Friday morning my friend, Emily, called me up with an awesome idea for how we should spend the day with our little one’s. She suggested packing the kiddos up and taking them on an adventure downtown. Her plan was to take the kids to ride the trolley, eat a picnic lunch in the park, and go see the ducks walk. Downtown Memphis is the home to the Peabody Hotel and some really cute and famous ducks. Everyday at 11am the ducks are escorted from their 12th story duck penthouse down to the lobby’s grand fountain. All while walking on a red carpet…of course. The ducks play there all day until 5pm when they go back up to their little ducky home.

Emily and the girls stopped by and picked me and Gray up and we headed downtown to our first stop of the day…the ducks!

After the ducks we headed to a nearby park in the downtown area and had ourselves a wonderful little picnic. Grayson only tried to run off 2 times. That, my friends, is what we call progress!

Here I am chasing him down. In the background, you can see Emily with her well behaved children sitting on the blanket.

After lunch we hopped on the trolley. It’s only $1 for adults and free for children. Hayden and Grayson love trains so this was the perfect treat for these two little cuties. Gray is saying “choo-choo” in the pic below. I love his lips when he does this, so I make him say it all the time.

I tried to get Gray saying “choo-choo” on video, but my very non-shy child was mesmerized by his very first ride on anything close to a train. Little Miss H stepped up and made the video taking worth while with her own cute little version of “choo-choo!” I’m pretty sure the trolley ride was a winner.

How stinkin’ adorable are these two? Grayson is a full year younger than Hayden, but pretty close to the same size. I mean, come on kid…stop growing already!

After 10-15 blocks the trolley started having issues with one of it’s doors, and was stopping a lot. This was making our quick trolley ride last quite a bit longer than we had planned. We thought we heared the conductor tell everyone that if they wanted to get off and get on the trolley behind us to head back the other way we could. So we did. Turns out we were wrong. After trying to get on the trolley behind us, and being told by a fairly rude conductor that we had to pay again (which we weren’t expecting to have to do) we pulled out our money, but then he stated that we needed exact change..which we didn’t have. That meant we were walking back to the car.

Let me just tell you…our car wasn’t close….at all. Emily was carrying her 1yr old and I pushed the two toddlers in the stroller. Praise the lord for bringing the stroller! Hey, at least we got something good out of that super long, hilly, and unexpected walk. My blindingly white legs got a bit of sun, and Emily said that it seems she lost a pound. Nice! I’m gonna try to ignore the fact that this very long walk was really God making my lazy butt exercise. Ignore, ignore, ignore. Nope, not me. I don’t see any signs. Not-a-one.

Even with our unplanned foot tour of downtown the day was perfect. I love Emily, because she always has the best and inexpensive  ideas on how to entertain our crew of houligans.

Speaking of chickens. One of my random nicknames for Grayson is Chicken. I have no clue why. It just showed up one day like baby Moses floating down a river in a basket.

How are you only 4 months away from turning 2? I’ve honestly been trying not to thing about it, because I forse and nervous breakdown in my future if I dwell on it to long. Not because you will be in the “terrible two” stage, because buddy you’ve already made it miles down that path, but because these past 2 years have flown by. Ugh! I remind myself everyday to soak up what little baby you have left to offer, because pretty soon my baby will be a big boy. Sob.

• As much as I loved and to this day severely miss you being a tiny infant I love the stage you are in right now. You are so much fun. You not only interact with me when we do things together, but you full on play. You actually want me to play with you. I feel like such a cool kid. The cutest boy in class actually wants me to play with him?! So awesome! What if he wants me to sit at his lunch table too? I….would….die!!!!!!

• I love how you are always checking on me. If I’m out of your line of sight you will call out “momma!?!” The inflection in your voice alway has this “i’m just checking to make sure you didn’t get eaten by a dinosaur on the way to the bathroom” sound to it. And on one particularly cute day you stood at the bottom of the stairs and called up to me “Momma?! You okay?” I just about melted into a big ole puddle of mommy goo.
• You love my hairdryer. You carry it around the house. Sometimes you drag it by it’s chord like you are walking a dog.
• You also love my hairbrush. It’s a good thing I kept my old one around, because I often find you’ve relocated the newer one. You love brushing mine, your’s, and daddy’s hair. You just need to work on your gentleness.
• You still drool like a fool. I wish all those dang teeth would just cut through already. I’m tired of the whole bib thing. Plus, I don’t think our electronics can handle the amount of water you drip on them.
• Your dad now has you saying “all right, okay!” all the time. It’s super cute.
• I now have you saying “awww, maaaaan!” all the time. It’s even cuter.
• When someone asks you to sing them a song the only song you sing is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. You know and sing other songs, but when asked to sing a song, I guess this is the first one that pops in your mind.
• You love having conversations with Siri on my iPhone. It’s quite hilarious some of the things she translates your gibberish into.
• Lots of kids have a song that mommy can sing to them to calm them down when they are scared or hurt….yours is Wheels on the Bus. I have no clue why
• Shrek is currently your favorite movie.
• You figured out how to cross your fingers (your pointer and middle fingers) you can do it on both hands. You are in awe of this magnificent trick you’ve discovered and stare at your fingers constantly when they are crossed. You do it so much now that it has become habit, and from time to time I find you watching tv with your fingers crossed. I don’t even think you notice you are doing it.
• D and T are your favorite letters. It’s possible that you know all the letters, but I’ve never gotten you to sit long enough to test this theory out.
• I showed you how to play hopscotch, and you love it. If you see a square on the ground you immediately start hopping, and saying “opp!”.
• Dude, sometimes your poop stanks so much it burns the nose hairs. Seriously, knock this off. Especially on the days that mommy has a sinus headache.

• We started music class this past month (Music for Aardvarks) and you at first loved it, but the past two classes you have not wanted to go in the room and started whining and running to and out of the door. What’s up with that? I have a feeling it’s because you actually have to sit and be orderly and pay attention. This has shown me that we need to work on your willingness to obey and be patient. Don’t get me wrong you enjoy the class once you get settled it’s just that you think you should be the one directing the flow of the class.

• You love sliding in your socks on the wood floors. It’s like you are a tiny Tom Cruise. You know, the Tom Cruise before he started standing on Oprah’s couch and being all weird and stuff.

This is such a fun, but insane phase that you are in. You are finally playing with me and not around me. We interact, we have fun. I love you little man. You keep us constantly laughing, but you keep us constantly worn out. You are a handful, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Love you more than life.

- Momma

Every good baseball fan has at one time or another uttered the phrase “hey batter, batter, batter”, so we though we would see if Gray would say it. While at a local baseball game last night Derek, Davis (my brother-in-law), and I took Grayson to a near by empty field to hit some balls. He didn’t always make contact, but that was all forgotten when we saw and heard him do this.

(Watch his mouth and tongue.)

He also says the word watermelon like this. He’s trying so hard to get it right, but it just comes out all adorable and stuff.

Sorry about this video being so dark. I was just hoping to get the sound recorded, and if video showed up in the dark room…well, that would just be a plus.

Grayson loves to help clean up. Most of the time he makes more of a mess than anything, but I’ll take it. As long as he keeps wanting to help I’m all for it. I’m just hoping that one day he will be good enough at cleaning that I will no longer have to do any housework. I’m praying that day comes within the next 6 months. A girl can dream, right?

Here is a video of Gray helping put up his unfolded laundry. Obviously, just after waking up from a nap.

The Wednesday before Easter was a very busy day for my little man. My friend, Emily, had invited Grayson over for a egg hunting party, and that afternoon my mom’s work was holding an Easter egg hunt at their office for the kids and grandkids of the employees.

We started off the day at Emily’s house. The kids (well, the big kids) dyed eggs, and then we all went on an egg hunt.

My son spent most of the time riding the various toys on the back porch.

And the other portion of the time pushing around Emily’s 10 month old in her walker.

Last year Gray was only 7 months old so hunting for eggs was kind of out of the question, but this year, this year was different. Armed with his “putting things in buckets” skills he picked up at Halloween this boy was ready to find him some easter eggs. I wasn’t quite sure if he would keep with the whole egg hunting thing and instead drop the bucket and venture off in to a neighboring yard, but the boy totally surprised me. He was totally into it, and kept at it until all the eggs were found. He even attempted to knock on Emily’s front door as if we were trick-or-treating. Hilarious!

Once all the eggs had been collected all the kids headed to the deck to count how many eggs they found. Here’s how Gray decided was the best way to count his eggs. On his belly. Have I mentioned he loves doing things while laying on his belly? His Daddy taught him this and this child thinks it’s the coolest way to do just about anything.

After all that fun at we had to go home and take a nap, because at 4pm he had another egg hunt to attend at my mom’s work. It was so sweet. They had little easter baskets for the kids to use and take home, goodie bags filled with lots of fun toys, easter bunny shaped cakes, snacks, and the Easter Bunny was there too! And of course there was the egg hunt.

Even though he had some big kids to compete with Gray collected quite a few eggs.

–> Sorry, I just noticed I didn’t take out the gray background in these photo collages. Ooops! My bad.

Of course, my son went for the pink basket first. Everyone laughed and then sweetly encouraged him to go with a “manlier” color. The bottom right photo is of him stunned when the easter bunny came to visit. Gray kept trying to give the easter bunny high fives and fist bumps. He just followed the EB around with his tiny little had out saying “hi fi!, hi fi!”

How cute is his little pirate outfit? I just love it. It’s classic due to it’s JonJon nature, but not too frilly due to the pirate ship. I love the mix of traditional and edgy. See those shoes on his feet? They are Keen’s (Newport H2). Do yourself a favor and buy your son some. They are rugged, cute, and water proof. Just throw them in the wash and those bad boys are spick and span! They do cost a bit more that I like to spend on shoes, but they are well worth it. My little guy is hard on shoes and sandals. These allow him to have the coolness of sandals, the grip of tennis shoes, and the cuteness of expensive shoes. And they never look scuffed or worn. We will be using these for the beach this summer. I just can’t bring myself to put him in those weird looking water shoes.

He even stopped in my mom’s office to do a little work. What a work ethic that kid has. He must get it from his dad. No, I know he gets it from his dad. This child actually threw a fit when we tried to make him leave “his” office. He wanted to keep working. No joke.

I haven’t posted any video’s of the kiddo in a while, and this one of him playing basketball is a must see.

Grayson got this basketball goal for Christmas and has been in love with it ever since. We play basketball at least twice a day now. He even makes us “block” him. I have a feeling March Madness will be a very big part of this boys life.