Birthday at the zoo

I had the day off on Grayson's actual birthday, August 14th.  I told him he could have anything he wanted to eat for breakfast and he chose oatmeal (yes!).  Avery thought this was boring so she asked if I could make it chocolate oatmeal.  I obliged and also put a dollop of left over whipped cream frosting from his birthday cake on top! I kind of wanted some for myself!

 Next, they cozied up to watch a little bit of "Happy Feet!'

 This was to get them excited for the morning that I had planned at the zoo to see REAL penguins...

I am a little ashamed to admit that I had never been to the Lehigh Valley Zoo! (National Zoo in D.C. YES, Philly Zoo, yes...but the closest zoo to our house, NO!). It was a very cool, but very sunny August day, so it was an absolutely perfect day to go. 

This is just one of MANY pictures Avery made me take of her and Grayson.  They are all over the zoo!

Hey, we look like twins!  She insisted on wearing this hoodie just in case she saw zebras, so it was pretty exciting that we did!

They really enjoyed feeding the goats...

 but I think hands down, the playground was their favorite part about the zoo...

and Grayson found his new favorite playground ride!

We have a great time the three of us, but definitely missed having Daddy there with us! But after naps and once Daddy got home from work, we took Grayson out for a birthday dinner (hello, just an excuse for me not to cook!) The boy loves his ice cream....but don't we all!

Then, we came home and Grayson opened his gifts from Avery, Adam and I.

I'm having trouble dealing with the fact that he is old enough to go to preschool in a few weeks!

Here's all his new loot! Yes, you may notice raisins (did I mention he loves them), pull ups and big boy underwear (we're trying to get him excited about potty training) were some of his gifts.

 He proudly walked up the steps with his new super hero underwear on top of his clothes. 

He was a happy boy and we had a great day celebrating with him!

Gray's Dump Truck Party

I feel like we were still recovering from Avery's Luau party just barely a month ago and Grayson's birthday came up before we knew it!  We had a simple party for him two Sundays ago at our home with just family, cake and ice cream to celebrate.  

It was easy to pick a theme for him this year....he is OBSESSED with trucks!! He can accurately identify all the different types (dump truck, bulldozer, cement mixer, excavator...I'm learning so much from HIM!)  Although, my theme didn't really translate that well...I picked out "construction zone" plates, cups, napkins, tablecloth, etc. from Party City's website and then when I went to the actual store (ok, I waited until the morning of the party) I found out that "theme" was online only!  It didn't really matter though...the cake had a truck on it and I think that was good enough for him!

Since the decorations of this cake were pretty simple and we didn't prepare any other food for the party, I chose a very complex cake recipe that literally took me three days to make!  But I think it was worth it...here is the what the inside of this triple layer oreo cake looked like!

Grayson was blessed with so many great gifts....many of which involved trucks!

He even got three copies of the book "Good Night, Good Night Construction Site"...Great minds think alike!   He stopped opening gifts to ask Nonna to read him some of it.

 The week prior, Nonna taught him how to ride Madi's old pink scooter in one day.  So she got him a more masculine looking one of his own!

He is now officially obsessed with his Spiderman Umbrella!  Much to his delight, it rained the next two mornings and he was able to use his new rain gear! Thanks Aunt RaRa and Uncle Billy!

Fun times were had with our wonderful family!

Where does Uncle Todd get his energy from?!?!

Especially with his new little girl in the house....

We are so blessed to have this little boy as part of our family!  He is sweet and sensitive, but also rough and playful.  He will not sit or watch TV for more than 5 minutes straight.  He wants to do everything independently...he says "I do it" when unbuckling him from his car seat, feeding Guster, brushing teeth, and turning on and off lights. He eats raisins like they are going out of style! But he also enjoys pizza, avocado, cheese sticks, plain yogurt and graham crackers.  He throws food when he's had enough to eat.  He is very good at identifying colors (I think he is better than Avery was at this age...he can even distinguish between black, brown, gray, which Avery still has trouble with!).  He loves to wear sunglasses but does not love to wear other clothing (at home, he is usually just in a diaper). He adores his big sister.  Deep down, I think we all like the fact that they still share a room. It's really fun to see them grow up loving each other (most of the time).  The first thing he wants to do EVERY morning when he gets out of his crib is to walk over to Avery's bed to say hello and cuddle.

A car ride with Grayson goes something like this:
Grayson: "mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy..."
Mommy: "What Grayson?"
Grayson: "Truck."
And then repeat, with every thing he sees along the way ("man," "bulldozer," "sky," "bird", etc.)

He can spot planes in the sky way before anyone else even sees or hears them.  He likes to play on the iPad and we have found him playing Candy Crush Saga more than once! His favorite stuffed animal is his new stuffed horse from Great Grandpa Bob, which he named "Giddy Up."

Grayson is now 33 inches tall (29th %ile) and weighs 25 lbs 3 oz. (9th %ile) - thanks Mommy!  But his head is in the 82nd %ile - thanks Daddy! He has used the potty less than five times ever....for the most part, he has no interest at all! He challenges our patience every day, but we just adore this little man!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Grayson Adam Levine!!!

Grayson's DIY Portrait Session

Since Grayson's trip to the professional photographer didn't work out, we thought we'd try to do our own photo shoot. It was the morning of his birthday party, so since we were getting him balloons anyway we used them in some of the pictures. We also used Lehigh University's campus as the backdrop. Here are some of the better ones we got...

 When we got out of the car with the balloons, we realized that we didn't have anything to weigh them down with to keep them from floating away.  But we always have a sippy cup full of water!  That is what you may see hanging from the ribbons of the balloons in most of the pictures.

I don't really remember what was so stinky that he had to hold his nose for.

 This was Daddy playing around with some of our camera's special features...

 These Adirondack chairs were all over the lawn and Grayson seemed to enjoy being in these...

this is where we got some of his best smiles/giggles!

 Here he is next to the "G" in "Lehigh"

We're hoping for some better picture taking skills next year!

Stay Awake, Grayson

I just have to share this picture of Grayson....

  This is the face he makes when he is so tired and on the verge of falling asleep in the car.  We kept yelling at him to wake him up because we didn't want him to waste his nap in the car (sometimes, he will fall asleep for only 20 minutes in the car and then won't finish the rest of his nap when we get home). This is the sweet face he would make every time we would yell "Grayson, stay awake!"

I can't take it!  He is just too cute!

Festing

 It's Musikfest week in Bethlehem!  For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, every August for 10 days straight, the streets of downtown Bethlehem are filled with music, food, entertainment, and beer tents!  This year is the festival's 30th anniversary. I grew up going to this every summer and we still love it.  

This past Sunday, our church had their service under a big tent (before the actual festival opened).  Afterwards, we headed to the kids area to do some crafts. 

It was pirate day!

 Looking humiliated in the hat he just created...

Avery was quite pleased with her mask.

 When I was little there were no carnival rides at Musikfest! Now they have about 9 or so.  Avery got to choose one to ride and she chose the merry-go-round (the swings are still just too intimidating!).  She now continues to talk about her horse named "Blase."

We got the kids some festival food and they ate lunch while listening to the kids band.

 Oh yeah, and Avery ran into Taylor Swift!