new swing that her Daddy hung in the tree for her.  She also played baseball and soccer and played on the hammock.  Saturday evening Greg and I had a date night with dinner at Lento and then meeting up with Gennie who had just come in town for the day for a friend's wedding.  We picked Gennie up at a bar after the wedding and she stayed at our house that night.  

On Sunday, we had breakfast and Papa G came over too.  Then after Gennie hit the road to drive back to Pittsburgh, we all drove out to the New York Museum of Transportation.  It had some very cool old train cars to climb into and you get to ride an old trolley and and an old push cart.  Both kids were wonderfully behaved the whole time!

That night we went to dinner at the Genesee Brew House which is downtown, right next to High Falls.  These pictures are from after dinner.  It was my Mom and Dad's 41st wedding anniversary, so they wanted to have Snow White in the shot.

Graham - 4 Months Old

Our big boy is 4 months old!  Graham learned to roll over, back to front, a couple weeks ago so is no longer completely stationary.  He pretty much flips over to his tummy within minutes after being laid down.  He is also getting better every day at grabbing and holding things, so we now give him toys to play with.  We've been dealing with baby's first cold the last week or so and that has resulted in some restless nights.  Graham is a very even-tempered little guy, so even though it is obvious he doesn't feel great he is still in a pretty good mood most of the time.  Now that he can roll back to front, he has been doing that at bedtime and ends up sleeping most nights on his tummy.

We had his check-up yesterday and he weighs 16 lb 13.05 oz (90%)and is 26.5 cm long (97%).  His head is 17 cm (75%).  He is starting not to fit in most 6 months size clothes so we are moving up to the next size.  I also started putting him in size 3 diapers this week.

Graham is still mostly getting breastmilk, but my production has been waning ever since I went back to work.  Around 14 weeks, I started sending one bottle of formula to daycare because I just can't get enough when pumping.  Luckily he likes the formula so it was an easy adjustment.  I plan to keep it up as long as I can, figuring some breastmilk is better than none.  

The guidance has changed since Parker was this age and now doctors recommend waiting until closer to 6 months to start solids.  Graham is already interested in food, if he is sitting on my lap while I am eating he watches every movement of the fork from plate to mouth.  So we might not wait until he is exactly 6 months old.

Here are some photos of Graham at 4 months, as you can see it is getting harder to take shots of him sitting still:

Some recent videos:

This month had some big firsts, starting daycare being a huge one!  Here is a picture of him with his "class" (with one baby missing).  Only two others besides Graham are full time.  The rest are only some days of the week.  He is the youngest and many of these babies will be moving up to the next room in a month or two.  The new round of babies moving in will be all boys.

This picture was sent from his teachers of Graham falling asleep while playing.

Another first this month was swimming!  The neighbor behind us, G.I. Joe (that is literally what how he refers to himself) has a pool and has invited us to use periodically.

Like Father, like Son.  Graham actually fell asleep like this:

Fun Summer Outings

We attended a Rochester Red Wings (Triple A team) game courtesy of Goforth Electric.  We had a large box reserved, with yummy ballgame food and beer...not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Pryse with Spikes

After the game, they let the kids run the bases.  Greg took Parker down to the field but the presence of Spikes on the second baseline freaked her out a bit and Greg ended up carrying her around the rest of the bases.  Spikes came up to our box for a visit and Parker was just cautiously watching him, but I guess being that close to him on the field was just too much.  Since then, Parker has mentioned "that big red bird" a couple times and says she wants to go see him, so maybe next time we go to a game she can work up the courage for a high five.

On Friday nights during the summer, the village of Pittsford has free concerts in a park along the canal.  We finally made it to one last week and were fully prepared with a picnic dinner and bottle of wine.  It is a 15-20 minute walk from our house, all along the canal, so made for a very fun evening.

Feeding the ducks

Cookie face

Another visit to Bounce-It-Out last weekend on a stormy Sunday, Parker did laps on the big slide:

Parker Cuteness

Just a little update on Miss Parker.  She is loving her new classroom and is getting better and better at doing things for herself.  Every day it seems she masters another skill.  One of our most frequently heard phrases over the last few months is "I want to do it myself".  While her vocabulary seems almost limitless now, she does have some things she says wrong.  I don't even correct her because it's just too darn cute.  Some examples:

Elephant  :  el-pha-dent
Mine  :  mines
Yellow  :  lellow
Macaroni  :  mac-a-moni
Boobies (usually when referring to mine)  :  boo-boos
Beautiful/Beauty  :  Bootiful/Booty
Another  :  this is a wierd one, very garbled, kind of like Anayna 
Icing  :  Ice
Band-aid  :  bam-aid

Parker also says "I'll be right back" a lot, if she needs to leave the room to get something.  She gets some prepositions mixed up, i.e. using "for" when it should be "of" or "to".  She also uses the word "so" instead of "because", for example when we ask her why she begins her answer with "so...".  Last night, Parker was singing a new song and Greg realized it was all of the months of the year!

Parker is still loving her little brother and always kisses and hugs him goodnight or goodbye.  She is big helper and will rock his car seat if he starts to fuss while we are waiting to leave.  The other day I had Graham on my lap sitting at the dining room table and unbeknownst to me, he had started drooling.  Parker went into the other room, found a burp cloth, and wiped his chin before I even realized what was going on!

Some random photos & videos:

after haircut at Sweet & Sassy, they gave her an Elsa (Frozen) braid

For crazy hair day at school, see front view below

throwing rocks in the canal

in her very often used princess dress

We have added some more decoration to Parker's room and moved her bed a bit.  The place the bed used to be, against the wall, was blocking one of the vents, so we pulled it out and added another bed rail.  We hung the flags above the bed and clips to her "nook" so we can display her artwork.  We also have a decal of her name to add to the nook, hopefully it will get put up this weekend.

Graham - 3 Months Old

Here is Graham's photo shoot for his three month birthday!

And the progression:

Our big shot choose his three month birthday to roll over for the first time.  He cried after it happened each time, not sure if it scared him or what.  He did the big roll over once, so I put him back again so I could take video.

Graham is pretty much sleeping through the night consistently.  The last few weeks he has been pretty much out after the 7:00-8:00 pm feeding, so I have been doing a "dream feed" to give him one more boost at 10:00 or 11:00.  Then he sleeps until 6:00.  

Graham's head and neck control is getting better every day and we can put him in the Bumbo now for about 10 minutes before he gets worn out and fussy.  He definitely loves sitting up so he can see everything around him.  

Graham loves his sister and smiles at her all the time.  He has even started smiling at Otis!  The last couple days I have gotten a couple little giggles from him, so that is going to be fun to work on.

Some random photos and videos:

  

I started back to work on Monday 7/28.  It was a rough first morning, but luckily the only tears were from yours truly.  Graham is doing great in his Infants room at the JCC.  His teachers are Miss Michelle, Miss Jessica, and Miss Liz.  Parker was in the same room as a baby and so we know all of these teachers well.  They say Graham really like to look around and watch the other babies.  He seems to be getting better at falling asleep on his own too.  He has down it a handful of times at home and a few times this week, usually in a swing.  He is currently having three 5 oz bottles of breastmilk each day while at school.  Then I nurse him when we get home and again later in night, usually that "dream feed" approach.