Gingle Bells!

As promised, here is a video of Grady practicing Jingle Bells (or "Gingle Bells" as he says). He's practicing for his preschool Christmas show that will take place this Friday. He also informed me that he wants to bring his microphone to his show. :) On another note, if you take a close look at the status of our Christmas tree, you will see that the bottom portion is slowly falling apart. Grady has a fascination with the tree and is always rustling around in the branches rearranging ornaments or playing with the "lollipops" as he calls them (candycanes).

Last weekend we bundled up and went to a local Christmas parade... It was only in the 40's that day, so it was quite chilly (for NC standards anyway), but perfect for a holiday event! Grady loved it and quickly learned that the more people he waved to, the more candy they threw him! :)


We also learned that it's even more difficult to get a good family picture with one more little person in the mix! (That's why our Christmas cards for the next few years will feature only the boys!) And special thanks to Heather, Chris and Charlotte for Landon's adorable outfit. :)

This last picture is just one I took because it's one of the many things I love about newborns.... their little dimpled hands.

December!

A lot has been going on lately! This is the first year that Grady really remotely understands the whole idea of Christmas, so we've been having a lot of fun just making the month exciting for him. We put up and decorated our tree right after Thanksgiving....He loved putting ornaments on, although most of them (the non-breakables) are just laying on branches at the bottom. (He couldn't get all of them to actually hang.)

We bought a couple boxes of candycanes later on to add to the tree, and Grady thought that was very exciting that he could put candy on the Christmas tree! He put them all on himself (as you can tell) and got very excited each time he managed to hang one!

Landon also managed to join in on the fun!

Grady has a Christmas performance next week for pre-school. The 2-year-olds will be singing several songs, so his teachers sent home the words to the songs so all the kids could practice. We've been working on Jingle Bells, and Grady has gotten quite good (video coming soon)! On another note, when I picked him up from pre-school today I asked him what he did, and he told me, "I ate bananas and fish and played with baby Jesus." That pretty much summed up his day! :)

We also took the boys to see Santa....We were lucky that Grady's pre-school had "Breakfast with Santa" on Saturday, so we were able to avoid the craziness of the mall (especially with Landon being so little). We had only intended for Grady to sit on Santa's lap, but Mrs. Clause took a liking to little Landon and before we knew it he was on her lap! We were honestly quite surprised that Grady even sat on Santa's lap because he can be shy at times. (You can tell by the look on his face that he still isn't sure about him.) All he managed to quietly say was, "I want choo-choos." :)

And finally, Landon is one month old today! We can't believe how fast time has gone, although he fit right in to our family from the start, so it seems he's been with us forever! At his one month doctor's appointment, he weighed 10 lbs, 7 oz and was over 22 inches long (can't remember the exact measurement, but he's in the 80th percentile for height), so he's definitely a strong little guy! Here is a picture of him today (at exactly one month old)... Thanks for the cute outfit Amy and Ray!

Thanksgiving!

We were lucky in that we were able to have two wonderful Thanksgiving celebrations (and I managed to escape without doing any of the cooking)! Normally, we travel to Boone and Pinehurst to see both sets of families; however, we did things a little different this year due to the fact that Landon just arrived! Brandon's family (Granny, Gramps and Uncle Scott) came down to our house the weekend before Thanksgiving and brought a wonderful Thanksgiving feast with them, which was great and a huge help to us! (Gramps and Uncle Scott also got to meet Landon for the first time.)

We then headed down to Pinehurst for a second Thanksgiving... It's only about an hour drive to Pinehurst, so we figured we could handle that. We have lots of extended family that come to Pinehurst every year for Thanksgiving (aunts, uncles, cousins...), so we were also excited to have them all meet Landon!

Landon also got to meet his great grandmother (Ma) for the first time!

In other news, Landon also had his first real bath while we were in Pinehurst (opposed to just a sponge bath since we had to wait for his bellybutton to heal). Needless to say, he didn't like it too much! :)

Approaching two weeks old!

Landon will be two weeks old on Wednesday! So far, he is a great baby and seems very sweet and laid back. He will even sleep for 4-5 hour stretches at night (although he doesn't like going to bed until 2am, but we're working on that!), which is exciting! The first few days we were home were definitely a bit challenging and overwhelming, but we're slowly adjusting to our new family of four and are just trying to enjoy every moment!

We ventured to the park a few days ago just to get out of the house (we figured that was safe with a newborn because we were outside)... Brandon packed us a picnic lunch, and we had a great time! Here is one of our first family pictures!

We're happy to report that Grady still adores his new brother! In fact, he seems super protective of him and is extremely loving towards him. He asks where Landon is when he first wakes up in the morning and always wants to go give him a gentle pet on the head before starting his day. He always tell us that he wants to hold Landon and that he wants him to sit by him. Yesterday when Landon was crying, Grady jumped off the couch and said that he was going to get Landon's "tigger" (which is what we randomly call a pacifier) for him. He came over and put it in his mouth, and Landon went right to sleep. He also helps with diaper changes by giving us a new diaper (and sometimes even throwing out the dirty one)! Grady also thinks it's absolutely hilarious when he hears Landon burp....he just dies laughing. (During those times I have a glimpse of what it will be like with a house full of boys!) Perhaps the biggest thing though is that Grady loves sharing his trains with Landon. For anyone who knows Grady, you know his "choo-choos" are his prized posession and he normally does not like sharing them with anyone! On numerous occasions, however, Grady has given Landon a few of his trains....he just goes and lays them on Landon when he's in his swing. He even gave him one of his train stickers the other day!

Landon Browne Thomas is here!

Landon Browne Thomas arrived on Wednesday, Nov. 11, at 4:24pm! He came in weighing 8 lbs., 1 oz (which is almost a pound and a half more than Grady weighed when he was born) and was 21 inches long.

I had a "back-up c-section" scheduled for Nov. 11 at 12:30pm (since doctors don't like VBAC patients going too far overdue), but ended up going into labor at about 4am that morning. After having contractions for about one hour at home, I knew almost immediately that this was definitely "the real thing!" That is one advantage of having been through labor before...you can definitely tell real labor pains from fake ones. We arrived at the hospital at about 6am (we were scheduled to be there at 10am for my c-section, so all of our paperwork was already done), and by about 9am I was 5 cm dilated (so my c-section was officially cancelled by my doctor). Carleen and Kevin (my sister and brother-in-law) came over to the hospital, and Carleen was able to use her doula skills to really help me out through the whole process (which was quite intense at times), and Kevin was a great support as well! Brandon was absolutely great as usual (and helped me through some very painful labor moments), and my parents and Brandon's mom and brother came to the hospital too, so I felt very supported all around! :) I finally got an epidural when I was about 8cm, so I got to rest for a couple hours before pushing. Pushing only lasted about 20 minutes.... Landon seemed to literally fly out, which was great! :) It was quite an emotional experience watching Landon being born, and I'm really happy things worked out the way they did and I was able to avoid a c-section this time around!

We were very lucky in that we had lots of family around the day Landon was born! My sister and brother-in-law (Carleen and Kevin) live in Hillsborough, so they were there with us all day. My parents drove up from Pinehurst, and Brandon's mom and brother came from Boone. My other sister and new niece (Kelly and Hannah) were even able to be there via the webcam, which was really neat! Thanks to all of them for helping us out that week! We also had some very special friends help us out with Grady that day, and we are forever grateful to them as well! :)

Grady loves his little brother so far! We were lucky in that he was able to come to the hospital and meet Landon the night he was born.... He was very excited to finally meet the little guy who had been in "Mommy's tummy" for so long. He would always say that "the brother is eating Mommy's food!" :) He has been very gentle and loving with Landon, which has been so great! He always tells us that he wants to "pet Landon." Here are some pictures of them together.

Grady welcomed us home!

Day 2 Overdue...and Other Things

We're now into day 2 of being overdue! Ugh! I really thought this time our little guy would be early (although I thought that with Grady too, and he was a couple days late). Since I had an emergency c-section with Grady, I am hoping to avoid that this time around (with a VBAC). Because this can be a little risky, I had to set a back-up c-section date in the event I was overdue (because they won't induce with VBAC's). So.... the back-up date is this Wednesday (Nov. 11). If the little guy doesn't choose to make his appearance in the next couple of days, he'll definitely be here on Wednesday around noon.

Despite the fact that we're just kind of waiting for labor to start, we had a great weekend. Thursday was actually Brandon's birthday (a big one!), so we had a celebratory dinner with Kevin and Carleen (my sis and brother-in-law) and then had a little birthday party. (I purposely didn't plan anything big figuring we'd be in the hospital! So, Brandon, watch out next year!)

Another big event this weekend was that we transitioned Grady from a crib to a toddler bed. And yes, we know this was probably not the ideal time to do this since a new baby will be joining the family any day now....but Grady decided just about a week ago that he wanted nothing to do with his crib. He has been having MAJOR issues going to bed at night. He's always been a night owl (since he was born), but he's now wanting to stay up until 10 or 11 at night! Ugh! So, we thought it was time. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to happy about his new bed either (despite the fact that he seemed excited about his "big boy bed")... He really just wants to sleep on the floor with Brandon. Not sure how this is all going to play out over the next couple of weeks, but we're hoping (like most things) it's just some phase he's in. We'll see!

Halloween!

This year Grady dressed up as an elephant for Halloween. He has always kind of had "a thing" for elephants and has been imitating them since he was really little, so when we spotted this costume we knew we had to get it! It did end up being quite warm on Halloween (about 80 degrees), so the poor little guy was a bit drenched by the end of the night. He didn't care though...he had a great time!

We managed to trick-or-treat at several houses on our street (until I couldn't handle walking anymore due to swollen ankles...well, more like a swollen body really!). Then, we hung out on the front porch and gave out candy. We ended up having tons of trick-or-treaters! Like last year, Grady loved the idea of going to people's houses.... he even tried to open the door at one house and walk in. (They had left a bowl full of candy on the porch, and I guess he didn't like that idea too much.) Here are some more pictures from the evening...

Earlier in the day, Grady took part in a little neighborhood Halloween parade, and we spent some time making Halloween treats! (I started a tradition when Grady was born that on every holiday I would make food that went along with the festivities.) This year we made "mummy muffins," "mummy dogs," and "pretzel spiders." Grady had a great time helping out!

The night before Halloween we met some friends at Fearrington Village for some pre-Halloween festivities. They had music, animals, pumpkins, etc.... Here is a picture of Grady dancing and hanging out with his favorite little lady Alice (the cat)! :)

And here are two more of his favorite little ladies....Lucy and Ann (Dorothy and Toto)! On the right he is pictured with one of his best little buds - Grant (Bob the Builder).