The LaGarde Family

Logan when it first started snowing on Monday

FINALLY we got some snow!!!!

Sunday we got some flurries and it started to accumulate, we were out at my parents and it took me (April) 45 minutes to get home… Of course later that night the roads seemed much better and it only took us the regular 15 -20 minutes…

Chris and Logan on their adventure walking behind our house

Either way Monday in the middle of the day it started flurrying again and me not knowing that they weren’t calling for snow thought nothing of it… as the day progressed we had one inch then two inches then three inches… we had at least 3 inches here and it was still around the next day so we dressed Logan all up in his snow attire and I sent him and Chris out on an adventure…

Of course it took me 3 times as long to get him dressed and out the door as they spent out side but it was well worth it… Last year I spent 30 minutes dressing Logan and myself all up so we could “play” in the snow and once we got outside Logan got cold and started crying we were out there all of 5 minutes before we had to hurry back inside… THAT was when I realize that its NOT WORTH IT!!! I decided we would enjoy the snow from the INSIDE

Logan eating Snow

Well, Chris and Logan fared much better this year- they went on a little adventure and the entire time they were out side Logan was EATING SNOW!!! whats the obsession I have no idea but they walked back inside and left a snow trail and who was there to clean it up- You guessed it, Logan yum yum (eew) we had to get him a foam cup full of ice to get him to stop picking up the melting ice chunks that fell off his and Chris’ boots… Is my kid going to be that weird kid??? and all because he ate some bad snow ha ha Logan came back in happy as ever but we think he may have gotten some frost bite between his gloves and his coat sleeves… We ran his little pink swollen arms under warm water and everything went back to normal… Thank you Lord!!!

Look at those tears!!! How can you say no to that face

Grayson woke up from his nap right as I was wrestling with Logan to get his jacket and overalls on and sending them out the door and well it didn’t sit very well that he was being left behind- he tried to get out every door we have (ok we only have two doors, but he tried both of them) both him and Ashlea sat and cried by the door until the boys came back in… Maybe we will ALL go out next time Yeah right!!!

Hope you enjoy our pictures of our SNOW DAY!!! FINALLY!!! 1-20-09, yay!!!

So this week was a funny week with Logan learning to talk its starting to get to where he says funny things… FINALLY!!!

He seems to copy things he sees or hears  others say- sometimes well often he copies things he sees on TV…

I got Logan up from his nap the other day and once we got down stairs I said, “Ok Buddy , what should we do, maybe play cars or play a game, what do you want to do? “

He turns to me and says, “Blah Blah Blah something we can’t understand… Diego?”

So I smile and say “No Buddy I think we should play something maybe the fish game? a puzzle?  maybe  read books?  what do you think??? ”

He sits and ponders it for a minute and then his little face lights up and he puts his finger up and he says (as though this is a new Revelation) ” ‘gasp’ I know, we can watch Diego!!!!”

I laughed so hard and all I could think was “manipulation??? I think so….” Needless to say he did get his wish later that night but we ended up playing cars

Another funny thing Logan did the other day was we were playing with his puzzle and I was asking him to name all the animals and he had to name them before I would give them to him (our speech therapist taught me that one its a good way to make him talk) so once we were done I just started to point at the animals and ask him to name them, once I was done, he started asking me what the animals were so he would point to a lion and I would say “that’s a lion” and he would turn and say to me: “Very Good” (with the same inflection that I have used on him multiple times) This made me laugh and of course since I was laughing he started laughing and then proceeded to ask me all the animals and say : “VERY GOOD” to me every time Its so great to finally have a speaking story- I have been waiting for a long time for this

I am sure you are holding your breath for this next overly exciting update! I know Logans update was REALLY long and I will try to keep Graysons shorter…

Grayson

Our little 11 month old is taking on life at an incredible rate. It is hard to believe that last year at this time we hadn’t met him yet… Life was so much easier back then

As you saw Grayson is now walking- he took his first few steps a few days after Thanksgiving and from then until the day before Christmas he was really not interested in walking- we had to make him walk to us and even then he would only do it hesitantly and half the time he would sit down in the middle and crawl the rest of the way… NOW, we can’t get him to stop walking… He is such a different child then Logan… Logan of course walked early too, but once he learned he could he was off, Gray on the other hand just wanted to keep up with Logan and crawling was the fastest way… now he is getting great he is walking every where unless he is tired then he crawls… Now that he is walking he is in even more things than usual Now he can get to things at a higher level, and he is constantly getting a hold of things that he shouldn’t… Time to REALLY baby proof…

As we have said many times before Grayson only wants to be like Logan… If Logan has a toy, grayson wants it, if Logan is eating Grayson wants to eat the same thing, if Logan is watching TV grayson (pretends) to watch TV… If Logan is taking a bath Grayson takes a bath, if Logan is playing with daddy Grayson has to be playing with daddy, if Logan is sitting on your lap Grayson has to be sitting on your lap.. You get the idea… at first it was cute, now its just getting annoying… instead of being able to give Logan some one on one time you always have to include the little brother. Logan does really well and often puts up with it, I have a feeling sooner or later Logan wont even think about it at all and they will be like my sister and i where I went she went etc. and they will be best of buds but until then, grayson gets pushed over, knocked out of the way, bopped and hit…

Its so funny how different Grayson and Logan are… Grayson is stocky and solid, Logan is thin tall and he seems fragile, Grayson is a love bug, he seems unsure of himself and always needs someone else there with him, Logan is Very independent and would be just fine all alone OR in a crowd of strangers… Grayson is whinny and fussy where Logan hardly ever complains… LOVED his binky and was attached to it non stop, where Gray could care less until it comes to bed time, where Logan hardly ever at, Grayson eats all the time, where Logan is patient, Grayson is impatient… Where Logan wouldn’t smile Grayson smiles non stop…

It seems like I am complaining about Grayson and that is not my point at all- Grayson is a wonderful gift and an amazing baby. We are hoping he continues to out grow his fussiness. He is what we call “needy”, he always wants to be held, comforted and loved on, which is not a bad thing in its self , but when it is all the time and non stop, its gets over whelming…

Grayson is SO ticklish and he LOVES to laugh… He seems to have mood swings and he can go from laughing and extremely happy to sad and mad in a matter of a few seconds- it is CRAZY!!! He loves to play and if you play with him he is the happiest child in the world… Chris will pick him up and chase Logan around and he will laugh and laugh and he thinks its the best thing… Gray LOVES to climb the stairs… It is his mission in life to climb up those stairs… If I forget for even a second to put the gate up at the bottom of the stairs I will find him upstairs in the bathroom a moment later…. He is QUICK!!! He is mischievous just like Logan and I’m sure if the stairs weren’t the forbidden thing to do he wouldn’t care so much about them, but since he is always getting told no- that is all he wants to do… This also applies to the dogs food and water… Just like Logan at the same age, Grayson LOVES getting into the dog bowls… What is the obsession? besides their love of water that was passed down from CHRIS, I am sure it is the fact that they are SINNERS and because they know that they aren’t allowed to get into the bowls that is ALL they want to do…. We decided to hide the bowls and put them in our down stairs bathroom so we could close it off with a door, well, if the door to the bathroom is cracked even an inch and Grayson can see that- he makes a bee line straight to the bathroom and into the dog water…. He is so silly…

grayson has a smile that goes straight to his eyes and could light up a room, he could be sitting across the room, but if you look at him he smiles his BIG smile and you just can’t resist… BELIEVE me he knows how to use it… EVERY old lady in the world is attracted to this little charmer… EVERY where we go, people are stopping us and talking to Gray, all he has to do is smile at them and they want to give him the world… Someday it will be what wins him his wife, but until then, it makes me laugh at how others fall pray to his little flirtation!!! His smile is contagious, when he smiles and laughs at Logan I watch and Logan can’t help himself he smiles and laughs back and then does the same thing over and over and over to get a reaction out of Grayson… TOO funny!!!! The other day Logan wanted to play with our “house” it is really Logan’s toy but its for Grayson’s age so technically we have it out for Gray, but both of the boys wanted to play in it, well Logan started to get mad that Gray was in his way, so he did something that was meant to be mean but Grayson thought it was funny… Well that was it for the next 5 to 10 minutes Logan would swing the door open and would say- “There he is” and Grayson would Laugh a hardy laugh and then Logan would close the door and swing it open again and say “there he is” and again Gray would laugh- don’t know what was so amusing about it but the laugh was contagious -I watched Logan smile then Chris smile and before I knew it I was smiling and laughing too…. Fun stuff our life with Gray…

Grayson is not a TV bug like Logan was, he will watch it if its on and LOVES LOVES LOVES the music and stuff that might be on the movie, BUT he is not glued to the TV and even though it is good, its hard for me because there are times when having a distracted child is good… With Logan if I needed to run downstairs for a moment or if I needed to get a shower I could stick him in the jumperroo and do what I needed to do and I would know he would be happy watching the movie I had put on for him- Grayson is opposite, he hates being trapped, the jumperroo is a no no unless you want a screaming crying child… and the TV only distracts him for a few minutes at a time and before you know it he is done with it At the moment Elmo is the show that will keep his attention the longest, I don’t know what it is about that furry little puppet and his voice that kids like, but I will turn it on and grayson will watch and dance and he will laugh and smile… it is really very cute…

Grayson LOVES music and will play with any toy that plays music he will stand up and dance and bounce and play the same thing over and over and over just to be able to dance… He loves it if we pick him up and swirl him around and sing and dance with him… I heard about this dance studio close by who offer little boys hip hop dance- they teach them how to break dance and stuff like that and once Grayson and Logan are old enough I am going to put them in- They would both LOVE it!!! They both love to dance and sing and I think it would be so funny to watch little 3 and 4 year olds dancing hip hop…

At the moment Grayson takes 2 to 3 naps a day and he sleeps from 8pm to 6:30-7 am sometimes Chris will give him a bottle and he will go back to sleep sometimes he is awake and then he will go down for a nap around 11am… On days that we are out and Grayson doesn’t get a good morning nap, we are in trouble- he is a sleep begets sleep kid so the more he sleeps the longer his naps are and the better our days are… he will usually nap from 11 to 12:30-1 and then he will nap again around 2 or 3 for another hour or two… Logan at this age took 2 two hour naps… But Grayson doesn’t seem to stick to a schedule at all, it is frustrating at times but since I am not a schedule person it doesn’t bother me, it only bothers me when I am trying to plan an outing or something and I want to work around Grays schedule…. Life can’t always be run around naps life happens so sometimes he naps on the go…

I feel like Grayson is going to eat us out of house and home…. He eats non stop and yet he doesn’t seem to have the patience to stop and eat, he is hungry and thirsty all day long… I am constantly sticking him in his high chair to eat and litterly 5 minutes later he is crying to get out… It doesn’t make sense is half the time he is only half done eating what i gave him but 10 minutes later he is back up in the high chair and he will finish lunch and then make his way back to playing…. At the moment Graysons favorite things to eat are: fruit cereal bars, he would eat these all day long if I let him, hot dog, banana, Mandarin oranges, plus most fruits, cheese, he drinks watered down pear juice and sometimes apple juice, but the apple juice is so acidity that it makes his reflux worse so we try to keep him on the pear juice or some thing like that…. He doesn’t seem to care for chicken which is funny, since he seems to eat almost everything else.. He isn’t much of a sweet tooth… I tried giving him a piece of cake last night and he spit it out and made a funny face, silly boy… He likes apple sauce and he would probably eat the baby food that I have but he is just like Logan was at this age and he likes to do everything himself… Its nice because then I don’t have to take time to feed him, but its annoying when I have something like apple sauce I know he loves but he wants to steal the spoon and do it himself- thus slopping apple sauce EVERYWHERE As you can see from many of the pictures- grayson likes to feed himself but HATES to have his face washed, therefore he ends up with a messy face most of the time… I am a little slacking in MAKING him let me wash his face only because I really don’t care when we are at home, but most of our pictures are from home and so therefore he looks like a ragamuffin, whos mother doesn’t care about him

He has 7 teeth with one more coming in… He seems to always be teething Anything and everything goes into Grays mouth- its so gross when its something like our shoe, or grass or something but most of the time its just a toy or something squishy…

Grayson seems to be a mama’s boy he sticks with me- that might just be because Logan is always with Chris, so Grayson gets stuck with me but I think he is a Mama’s boy at heart… He OF COURSE LOVES Chris and will crawl or now walk / run to Chris when he gets home from work but of course Logan always beats him there and so he ends up hanging on Daddys leg crying to be picked up…

Grayson will be a year on Feb. 4th and although he weighted in at a whopping 21 lbs at his 9month apt. we have left him in his baby seat… He is huge and that seat is SO heavy- with a 21 + pound kid and the seat alone weights something like 5 to 10 lbs its like carrying around a 30 lb child. Logan when weighted at the same time weighted in at 29 pounds 8 pounds for the 2 years difference… Soon Grayson is going to be beating on Logan I think we are going to have to put him in his front facing “car seat” when he turns one, but until then I really like not having to bundle grayson up before putting him in a cold car seat- plus I don’t like carrying Gray around without the car seat he is VERY squirmy and he is hard to carry… I guess I have to get over myself and do what is best for my body. I had to go the doctor the other week because my muscles in my right shoulder were so sore I was waking up in the morning crying… The Dr. told me to stop carrying the car seat with my right arm and that I should think about moving him into the bigger car seat…. He gave me muscle relaxers and steroids and I seem to be back to normal for the moment, but I am sure if I keep it up I will be complaining about soreness again soon…

I don’t know if he knows what he is doing or if he just does it to make noise but Grayson now says Mama- mama- mama, I think he figured out that I respond to it so he does it all the time- I like to think its because he is starting to talk but my boys don’t talk the move… So I am waiting patiently and I am hoping that Gray is better at talking then Logan was But Grayson started to have Ear infections just like Logan but after 5 rounds of antibiotics the infections cleared up and I don’t think they have been back since… I am hoping that it was just one bad infection that wouldn’t go away rather than a bunch of ear infections. The Dr. did say since Logan had tubes and with the amount of ear infections Gray already had that we might end up with 2 kids with tubes… But it won’t be as bad the second time around and tubes aren’t that bad- Logan seems to be doing great with them

Grayson’s nickname Graybee seems to be catching on I hear people using it all the time- Chris hates it because he thinks when Gray gets older kids will call him “Gay Be” and I told him kids were going to call Gray “gay” anyway so what did it matter… Logan calls him Gaython…. and lots of times I find myself calling him Gray Gray or Gray Buddy just like I call Logan Loggy Buddy I don’t think Grayson cares what you call him as long as you are paying attention to him

Its so funny when Logan was Grayson’s age I remember thinking that Logan was so big (in comparison to the baby he started out as) and I of course started to secretly think about having another baby… With Grayson I realized I don’t know if I will ever think of him as big because Logan will always be BIGGER… And I am not even thinking of having another baby at the moment… Sure we want more children but not anytime soon…. Grayson still seems so young and small to me and I am not in a rush to make him seem bigger or older and that is what having another child does…

We love our little Graybee, and its hard to remember life without him… He is becoming so much fun we are always talking about how much he has changed and how much he fulfills our lives … He is so special and wonderful and we can’t imagine life without our little ray of sunshine- Graybee Baby…