Graham's Fuzzy Friends

I have blogged in the past about Macy’s love for her stuffed animals, but now it’s Graham who has the fuzzy friends. He has been sleeping with a few stuffed animals for a long time now. However, lately he has developed attachments with others that carry on throughout the day. It started with his horse “Max.” He has had this horse for years, but recently started riding it around the house all day, petting it, talking to it, and even feeding it. He likes to reenact scenes from Tangled with it, hence the name.

Macy takes good care of Max while Graham's at school.

His latest best buddy is his whale, “Chip.”  The first thing he does every morning when he comes downstairs is say, “Where’s Chip?  Find Chip!”   He carries it around all over.

Just because I never want to forget, here are the names of all Graham’s favorite stuffed animals.  He came up with most of these names all by himself, several names I think he invented.  ;)

Big Frog that he sleeps with: Steven.  Named after a friend at school.

Frog pillow that he sleeps with: Penn.  Not sure where he came up with that one.

Blue bear that he sleeps with: La Lee Cee Wa.  He came up with this on his own too.  Not sure how it’s spelled, so there is it phonetically.  He laughs everyone time he says it.

Horse: Max.  Named after the horse in Tangled.

Little Whale: Chip.  Named after his favorite food.

Sleepyheads

Both Graham and Macy love to sleep.  They both started sleeping through the night very early and they both always slept 12 hours over night and took nice naps.  Graham doesn't nap anymore, but he still likes his sleep.

The kids are on a similar schedule.  Macy wakes (or I wake her) around 8:30, then I get Graham around 9 or 9:30.  Macy naps from 1-3:30.  Macy goes to bed at 8:30, and Graham at 9.

They are both night owls, like their mama.  They would go to bed later and sleep in even later if we'd let them.  I often have to wake them, like I did on this particular morning.

How cute does she look snuggled with her bears??

Yawn!

I guess he was hoping I'd go away!

Basement Progress- 6 weeks

We're in the process of finishing our basement.  By "we" I mean Joel, but someone's gotta watch the kids, right?  :)

Joel has done everything by himself.  He is doing such a great job!  I am always so amazed at how capable he is in so many areas...work, sports, parenting, house maintenance, and on and on.  Anyway, enough about my multi-talented husband, and onto the pics, right?

This is his progress after 6 weeks.  For a while we had a good flow where he would work on it all day long for 2.5 - 3 days per week depending on how much vacation he used.  Now it has slowed down to about 1 day per week because of social commitments.  He has almost finished the framing.

When you first come down the stairs, you'll be facing the bar, and the bathroom will be off to the left in the corner.  The bathroom is decent sized and will have a shower and linen closet.

Bathroom- Day 1 (bar just to the right between columns)

Bathroom- 6 weeks

Bar- 6 weeks

Immediately to the left when you come down the stairs will be a spare bedroom, or Joel's office, not sure yet.  Joel's leaning towards having it be his office so he can insulate it well for noise.  What??  Are small children noisy??

The bedroom will have a large walk-in closet, which you can see in the 2nd picture.

Office/Bedroom- Day 1

Office/Bedroom- 6 weeks

 To the right when you come down the stairs will be a large family room area.

Family Room- Day 1

Family Room- 6 weeks

 
It's exciting to see it transform!  Great job honey!!

Happy birthday, Joel!

Yesterday was Joel's birthday!  I probably get more excited for Joel's birthday than he does.  He spoils me and the kids, so it is nice to be able to return that favor.  I think I return the favor more often than his birthday, but it's nice to make that extra special for him.

Actually he had two days.  Last Saturday, Joel's parents came over to watch the kids so we could have a date night.  Like true parents, the first thing we did was take advantage of shopping without little ones running around.  We went to Lowe's and Home Depot.  Then we went and got a slice of cake.  Sander's was handing out slices of bumpy cake for their 100th birthday (only a few years older than Joel!), so we stopped there.  I know, I know, cake before dinner?  First of all, I see no problem with this!  Secondly, they were to close before we'd get out of dinner.

 Then we went to dinner, and MI by the Bottle Wine Tasting Room.  It was a perfect date!

Yesterday, Joel got a gorgeous day for his birthday.  So we kicked it off with a walk as soon as he got off work.  You can tell it's Spring, as we were not prepared!  We got the kids loaded in the wagon and ready to go.

The wheel on the wagon was falling off.  Joel would have to take it apart to fix it, so we decided Graham would walk and Macy would ride in the stroller, but first the stroller tires needed air.  15 minutes later, we were off!

After our walk, we came in and had dinner.  Joel said he didn't want dessert as we already had cake over the weekend.  So, I just put candles in the kids' cookies and they had dessert.  After all, they associate sweets with birthdays, so they were happy little campers!

After cookies, I gave Joel the gifts I got him.

Joel's mom and I coordinated a secret time for me to go shopping so I could surprise him with gifts.   There are no secrets in this house.  I'm not exaggerating.  We're both always home (he works from home most days), we share cars, and credit cards, so like I say...no secrets.  He was home when I got home, so I left the bags in the trunk.  That lasted all of two hours when he took the car to the store and put his bags in the trunk as well.  Whoops!   He didn't know what the gifts were though, he just saw the bags.

The kids had a blast tearing through the tissue and trying on Joel's gifts.

Graham thought Macy would like some tissue on her head too.  Poor Macy.  lol

She tried on the bathing suit correctly, Joel's T'shirt...not so much!!

Graham is wearing 4 hats here.  The kids are so funny!  :)

I bought Joel a bunch of summer clothes.  I always buy lots knowing I will need to take stuff back as he is pretty picky.  I did well this year!  He ended up keeping a bathing suit, baseball cap, and 3 shirts.

Looking good, babe!  Happy birthday, Joel!!  Love you forever!!

Disney on Ice: Dare to Dream

For over a year now I have been wanting to take Graham to Disney on Ice.  Last time a tour was in town, we were unable to go.  I have been keeping my eye out for it.  Finally I saw they were coming to town in March, so it made a perfect birthday gift for Graham (bday in Feb).  The Dare to Dream show is centered around Tangled, Princess and the Frog, and Cinderella.  Since he had seen the other two many times, we got him Cinderella to go along with the tickets for his birthday.

I invited Joel's mom to go along with us.  She often takes Graham to fun shows like this, so I knew she'd enjoy it.  I *almost* brought Macy too, but she ended up having a fun day with PaPa while Joel worked on our basement project.

Graham wore his Peter Pan costume.  He fit in with all the little Disney Princesses walking around!

Graham's favorite was Princess and the Frog.  He was just so excited to see all the performers ice skating.  Ever since we took him ice skating last winter, he often talks about ice skating, so it was fun for him to see the performers in action.  Princess and the Frog has really fun music too, so it was very entertaining.

The second act was Cinderella.  To be honest, it was a bit slow and dull compared to the first act.  They changed the story a lot.  I would understand if they had to do that due to time restraints, but they sang a song that wasn't in the movie, but didn't sing others that were.  It was still good though.  Graham loved the horse and carriage on the ice.

Tangled was the last act and it was the main attraction.  It was great!  They did a great job bringing the movie to life.  There was some aerial work with Rapunzel's hair.

We had so much fun and I can't wait to go again!

Cutie-Patooties!

Sorry I've been a little MIA lately, will you forgive me if I post some really cute pictures of the kids?


Macy loves to sit in Graham's chair and eat cereal like he does, as opposed to in her highchair with it dumped on her tray.  I started giving her a bowl, but we're not ready to have her at the table yet for all meals due to her penchant for pulling placemats (& contents) to the floor!

Macy loves to hop on Graham whenever she gets the opportunity.  She will say, "Bounce, bounce!" and he will bounce her.  Too cute!

This one doesn't really go with the others, but it's really cute so I'm going to post it.  My bestie came over one night with her little ones.  We had so much fun letting all the littles run around.  She lives an hour away and though I talk to her all the time, I don't get to see her as much as I'd like.

We've been so busy around here, mostly due to various viruses running through here and lots of home projects.  More on that later, probably this weekend.  Maybe? Possibly...?

If not, have a great weekend!  :-)

The Easter Bunny hopped on by!

I figured if I had any hope of getting Graham and Macy to sit for photos, I better do it before all the fun.  I was very pleased with pictures we got and it only these were the first few shots I took.  Done!  :)

I actually teared up when I saw this photo (Joel might have too, but I'd never tell you something like that! ).  They are so sweet.  I love them so much!  Sometimes (often!) I wish I could keep them like this forever.  At least it was captured in a photo!

I couldn't believe how grown up Graham looked in this photo.  So serious too!

Onto the egg hunt!  I was pleasantly surprised with how the kids participated in the egg hunt.  They both carried their basket/jug and quickly found eggs and put them in their baskets.  I must say, it was pretty adorable too!

Graham made that little carrier in school!  

Macy quit searching for eggs as soon as she opened one and found the candy.  After that she sat there and powered through all her eggs.

It wasn't long before Graham found the rest of the eggs and sat down beside her.  He was more than willing to share his eggs with her.  So sweet!  I think Macy got the lion's share as she opened eggs and ate candy like a little machine!

After all the candy was gone, we gave the kids their baskets from the Easter bunny.  They each contained a stuffed bunny, bubbles, and plenty of candy!

It was such a gorgeous day!  It was so nice to get to spend over an hour outside in the sun. It was also nice to get to relax and enjoy this day of fun at home with the little ones.  It worked out perfectly because we saw each of our extended families on a different day, so we got lots of time with each of those groups, plus a nice relaxing day of festivities at home!

For us, the holidays are about family and love, so it was a very happy Easter indeed!