I intended to updat this a bit sooner but...life happened! So here it is now.


Picking up where I left off...
A few weeks after Cattle Call Matt's brother Josh was getting married. Many of his family members were in town so we took some time and went to Disneyland. This was Graedy's 2nd trip and he loves it every time. As you can see in this group picture he loved this trip so much he wore himself out!


Disneyland was beautiful. They had their Christmas decorations up already and the weather was great as usual. It's hard to tell in this night time picture but the castle had "snow" on it and plenty of lights. We had a great day with Matt's family.


Josh and Sara's wedding was awesome. Everything was so pretty, especially Sara. Graedy was the ring bearer, and, despite my concerns, did very well. He made it down the aisle and hung out for awhile before taking off back down the aisle about 5 minutes into the ceremony! I met him at the end and we quickly headed inside to grab some snacks and then went back out to finish watching the ceremony. He looked so cute!







Graedy hijacked the golf cart that Josh and Sara left in and decided to hang out there for awhile while they finished up pictures. They got married at Steele Canyon Golf Course and as you can see behind the golf cart, the setting was amazing.

After the wedding we headed back down the hill to the valley and our wonderful fall weather. When the temps hit triple digits during the summer it's sometimes hard to remember why we live here, but November always refreshes my memory!

After Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house and at Matt's mom's (just one more thing we love about both our family's being here-two Thanksgiving's!) I was ready to take Graedy on another trip. My mom, brother Mitchell, Graedy and I drove up to Palm Desert to the Living Desert. It's a really neat zoo featuring animals from desert settings. There is a giraffe in the background of this picture and next to this exhibit were some warthogs.

There were antelope (as you can see in the background of this picture), camels, and some cattle with ridiculously long horns.

On my last trip here about two years ago, we weren't able to spot any mountain goats but had an amazing view this time. The pictures don't do it justice. One of the rams posed at the top of the mountain for about 15 minutes. It was beautiful. After we watched him for a bit we headed around the corner and saw several more hanging out around the corner.














I can't remember a Thanksgiving break that has been so much fun. Great times with family, great trips, I can't think of a better way to spend our vacation. Congratulations to Josh and Sara and we look forward to more fun times with our families!

Seventeen months old!Wow! One more month and you'll be eighteen moths-a year and a half! It's gone by so fast. Here are some of the things going on with you right now:

Favorite food: Cinnamon raisin bagels and raisin bread, cheese, bananas, pancakes and waffles.

Favorite shows: Anything Mickey Mouse Playhouse, country music videos, and football!

Bedtime routine: You let us know when it's time and are ready for your bedtime story as soon as we get upstairs. We lotion you up and dab on almond oil for your eczema, grab a paci and you are ready for some shut eye. You don't need music every night anymore.

Favorite book: It used to be Five Little Pumpkins but you haven't had one this last month. It's time for some Christmas stories!

Favorite playtime activity: Throwing balls, using sticks and empty wrapping paper tubes as bats to hit your balls and looking at books.

Favorite activity with Momma: Camping in our family room.

Favorite activity with Dada: Riding the motorcycle (around the cul-de-sac and pulling it into the garage).

Your hair has become much more blond but still has some red in it and you are starting to lean out a bit. Your eyes are a beautiful blue. You weigh (I have to weigh you and update) and you are (???) inches tall. You wear a size 6 shoe and still fit into 18 mo. clothes.

You are practically running and are working on jumping now. You learned how to throw forward this last week, not just backward and have become quite a good climber (you made it onto the top of the table yesterday!)

I love you Graedy and am excited every day to see what you will do next!

So much has happened in the last few weeks! I'll start with Graedy in the kitchen. He has become my little helper. He wants to be involved in everything I'm doing all the time! So I have a stool that I let him use so that he can watch what I'm doing. We made pancakes (which he loves) and I had the bowl of mix on the counter. He pulled the stool over and stuck BOTH hands into the mix! P.S. check out the shirt from Gram : )! (It says "This is why I cry: 1. I'm starving over here(hello pancake mix) 2. You think I need a nap but I know better (see the blurb later about naps at cattle call) 3. You took my stuff, give it back! (Again with the pancake mix) 4. This diaper's not going to change itself (too bad-some of them are pretty stinky : P 5. I'm the center of attention (NO kidding!)) Can't you just imagine what he's thinking in these two pictures!? "What is all over my hand?"

"Wait, it's on this one too?!" (Yes, that is pancake batter all over his hands and face!)



Ahhh kiddos, so much fun!
Later we headed out to the desert for another driving lesson for Graedy. I figure it can't hurt to start now!
The next morning Graedy decided to show off his version of Rudolph! ( A little dollop of Boysenberry jelly from Dada's english muffin)


I'll finish up tonight with Cattle Call. Graedy's a bit young for the rodeo but we made it to the parade. We weren't sure we were going to because he woke up at about 6AM and the parade was at 9AM-right at his nap time! We decided to go and I'm so glad we did. He loved it-especially all of the drummers(no surprise to those of you who have seen him around drums!)

LOVED the parade!

After the parade he finally crashed for a few hours. After his nap we headed over to Derek's to hang with Dada. Check out the pics-Cattle call 2008 4 months old....

And Cattle Call 2009 at 16 months old!Let's go already mom!

Cattle Call was fun this year but I'm excited to take him to his first rodeo next year!

The cutest monkey EVER!!!!

Halloween was so much fun this year. We started out with Graedy's little pumpkin. Dad helped him get it all cleaned out...
This is so cool!
Check out my pumpkin!
Careful...he's hot!
This is AWESOME!!
I had turned off the flash for this picture and was experimenting. I thought this was a pretty good Halloween picture!

So finally, on to Halloween. We started out Friday at my school's carnival. He was so excited; he practically ran from our parking spot to the entrance (about 1/8 of a mile). Matt walked him in and I just love this picture. Most of the games were too old for Graedy so we did lots of running around and he got to ride the hayride.
Grandma Carolyn came with us and we all had lots of fun!
Saturday he got dressed up again and we made the rounds. First we stopped by Great Grandma Barbaras...
He was fascinated by her hat. It had little bats hanging from the brim and the bat on the top lit up. Pretty cool.
Next we headed over to his Pop's house. He had his porch light off, but who could resist such a cute trick-or-treater!
We went to Grandma and Grandpa's next...
Check out the loot!And we finished up at Charlotte's. He loves the cat! Seriously, I know he's not checking her out in the picture, but he really likes her! I think he might be looking out for the trible (some little furry thing that makes noise...I don't know...it's from Star Trek and it freaked him out!)

Thanks to everyone who let us come by. We had so much fun and look forward to next year!

So Graedy really likes cats. One of the first recognizable sounds he made was a "meow". His Gram found him the best Halloween present! Some of Josh's friends were setting this up in his yard and he didn't want it so she brought it over to us. Graedy thought it was pretty cool! Check out the static hair!

Finally...the birthday pics!

Graedy has been into "Handy Manny" from the Disney channel so we picked a cake with tools. I had to watch him as the flame on the candle was very tempting! (He had already tried to grab it once!)

He just couldn't figure out why no one else was sitting down with him and why we were all watching him intently...

He figured it out pretty quickly!

We all had to watch out for flying frosting, Uncle Mitch nearly got hit.


We all had fun watching him and he had a great time getting covered in frosting.Of course, mom was elected to carry the green goblin outside for the hosedown...


Then it was time to open presents...

He thought the ribbon looked better wrapped around him!

Such a cool book...it's part of a series called Jeepers Peepers. You can stick you fingers through the back of the book and wiggle the eyes around. Graedy loves it!


One of his favorite toys...it's from cousin Deanne and family.


Some of the friends and family that made it to the party.


Super Graedy! Gram got him a cute bag that had a detachable cape. He loves it and looks too cute in it!


Hanging out in the wagon Grandma and Grandpa got him that was put together by Uncle Russ and Dad. (It hasn't come apart yet, much to my surprise-thanks Uncle Russ and Dad!)
Uncle Josh and Aunt Sarah came by before the party to drop off his presents. Graedy gets a lesson from his drum teacher, Uncle Josh. I am all for anything musical, I don't know if I can say the same for Matt!

It didn't take him long to figure things out!

And last, but not least....



The aftermath!

Graedy crashed out with Uncle Mitch.

It was such a fun day and so great to share it with so many friends and family members.