National Grantham Resurrection

Ethan’s Party, originally uploaded by NationalGrantham.

We are at Pierce’s friend Ethan’s party right now. It’s lots of fun!

Josh

Swinging, originally uploaded by NationalGrantham.

Pierce went to his good buddy Sean’s birthday party on Saturday. It was super fun. They had Tumble Bus there and Pierce had a great time. Here is a photo of Pierce swinging on the rings. They have Tumble Bus at the school every week and Pierce really loves it. You can see from the photos in the set that he is fairly fearless.

Josh

Best Photo Ever, originally uploaded by NationalGrantham.

How about this for an interesting character?

Josh

DragonCon, originally uploaded by NationalGrantham.

It’s Labor Day weekend so that means DragonCon has invaded Peachtree Center. I saw this bunny thing downstairs a minute ago. I’ll be heading downstairs around noon for the lunchtime crowd which is going to offer up plenty more characters I’m sure. More later.

Josh

Last night I was in bed sleeping. I woke up because I heard the sound of the refrigerator door opening (bottles jangling). I thought, “What in the world?” and jumped out of bed. When I walked into the kitchen all I could see was the fridge door standing open and two little feet on the floor. As the door swung shut, Pierce saw me standing there and jumped, then sheepishly said, “I wanted one more sip” (he had a full sippy cup of apple juice leftover from dinner in the fridge). I could only respond with a stern sounding, “Pierce.” as I pointed to his room and said, “Go”. He marched past me with his head hanging. And I went back to bed. It was 2:45 in the morning. About 20 minutes later he woke me up again by standing next to my bed and in a completely conversational and loud voice declaring, “Daddy! I’m about to tee-tee in my pants”. I took him to the potty. While he was sitting there he informed me that he had a bad taste in his mouth and wanted one more sip of apple juice before going back to bed. I obliged and ended up laying down with him to ensure he would go to sleep. What a character.

Josh

James Can Eat, originally uploaded by NationalGrantham.

Since James is 4 months old now, he’s got the green light to eat solid foods. We tried feeding him some rice cereal last week but he didn’t seem to want it so we decided not to rush it. So this morning he was acting especially hungry and Heather decided to try again. It was a success! He ate most of his cereal and only gagged on it a little bit. He’s growing up so fast. I don’t remember it being this fast with Pierce.

Josh

Pierce at the dentist, originally uploaded by NationalGrantham.

Pierce went to the dentist for the first time today. He was very excited to be going and even told some teachers on the way out of school, “I’m going to the dentist!” We got there and it was an awesome office, big aquarium in the middle with tropical fish, a playroom with a big hollow tree and little alcoves with arcade games. The exam room was cheery with a big TV showing Cars. Pierce was pumped, loving the place…until he walked past a kid laying down with a nitrous oxide (laughing gas) mask on. It was over his nose with hoses hanging down to the floor. When Pierce saw this, his posture changed. He went from excited, to on guard. He was good though. He wouldn’t let the technician use the dentist tooth polisher thing. He made her use his new toothbrush, but he cooperated for the poking and looking around at all his teeth. He also was perfectly fine with letting them x-ray his teeth. All in all he was a big boy, as usual and he ended up not wanting to leave!

Final prognosis…no cavities, teeth looked good, and the dentist said she didn’t see any evidence that braces are going to be a necessity in his future, so that’s good.

Josh

Believe it or not, the blog is 3 years old today! Wow! Time flies when you are having fun, and these have been 3 of the funnest years of my life. I started the blog to keep you guys in the know about our growing family and I hope I’m doing a good job. I know I’ve had some long periods with no updates, and that the whole blog has disappeared in the past, but I promise, no matter what, I’ll keep on posting as long as you keep reading!

Speaking of the blog disappearing, I finally got around to republishing all the posts that were lost. So in case you haven’t noticed, look on the right side of the page and take a stroll back in time. Some of the posts are missing images or videos, but I’ll get all that back eventually don’t worry. Also, in celebration of the 3 year anniversary, I’ll be re-designing the header so be on the lookout for that.

Thanks again to everyone who reads this. I appreciate your interest in my family and I hope reading about these crazy little kids brings some joy into your day.

Josh

Check out this video to see something pretty cool that happened last night!

Josh

*WARNING! Big video link. 20MB or so. Make sure it’s buffered all the way before you watch it so it doesn’t stall out on you.

I’ve been meaning to put this on the blog…yet another story about how cute and sweet Pierce is.

Pierce has started coming home everyday with flowers in his pocket for mommy. He will run up to her and dig in his pocket and hand her a handful of the little flowers that grow on clover saying, “Mommy! I got you some flowers!” It’s the cutest thing. The first time he did it, I picked him up at school and we headed home. I didn’t even notice his right hand was clenched tight the whole time. When we got home he ran up to Heather and opened his fist. In his sweaty little palm he had these wilted and crushed little clover flowers. There is no telling how long he had been walking around holding them waiting to give them to mommy. I guess he didn’t think to put them in his pocket so he had just been walking around with them in his hand all afternoon. Now, he not only brings flowers home for Heather, but he also has become quite a rock hound and brings home whole pocketloads of pyrite/quartz rocks everyday. He will give those to both Heather and me.

Speaking of rocks, every night at bedtime we get in his bed and I make up stories to tell him. We’ve been telling this whole “series” of stories about dragons for the past few months that are loosely based on “The Water Horse”. So there is always an egg that we find, Pierce takes care of it and it hatches into a dragon. The dragons are all different colors with different colored eggs and each color dragon has a special power (one grants 3 wishes, one gives him a superpower of his choice, you get the picture) and that is the part where Pierce gets to add his input. His wishes are all really goofy, like he’ll wish for M&Ms, ice cream, and hot dogs. Anyway, I picked him up from school a couple of weeks ago and he came running to me digging in his pocket. He pulled out this egg shaped orange rock with a crack in it and crystals all in the crack. He  was so delighted, he had found a dragon egg! So just like in the stories, we put it in a little box and it’s sitting in a drawer by his bed, waiting to hatch. I made up a story about orange dragons, and how when they hatch, they become a stuffed animal that you can sleep with every night. Now I just need to find an orange, stuffed dragon.

Josh