Two and a half men

Yesterday Grant turned 2 months old, so my friend, Tony, drove over 1800 miles to celebrate with us for the weekend. (okay, maybe it was just a coincidence) It was a good to have another guy around so we could teach Grant about the finer things in life like golf, ultimate fighting, craps, football, and fine spirits. We had a great time catching up, but the weekend wasn't all partying for Grant as it ended with a trip to the doctor today for his 2 month check-up.

We knew that the appointment was going to be bittersweet because although we were very excited to find out exactly how big he is getting, we knew that it was also time for his first round of vaccines. Shannon and I had a competition to guess Grant's weight and she ended up getting it almost exactly right. Based on his huge thighs, I went over by exactly a pound and she was under by only 2 ounces. He is now tipping the scales at 12 lbs. 2 oz and is 23 inches long. The fun ended there and unfortunately it was time for the shots. The first one was a liquid that was given orally, which he must have liked because he kind of smiled but then he got three shots in his legs while we had the job of holding down his arms. Needless to say, he didn't enjoy the experience, but he seems to be doing fine tonight and is resting up. We'll have to do the whole thing all over again in 2 months for his 4 month check-up. Here's a picture of his battle wounds. (Yep, that is three band aids you see). Poor guy...

We thought we'd end this post with a funny picture that we took this week. It is appropriately titled "the poop face". I was so excited to finally capture this expression of his on camera that I didn't realize the mess that I was about to face. Oh the joys of fatherhood...

Stand by me

Grant has been getting better head control in the last week or two and has also been doing his best to try to stand, which he really likes doing. Don't get me wrong, he is still very wobbly when he attempts to stand and he needs us to support him, but it is quite funny to watch because it looks like he is dancing. Sometimes he'll even lift up one of his legs as if he is trying to take a step. We'll try to get a video of it whenever he is trying it next.


Also we had our first confirmed giggle from him this weekend. He has been talking and making noises while he smiles (like you can see in one of the videos from the last post), but this weekend he started laughing in response to us laughing at his smiles.

We're wondering if babies learn certain things in the womb. For example, how does he know to pout when he isn't getting something that he wants? Where did he learn to hide his face when he's upset and doesn't want to show his smile? Why does he wait to pee until I am changing the diaper?

"Does this mean I have to get up at 3 am?"

An exciting milestone for Grant and I happened this week... I finally got to feed him!  It was one of the things that I was anxious to do but also was a little nervous about.  Much like changing a diaper, it was something that I had not done before.  However unlike changing a diaper, feeding him was something that I was a little jealous that only Shannon got to do.  I was pretty surprised when I got home from work and she asked if I wanted to feed him.  I was very concerned if I was holding him and the bottle at the right angle, but he did not seem to care at all so it must have been alright.  Lucky for me, Shannon said that I'm still off the hook for the middle of the night feedings since it would take more time to get a bottle ready than it would for her to just feed him.  Whew!

Also this week, Grant has been smiling a lot more at us.  Previously he would smile every once in a while, but according to all of the books it was just due to gas.  So, when he first started smiling a lot recently, we kind of just wrote it off.  Now though, he will smile when he hears one of our voices or when he sees a face he hasn't seen in a while.  It's one of the best feelings...

This first video showcases his wonderful smile in the first few seconds.  We can't help but smile also when watching it.

He's a happy little guy in the second video.

6 years (really?!)

Today is our 6th wedding anniversary.  Since Shannon has been getting a little cabin fever, wanting to get out of the house and I had a few days off from work last week we decided to head to Breckenridge for a couple of days.  It was kind of a last minute decision and our options were pretty limited to about a 2-3 hour radius because of the little one.  We also tried to pick a place that we had not been to before, but it had to have a "nice, little, walkable downtown" since that was going to be our main activity.  A lot of our friends head up to Breck for skiing and love it in the winter so we thought that we'd try it in the summer time.

We dropped Brady off at "camp" on Tuesday morning and headed up to the mountains that afternoon.  The drive along I-70 was the easiest that we have ever had; I strongly recommend heading to the mountains mid-week in an off peak time.  We didn't do too much the first night besides drive around Summit county and get acquainted with the area.  We topped off the night with a trip to Breckenridge Brewery for dinner, even though there is another one in downtown Denver.  On Wednesday we tried to sleep in as much as Grant would let us before we hit the downtown scene.  There are a lot of quaint stores along downtown scattered in between all of the T-shirt shops and ski and bike rental stores.  After a few hours of walking around we decided to drive up to Silverthorne to the outlet shops, which is close to Lake Dillon.  That night we ordered room service (something we haven't done since the morning after we got married) and Shannon spent some time soaking in the jetted tub that was in our room.  Thursday morning we slept in again and took the long way home along Highway 285 which took us through Bailey and the famous Coney Island stand.  

Even though we didn't do as much stuff or stay as long as we used to on our getaways, it was exactly what we needed.  It was exciting to think about all the things that we can do on our future vacations when Grant gets older.

Another video

This week there was an overwhelming demand, in response to the last post, for more videos.  We haven't taken too many videos so far but we do have this one that we took when he was waking up.  I'm not sure if you can hear all the grunting that is going on, but he does a lot of that when he is waking, which is fantastic at 5 in the morning (or earlier, says Shannon).  The other thing he is does when getting up is a ton of stretching, so you're literally watching him grow right before your eyes.

Also there are few other things that I want to respond to from the last post:

1.  That was not a furry, white blanket behind Grant's head in the last video, it was my hairy untanned legs.

2.  We do realize that his initials are GPS.  No we did not intentionally do that, but we just tried to stay away from names like Aaron Samuel that would end up with obviously bad initials.  The funniest comment I did hear about his initials though was that he would never get lost.

3.  No I will not tell you the other names that were in our finalist list, but for the record they were not the names that I may have told you (I did kind of like Dexter and Samson though).

4.  We would not have named our child after a person just because he was a KU basketball player... well probably not... but we did like the name Kendrick.

Keep the comments coming and we'll respond.