The Blackburn Family

Today we experienced our first earthquake! I was downstairs with Graham and all the sudden the house was moving. My thoughts went like this… is that the washing machine? no, its not on. tornado? nope, sunny outside. maybe a strong gust of wind. nope, no wind. maybe casey fell down or dropped something. nope, that doesn’t make sense as the house is still moving. plane crash? bomb? at no point during the few seconds the house swayed did I think earthquake. In fact even after the shaking when Casey and I discussed what had just happened neither of us mentioned earthquake. Not something you would think would happen here in North Carolina. Sure, I know there are fault lines on the east coast. I actually really love geology and remember learning in school how we were due for a decent earthquake around here, but I still never thought that was what just happened. Casey went out and asked a neighbor that was outside if the ground just shook and he was glad to know it wasn’t just him! I called mom, dad and a couple friends to see if they felt it too. I referred to it as the buildings moving or the ground shaking, never an earthquake. When I realized it wasn’t just my neighborhood I started thinking maybe this was an earthquake. Got on Facebook and saw a lot of people were posting about it, many in other states. Exciting day around here.

In other news, Graham has taken to pointing and grunting/moaning when he wants something which is pretty annoying. He will do his sign language at times, but seems to really prefer the pointing/whining. We are down to one nap a day, but I hate it. He is so grumpy and fussy with one nap. Plus his nap is really short so I can’t get anything done these days. It makes for a really long day. Hopefully he will adjust soon. He loves to do the Itsy Bitsy Spider and The Wheels on the Bus motions now although he doesn’t do either “correctly”. Still really cute. Mom also taught him to blow kisses which he loves to do. His newest words are car and truck which he says constantly when we go for walks in the morning. I am probably the only one that can understand him since he can’t make the r sound yet.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend Uncle Gary, Christine and my brother were visiting.

Caught him mid fall as he was playing with Maggie.

It seems like Graham learns new things on a daily basis these days. It is amazing to see how much babies learn and how quickly once they get going…. it did after all take him many months to hold up his own head, learn his name, sit, crawl, etc. His little brain is in overdrive these days and it is amazing how much energy he has, it is exhausting to just watch him. It is all new to him, so much to learn, so much to explore, so much to do! I guess as a 30 something person it is just old news to me. It is a little sad for me in some ways to see how exciting every little thing is to a child, the imagination, creativity and innocence they have when compared to us jaded adults. Sad that as the years go by that innocence and excitement will fade, but such is life I guess. For now I will just enjoy watching the world through his eyes as it is much more exciting than the world I see!

He has gone from eating pretty much anything to eating only certain items, mostly fruits, carbs, dairy and anything filled with sugar. I really can’t blame him as these are my favorites too and probably 90% of what I ate when I was pregnant. If I coat veggies with enough cheese he will sometimes eat them. Many of the foods he used to love he now spits out. I suspect it is less an issue of him not likely them and more the fact that he knows eventually I will give him the foods he prefers in an attempt to get some nutrients into him. He knows exactly what he is doing. The most annoying part (even more than throwing away tons of perfectly good food when there are literally thousands of starving children in Africa) is that he throws the food on the floor when he doesn’t want to eat it. He looks right at me when he does it with this little smirk.

Even though he still doesn’t want to walk much he loves to climb. He loves to play with the pots, pans, spoons, measuring spoons, cups, plastic forks and spoons, boxes, oh and sometimes his actual toys. He loves and I mean loves TV. He will watch pretty much anything, doesn’t have to be kid’s shows, but he will often sit for a whole kid’s show which a lot of toddlers his age won’t do. He still loves to dance and will stop playing or doing whatever important thing he is doing to do a little dancing when the mood strikes and the right music starts playing. His favorite words are still light, fan (which he says without the f) and JD. Whenever a new person comes over the first thing he does it point to a light and say “yight”. He now knows where his nose, ears and eyes are and loves to point to them when you quiz him. He is not sure about mouth so we are working on that one. He is still doing sign language, mostly more, eat, milk and ball. He has also made up his own sign for where. Today he stacked blocks for the first time which I was very excited about. You would have thought he graduated college. I turned around and there were 4 blocks stacked on top of each other and he was putting on a fifth! Until today he would only destroy my block creations and never make his own. He seemed pretty proud of himself.

We took him out to the Historic Oak View Park this morning to grab a few 14 month pictures. I also have included some pictures from our first craft experience. He wasn’t really into it just yet. He enjoyed ripping up the paper more than playing with the paints. It was fun though and after he got the paint all over I let him play in the water table to get cleaned up. I have pictures I want to post from last weekend when some of my family was in town, but I haven’t gotten to those yet. Hopefully soon.

Craft Day (clearly this is before I cut his hair last weekend):

The park today. I was playing with a few editing techniques. He loved the goats and walked down the entire fence trying to get them to come over and visit again. He kept hitting the fence which is how he gets my parent’s dog Maggie to come over and play. It was funny to see him try to call the goats over to play. I did have shoes for him, but he have very fat feet and we couldn’t get the left one to stay on so we just let him walk with now shoes and hope for the best.

There isn’t much new to report this week so I thought I would share a couple pictures of Graham with his friends. He doesn’t have many yet as we rarely leave the house most days! I am hoping soon we can start going out for more activities when he drops to one nap a day. Two of my really good friends both had little boys last year and it has been fun watching them all grow over the last year. Ethan is 7 weeks younger and Sam is 4 months younger. Unfortunately Melanie and Ethan live in Charlotte so we don’t get to see them as often, but they are so cute together. We were in Charlotte over the weekend for Ethan’s first birthday party.

Playing with Ethan’s new truck and fighting over his new ball.

A couple weeks ago Allison and Sam joined us up at the pool. Once we managed to get all our gear in the door, all the floats blown up, sunscreen on and swim diapers on we had a great time. The water felt more like bath water, but it was still fun and the boys seemed to have a great time floating around. I finally finished the underwater camera that I have had for 3 years. We took it out west for our water rafting adventure.

A pictures of me and Casey white water rafting many years ago!

Black and white expression of the week. Sorry, not my best work, but still cute.