Here is Jordan's blue fish pic from a few weeks ago.  She's getting a lot harder to get a picture of with blue fish these days ... the first few pics were when she had the rooster tail thing going on and the next too were from the following day ...  next blue fish pics ... she'll be 1!!

So what is Jordan up to these days ...

- Jordan loves to write on the magnetic boards, she loves taking the magnets off of the refrigerator, she likes banging two things together to make loud noises, she definitely has opinions about things and lets you know when she's not getting her way, she loves peaches (#1), bananas, oatmeal, yogurt, cheese, graham crackers, and bread, she loves being held, she doesn't like to be left ... if you walk away, even briefly, she has to follow you; she's not interested in tv (and we don't encourage it anyhow); she gives kisses these days, yep, mostly with an open mouth but she'll initiate them sometimes, see pic below of Jordan kissing the mirror;

She's practically running, the other day I let her chase me around our blue chair while I snapped a few pics ...

She'll be getting a new car seat soon, she's just too big for her current one; she doesn't nap as long as Grant but she'll usually take two naps about 45 minutes or so each; she's off bottles and only drinks from cups or sippy cups; she prefers to feed herself which we like except when she's eating applesauce or oatmeal; she's a great sleeper at night, Jordan and Grant are on the same night time sleep schedules; she doesn't immediately wake up in the morning like Grant, she's a lot more groggy initially than he is.  I suppose that's Jordan these days, I'm sure I'll think of more but I'll save 'em for her one year post.

A few milestones ...

Jordan had her first Thanksgiving at Oma & Opa's with Aunt Anna, Uncle Jim, Uncle Micah, and Uncle Josh.  Oma put the leaf in the table so there was no kids table this year.  I hope Oma posts the pic of Jordan at her house.  Here is the pic I took of Grant at her house on turkey day ...

Jordan is officially weaned this week.  She's had some troubles with sinuses and that makes it difficult for her to swallow much less nurse so she weaned herself.  Mommy has mixed emotions about that, it's good and sad but the plan was to wean her in a couple of weeks anyhow.

And finally .... Grant is potty-trained!!!  Woohooooo!!  Grant wore big boy underwear to daycare Monday before last and only had one accident.  The following day he still did pretty good but had two accidents.  After that ... no accidents for over a week now and he'll even go to the potty without us asking him every two minutes if he has to go potty.

A few weeks ago I tried to take advantage of the fall colors and get some pictures of Grant and Jordan.  Here are a few shots ... the percentage of good shots to overall shots taken wasn't pretty ... my limited skills are starting to rust ... darn school, I need to graduate already :)

I also figured it was time to update the pics at the top of the blog so you should see some duplicates from this post and the heading but if I don't add them to the post then they don't get in the photo album on the left side of the blog.

I know, I'm a bit behind on the posts.  Did you notice I added pics to a few posts down???

Andrew and Grant carved pumpkins again this year with daddy holding the pumpkin guts over Grant's head again ... similar reaction as last year :)

This year though he came around quicker and started scooping out the guts himself ...

Here was baby J's reaction ... so we let her paint another one of the pumpkins instead of playing in the guts ... and then Grant wanted to paint a pumpkin too ...

A few weeks before Halloween, we came across two of Grant's old costumes ... Tigger and a monkey costume.  Tigger fit Jordan perfectly and the monkey costume fit Grant a little snug but comfortable ... it was a 2T/3T which makes sense since it was a bit big for him last year but manageable.  They LOVED wearing the costumes and wore them after daycare several days in a row.  When we asked Grant what he wanted to be for Halloween he would always answer a monkey.  Come Halloween night Grant got tired half way through trick-or-treating again like last year and mind you, we only went on half of our block!  He did pipe up this time and say "Trick or treat, give me something good to eat."  He was good about saying thank you too.  Oma and Aunt Anna were at the house too and handed out candy while we were out.

So we were headed home from daycare this afternoon, Grant, Jordan and mommy.  Daddy was in the Jeep.  As we were driving home Grant kept saying that he saw daddy but I kept asking him where and he couldn't point him out.  So I said "I see him" even though I hadn't.  Grant piped up "where?"  To which I responded "I'm just playing with you, I didn't see him."  So a mile or so up the road I spotted some police lights on the driver's side of the road.  Grant sits in the back, also on the driver's side.  It was dark at this point so I told him to keep looking up ahead because there were flashing blue and red lights.  We took a little bit to get to the police car because traffic was slow going due to construction.  I kept asking him "do you see the lights?"  He kept saying no.  So we pass the police car and with it being dark, the lights were obvious.  A few seconds after passing the car I asked him again "Did you see the lights?"  To which he responded "No," ... I said "really" .. he said: "I'm just playing with you, I saw them."  I bust out laughing at his quick grasp of the concept "playing with you" and of course he chimes in laughing just as hard. 

On another note, Grant wore underwear to daycare today!!  He only had one accident!  He's starting to do really well with the potty training.  I'm sure there will be set back days but it's looking promising :)

Here's some pics from the other day while we were playing around at the dinner table ...

11 mo update of Jordan coming soon ... in the mean time, here is a pic highlighting Jordan's hair from the other day.  The folks at daycare wet her hair and put it in a pigtail on top of her head ... when it dried, it stayed like that for two days until I couldn't take it anymore and wet it back down ...

Since the marathon in September, I've continued to run but am only base building ... meaning I'm increasing the average number of miles per week I run.  It's best to do this gradually and without increasing speed too.  I ran a race yesterday as part of our base team mostly because I had planned on running 9 miles either Sat or Sun anyhow and so I didn't really race it, I just ran faster than normal.  The race didn't start until 10 am, so I was treated by Andrew, Grant and Jordan joining me.  Grant thought he was going to run in the race too.  Unfortunately they didn't have a kid race with this one so I let him run with me from the car to the check-in table and back to the car.  He was having so much fun wearing his running shoes.  It was time for me to go to the starting line and he was not too happy that he wasn't really going to get to run with me.

Fortunately, it was a small scale race on a bike path that was an out and back course.  So when I headed towards the finish line I was able to see Grant, Andrew, and Jordan right beside the path.  Grant came running to the path and grabbed my hand and we finished the race together!!  It was such a sweet moment.  He had so much fun crossing the finish line and then running through the cones.  We actually kept running about 50 yards or so to the stop sign that was on the path.  I think we'll look for a turkey trot race that has a kids race too and let him run in that.  It was a big change from his first kids race that was poorly organized so he ended up getting trampled on (practically) by the older kids leaving him frustrated, scared, and crying.  Another bonus of the run was that I got 2nd place in my age group and got to bring Grant and Jordan up with me to get my award.

Jordan is practically running too these days.  A few times here and there she'll get going and "run" to me or Andrew and in the final steps she'll fall forward to us.  She loves carrying things around with her.  I don't remember Grant doing this.  I do remember Andrew or maybe some of the siblings mentioning that Anna used to carry something around too.  So maybe it's a girl thing?  I guess we tend to carry purses or backpacks as the case may be :)

I really am going to update the previous post with pics.  I think we finally have the computers in a functioning configuration so I can access the photos again.  We (Andrew) also recovered some of the photos from the hard drive that crashed.

A quick update on Jordan ... she is getting an attitude sooner than Grant did!!  Oh my goodness, when there is something she wants or wants to do but has problems with it ... she sits down, leans forward so that her head touches the ground and then cries.  I feel bad but I can also envision the tantrum getting more pronounced!

Alicia had a picture recently of Wyatt with his bum in the air when he sleeps, we agree, it's such a cute position to see our kiddos in at night ... here is a pic of Jordan in that same position :)

A few weeks ago Andrew attached a string to one of the diaper boxes and both Grant and Jordan enjoyed pulling as well as being pulled in the box.  At one point BOTH Jordan and Grant were in the box being pulled by mommy ...

For Andrew's birthday recently, we got him a ride in a Stearman airplane.  It was really nice weather the week leading up to his birthday so we gave him the present a few days early.  I think he really enjoyed it and now he's flown in another airplane that I haven't flown in :)

We took Grant and Jordan to the Pumpkin Show over in Circleville (outskirts of Columbus) this past weekend.  It was a little chilly but everyone had fun.  We took Grant on his first Pony ride ... at first he wasn't sure about it but then he picked out the "brown" one and had a lot of fun.  The pony's name was Spirit which seemed appropriate with Grant's personality ... he definitely has a lot of spirit in life and everything he does.

Next Andrew took Grant on the ferris wheel while Jordan and I stayed on the ground and walked around.  Grant seemed tickled with that ride too.  I love these outings these days because they turn into "One day" stories.  One night before bed, instead of reading the usual bed time storybooks, Andrew made up a story that started off with "One day" and included Grant in the story.  The story happened to be about something we had done recently.  So with the Popcorn Festival a while back, Grant wanted us to tell the "One day" story about the Popcorn Festival for weeks.  Now with the Pumpkin Show, this has become his new "One day" story.  What's especially neat with this recent "One day" story, Grant now wants us to include Nemo as if Nemo was right there too.  So we start off with "One day, there was a Grant and a Nemo, and they drove to the Pumpkin Show and walked around until they found the Pony's ..."

After the Pumpkin Show we stopped at Uncle Matt's and Aunt Melissa's but Melissa had to work so we visited with Matt.  We ended up watching football and having a good visit.  The Bearcats won again which made it especially nice to watch.

As we headed home it was getting late, so we opted for stopping at McDonald's for dinner and to let Grant and Jordan play for a little bit.  Grant had a lot of fun and the playground slides get inserted into the "One day" story where Nemo his scared to go on the slide but Grant shows him how to do it and that it's not scary (too cute).  Jordan, my goodness, she was able to get her leg up on to the slide which came to her shoulder!  She is constantly trying to lift her leg onto something to climb on ... like the couch, in a box, into the laundry basket, etc.  She was able to climb up the stairs (bumps) at the playground. 

Grant has been especially good with Jordan lately.  Tonight he came over to her and just gave her a hug out of the blue.  It was pretty sweet to watch.  And she still giggles at just about everything he does.  He'll lean his head into her belly and my goodness does she laugh and laugh.

Jordan can now get to a standing position on her own without any assistance from anyone or a chair or toy.  I'm not sure where she picked it up but she now likes to point at you.  If you point back she laughs and thinks it's pretty funny.  She also knows high-five already.  She's been waving bye-bye for a little while now.  She's cute (of course), when she waves sometimes she'll wave with both hands.  She still just has the two bottom teeth but a couple more look like they won't be too far off.

Well, the computer is still downloading pics so I'll post some tomorrow ... I'm backing them up over the network so it takes a little longer and I'm heading to bed :)

This morning before heading up to Oma and Opa's for a bonfire, we stopped a couple stores and got the kiddos new coats and hats.  The temps have been getting colder and colder these days and Grant's duds from last year no longer fit even though they are 2T and he's still 2.  And Jordan needed a new coat, well, because she didn't have one from last year :P  I got a couple of pics at Oma & Opa's of Jordan in her new coat and hat.

We also spent a very nice visit with Grandma McCarty, Grant and Jordan's great grandma! 

We also got to hang out with Matt & Melissa and Anna & Jim and Mark & Ruthie!  Of course along with Oma and Opa and Micah and we had plenty of really good food, a bonfire, and an all around really good day visiting with the family.

Jordan is really 10 months, yikes!  Wasn't she just born yesterday??  :)  Well I left my notebook at work with updates that I'd written down so I'll have to post them later.  I guess we'll start with the most current updates and work backwards.

The two biggest updates are that she's walking and she got her first two teeth this week, the front bottom two!!   Jordan was so hard to get a pic of with blue fish last month (pic to come with the catchup) and again this month.

   If you click on the pick you can see the two pearly whites

   on the bottom ...

And here are a few quick shots from our trip, I think two of these are my favorites.  They were taken at the Aquarium in Atlanta, a couple shots show Grant taking it all in, there's a shot of Jordan taking it all in, a couple shots of Jordan digging feeding herself a cracker, we really started letting her feed herself on this trip and she loved it!  Lastly (one of my favorites) there is a pic of Jordan looking up at her big brother and Grant looking up at all the fish, very sweet.

Ok, quick update since I said I would post an update this weekend ... it's still the weekend :)

Week before last we headed down to Georgia to meet up with one of Andrew's college friends and his family and Andrew's older brother and his family.  Some follow up pics will have to wait since it's so late but just thought I'd mention a preview of what's to come.  This was Jordan's first road trip.  We took a day to drive there and back and during our visit we flew with Scott (Andrew's college friend), went to a few parks, went to the Aquarium, and a children's museum.

Since coming back Jordan has gone beyond just taking a few steps when either Andrew or I were on either side of her and she is now walking half way across the room at times without initial cheers or encouragement from mom or dad.  She's such a quick learner.  I was pushing some buttons on the back of my camera yesterday and she took her index finger and pushed the same exact buttons.  She eats that way to, with her index finger and thumb.  Yep, that's the way Grant used to eat too!

Here are a couple pics from today and a couple from yesterday.  I put a barrette in Jordan's hair today for the first time :)  You can see it in the pic of me and her.  Grant was playing the harmonica today and he sounded really cute.  Hmmm, Jordan likes to play the piano/keyboard ... now if I could pick up the guitar again (or maybe we can get Uncle Micah or Uncle Joe, and Wyatt can play the piano too!) and we can get Andrew to sing ... hmmm :)  I thought the pic of Grant was especially cute because the last time we had a pic of him playing the harmonica was when we had his one year old pics done.

Well our little girl turns nine months tomorrow!!  She's growing up way too fast.  She's now starting to stand on her own for short periods of time.  Holding onto mommy's hands she walked from the living room to Grant's room and back a couple of times and made a couple of laps around the kitchen to the living room nonstop.  She took a small step on her own this evening and we got it on video but with the recent computer crash I need to reload the software to create low-res videos from HD recorders ... so the video will have to wait until I can find the disk (oops).  She's really starting to cruise around the furniture too.  Still no teeth though.  Grant got his first teeth around 8 1/2 mo so we'll see.

Grant is talking so well these days, he constantly surprises us with the things he says and the concepts he can grasp.  I'm still surprised that he can understand, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  The other evening after taking a bite of his dinner he said "mommy, this is delicious."  I said "what" not sure I heard him right and yep, he said it again.  Too cute.

Grant is using the potty successfully numerous times throughout the day now!!  Andrew came up with the idea of using stickers as a reward for using the potty and he loves "getting a sticker."  Half the battle was training mommy and daddy to take him in the potty before bed and after getting up and then throughout the day.  Lo and behold he is using it ... hmmm.   Bad mommy and daddy.

Grant and Jordan are continuing to interact more.  Jordan has always been fascinated with her brother but now that Jordan is more into things Grant will go over and play with her too.  They'll play follow the leader (crawler) and they take turns who follows and who leads.  Jordan holds her own too, if Grant is tries to take something away she'll resist pretty well.  If Grant has something she wants she'll try to get it too.

Everyone is always commenting how much Jordan smiles and how much she looks like Grant.  We're really blessed to have two wonderful kiddos in our lives and we get to share in their lives and nurture them for years to come.  We give thanks every single day.

I saw the picture below of Jordan from tonight after dinner and immediately thought of the other pic of Grant.

She really does smile and laugh a lot ... don't mind the messy face ...

This weekend we decided to go up to Oma and Opa's house to stay the night.  Our thoughts were to let bubby try out camping in a tent to see how he'd do.  It was a coincidence that some really good friends of Andrew's and his family, since Andrew and his siblings were young, were also going to be in town.  So we ate good food, had great company, and had a great time!

Jordan slept up in the pack n play in the room next to Oma and Opa and daddy and mommy and Grant slept in sleeping bags in the tent that Grant and his friend Elizabeth helped to set up.  Before setting up the tent though the kiddos had some fun running around and playing ...

They had fun inside the tent too .. Grant found Anna and Jim's lantern that Elizabeth brought from the tent next to us ... yep, Anna and Jim camped too!

Before we headed off to bed ... oh and Grant was sooooo excited to sleep in the tent and he did great! ... we had smores of course ... and what do you need for smores ?? No, not ingredients ... you need a fire!  Grant was mesmerized ... takes after daddy for sure as everyone that knows Andrew well knows he likes fire ...

And here's just one more pic of Grant's new friend, they were really cute together ... Elizabeth will be three in a few weeks ... he just loves hangin out with older kiddos ...

As usual, skipping is encouraged ... unless your so inclined to read about the minutia of details of a race and thought processes ...

I ran the Crim 10 Mile Race up in Flint MI on 22 Aug as part of a marathon building training for the Air Force Marathon coming up on 19 Sep.  In short I ran 1:14:14 (7:26) and finished 17/626 AG, 152/3920 gender and 838/8195 for the top 3/4/10 % respectively.

The details ... I had a crappy 5 mile race after having a crappy training week due to a TDY and major lack of sleep back at the end of July.  Since then I had been recovering from some rt achilles issues.  I was still able to run but only at easy paces, no speedwork.  The last two weeks or so of running have gone really well so I thought I'd test it out but stay conservative and shoot for a 1:15 (7:30) for the 10 mile race.  When I found out that the wx was going to be awesome (for Aug) for the race I thought I'd try for 7:25 pace (1:14:10).  What I didn't know about were the extensiveness of the hills!  The night before I did look at the elevation map and realized that there were hills at the 1, 2, 5, and 8 mile points roughly, more on that later.

My strategy was to break the race into 3 parts, the 1st 1.5 mi, 7 mi, the last 1.5 mi.  My pace goals were

.5 mi @ 7:40, 7:35, 7:30, then 7 mi @ 7:25, and finally .5 mi @ 7:20, 7:15, 7:10 and push if all was well.  My bottom line was NOT TO GO FASTER than 7:15 until the last .5 mi but I would reassess at the half way point.  I even wrote it on my hand.

I had read recently to be more aggressive with the warm up and I decided to give it a try, I warmed up for 1 - 1 1/2 mi with several minutes at about 7:30 pace. In the past I would only do striders at the goal pace and that is why I usually give myself a little extra time to warm up the body to the goal pace which I still did during this race but didn't need to do it.

I started off conservatively, holding back like I wanted.  Then the second half mile was a little slow but I told myself not to worry, it was partly due to a slight hill and there's still a lot of race to go, just stay comfortable.  The 3rd half mi came and I felt great, back on pace.  I kept shooting for 7:25 but felt extremely comfortable.  Around the 4 mi point I'm thinking this is so mine!  But still reminded myself that there was still almost a 10k left.  I hit the 5 mile point and realized things were still going well but before increasing the pace I would get past the hills which went on for almost a mile, they even named them the Bradley Hills which is never good when they come with a name!  I got to the sixth mile point and settled in after catching my breath and without realizing it I kept increasing the pace.  Instead of keeping the pace at 7:15 or above it was clear that I was too conservative in my pacing and my new "do not go faster than" pace became 7:00, until the last push that is.  So, here is where not really knowing the course will bite you.  Again I knew there were hills at the 1,2,5,8 mile points BUT I was thinking that the big hills came at the 8 mile point, not the 5 mile point like I thought.  So when I got to the 7 1/2 mi point I kept holding back in preparation to attack the hills thinking they were going to be twice as bad as the Bradley Hills.  I get to 8 1/2, I'm thinking hmmmm, I get to 9 mi by my garmin but miss the 9 mi marker and I realized that the big hills were at the 5 mi point and not the 8 so I've only got about 3/4 of a mi left and while I did pick it up in the end, I wasn't going to gain back a whole lot of time so I didn't go all out since I knew I was going to meet my goal anyhow.  And this wasn't my goal race and I still have a 22 mi run a week later.

Splits:

3:49, 3:49, 3:42, 3:40, 3:44, 3:41, 3:41, 3:39, 3:36, 3:34, 3:51 (Bradley Hills), 3:37, 3:41, 3:35, 3:35, 3:43 (hill), 3:36, 3:37, 3:32, 3:34, last .14 in 53 sec (6:23).

The water stations were inevitably on the opposite side of where I was running so there was some definite weaving going on and there were a lot of turns on this course and very rarely was I able to take the turn very tight so the combination of the two added almost a minute to my time and .14 mi to the distance.  I'll be a lot more careful during the marathon.  I did end up with over a minute negative split and that was with the Bradley Hills being in the second half!  (37:39) (36:35).

All in all it was a great race with great support and I'd rather be on this side knowing that I could have run a 10 mile race (without the hills) a few minutes faster than to have either gone out too fast and bonked or not be able to at least run sub 1:15.

I'm part of a couple of running forums and every once in a while we get to meet up IRL and this was one of those cases, I got to meet up with several folks.  The running community is such a welcoming bunch!!

It's just a coincidence that both of these sleeping pics that are similar were both taken when the two of them were 8 mo old ... our sleeping angels :)  Folks at daycare keep commenting on how much Jordan looks like Grant.  We are truly blessed.

We have definitely had a busy household this past week with 3 kiddos ages 2 1/2 and under!  Our niece Jessika and her son Ezavyer came to visit from Florida.  Jessika has been visiting every year during the summer since she was 6 years old!

We took the kiddos to a local train attraction for a ride on a real train and even got to meet Clifford, the big red dog of course!  We had lunch at a local ice cream shoppe and then went on the train, it was about a half hour ride to the playground area where Clifford was waiting for us.  The train blew its horn at upcoming crossings and made everyone jump each time.  We got to the play area and Grant wasn't too thrilled at first with being up close with Clifford.  Eventually we got him to give him a hug and snap a few pics.  Ezavyer, nope, uh ah, no how (similar to the way Grant was when he was his age), Jordan was all smiles of course.  The conductor read the kiddos a Clifford story and then announced "all aboard" for everyone to get back on the train.  There was an open car area that was open to the outside which was a big hit with everyone.  The pic of Grant sitting on the floor is in the open car.  By the end of the train ride the kiddos were wiped out ... Grant was still going up and down the train but he was definitely tired, the other two just crashed ... Jordan crashed in daddy's arms :)

Now that Jordan is 8 months she finally got her papers to move up to the next room - the older infants.  She'll be in the same room that Grant was in when he was her age with some of the same teachers.  We have our conference next week and hopefully the following week she'll move up, no specific date yet.

When we went to daycare to pick Jordan up this afternoon we found her with spiked hair.  The daycare providers were have fun with the kiddos and their hair.

So, what is Jordan up to these days, goodness, quite a bit.  Let's see, she loves cheerios and feeding herself, she's even grabbing the spoon now when I feed her cereal/fruit/veggies and she continues with the spoon and into her mouth.  When she's hungry, she's VERY impatient to the point where I can't shovel it in her mouth fast enough and heaven forbid I try to take a bite of my own dinner.

She pulls up on everything, she does a great job getting to a standing position and then sitting back down instead of just falling back to the floor.  She does so much better around the coffee table than Grant did which we are very thankful.  She loves following her big brother just about anywhere.  She likes music and even plays on the keyboard.  She responds to music more than Grant did/does.  She doesn't mind getting water dumped over her head and in fact she just plain loves the water.  She went in the pool for the first time this past weekend and seemed to really enjoy it, we are still trying to get her in to swim lessons, just haven't gotten around to it yet.  She doesn't like the charriot carrier as much as Grant did/does, she likes it but only for short periods.  It might be because of either the sun angle or the way she sits in the carrier.  This week we took out the baby sling and she now sits in the carrier on her own.  As I mentioned before, she starting to become more verbal.  She now wakes up just in the best mood ever, daddy even commented this morning how good her mood is in the morning.  She still has a big beautiful toothless smile.  Grant's teeth came in around 8 1/2 mo so we'll see.  She still nurses 4 times a day and eats meals three times a day.  She has a posse of followers at daycare, her teachers say she has been a big influence on the others.  She is very curious and QUICK.  Even Oma mentioned the other day about how much energy Jordan has.  Jordan takes a bath in the big tub now and about 50% of the time takes a bath with her big brother.  She's also able to sit in a chair for short periods of time.  Here she is eating cheerios with her brother.

Here is a pic from June, I don't think I ever posted it.

About a month ago we went to the Aquarium down in cincy and met up with Anna & Jim before hand for lunch.  We didn't have a camera on us but Uncle Jim had his iphone.  Here is a pic of Grant eating the ever popular 3-way and cheese coney from Skyline Chili.

Well I originally sat down to post a video of Jordan saying "dah dah dah" but with the recent computer crash I now have to load my video software and can't find the disk.  I'll hopefully post it soon. 

Jordan has been starting with syllables lately instead of her usual aaaah sounds. She's actually been rather verbal (vice just vocal) these last couple of days.  More to follow with her blue fish pic coming up this week.

Time for bed ...

The daycare folks had to bring in a walker for baby Jordan, she's been very active these days and the room she is supposed to move up to doesn't have an opening until the end of the month.  She's still in the young infants room (6 weeks - 6 mo olds) and is pulling up on everything, going over to the bouncers and bouncing them while other kiddos are in them and even crawling on them too.

Each time I take a picture of what she's doing now she does something beyond what I was taking a picture of before I can post the pic or video.  Last night she was using the walker mostly to stand but would scoot forward just a bit.  Either Andrew or I would help keep the walker from going too far.  Then TODAY at daycare when they brought in the walker she acted like an old pro.  I sat her down next to the walker after bringing her home tonight and although I stay close by, I didn't need to steady it even one time.  Jordan is able to stand either in the back of or front of the walker on her own and will stay there and play with the toys on it while switching hands and barely hanging on or just leaning on it.  To say she is a quick learner with the motor skills I think would be an understatement.  When she wants to do something, she figures it out real quick.

Grant is starting to express himself more and more these days.  The other day I didn't let him do something, I forget what, I think put the lid back on his lotion or something, but anyway he got upset probably because it was late and he was tired but he was crying and he turned to me and said "mommy you made me sad" I felt sooooo bad, all I could do was give him a hug and say I'm sorry Bubby. 

Grant and Bluefish at 2 1/2

Grant turned 2 1/2 yesterday, here are some of the things Grant is up to these days:  He's talking in longer sentences and carries on logic through multiple sentences.  He likes Finding Nemo, Surf's Up, Bolt, and Toy Story, we usually let him watch some tv before bed and at other times sporadically.  He loves lasagna, the boy can eat lasagna quicker than daddy.  He loves to smush his bread like his mommy into cubes ... he says it makes it chewy, yep.  He's flown in a small airplane twice now.  Grant will give mommy a kiss out of the blue, which of course she loves :)  Grant still loves fruit and most veggies, he'd eat them over cookies given only one choice.  We finally figured out he likes cheese pizza, we were beginning to wonder if he'd ever come around to liking pizza, thankfully he has.  He doesn't play with his trains as much these days, but maybe he will again come fall/winter when we are stuck indoors more often.  Grant loves to push his bubble making lawnmower especially when daddy is mowing the yard.  Grant loves anything from Opa's garden including jam that Oma made from fruit from Opa's garden.  He loves dogs but he's careful not to just run up to one, we try to teach him that he can only pet them if the owners say it's ok.  Grant loves to talk on the cell phone.  He's really good at the literals ... when we say take a bite of 'X' he'll say "I already did" because of course he already took A bite so we have to be careful and say take ANOTHER bite of X.  When I was on the cell phone talking to his cousin, Grant wanted to talk to her too, I told him it would be his turn in one minute and then after a minute or so I let him have the phone.  After a short while of talking on the phone I said that it was mommy's turn to talk again, he said "in one minute."  The boy is smart and quick.  I think he's going to end up with his daddy's verbal skills which is a good thing.  He still sucks his thumb which we are now actively trying to discourage.  He'll take it out when we tell him.  He likes to do everything himself.  He likes playing with Jordan and making her laugh.  He's off and on with potty-training, we aren't pushing it, just offering it.  When we ask him if he wants something, like new swim trunks, he'll say yes and say "right now" or "today" if we ask him if he wants to go somewhere like visit California for example.  Grant still loves tools.  He likes to "help" daddy building the airplane.  Everything is "my X," especially tools, i.e. my drill.  He likes to pretend to hold a microphone.   He's still not much of a music fan on the radio but he does like kids songs.  Grant can sign I love you though he doesn't sign much these days.  Maybe when we start getting Jordan to sign he'll help out.  And all around, as daddy says, being cute, and that's what Grant is up to these days :)

I'll give an update on Jordan next week during the 8 mo post with bluefish.