The Blackburn Family

A couple weeks ago we went to Pullen Park with our good friends. Since both our boys go to bed pretty early and we all hate being cold we decided to get there at 4 when it opened. They turn the park into a winter wonderland for the Holidays and since we were there while it was still light we didn’t get the full feel, but it was still fun. The boys rode on the carousel and neither seemed particularly thrilled with it, neither cried so that was good. I think the biggest hit was the swings, at least for the boys. For the adults I think it was the carousel! We also rode the train around the park, but it wasn’t dark yet so the lights weren’t as pretty as they could have been. It was still fun especially for me and Jason who used to visit Pullen Park as children. They renovated the park so it doesn’t even look like the same place to me, but there are some things that are the same and bring back memories. Maybe if I have some free time (ha) I can find some pictures of me at Pullen Park when I was little. By 6 we were ready to leave and go get some food, the selection at the park was weak at best. We had to wait a bit for the shuttle bus and while we were waiting I heard a lot of people complaining about there being so much waiting. I thought it was strange because we didn’t have to wait for anything all day. When we arrived at the parking lot there were about 5 cars and we were on the first bus. When we got back to the lot at 6 there were about 500 cars and a line that went on forever of people waiting to get to the park! Then those poor people were going to have to wait for all the rides (there are only 2) when they got there! Yikes. If we had arrived at 6 we would have promptly pulled back out of the parking lot and went home. Casey and I were parked in front of the buses so we got out quickly, but Allison and Jason witnessed the chaos that occurred when some very rude people tried to break out of line and rush the bus we just left! So much for the Christmas spirit. Here are a few pictures from that day including Graham’s first encounter with Santa. I have no intention of taking him to see Sanata at the mall until he is much older and actually asks to see him, but the Pullen Park Santa was free to visit and the line was short. He was pretty excited about it in line and seemed happy right up until the point we walked up to Santa and stood next to him. I knew there was no way he would sit with Santa, but I thought maybe he would at least check him out and give him a smile while I held him. Instead he held on to me for dear life and started to cry. The picture is one of my favorites though so it was worth it.

Click HERE to see all the photos from Pullen Park.

Here are two videos from the park this week. Graham is really gaining confidence on the playground!

My little baby is now 18 months. Well, over 18 months now since it has taken me so long to post. It is so hard to get things done in December! I do pretty much all the shopping so that keeps me busy. Plus we have lots of activities going on with playgroups and friends this time of year. I wish I had more pictures to post because I have so many to catch up on and videos, but I can’t seem to get them done! We have been taking videos with our phones since they are always on us and you have to be pretty quick these days to catch the cute stuff. The problem is I don’t have a good way to edit the videos so if I post them as is you will probably be really bored and annoyed by them. So I will work on figuring out a better way to edit and post them.

In Graham news he has become a pro at opening door knobs. Many people told me how hard it would be when he learned to walk, yeah, wasn’t really that bad. This is bad. Now I can’t contain him! Most of our rooms are pretty child proof so no matter where I am I can shut the door and do what I need to do while he plays, but can still keep an eye on him. I have various things stashed in each room to entertain him. Well, now he just opens the door and goes somewhere else! Usually down to the bonus room screaming “da da” and busting into Casey’s “office” while he working, usually on the phone. As of now he can’t open the bigger, heavier doors that lead out of the house and he can’t unlock those so at least he can’t escape on me. He can unlock the regular doors so I will have to find some of those little door knob child proof things. I have some, but no idea where I put them. I figure they will work for a bit until he figures them out too.

We had his 18 month appointment last Friday and he weighed in at 26 pounds and is 33.5 inches tall. So his height has gone up a good bit, up to about 75th percentile. Weight is just above average. Not bad for a kid that was only 13 pounds last year at 6 months old and not even on the charts. The doctor said everything looked great and he was a little ahead with fine motor skills. He loves to talk and is very verbal. Lately he is really into colors. Yellow, blue and purple being the ones he can say the best so everything is one of those colors, mostly yellow.

So funny story about me…. a week or two ago I couldn’t find my brown shoes. I looked everywhere multiple times for them and finally gave up. Then the next day I had to run up into the attic to grab something (see, I can’t even remember what I was going up there for!) and there were my shoes. Nicely placed in the attic with a stack of clothes. Really? I managed to put my shoes in the attic and had no idea! Hopefully that made you smile and if you are a mom I am sure you can relate. I have had to dig through the trash (outside, not just the one in the house) at least 4 times in the last few months in search of items I accidentally threw away. Although, one was technically Casey’s fault.

I took this video one day after a busy morning out. I was cleaning up the dishes from lunch and I looked over to see Graham falling asleep in his chair. This is probably something most children do, but not Graham. He has never fallen asleep like this! He has also started falling asleep in the car on the way home from our morning activities and then he doesn’t want to nap. I never used to have to worry about that because he would never in a million years sleep in the car! Guess he is getting used to sleeping other places.

Having fun at Lowe’s.

Playing around at the dinner table. He loves to pull things off the table.

Enjoying some healthy dinner. He was eating all my fries! He was desperate to try my Sprite so I let him have a little sip. He promptly made a face and spit it out.

This is how I found my child dressed when Casey was in charge. The sad part is that he had taken him for a walk around the block dressed like this and stopped to talk to a few neighbors. It’s hard to tell in this picture, but the greens do not match. I really need to keep my good camera near me because the one on my phone is horrible.

Climbing on the couch. You can see he already lost one shoe on the table during one of his climbs. The other day I was cleaning up toys in the living room and all the sudden the light came on in the room. I turned around to find Graham standing on his highchair playing with the switches!

Okay, last one for tonight. It takes so long to upload these to you tube. Here he is helping to clean up. Those are his play leaves so we had to take them out of the trash after he cleaned them up for us.