Just in time for his 18 month mark

Just when we were sure I was going to have to carry Graham into Kindergarten, he started walking!! I could not be more excited about this. He still isn't walking full time, or even part time actually, but at least now I know he can do it. Each day he walks a little more and I think in a month or so we will finally be able to advance from just swinging on the swings at the park to actually running around and playing with other kids!!!

What we have been up to this week

This week was pretty crazy. One of my friends who is a nanny was out of town and asked me to fill in for her so I watched a 5 year old boy on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I also watch a 17 month old girl every Monday and Wednesday so we had quite a houseful. Yesterday was the first day it was just Graham and me and it was pretty nice. So quiet without a million 5 year old questions coming at you.

Caribbean cruise anyone?

Did I already tell you all I was going on a cruise? Well, I did. A few weeks ago actually. My biological mom (What? You didn't know I was adopted?) decided to take my sister Stephanie, my brother Jake and me on a cruise as a fun vacation and as a chance to get to know us a little better. It was SOOOO much fun!! The first night on the ship was the day after my birthday so my sister had the waiter bring out a cake and sing happy birthday. The cake was outrageously delicious.
In fact, most of the food we ate on the ship was super delicious. We definitely took advantage of everything tasting so good and ate until we thought we would die at every meal. Oh my gosh, it makes me sick thinking of it now.
My sister and I are almost exactly 10 years apart (her birthday is 10 days after mine) and she does not have one wrinkle on her face yet. I am hoping for this same miracle.
One night we played bingo and all 3 of us lost. Not a very exciting story. Jake was bored by bingo and instead decided to entertain me by spending about 300 hundred dollars on the quarter game. Don't you just love that thing? I could seriously sit there for hours waiting for those quarters to drop (as long as it's someone else's money going into the machine :)

Arriving in Jamaica.

First we hiked through the Grotto Caves.

Then we hiked up Dunn's falls which was sooooo awesome!!
The day after Jamaica we were supposed to go to Grand Cayman but the weather was bad there so they rerouted us to Key West which was kind of a bummer but still fun to do a little shopping and walk around.
The last night on the ship all four of us did Karaoke and has a really good time. I tried to choose an upbeat song that I thought would be easy to belt out (My Boyfriend's Back) but it turns out that is actually a really hard song to sing and there are a lot of talking parts and it ended up being incredibly awkward so I had to leave the stage early from embarrassment. I was nice enough to provide you with the video of my onstage disaster below.
At the Miami airport headed for home. It was sad that the vacation was over but I was so excited to see Graham and Elliot (who had newly cut hair!!! what a great welcome home surprise!)

THANK YOU NANCY!!!!!!

My 28th birthday!

These are the only 3 pictures we took on my birthday. Elliot has refused to cut his hair for the last 4 months so I told him he was banned from all picture taking. Graham complied with my wishes and let the nice man at Great Clips cut his hair so he was allowed to be in the pictures (although with the way he screamed bloody murder the entire time, I'm fairly certain Great Clips is praying we never step foot in there again).
Elliot took me out for sushi to celebrate and it was soooooo good.
The night of my birthday I was supposed to fly out to Miami at 7:00 to meet up with my family for our cruise the next day. I got to the airport around 5:00 and had to wait until midnight for the flight to leave because of problems with the plane. AAAAHHHHHH. Spending your birthday in an airport by yourself, eating a ridiculously overpriced sandwich is not awesome. But they did give everyone on the flight a $75.00 voucher for a future flight which was pretty cool.

Sibling for a week

For the past week Graham has had the opportunity to have a pseudo sibling live with us. Jeremiah is a 5 year old boy that I babysit sometimes and his mom asked if I would mind having him stay at my house this week while she was working. We kept really busy while he was here by going to the park, two jumpy house playgrounds, a birthday party, having several play dates and lots of naps (oh how I looked forward to those naps everyday!). Here are a few pictures:

Watching Yo Gabba Gabba online. Odd that Elliot seems as into it as they are.

Graham showed Jeremiah how his crib works.

They got ready for bed together every night

and then got up together every morning

Graham was absolutely terrified of both bouncy house places and refused to go on any of them. So in essence, I paid $10 for him to play with this stupid bench for an hour and a half. Awesome.

My friend Tracy (I have like 3 friends, what are the chances one of them would have that name right?) came with us and these are her kids. They both loved the bouncy houses but were nice enough to keep Graham company in between bouncing.

At the second bouncy house we went to (don't ask why we even went to a second one after he had such a terrible time at the first one) Graham tried to mack on this cute girl. Unfortunately, she was already walking and thus a little out of his league.

For the most part, it was really great having another kid in our house. I can definitely see why some people say two kids is easier then one, because the two of them played together all day and kept each other busy while I was able to do other things. The only thing I found exhausting was how much talking a 5 year old does!! Oh my word, I thought I was going to go crazy. It was nonstop from the time he woke up to the time he went to sleep. I am now a bit more appreciative of Graham's 4 words that he chooses to use sporadically. Jeremiah is spending the first week in March with us while his mom goes on a business trip so I am just going to have to enjoy my nice quiet house until then....

My how these boys have changed!

Camera purge

A couple of days ago we braved the cold and headed to the park. Poor Graham is resigned to crawl around in the sawdust most of the time. There is always the option of walking buddy....

Carson and Graham zoning out to cartoons.
We kept telling Carson to give Graham a kiss. So cute.


A cake I made for a baby shower.
Anytime Elliot is in the bathroom, Graham insists on waiting outside the door for him and peeking to see if he can catch a glimpse. This kid won't let his dad out of his sight for a minute.