Under the sea! or pool...

Blogging while watching the Oscars. Good times. 

Please excuse my weekend randomness. 

So remember when I said that I was waiting not so patiently for a package from Aunt Rachie?

Well. Here it is. The adorable-ness that is a hat with ears...and matching bowtie.

Um, is she not super talented?!!

I've already BEGGED her to start selling her stuff on ETSY.

This was actually her first shot at something "boy" - not too bad, eh?!

G started his swim class this weekend at the Y, and did great. We joked that he kind of looked bored, his face was very indifferent. But he certainly isn't scared of the water - He kicked like a little maniac!! He was also the youngest one there by a long shot. He's in the "Little Kippers" class where the age range is  6-18 months. I think a lot of them were closer to 1 and above. I'm glad we started him early, though. We have a pool in our development, and will most likely be taking him there a lot in the summer. It's never to early to introduce them to the pool and water!

(I left my camera at the Y Saturday, or I would have a couple swim pics. Hopefully I get it back tomorrow)

Dan and I had our adult nite out Saturday evening. We celebrated our friend Kelby's 30th birthday! Unfortunately, the evening was cut short because of some sort of stomach bug Dan had. 

This morning, Dan and his Dad went the to the UC v Uconn game, while G and I surprised Grandma at her church:) We got to visit her lovely church members again, play with some new friends, and make Grandma smile. Well worth it. 

 Oh, ad it hit 60 out today. YEY! So we took a stroll on over to the playground in the development. I was really excited to push G in a swing. Guess what - NO SWINGS! The playground had multiple slides, a monkey bar thing, pull up bar...but no swings. I was so sad. 

So we let him play on the slide.

 I guess this is fun, Momma

The little nugget started to pull himself up to his toy box and will dig toys out.

Oh, and some serious teething this weekend.

Nom Nom Nom...laundry baskets are DE-LISH.

One more thing. 

I'm going to Nashville! This weekend, my girlfriends and I decided to take a weekend "Girls Only" trip. The kids are staying home with the dads and the ladies are taking two nights to ourselves. 

All I can say is - We have some pretty awesome husbands! 

I'm a little nervous about being away from G, since it WILL be my first time without him, but I'm pretty sure he's going to have an awesome weekend with his dad. I'll of course be getting text pics the whole weekend:)

We'll be leaving on a friday afternoon and coming back Sunday - in April! 

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Gatlinburg = Perfection

We're back! 

We rolled back into Cincinnati near 2:00pm this afternoon. Cranky baby and all. He definitely wasn't cranky the whole time - just the drive home:)

It was truly a perfect first vacation getaway for our family. It was close enough (5 hours) so that we weren't couped up in a car all day, and far enough so that we felt we actually went somewhere. 

The trip taught us a couple things. 

1. When planning our next trip, we may want to look into a condo/house/beach house. (Dan and I thought we were pretty "set" on our summer vacation, but, may change plans a bit after our first vacay experience.

2. NO longer then 5 hours TOPS in a car/plane. Sorry, momma can only take so much "how much is that doggie in the window. WOOF WOOF". Yes, my child needed to be entertained in the car ride. I love him to death, but I had to have a baggy in the back of the car with me "just in case". 

We left for Gatlinburg Friday afternoon (12:30pm) and made it in at around 6:30. Traffic getting into Gatlinburg was a little crazy Friday evening, which we knew might happen. 

G did great on the car ride TO Gatlinburg. We stopped one time for G to eat and for Dan to conduct a conference call meeting. Yep. Dan scheduled a conference call in the middle of our trip. LOVE-LY. It's all good, G only screamed AHHHH once. :P

Oh yea. He screams now. Not a lot, just enough for someone to look at him. Like he doesn't get enough attention??!!

Anywho. At roughly 6:30ish..we arrived at our cabin. And what do you know? We actually had a wonderful mountainous view. Just like the website said! 

The View from our back porch. Just Perfect! 

We went grocery shopping Friday night to get our food for the weekend, and hung inside the cabin for the remainder of the evening with the little dude.

Saturday morning we woke up to sunny skies. WOO HOO! We packed up and prepared for our hike!

Strapping G in! He looks so excited......

My favorite picture - my boys hiking

 Family picture at the falls

And I just realize that there's a pic missing of G falling asleep on Dan's back! I will make that a seperate post maybe....:)

The hike wasn't very long - 3 miles. It was a lot easier then we anticipated, but, was a good starter considering we had never done this with G before. He LOVED every minute of it. It was so awesome to see his little eyes dart around everywhere. 

After the hike, we took a drive up to a "lookout" point. 

After the lookout, we decided to go back to the Cabin to re-group, see if G would take a nap.  

Momma, I don't take naps when we're having fun. Nope. Not me.  

Dad Love. 

After about 1.5hrs back at the cabin, we packed it up again..and headed to downtown Gatlinburg! Such a crazy little area. 

There were TONS of people downtown. We stolled G around, but almost wish we backpacked him. Dan and I could barely walk together. It was fun to just walk the downtown area, though. Lots to see, for sure!


After we had walked around most of the area, we stopped in at the Aquarium.

 He KIND of payed attention...:)

It was time for home after the Aquarium. We had one tired 6 month old, and two tired adults.

Below are some random pictures of the evening...

Sunday we woke bright and early...to Skype with Daddy and Nonna! Ha. Can't break a Skype date:)
After we got ready, we headed off the the outlets! Yey for bargain shopping!

Oh just a regular Sunday morning, eating my toes...

 Dad playin' in the back seat with G

 Momma Love

Are we home yet....??!!

So. In un-brilliant nature, Dan and I decided to drive to Cades Cove. It's a scenic drive..blah blah blah. Actually, it really is quite beautiful. There was ONE TEENY DETAIL we forgot. The speed limit is 20mph. And it's one way. Which means if someone is going 5 MILES an hour..your stuck behind that person for quite some time. Now, if you want to go 5 miles an hour, you can! Your supposed to pull off to the side of the road so that those of us who don't really need to mosey on..can pass! Nope. This fella did no such thing. Needless to say, it took much longer then expected to drive to Cades Code. Lesson learned. 

We made it back to the Cabin around dinner time...Snuggled with the little dude, read books, and put him to bed. 

 I super hate this pic of me, BUT, it's honestly how I read to him. If you sit him down, he's just constantly lurching for the book. This way, he's forced to just look up. 

Dan and I got some relaxation in Sunday night. We watched a movie and just vegged out for a couple hours.

Monday, we left the cabin at 8:30 for the LONNNNG drive home. Usually G passes out when he's in a car. Today, not so much. He decided to fight his nap pretty hard. SO hard. Even though it was tiring, I'm kind of glad that it happened. It kind of put a time stamp on how long we want to be stuck in a car with G at a time. Granted, we've done the trip from CT to Ohio in one day, just not so sure we want to make the a viable option too often. 

To top it all off - pics at home

It was a great vacation. Minus the crazy drives. So great, that Dan said Saturday was one of the best days he's had. Ever. 

We can't wait for our next trip, and are already looking at options for the summer and in between. We were a little spoiled having a full cabin to ourselves for this vacation, and are now wondering if staying in a hotel room wouldn't quite work with the little guy. (we try to have him in bed at 7:00pm every night, so if we're in a hotel room, how do we put him to bed and not go to sleep ourselves?)

We didn't really think of that when we were planning our summer vacation. It sounds easy enough to just stay in a hotel room, but it would be nice if Dan and I could really have our own time without "tip toeing" around a hotel room, ect. Things to thing about. 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! 

Strong Baby

So.......how was YOUR weekend? Because ours was kind of crazy.

First, I'll start with a cute pic.

and this is why I need a new camera...the pitfalls of a point and shoot.

just adorable, though

I'm going to try to do this quickly so that I have it written down (this is G's babybook)

and, let's be honest, we don't want to hear about a sick baby!

G's Feb sickness

Timeline (every 6 hrs he was given Ibprofen)

Thursday 3:00pm - We get a call from Daycare letting us know that G has a fever, so Dan goes to pick him up

Friday 6:30am - I take G's temp and it's still 100.3, not bad, but fussy enough for me to stay home with him.

Friday 10:00am - Take G's temp, 101

Friday 12:30pm - Take G's temp, 105 (have quick panic attack, call Dan, call pedi)

Pediatrician instructed us to come in, as opposed to rushing to ER

Friday 1:20pm - Get checked into docs, temp 104

While at the Pedi's, G was tested for the Flu, which came back negative. Since it was negative, the doctor's wanted to take blood and have it tested. Thank God Dan was there, because I had to walk out of the room when they were holding him down to draw the blood.

We waited about 15 minutes for the doctor to come back and tell us his white blood cell count was high - and that they were going to need to get a urine sample.

How do you get a urine sample from an infant? oh yes, you have to insert the catheter.

I stayed for that, while Dan held Grayson down a second time, with me crying through the whole thing.

We waited while the results for the urine came back - negative.

So, as a precaution, he was given a shot of antibiotics (yes, Dan had to hold him down a 3rd time) in case of infection.

We then scheduled an appointment the very next morning for follow-up.

We got home at around 5. G's temp, 105.

Between Friday 12:30pm and Saturday 3pm, G's temp got to 105, four times. It wasn't fun.

At the pediatrician's Saturday morning, they said he looked great. Since he only had a fever, and was very responsive there was no worry that he would recover easily. Those pediatricians are soo great, because you know what? He was perfectly fine by Sunday morning.

Way to give a Momma a heart attack.

A couple pics of his "sick time"

Momma, I don't feel good (this pic breaks my heart. ugh. he was soo hot the poor baby)

What a trooper!

So, enough yuck stuff.

Fun stuff?

Oh yea, our FIRST FAMILY VACAY to Gatliburg, TN!

We'll be staying in a cabin. LOVE.

We have a 3 mile hike planned if Grayson is feeling up to it. The Aquarium in downtown Gatlinburg, a drive up to a lookout, and shopping.

Now, if G isn't feeling up to any of this - we will have plenty to do at the cabin relaxing just the three of us.

This will be Dan's first vacation since we went to Disney with his brother and sister-in-law about a year and half ago. (we don't count trips to CT vacation - sorry!)I know that he is looking forward to it, a lot. Dan is really into hiking and all that fun "boy stuff", and is pretty pumped to introduce Grayson to all things wildlife.

I'm sure to have TONS of pictures to post when I get back!

and I'm patiently waiting for a package in the mail from Aunt Rachie, I think I might die opening it..really. I might. and I'm not going to tell you what it is, so you'll have to wait patiently too. Sucks doesn't it:P

Like Father, Like Son

Twins I tell ya!

Ok. maybe not twins...BUT, Grayson does carry a resemblence to his dad! We really couldn't tell who he looked like. At first, it seemed like we were getting more "he looks like his mom"...but as he's gotten older, it seems like he's really just a good mix of the both of us.

There was always one thing we would laugh about - "Where did he get those cheeks!"

Apparently, he got them from his dad!

The picture below was taken the day they were both born.

Grayson Dan

Precious!

Grayson Dan

Sleepy time

Dan Grayson

And now we know where the shocked eyes come from

He definitely doesn't look exactly like him, but in these pics you can tell G gets his expressions from him. So cute.