Lookie Who is ONE!!!

We made it. We made it. We made it. One year old is less of a birthday and more of a celebration for the parents of one year in the bag. Time went by super fast and bizarrely slow. That is the best way I can describe it.


I am thrilled that my little sweetie is about to take on walking. I am so sad that he isn't a an infant anymore. He just quit nursing. I wasn't ready, but he was. It has been over a week now and I keep offering it, but he says NO WAY, I am not a baby anymore. Gulp.


Ed and I are ready to move onto the next phase of life with two little boys. I remember now, that we used to joke when Jr. started walking that we didn't take care of a baby, but we were on constant suicide watch. Graham thinks it is awesome to climb the stairs. He gets half way up the stairs and turns back to look at us, wobbling dangerously. Yikes baby.


I had three days off last week, so we took off to Great Falls to spend some time with Nanny. That is where we had birthday party #1. There are some cute photos in Picassa below.




On Sunday night we had a combo birthday party (#2) for Nona and Graham. Their birthdays are back to back. He was kind of her birthday present, or as she puts it, she doesn't have to have anymore birthdays now because they belong to Graham now. Cute.






Tomorrow night, his official birthday is birthday party #3. Doesn't every baby need 3 birthday parties? Yes. They do. He does.



Dear Graham, on your first birthday. Thank you for being my sweet baby. We were a little shocked when you developed quite the temper, you are honestly the sweetest happiest baby alive, until you don't get what you want. Even when you are SO MAD at us, it is so easy to make you smile. You have the most beautiful smile and smazing sparkling blue eyes. I still rock you to sleep even though I should put you down awake. I can't let go of that snuggling time just yet. I would still snuggle your brother every night if he wasn't so wiggly. We call you fat baby because you can seriously pack in the food. You get into everything, you love to open and close doors and cupboards and man can you crawl fast. You give the best (slobbery and biting) kisses and hugs. I love making you laugh. I think you are the most beautiful baby I have ever seen and I am not ashamed to tell everyone about it. I wonder when we will stop calling you Baby Graham. We are always amazed at how tough you are, your brother delivers quite the hits and you just roll with the punches literally. You often instigate the wresteling match. I kind of love it. You think your brother is the best and I hope you stay in awe of him. The first year of your life was pretty amazing and I think it is just going to get better. I will never forget the day you were born. It was actually kind of fun. Your dad and Aunt Liesel were there and you didn't want to come out, but when you were ready, boom, it went fast. You were so pretty when you were born. So pretty.

Oh and just a note about your brother - he is FINALLY potty trained. I am a little embarassed it took us this long, but he had to do it in his time.



Graham the first year.

Fourth of the What?

So over the course of an epic Fourth of July weekend I took three bad photos. Enjoy.




Aunt Liesel and her family adopt us for the weekend and it was so fun! Ed won the Uncle Al golf tournament and got to ride in the fourth of July parade in Seeley. They shut down the highgway for hours so that kids can duke it out for candy from floats. Makes you well with patriotism or crazy with desire to push down kids to get more candy. Jr. was supposed to be in the parade with his dad, but it was nearing 100 degrees and his dad thought it was better to ride inside the cab of the truck and not bake in the back of the truck.

Please, Aunt Liesel, send me some of the photos from the weekend. . . Please. Here are some I stole from Liesel's sister-in-law Abby. Evan is about Graham's age and they were pretty darn cute together all weekend.




We got home about 9 PM on the night of the 4th. Jr. and Ed crashed the neighbors' blow up some shit fest and Jr. stayed up until almost 11 PM. YIKES. He was so incredibly stoked, I couldn't barely pull him away. A-holes in the county decided it was cool to blow up shit until after 2AM on a Sunday night. Note to self, take the 5th of July off. Going to work that Tuesday was rough.


Then last weekend we went to Adrienne's third birthday party. There was a blow up bouncy house. I repeat, blow up bouncy house. Did I have my camera? No. What is my problem? Plus I got Adrienne the cutest green poka dot jumper and pink sparkly mary janes for her birthday. Ug.

So in order to make up for my lax camera duties, I shot some videos. Sadly there is lots of me talking in them, but I think you will find them a little fantastic.


Graham is pulling himself up on EVERYTHING including poor baby girl Selma.

I like to call these the bathtub interviews.




Yeah - he likes to gives the thumbs up to ho's.

High Quality Recreational Experience

We are now OFFICIALLY more RV'ers than campers. Behold The Coleman Megaload.

It holds two adults, a preschooler, a sweet baby, a stinky lab and all kinds of gear like a champ. Honestly it doesn't feel like camping anymore, it feels like, um, RV-ing.

I fully expected us to roll into the Holland Lake campground and be surrounded by old people and their small dogs in their motor homes. Not even. It was all thirty somethings and their bratty loud kids. We were in good company.

Apparently it is the new thing, get married, have kids, buy a camper and spend weekends by the lake.

Ed is totally stoked. Ever since Ed Jr. was born he has been striving to re-achieve Outdoor Recreation King status. He is getting there.

Oh and Hi - I am 11 months.

This is the face you get when you try to tell me "No."

Jr. sharing his popsicle with his baby brother.

Dads

Happy fathers' day out there Grandpa John! My dad never reads this blog (I know - what IS wrong with him?) so we had to wish him a happy fathers day in person.

Ed had a great fathers' day if you take away the hangover. Oopsie.

No, it was a great day, we chilled - boy howdy did we need it. He did mow the lawn, and between you and me, I think he loves mowing the lawn. His new riding lawnmower is a dream.


Ed is an awesome dad and really proved his daddy chops this last week being the primary caregiver for both boys for an entire week. He even had to take Monday off because daycare was closed. I came home late that night and found both of my kids alive and happy and the house was clean. Yes clean. He even made the bed. Oh and dinner was in the oven. For reals. The whole week was long and pretty awful, but one thing remained the same, I could count on coming home to some happy fellas.

My week was rediculous. I was in guard school - or wild fire firefighter training for a week. Yeah, me a firefighter. I laughed too. I wish I would have done it about 15 years ago. I got my ass kicked. And with that, I am done. It was like ripping the bandaid off, had to do it, it was awful and now I can heal. Let's hope my feet recover eventually.

Ed and I are not important compared to the two most handsome Colemans.

Baby Graham. Crawler, smiler, puller upper, dancer and scowler. He has these beautiful blue expressive eyes. You can tell he is smiling even with a binky in his mouth. You can also tell when he is mad at you for telling him "NO! No electricity!" That stinker loves cords and plug ins. Oh and the biggest Baby Graham news - he sleep trained himself. I think Ed and I were actually holding him back. He likes to get up in the middle of the night to nurse and then it is right back in his crib until like 7AM. We can put him to bed awake and he barely cries if at all and then sunggles up with his blankets and falls asleep. There was no plan, no nights of screaming, he just did it himself. Swoon.

Happy 11 months old Baby Graham. Only 1 month and you will be a year old. CRAZY!


Click on me - I am a video.




Ed Jr. He is so funny, the things he says. Tonight on the swings he told me that he likes to swing catawampus. Yeah, he said catawampus. He is also putting together really complex ideas - things he has learned at different times from different sources. It is very cool.


He informed his Aunt Liesel and I that he was going to marry Seri under the Marrying Tree (a white crab apple in our front yard). He then went in to explaining to us that he and Seri were going to have a baby, the baby was in Seri's belly. It was going to be a girl and he was going to name it Frances. When we asked him if he was going to get a job to support his family, he didn't think too much of that, but he told us that he needed to buy his baby medicine. The purple medicine, not the red medicine. That medicine is icky. He is so full of imagination. Today he told the girl at Capital Sports that he could handle shooting the deer. He told me he was going to shoot a bear and I told him that I didn't think he could handle a bear. He then went through the rest of the taxidermy telling me that he could handle the mountain lion, he could handle the moose, he could handle the deer, he could handle the elk. . .



We also talk a lot about shooting and guns. Ug. If I have learned anything from Jr. whatever he is into now will only last a short time. We will move on to something else soon. Lets hope it is peaceful.

All of the photos are from our first camping trip of the year and Aunt Liesel's visit. Both were awesome and we are THRILLED it is finally summer.

Its a framer!





Grace and Sarah on our camping trip to Black Sandy. Cuties.

10 Months

Sometime last month (ha ha the 19th) Graham hit 10 months. Ed, Cissie and I had to look back at his brother at 10 months and had a great little laugh. Boy how those two look different, but you can tell they are brothers.



Graham is officially crawling but preferrs to "swim" across the floor. The poor baby has rug burns on his belly. The MINUTE you get his clothes and diaper off he takes off across the floor faster than you can get a new diaper out.

I want to remember Graham forever at this age as the sweetest baby who is also getting some stuborness. He is going to give his brother a run for his money. Graham is tough and he doesn't back down. If you take away his toy - watch yourself. If he is hungry and you don't have his food ready - look out. He is still so smiley and smiles with his eyes. He loves to crawl on top of his brother and gives him kisses. Crazy cute. Video.



Graham got two new teeth (big ones) over Memorial Day weekend. I sunk to a new low in sleep deprevation. On Tuesday morning he got up for the day at 4:30. Lowest of the low.

Jr. and his daddy ran in the Race for the Cure. They planted our new trees. Jr. helps out around the house - our biggest challenge with him is to keep him fed and to keep him busy. He loves to garden and dig for worms. He loves to compost. Yeah, you heard me right, compost. His dad put grass clippings in the composter without his knowledge - he was pissed! Oh and the questions. He is all about questions. He wants to know everything. My least favorite question: Why do you have to work? Why do I have to go to Aimees? I don't know baby. Because. Or there is Why can't I wear my jammies? Why do I have to go to bed? And so on and so forth.







Sorry daddy - I couldn't help myself. Video.