Sister's Visit

As I've said in this post and this post that my sister, Shauna, came to visit and to spend my first Mother's Day with us. Those two posts pretty much summed up the highlights of our visit but there were some pictures I didn't get to post.

The day she came in we did some shopping at The Streets at Southpoint and for lunch we decided to hit The Cheesecake Factory. Grant was sleeping so we thought we could get away with leaving him in the stroller. He woke up right before our entrees came (while we were enjoying some fried macaroni and cheese...yum). So we decided to get him a highchair so he could hang out on our level.

First time in a restaurant high chair and he loved it!

Eating at the Cheesecake Factory

In addition to our museum trip (link above) we took some walks at White Deer Park (thinking about this place as the possible location for Grant's first birthday) and Lake Benson Park. They're connected by a crosswalk so you can do both parks. I love taking Grant there. Lake Benson Park has a small playground at the edge of the park that I like to take Grant to when we go for walks. Shauna liked it too:

We put Grant in the baby swing but he wasn't too happy about
it that day (it was Mother's Day and he wasn't happy about anything that day)

And I finally got to take some nice pictures of Shauna and Grant

While Shauna was here she did some of my house work for me. Grant got really excited and volunteered to help with the dishes.

 And my sister claims that Grant wanted to go home with her:

Oh and let's not forget the duck tub. My sister has been obsessed with the duck tub since she saw it on our registry. She kept threatening to steal it while she was here...

She has no shame.

Overall, we had a good visit and I hope she had a good time. I know she always loves to spend time with Grant and he got rather attached to her too.

Shauna hates this picture of her but I think it's cute...and it's my
blog so I can do what I want :)

First Bath in the Big Tub

I'm so far behind with what I want to post. Oh well! A few weeks ago I decided it was time to lose the baby tub. Grant is so mobile now that that tiny tub doesn't contain him very well anyway. The pictures I'm posting below are from round two of the big tub bath. Round one went really well but he seemed slightly intimidated and therefore just sat there. I probably should have taken pictures no matter how little there was to capture but I didn't. Just add that to the growing list of why I'm not going to be nominated Mother of the Year. I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Anyway, upon being sat in the tub for a second time Grant seemed to imediately realize how much room (and water) he'd been alloted and had much more fun - which did up my anxiety level a little.


Oh can we play that game again? The one where I try to soak Mommy from head to toe?



Shampoo Mohawk!

Having much more room in the tub now was not lost on Grant. And no matter how many bath toys I put in there it's always the water scooper that he wants to play with. He'll chase it all over the tub and will put down anything he's holding to go after the blue water scooper.


I tried to make it PG-13...Husband is tired of naked baby butt pics.



And of course Grant has realized that he can pull up on the side of the tub. 
His favorite things to do are to either peek over the side of the tub at what
I might be hiding down there (shampoo & washcloth usually) or take the water scooper
and beat it on the edge of the tub to hear the noise. He gets so excited about it. 

A Day at the Museum

Last weekend, as part of my Mother's Day I had wanted to do something as a family on Saturday since we were doing a cookout on Sunday. We were going to take my sister to a baseball game because that's something we'd all enjoy. Well, Grant's unpredictability sort of rained on our parade. I didn't want him to be up out that late with the chance of Husband and I getting no sleep that night (my sister always managed to sleep through Grant's sleepless nights). So instead I chose the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. We ended up having a really good time and hopefully if Shauna makes a visit next spring or summer we can do a baseball game then.


Grant put himself in charge of the map. He said
there wasn't much else he could do.



They pretty much encourage you to play with
everything. So Shauna and I took advantage of that.

 

And because Shauna and I kept running off to play,
Husband did a lot of the stroller pushing. He was a good sport.

There were some animals to see (Very well behaved animals. I may not be so forgiving if I had tiny children screaming in my ear all day...everyday).


 And then there was the...

They also had some wild animals.


There were also some wolves that I couldn't get a good picture of. A swamp area that had
turtles if you could spot them and oodles of tadpoles. They had lemurs too (not in the swamp).


Grant was really good that day and he seemed to have a pretty good time. And pretty much got picked up by Mommy any time he wanted (that always makes him happy).



Grant & Mommy



Since it was a warm day he spent a lot of time with his sippy cup.

 And there was also...


He wasn't really a fan. Mostly, I think, because we had to make him sit still.
That's not something he's good at these days. Shauna wasn't a fan either.
She described the ride as "The gayest thing" she's ever done. It was little silly.


We had a good day. Train ride aside. Honestly the best part was watching my sister publicly freak out in the building with all the bugs. I'm not saying bugs are my favorite...but she really freaked out. Especially when I pointed out the spiders - that were just hanging out in a tree. In the building. With no glass, netting, or protective anything around them.

There were also some exhibits inside the main building of the museum that I didn't take pictures of. Most of the stuff in there encouraged a lot of hands-on...well, let's face it. They wanted you to play with it so I sort of forgot about the camera. And by the time we left there it was time to go home. Grant was howling for a bottle shortly after we left but we still managed to pick up a pizza on the way. When we got home we ate until we were all in a food coma and were pretty much useless for the rest of the night. It was a good day :)

Snow Sculptures

Well, we have officially hit the time of the year where I begin to regret moving south. I have no one to blame but myself. I literally faint when if I get too hot (though that hasn't happened in a few years). The instant I left the house today I felt like I hadn't showered. Which sort of made me angry that I even bothered (to shower, that is...not leave the house). Days like today make me think of winter. And then I came across these pictures. I don't remember much about it but way back when the people of Potsdam, NY used to do snow sculptures in their front yards. I'm not talking snowmen here. They went all out. I wish we had more pictures because these are really just a tease compared to what they did. I think it was a contest, but I'm not sure. I don't know if they stopped doing it or we just stopped going but I remember it was something I looked forward to.

A snowy circus

Ok, I know I'm just an innocent kid putting my arms around the
leg of that "guy"...but please look where my hand is. Hahaha!

I probably should have put this picture second because
it's another view of the circus scene

Either it was a little warm that day or Shauna tore up that little
snow person. I'm guessing she wrecked it. She looks guilty.

Crazy, huh?

Somewhere I remember seeing a picture of one sculpture that was either Garfield or Odie and beneath it was Odie's bowl. One of us (or both of us?) was in the bowl and you could tell how huge the thing was. And I think one year the house that had the circus out front in these pictures did The Wizard of Oz and they had music from the movie playing. You can see why it was something we looked forward to. For as cold as it gets there in winter, we always had so much fun :)

Conversations Like This

Let me just start off by saying that I love my sister. And spending time - especially the last five days - with her makes me appreciate her insanities much more than I did when I lived at home with her.

When we were kids we all used to pick on my sister because it seemed like she had a hearing problem. We used to tease her that she was "deafer than a fence post". We thought it was pretty clever.  I think she still has that hearing problem. It is conversations like this that make me want to hug her roommates and co-workers just for having to deal with her everyday:

*As we're walking into Target yesterday*
Me: "OMG, I think I forgot to put on deodorant today."
Sis: "Are you serious?!" <--- I thought this reaction was a bit heavy for smelly pits.
Me: "Umm...I can't remember. I don't think I did."
Sis: "You can't tell?"
Me: "Well, judging from the way I'm sweating I don't think I did."
Sis: "No, you did. I saw you take some into the bathroom with you."
Me: "No I didn't. I never take that into the bathroom with me."
Sis: "Yes you did. You went in there to change and you had underwear with you."
Me: "Uh...yeah, but not deodorant."
Sis: "OMG, we're talking about deodorant? I thought you forgot to put on underwear."
Me: "I don't think I'd have to think to hard about that!"
Sis: "Well, yeah, I was gonna say..."