Let it Snow

We had such a good morning. The boys and I slept in until 9:00 AND when we went to go get our milk and coffee we saw a beautiful blanket of snow on the ground and still more falling. We continued to watch it as we ate breakfast and then quickly put Grady down for a nap so Dawson and I could go play.

He started out by raking the snow. Made me think it will be nice when he's old enough to send outside to shovel the walkway and driveway.

Then we made snow angels.

Proof that I made one too :)

A little more playing before we headed in for Dawson to enjoy his first hot chocolate.

8 Months Old!

Grady turned 8 months on Christmas Eve. I didn't think it was possible, but time is flying by even faster the second time around. First, here is Grady's 7 month picture, since I never had a chance to post it. Here he is at 8 months :)

(I just noticed that he actually looks older in the above picture) Grady is doing great! We seem to have gotten all of his allergies identified and I've continued to keep those out of my diet. There is hope that he will grow out of the potato allergy very soon and they expect him to grow out of the egg, dairy and nut allergies before too long which is wonderful. Although, I'll admit that I haven't minded this way of eating. Of course there are times that I have a craving for cheese, caramel or a Reeses but at least I'm still able to make a lot of yummy baked goods just using a little different ingredients than I used to. Grady's eczema is also staying under control. He looks so good! It's such a comforting feeling getting to see clear smooth baby skin when I change him rather than the itchy dry rashy skin my poor baby had to deal with for so long.

I'm not sure if this counts, but Grady's first official word is "Yeah". He says it all the time! It comes out more like "Yee-aH". If we say it right back to him it will go back and forth for awhile and it's adorable. Grady has 6 teeth and the 7th is in the process of breaking through. He still isn't actually crawling on all fours (which could slightly be my fault for discouraging it when he looked like he was going to start early) but he manages to get around wherever he wants to go. It's a combination of rolling, scooting backwards and the army crawl that he's mastered. Grady is getting quite a little personality too. By that I mean that he's got attitude. If he doesn't like what we're doing he'll do this loud grunt and bat at our hands. He's getting better with sleeping, we get 4-6 hour stretches now and we're going to work on him falling asleep on his own soon.

Decorating the Tree

Dawson and Aiden got to help decorate Mooma & Poopa's (aka Chad's parents) Christmas tree this year. I'll admit, I decorated our tree while Dawson was gone so I could have it just the way I like it so I thought Beth was a little crazy when she asked for their help....but I was pleasantly surprised by how cute the tree turned out! They both took it very serious :) Putting on the beads and garland was...interesting.

Beth had a bunch of candy canes for the boys to put on the tree too. Dawson kept taking all of his and hanging them in the same spot over the side of the barrel.

I just now realized that I only took a picture of the "final product" with my phone and not the camera. Trust me, it turned out beautiful. Thanks Mooma & Poopa for starting a fun new tradition with the boys!!

It's Real!

Yes, that's right. We got a real Christmas tree this year! Chad's been bugging me about my fake tree for years but it's so much easier. The lights are already put on perfectly and if you want an ornament in a certain place, you just bend a branch to make it work. But I caved in this year mainly because I want the boys to have memories of going out and choosing our very own tree to cut down and bring home. I was also really looking forward to that wonderful smell a live tree puts off...but for some reason our tree doesn't have that.

On our way to the tree farm I knew I wanted a "Charlie Brown-ish" tree. I love the way they look and I figured that the more I can see through the tree, the less bugs that can be hiding in there. This was the first tree I saw when we got out of the car, right up front. After about an hour of walking up and down aisles of trees we ended up back at our first choice.

When I asked Dawson to pick out a tree he wanted to bring home, this is what he chose. Now I wish I would have asked the people to mark it for us and we could have got it in a couple years!

Shane, Lynn, Aiden & Owen with their Christmas tree.

Aiden & Dawson helped Chad carry our tree.

Dawson thinking he was totally helping by carrying the very tip of the tree.

Too short to put the star on this year.

I LOVE our REAL tree!!