Baby G turns two!



Our little baby Grant turned two on Monday.  Okay, so maybe he isn't a baby anymore, but I might just sometimes, still call him baby G.  Grant has turned into quite the active boy and on more than one occasion he has outlasted his tired parents.  Here are some of his current favorite things:

 

Trains, trains and more trains!  This is a big Geo Trax set that Natalie set up. Grant loved it, but it became a bit of a problem when he wanted to use it when Andrew was going to bed. 

 

 

If you love trains, then you probably also love Thomas the train.  Luckily, we kept these from when Andrew was little.  When Danny and I are trying to get Andrew and Claire in bed he watches some of the Thomas cartoon.

 

His favorite character is Toby.

 

 

But don't let all of the sweetness fool you!  Take a look at this little gem.  He is standing on the steering wheel of the ride on car (leftover from Claire, hence the pink, but he doesn't care) trying to reach the sink.  He loves to play in the sink and splash water everywhere.   Incidentally, don't mind the pile of Claire's art supplies on the right hand side of the picture.  It is a full time job keeping up with her supplies. 

   

 

He left the cat food alone for a while, but he has a renewed interest.  Now, he likes to individually drop them into the water.  But soon that turns into splashing and dumping.  Not to mention that Hannah has to have very special expensive cat food.

 

 

Grant's current super fun habit is asking for a snack and then eating a few bites of it, and THEN he dumps it on the floor and either steps on it or drives one of his cars across it.  This grinds the item into bits that have to be cleaned up with the vacuum.  Let you think we aren't watching him, these things seem to happen when we are making dinner, doing dishes, cleaning up another mess, etc.  Here he has taken a bag of Sun Chips and made them into confetti.

 

 

Oh, but it isn't all bad.  Every once in a while you can get him to snuggle.

 

 

 

He loves books now and we read them to him before bed, but Claire, who is just learning to read, also likes to "read" to him.

 

He loves to help water the plants, now all of the water doesn't always go on the plants or the grass, but that is okay.

 

He was also introduced to the joys of the swim club this summer.  He either loves to be in the water or doesn't want to go in at all.  

 



Here is Grant in is favorite pajamas (Thomas of course!).  He grabbed my sunglasses out of my purse and was wearing them around.  You have to be careful around here because he is good at swiping things.

 

Such a big boy!  Here is is in the infant tub where he used to lay for a bath.

 

 

We had a small family birthday celebration for him on Sunday night.  I suppose that we should have put two candles on the cupcakes, but I just noticed that there is only one.

 

 

Lots of help with presents!

 

 

Grandma Kiehn got him a fire truck pedal car.  He is very excited to use it.

 

 

We are so happy to have Grant in our family.  We just need come up with some more energy to keep up with him.  Happy Birthday Grant!

Opening day times two

Today was opening day for both baseball and soccer.  It also is the beginning of some very busy Saturdays between now and Thanksgiving.  Bright and early this morning Claire had pictures for soccer.  They have been practicing for two weeks.  It seems that the anticipation for the season may have been greater than the actual playing of the game today. 

 

Her game wasn't until 2:00 pm, so it was still fairly warm.  All of the kids on the team started out strong, but soon they were dragging. I don't think they have done that much running before.  

 

Claire started out on defense, so she is waiting for the ball to come to her.

 

She is thrilled to have Elaina on her team  Here they both are running after the ball (as is most of their team). 

 

Soon Claire was subbed out and she didn't seem to want to come back in.  When she did go back in, she kept asking to come out.  I asked her about it after the game and she said she got too hot.

 

 

Then her the rubber band in her hair broke, so her hair was all over the place.

As we saw with Andrew's soccer days, the positions quickly go out the window and they all bunch up.  Claire is #9.  Overall it was a good first game.  It was interesting that she had enough energy at the end of the game to play on the play ground though after she said she was too hot on the field.

 

Andrew also had his first fall ball game.  He is excited that Danny is the manager of his team.  He loves baseball, in fact, at back to school night last week he had to write about what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said a professional baseball player.  He is also excited that his friend Max is on his team.

 

Since Danny is the manager, he has a bag of gear that the league gave him.  Part of it was the catcher's gear.  Andrew wanted to try it on, but he wasn't quite fast enough to get the mask before Grant.  Grant really liked the mask.

 

Andrew's game was just before Claire's soccer game, so we couldn't stay for all of it.  It is also challenging with Grant trying to either run on the field or towards the street constantly.  While we were there Andrew had two good hits.  He got on first base with this hit.

 

 

He was thrilled to have gotten on base.

 

 

Dad and son at the baseball game.

 

Andrew really wanted to pitch.  He knows the names (and probably the stats) for all of the Giants pitchers.  So he pitched the first two innings.

 

 

 

They don't keep score in fall ball, but Andrew said that his team scored more points.  It is going to be a busy, but fun fall!