A trip to Lawrence, Kansas

I saw a posting on Facebook a couple of weeks ago where a golfer/friend was asking if anyone would be available to play in a pro-am in Lawrence, KS.  Being 28-weeks pregnant, I have been playing a little bit and figured... why not?!  Bob didn't mind the idea either and since it was a long Memorial Day weekend, we packed up the car and Graham too and off we went!  We stayed overnight in Joplin on Friday night - where Graham had slept most of the way and just as we pulled into the hotel, he woke up as said "We made it!".

The next morning, we were off to Lawrence and Graham spent half of the morning sleeping and then, the other half watching DVDs.

Once we checked into the hotel, we grabbed lunch at club before having to get ready for the pro-am.  Graham arrived in style :-)

And he wanted to wear his sunglasses again the next day during our drive to the park in the morning.

Daddy and Graham would play together by the playground while Mommy sat on a bench, chatting with another pregnant mom.  But after a while, I realized that my two boys were no longer by the playground.  I decided to see what they were up to under a tree.  Graham was happily digging with a stick.  He said he was "building a sand castle".

So Mommy decided to join in on the fun.

And just as we were about to leave, we had Graham sit on Daddy's shoulders and he would pretend to be a bull and chase Mommy around.  "Toro! Toro!"  He loves it!

Graham was quite tired by the time he got back into the car...

 but he still manages to play a little peek-a-boo :-)

It was a great trip despite the not-so-good golf.  Wow... what a golf course!  I'm glad I was in a cart on both days.  There were lots of rolling hills (I guess not all parts of Kansas is flat!) and the greens were firm and undulating.  The high winds did not help either!  We did meet some very nice people and who knows, maybe we'll have another road-trip to Lawrence again next year.  I'll definitely have to practice a little bit more to get my game in shape for that golf course!

More videos of Graham and another birthday present!

A few days after Graham's birthday, another birthday present arrived at the door - a brand new Transformer ATV from Uncle Doug and Auntie Myla in New Jersey!  Graham couldn't wait to put it together.

It's actually motorized and we didn't get a chance to charge it yet, but off he went!

Vroooommm...!

And then, he took a little break to fix a few things:

Ahh.... boys will be boys!

And Graham is finally getting some air in his jumps:

And here he is reciting his ABCs and counting:

Graham is obviously still missing some alphabets in his ABC's and still needs to work on his Chinese pronunciation.  But it's definitely a good start! He makes Mommy very proud :-)

Happy birthday, Graham!

Graham turned 2 years old on May 22nd and Grandma and Pop-pop were here to celebrate the special occasion with us!  It was nice to have someone else read books to Graham at night before bedtime :-)

And thank you Grandma and Pop-pop for the wonderful birthday present - a sand and water table.  AWESOME!

I think Graham likes the sand more than he does the water:

But either way, he is sure good at making a mess!

I was really having a tough time figuring out what to make as a birthday cake.  So I decided on cupcakes:

A turtle cupcake! :-)

Graham even recognized its little tail!  The cake called for licorice but I used a toothpick and cheerios instead and it worked out great!

Graham almost didn't want to have his dinner/pizza after seeing his birthday turtle cupcake-cake.  He kept saying "I want eat birthday cake, please"!

And so, of course when it was time, he just couldn't wait!

Graham had a tough time blowing out his candles:

Too funny!

I was surprised he didn't go for the chocolate-covered cupcake.  He picked up one of Mr. Turtle's foot and then, he wanted Mr. Turtle's head:

Graham definitely enjoyed his birthday! I know we all did!

And here's what left of Mr. Turtle.  Graham wanted to eat his tail too!

After a nice card and $2 from Grandma and Pop-pop...

Graham opened some presents and then it was time to catch up on the finale of "Dancing with the Stars" on TV!

Speaking of TV, the next day was Pop-pop's 71st birthday.  And we were able to do a TV birthday shout-out on the 9 o'clock news!

How cool is that!  Thanks to the news anchor, who is actually also our neighbor for making that happen.  Grandma and Pop-pop definitely had a trip they will always remember!

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's day never fails with nice cards from my two favorite boys and some chocolate :-)  And this year, Daddy is starting Mommy on a new project - a family/picture tree!  I wonder when I'll be able to get to this!  

After some pancakes, we spent the rest of the morning in the yard.  We finally bought some new shrubs to replace the ones that died last summer.  We will definitely need to water these more this summer!

And the tomatoes and lettuces are doing great.  I had to add 6ft stakes to the tomatoes. They are just getting so big!

And Graham loves helping in the yard, especially when it comes to watering the lawn (or everything else!):

Later in the afternoon, we decided to check out Rooster Days in Broken Arrow.  The rides were a bit quick for Graham so we opted out on those.  We did find a little fishing game that he could play - especially when it's "fish until you win"!

Daddy caught the first fish too quickly so I had him throw it back and let Graham fish a little more. That definitely made Graham very happy.  We definitely got our money's worth out of this game!

And now: "Hmm... which one do I want?"

Mr. Turtle, of course!

It was very cute watching Graham cuddle with Mr. Turtle the rest of the day.

Before leaving, we decided to have some funnel cake.  YUMMY in my TUMMY!!! :-D

Success!

Graham is finally sleeping in his toddler bed!  

Starting out, he would end up on the wrong side of bed, but after a few more days, he's now learning to sleep on his pillow.  He's also starting call the guestroom as "my room".
We've also started listening to a lullaby CD while going to bed at night.  Right now, Mommy has also needed  to "lay down on teddy bear" (next to his toddler bed) while Graham sleeps as well.  Sometimes, especially during those afternoon naps, Mommy falls asleep before Graham does! Ha ha!

Graham's new toddler bed/room

Graham started to climb out of his crib about a week and a half ago and since then, he has been spending almost every night in our bed!  Now I really wished we had a king-size bed.  It's difficult at times when Graham takes up most of the bed and I'm trying to keep my belly from falling over the side!

So last weekend, we decided to buy a new toddler bed and we made the guest room into Graham's new bedroom.  And as usual, Graham was Mommy's little helper:

Graham enjoyed playing on his new rug:

We also got some cubes to put all of Graham's books together.  

Graham was so excited about getting his books in it!

Now if we can only get him to sleep in his new bed!  He still prefers to be in his crib at night.  Today, we did attempt to take a nap in his new room.  I turned on some lullabies and while Graham played on the floor, I ended up falling asleep!  And when I finally woke up, Graham was fast asleep on the floor too!

I suppose if anything, we're getting closer to the bed!

The other milestone lately was Graham taking his diaper off while playing at home.  He just didn't want to wear it!  He said he wanted to be like ducky in the library book "No more diapers for Ducky"!

I suppose that's a good sign for potty-training but he hasn't really used his potty much at all lately.  And he's back to being alright to wearing diapers again.  Too strange!

Pregnancy Update - 26 weeks

Here I am... at 26 weeks!

I have finally accepted the fact that I am bigger than when Graham was in my belly at this same time.  That seems to work quite well in my own mind.  My back and hips do hurt occasionally after being out in the yard or playing golf, but laying down on the floor and letting my hips readjust themselves seem to work quite well!

We had a doctor's visit a couple of weeks ago and we had brought Graham with us.  I wish I had our camera with us because Graham gave the doc a nice big hug and even said "Have a nice weekend" when he left the room!  The other neat thing about the visit was we were all able to listen to the baby's heartbeat AND my heartbeat at the same time!  It was 2 heartbeats for every one of mine. Very cool!

There will be another doctor's visit next week and I'll also be doing the glucose test then. I hope I pass the 1-hour test.  Otherwise, I need to go back and do the 3-hour test like I did when Graham was in my belly. Wish me luck!

Graham is 23 months old (2 weeks ago!)

Looks like I'm getting really bad about these monthly updates for Graham!  Well... I think after his 2nd birthday, I'll just be doing it every 6 months instead :-)
So let's see, what's new with Graham?
We've switched him to forward facing on his carseat now:

I obviously took this picture on one of his grumpy days!

We're still "somewhat" potty training... although the potty really just sits all alone by the corner in the kitchen now:

Graham loves to pretend that he's vacuuming with his corn-popper:

He even tries to turn it on and off by stepping on it:

And funny enough, he started playing with all his old toys!  He loves sitting in his old swing:

As you can see, he even made me tuck him in with his blankie!

He loves his old Jumperoo:

Except this time he doesn't actually fall asleep in it anymore!

And he can now climb in and out of his old walker:

And speaking of climb, he can now climb out of his own crib!  Last night, he woke up at around midnight and after rocking him for awhile, I put him back into his crib.  He was not happy about it at all!  I decided to leave him there anyhow and went to use the loo.  Even before I was done, he was already in our bedroom with his blankie saying "I want lay down next to Mommy"!

Here are some other phrases recently:

- " Oh my gosh!"

- "I want to go on airplane"

- "Daddy go to China" - since one of his cartoon characters on DVD goes to China

- "I need..."

- "Mommy find it please"

- "Wait for me", "Be right back"

- "Perfect!"

And his favorite - "What's this??? What's this?"

Less than 3 more weeks and our little boy is going to be 2 years old!