Thursday, April 29, 2010

Happy 3 Months!!

Kaden isn't officially 3 months old until Saturday, but the boys and I are leaving in the morning for a 10 day trip to Indiana. Kaden is growing so quickly and the past 3 months have just flown by! We saw a commercial last night with a newborn, and it kind of made me sad because I realized Kaden isn't that little anymore. His days are still full of eating, sleeping, pooping (a lots of it!) and watching his big brother run around. When he is awake, he is just the happiest little guy. He is almost always smiling and cooing at us. If he isn't cooing, he has his eyes wide open taking everything in!
I am very happy to say that nursing this time around has been so easy. With all of the problems I had with Karter, nursing was the thing I was most worried about when Kaden was born, but luckily he is a completely different eater than Karter was! Kaden eats about 5 times everyday, going 4 hours between each feeding. We had an issue a few weeks ago where my milk supply dropped and Kaden wanted to eat ALL the time but wasn't ever getting full. It turned out that the medicine I was on was messing with my supply, so after that was taken care of he got right back on schedule. During that time I pumped a few times, and boy I'm not sure how I did that for 11 months!
Kaden is a great sleeper too. Every night he gets his bath around 7:30 and is in bed by 8:30, most mornings we don't hear from him again until 6ish...he is still in bed right now at 6:45, a new record! I think one of the things that I know now with our second child is that when he starts to get cranky an hour or so after he has eaten is that he is tired, so when he starts to show those signs I lay him right down in his bed for a nap. He amazes me actually how quickly he goes to sleep! With Karter I would have to rock him for 20 minutes or so before he would take a nap, but with Kaden I just can't rock him with Karter crawling all over me, so he just gets laid down and is usually out within 10 minutes. He usually takes 3 1-2 hour naps a day and a little cat nap in his swing while I cook dinner.
Mommy and Daddy love you Kaden and we are so blessed to watch you grow!!

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Wordless Wednesday

Ok, so the title is a little deceiving today, but I can't post a picture of Karter's bare bum without explaining why he doesn't have pants on. As you know, we are in the middle of potty training Karter, so that means anytime he says he has to potty we drop whatever we are doing and head to the bathroom. The other day we were in the middle of sorting laundry (Karter loves doing laundry and throwing the dirty clothes downstairs) when he said he had to go. When he was done taking care of business he quickly went back to work throwing the laundry down...I guess when he has a job to finish he doesn't have time to put his pants back on!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Reading Books

Karter's little imagination has really been working over the past week or so. He had been playing with his trucks a lot and having his stuffed animals do things with him. Yesterday afternoon I told Karter to get some books and we could all lay down on the blanket and read. When I came into the room this is what I found...it may look staged, but the only thing I put on the blanket was Kaden!! He thought it was so funny that all of his toys were on the blanket too, he kept saying "Mommy...Elmo, Foot Guy, Monkey and Lorax read!" He is too funny! I'm not sure how the tractor trailer fit into the whole equation.

After he told me who all was on the blanket about five times I asked him where I was suppose to lay and he said "on sheepie" and pointed to the only open corner. I guess I should be flattered he thinks I can fit there!

Friday, April 23, 2010

Brothers

How cute are these two first thing in the morning?! This morning when Karter heard Kaden on the monitor, he ran into Kaden's room and insisted that Kaden get up and then said "Karter hold". I just love that Karter wants to be around his baby brother!

After our mini photoshoot this morning I was changing Kaden's clothes and looked over at Karter and he was trying to take his clothes off too! When Kaden was "nakey", Karter wanted to be "nakey" (his word for being in just a diaper) too and hold Kaden again. He sure loves Kaden, and here are a few videos of Karter showing his love....





Thursday, April 22, 2010

Table for Four

This week Kaden decided he was tired of being down on the floor in his bouncy seat while we were eating dinner and wanted to join the rest of the family at the table. We happened to have an extra seat, because...

...Karter now sits in a big boy chair and doesn't need a highchair! Jonah accidentally left his chair here when he was visiting and Karter has taken quite the liking to it. He actually eats a whole lot better sitting at the table with us, although sometimes he isn't quite sure what to do with all of his new freedom! Our new seating arrangement has been a win-win situation for both boys!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Our Fish Tank

A couple of years ago we had a fish tank set up downstairs, it was a complete disaster and fish kept dying, so we took it down and stored everything for the day when we would want to try again. If you have been around Karter you know that he is completely obsessed with Elmo, and Elmo has a fish named Dorothy that he really likes too. So being the great Dad that Kristoffer is, he decided to set the fish tank back up for Karter and get him his own Dorothy...in fact, he has 4 Dorothy's! Truth be told, he is actually on his second set of Dorothy's. The first set of 4 we had were from Wal-Mart and they died within a week. Karter also has an algae eater that he named Brownie. The fish tank is a huge hit with him and he always has to know where Brownie is. Saying hello to the fish is the first thing he does every morning and the last thing every night.
Yesterday we were downstairs looking at the fish and I asked Karter to look at mommy and smile...this next series of pictures is what he did....






What a goof!

Kaden was on the floor cooing and smiling the whole time his brother was acting goofy!
Kristoffer and Karter have a night time routine of feeding the fish, here is a little video of them.



Monday, April 19, 2010

Adventures in Potty Training

Last Thursday Karter hit a HUGE milestone...he went potty on his big boy potty!! We bought him his own potty about a month ago, because he was showing a huge interest when we would go to the bathroom, but of course when he got his own potty he lost interest. To help motivate him to sit on the potty we would reward him with a little piece of candy if he sat on there for at least 5 minutes...at the end of the 5 minutes there wasn't ever anything in the potty, but at least he was sitting on it! We would always ask him if he would want to go and he would do his little I-don't-want-to-do-what-you-are-asking dance and grunt around. We just decided when he was ready he would do it. Well that day came last Thursday after his nap...we were coming upstairs and I asked him if he wanted to go, he ran right into the bathroom and yelled "pants off!" He sat on the potty for 45 minutes (he didn't want to get up) and actually pottied...both 1 &2 if you are wondering! Ever since that day he is super excited to sit on the potty, but now he only gets his reward (2 M&Ms) if he actually goes. He still goes in his diaper of course, but goes on the potty quite a bit too. We are so proud of our big boy!! In case you are wondering...of course I took a picture of his first potty, but I will spare you all from seeing it...and I don't want Karter to be totally embarrassed when he is older!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Kaden's Bath Time

Kaden is a pretty happy baby and is a real talker these days. Just like his big brother, Kaden LOVES his bath time. Here is a little video from last nights bath...enjoy!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

A Day at the Zoo

Last Saturday it was a beautiful spring day and we decided to head to the zoo for the day. Karter and I went to the zoo a lot last year, but Kristoffer wasn't able to go with us, so we were excited to show him and Kaden around!

Kaden was so great all day and kept looking around at everything!

Karter was very serious when it came to checking out all of the animals, and of course his pointer finger was always working. He was so cute, after he was done looking at one exhibit he would say "next one"!

The main reason we went to the zoo was to check out the farm babies...and so did everyone else, this part of the zoo was crazy!

I'm not a huge fan of goats, so Kristoffer braved the crowds and took Karter into the goat petting area...it is pretty safe to say that he absolutely loved this area. He ran around and touched every goat!

Two of my favorite guys waiting to see the cows!

We had to wait in line for quite a bit to get into the cow barn, and Karter isn't very patient saying "touch it" the whole time!

Kaden finally gave up and passed out in the carry. He was having fun looking around, but didn't enjoy the crowds at the farm and got a little fussy....apparently he is like most of the Gray's I know and doesn't like crowds!

After being able to touch all of the animals at the farm he didn't like it when the animals were behind glass and would ask us to open it.

We couldn't sit still long, because Mr. Cool had more things he wanted to see!

Karter thought he was pretty awesome standing up next to leopards with the big kids!

It was a great family day at the zoo and we were all exhausted at the end of the day!

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Children of God

This past Sunday was a very special day for Karter and Kaden, they were both baptized at church. We met with Pastor Carol Sinykin on Saturday morning to run through the service so we would feel more comfortable with it on Sunday, but what we didn't practice was having a crying baby during the service! Church is during Kaden's normal nap time and he usually sleeps right through the service, but this week the music kept waking him up and he wasn't very happy about it. He did calm down about halfway through, after he was baptized, so apparently that was all he needed!

Karter was a little restless during the sermon, but loved being the center of attention for his baptism. A yellow crayon may or may not have been in his hand the whole time!

Kaden loved the water on his head and it helped him calm down (much to my relief!). The cutest moment came after Kaden was baptized, they gave each of the boys a hand stitched handkerchief and Karter used his to dry Kaden's head off!

The church welcomed the boys and gave them each gifts...a quilt, cross and candle.

This was one of those events that we were hoping we would live closer to family for so they would be able to celebrate this special day with us. Unfortunately that wasn't the case, but we are lucky enough to have the Davis family in our lives and they have become like family to us. Brian, Mary and Martha came down from Savage to be there for us!


Friday, April 9, 2010

A Little Push

Here is a cute little video of Karter and Jonah playing on the toys last weekend. Listen closely...it is super cute when Jonah says "Push me, Karter". Happy Friday!


Thursday, April 8, 2010

Easter Fun

The Easter Bunny stopped by our house a day early this year. Saturday afternoon, after the boys woke up from their naps, Karter and Jonah were pleasantly surprised to see all of the goodies that were left for them.

Also while they were napping, the dads went outside to hind 24 eggs in the back yard.

They weren't sure what to do at first...

...but once they caught on, they were pretty excited!



Jonah and Karter both ended up with a pretty good stash of candy!


Here is a little video of part of the egg hunt...sorry isn't that great!



After the egg hunt, we went across the street to try out Karter's new kite. This video is of the first attempt, they got much better after this.