Since Landon started crawling a few weeks ago, he quickly learned to pull himself to standing, which he gets very excited about! He now pulls himself up on everything, and his newest trick is standing in his crib.

Here are a couple videos of him in action:

Landon's favorite things lately are:

• Chewing on wires (well, trying anyway)
• Chewing on anything (He has 4 top teeth that broke through at the same time!)
• Chasing our cat and pulling her tail
• Beating the laptop
• Pears and carrots
• Eating puzzle pieces

In other news, Grady started playing T-ball for the YMCA on the 3-4 year old team. He just made the cut, as he had to be 3 by the end of June, so he's really the youngest one on the team! His team (now called the "Green Monsters") had their first practice last weekend, and it was honestly pretty hilarious! Luckily, one of his best friends - Grant - is on the team too!

Grady's 3rd Birthday & Landon's Baptism!

The weekend of June 19-20 was very busy in that we celebrated Grady's 3rd birthday and got Landon baptized. We were lucky that we had a lot of family in town ahead of time to help us with party preparation! Thanks guys! (We think they all went home and vowed never to come back after all the work they did!)

On Saturday we had lots of Grady's friends (and their families) over for an outdoor swimming party, which included kiddie pools, a slip n' slide, water table, and sprinkler! The kids seemed to have a great time! Grady got to open presents later that night!

The one request Grady had for his birthday was he wanted a red chocolate train cake. We ordered one way ahead of time, but unfortunately found out when we went to pick it up two hours before the party that they "forgot" to make it. Needless to say, they ended up having one for us in 30 minutes, which actually was way more extravagent than the one we ordered (and it was free)! So, in the end it all worked out!

The day after Grady's party, we had Landon baptized. This was something we intended to do for a while, but just finally got organized enough to plan it! :) It is definitely very different having a 7-month-old baptized compared to a newborn who peacefully sleeps through the whole thing. During the baptism, Landon spent most of his timing playing with the priest's robe, grabbing his book, playing with his watch, etc.... :)

Kelly and Louis are Landon's godparents, so they came up for the event (and for Grady's birthday party), which was really nice!

Grady and Landon were perfect angels during church (the baptism took place after church), so it was no real surprise that the meltdowns happened towards the end of the baptism. We thought this was a pretty funny family picture!

The day Landon got baptized was also Father's Day, so we celebrated that as well!

Grady drew Brandon a picture of our family on the back of his card.... This was one of the first times he has done this. It was so cute! :)

Here are some other pictures from the week/weekend. Kelly and Hannah came up early, so we got to spend a lot of time with them, which was great! Grady is absolutely in love with Hannah...every time we turned around he was hugging and kissing her! As always, the cousins had a great time together. :) In this picture Grady is pointing out all of the animals he sees out of this window....turtles, deer, squirrels...and most recently - an elephant. :)

Our Little Man is Crawling!

For a few weeks now Landon has been on the verge of crawling - rocking on all fours and doing the army crawl! On his 7-month birthday (June 11), he took his first official crawl across the room, which was very exciting! (This is two months earlier than Grady crawled.) While he is still a bit shaky, here are a couple of videos of him in action.

A few weeks ago, Landon's two bottom teeth popped through, and just a couple of days ago one of his top teeth came in. It has been hard trying to get a picture with his teeth showing, but we finally got one!

And here is a picture of Landon doing some yoga....

In other news, (Aunt) Carleen celebrated her 30th birthday this week, so we met her (and Uncle Kevin) for dinner and then had birthday cake!

And here's Grady hanging out with his best buds Gavin and Grant!

Riding Thomas the Train!

We went up to Boone last weekend, and Grady was lucky enough to get to go to Tweetsie Railroad where Thomas the Train made a special appearance! :) (Thanks for the free passes Granny and Gramps!) We actually got to ride on Thomas, and although Grady was a little apprehensive of the loud whistle (he has a thing with loud noises), he had a lot of fun! He also got to jump in a Thomas bounce house, which he of course loved. We all rode the carousel, and Landon loved it most of all! He smiled and laughed the entire time....He also really enjoyed riding the train and looking out over the side.

The next day we went to Grandfather Mountain, which is always lots of fun! (Thanks again Granny and Gramps for the free passes!) We had a little picnic, and then went to see the bears, cougars, deer, eagles and otters. This year we did not venture over the swinging bridge... as you can imagine it made us a little nervous to have an almost 3-year-old who isn't scared of anything walking across a swinging bridge!

In other news, our friend Eileen paid us a visit a couple of weeks ago on her way to NYC! Eileen and I met in Ireland in 2000 when we were both doing a work abroad program. :) Grady and Landon clearly love her! :)

We also paid a visit to the Pulley family, who just added a new member - Matthew! Here are Landon and Matthew enjoying some play time!