End of 2019 (September 16th-December 31)

September 16th-December 31st, 2019

Blake got this dog from Nana for his birthday and he loves following it around like a real dog. I am glad he likes it because this is as close as he is getting to a real dog for a long time!

I love watching these moments. Greg got both boys to sit down and listen to him read a book.  Rare moments around here!

Blake is SO BIG! We love how interactive he is with us these days.  He is a lot happier and has come a long way.

The boys love their water table!  One of the best toys we have gotten so far.  They always end up soaked but it entertains them for longer than any other toy so we play with it as often as we can!

Blake has a sweetest smile and best dimples of the family.  In this picture he almost looks like he has red hair!

We are trying to get Blake to do "happy and you know it" and Grant doesn't like that Blake is getting so much attention.  It is hard being the big brother and then having to share your parents! Blake is so cute when he does it!

We went to see Thomas the train in Boone.  We thought this would be so fun since all Grant cares/talks/thinks about is trains and Thomas.  When we saw Thomas Grant said "Mom, why isn't Thomas real and talking?"  He is too young to be noticing that!  It was a fun time though!

Blake is standing up at the train table and playing with trains just like Grant!

As you can tell we are so proud of Blake so we have tried to video this song many times!  It seems all the best times we can't seem to catch on video so we just keep trying!

I got some Grant cuddles one afternoon and those can be hard to come by!  I love it.

Blake is walking around with the walker so well these days.  He can turn it around all by himself and has good balance.  Walking will be here any day now.

Blakey knows what it means when we say "no-no"  We must say it too often!  Oops! He shakes his head at us like I am sure we do to him.

OCTOBER

We took the boys to the Children's Museum.  It was great for Grant's age and, of course, he spent the most time at the train area.  Blakey had fun too but he was just a little too small for this.

We found some train tracks on Amazon marketplace and Grant loves them. They are fun to make different tracks and Grant loves to create new tracks with his trains.

Grant still loves trains. He gets very focused and it is the only time he doesn't want to play with me (unless his train breaks and he needs help).

Dad got some good snuggles from Blake!  These are Greg and I's favorite cuddles so Greg is soaking it up.

Blake is getting such a fun age!  He is moving all over the place, more interactive and happier than he was as a baby.  He is getting better but we are still have some issues with sleeping and eating.

Blake got this chair for his birthday and loves to push the button and dance to it.  It is a fun toy!

Blake also got this riding toy from Grandma and Grandpa for his birthday.  Grant loves pushing Blake around on it and Blake loves all the attention from Grant! A lot of times the attention is one sided.  Blake just wants his brother's attention and Grant doesn't want anything to do with his brother so it is fun to see them getting along!

We are getting braver (at times) and take the boys to HyVee Market Grill for dinner sometimes to give Greg and I a break from cooking and cleaning.  Blake loves giving kisses these days and we will take all the kisses from him!

The boys both wanted to sit on Papa's lap.  Grant was talking about what dinosaurs say and Blake was growling at Uncle Mit.  It was cute!

We have had some nice fall days so were getting the boys outside as much as possible before we are all trapped inside for 6 months.  They love their sandbox!

Chloe is on Blake's toy and loves it just like Blake!  We watched Chloe for a few hours and she wasn't too happy about it.  She wanted her Mommy!  This was one rare happy moment with us.

Blake was kissing the big bear at Nana and Papa's house!  So sweet!

Blake is eating a banana all by himself like a big boy!

We took the boys to Howell's pumpkin patch.  It was a nice day for it!  As you can tell from the pictures we had some good moments and some toddler moments.  Grant loved the bathtub train and was mad when he had to get off!

I took Grant to the jump park on a day off and he loved the trampolines! Perfect place to wear him out for naptime.

Daycare had a Halloween party and it was so fun!  The boys both dressed up as trains (there is a definite theme in our house these days).  They had cookies, treats and bounce houses.  It was fun to see home of Grant's friends and be able to talk to the parents.

I took the boys to HyVee to have a donut day! They loved it!

Nana loves her open mouth kisses she gets from Blake! She risks all his sicknesses just to get a kiss.

Grant had a great joke for Halloween!

He loves this train song we listen to while driving in the car and I started singing it as "all aboard the mommy train" once we all get into the car and he loved it!

Blake's finally walking!!!  He only take a few steps but will be on his way in just a few short days or weeks I am sure.

Blake gets frustrated with this toy because it doesn't move as smoothly as it should but Blake doesn't get much stability from it so he is basically walking when using it!

Our boys were trains for Halloween!  Grant was Thomas and Blake was James.  They were adorable!  We stopped by a few houses in our neighborhood and then to Nana and Papa's and Aunt Randi's.  It was a fun night!

Blake is officially walking on Halloween.  Such a great Halloween present!!

NOVEMBER

This is my favorite type of cuddling ever.  I absolutely love when they are still small enough and can lay on your stomach.  I can rest and they can rest/watch TV at the same time. Perfection!

Blake loves Mom's water just as much as I do!  We are very lucky that our boys love water.  Greg calls us all camels because of it!  I am just glad our boys love water and that isn't a battle we have to fight.

We had to get outside and get out the house!  We bundled up and went on a wagon ride around the block.

Blake got his first hair cut!  He wasn't happy about it-actually hated the whole thing.  But he was all smiles afterwards like nothing happened.

Grant pooped in the potty!  Sorry for the poop photo but we just get so excited when these things happen.  Closer and closer to being fully potty trained.

Grant and I took Grant to the jump park for his birthday.  He loved it!  And loved the alone time with Mom and Dad!

Grant opened a few presents on his birthday, got a cake and Nana came over to give him some presents!  He loved all the celebration and presents!  We can't believe we have a 3 year old already!!

We had Grant's family birthday that weekend and he got lots of great presents!  Of course, it was a Thomas themed birthday and we would have it any other way.  It was perfect for Grant!

After Grant's party, Blake picks up one of Grant's books and starts reading it all by himself (with the book upside down) but so cute to watch!

We have a LOT of leaves in our backyard.  Greg tries to get rid of them and the next day our backyard is full again.  It was nice outside one day so we had a family affair outside playing in the leaves. 

Greg getting some of my favorite cuddles.  Blake is such a cuddler and we absolutely love it!

Blake loves to dance!  We went to visit Grandma and Grandpa in Webster City and Blake loved this toy!

DECEMBER

Blake loves riding on Thomas! He hasn't quite figured out how to push the button to make it go so Grant helps him and he loves it.

I caught some cute smiles out of Blakey in his Christmas shirt!

Another sweet moment of Blake reading to himself!  I love catching these moments.

The boys are shaking their heads and giggling and it is the sweetest thing.  Grant is still Blake's favorite and person who makes him laugh the most.  We love when Grant makes him laugh because we get the best belly laughs out of Blake.

When we went to pick Blake up from daycare the teacher told us Blake had a few incidents where he jerked and then fell over.  We brought him home and checked his fever and it was only a low grade fever of 99.  As I was sitting with him playing he did it again.  We called the on call number of his pediatrician and they told us to go to the ER.  It was hard for the ER to see what was happening because it was random and only every so often.  We videoed him while we were in the ER and finally got a jerk.  We showed the video to the nurse but in the end they blew us off and said it was most likely due to his fever.  We had no more issues the rest of the weekend so we are not sure what that was. You can't see the jerk until the last few second of this video.

This is such a cute moment but I had to catch it on video.  Greg denies he snores so I had to show him ;-)

Blake is really sick again.  His breathing sounds horrible. We took him into the doctor again and got steroids and a nebulizer.  He has pneumonia.  Our pediatrician said this isn't normal for a kid to be this sick again so we have a consult to see pulmonology.  I am glad we are finally seeing pulmonology so hopefully we figure out why he gets so sick and needs a steroid every time he gets a cold.  We got into see the pulmonologist quickly due to a cancellation and my boss was nice enough to cover so I could go!  I was glad to get it quickly so the doctor could see him when he was sick.  The doctor said Blake most likely has asthma and we will get a swallow study to make sure he wasn't having silent aspiration.  That is scheduled for early January.  Blake will start taking a nebulized steroid twice a day and albuterol every fours hours until he is better.  Anytime Blake gets sick we have to do the albuterol but the steroid we do every day until our follow up.

I caught some cute Blake smiles even while he is sick!

The boys are jumping on the trampoline together.  I am sure Blake will be jumping soon because he always wants to do what his brother is doing!

The boys got their cute Christmas pajamas on and I caught them both smiling!

Blake has the best daycare teacher, Miss Cassie, right now and she taught his some cute animal noises!

We went to Hy-Vee to go shopping and Santa and Ms. Claus were there!  Grant was excited to see Santa but Blake wasn't too sure about them.  You can see the tears are about to start flowing.  :(

We went to Santa's last night at Des Moines Golf and Country Club.  Blake did not like Santa again this time and still wasn't sure about him even though Mom was holding him. Maybe next year he will like Santa!

We went to Nana and Papas on Christmas Eve morning for presents and coffee cake!  This was the start of our many Christmas's to come in the next two days.  Later that evening we went to Aunt Randi's and had dinner and they opened a few more presents and Santa flew over her house!  We had to get home after that to make sure Santa didn't miss our house.

Santa came!  Grant was excited and Blake was excited for the presents.  They weren't as excited for the kitchen as I was expecting but they got a lot of great toys.  Santa even found his Polar we have been looking all over the house for.  It is noisy and loud but Grant loves it.

It was beautiful on Christmas day.  Since we are always up at the crack of dawn, we went to the park after opening presents since the Young family wasn't coming over until dinner time.

We had our last Christmas at dinner on Christmas with the Youngs.  The boys got more great presents and Grandma and Grandpa got the boys a bounce house!  Grant loved it and Blake is still warming up to it but I am sure he will love it when he gets used to it.  We had a busy but fun Christmas!  There was a lot going on in two days but it was fun to be able to experience the Christmas magic with two young boys and be able to celebrate with all of our family.  We are very blessed!

Blake is doing so well with his use of utensils!  I am so proud of him and how much he is developing.  He is getting so big!

We met at Buffalo Wild Wings in Ames for Grandma's birthday.  The kids did pretty well for about an hour and then it was time to go!  But we were happy to be able to celebrate with Grandma for her birthday!  We are excited for the New Year ahead. Hopefully getting some more answers about Blakey and we just started the process of looking into building a new house so we might be getting a new house next year too!