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Greyson turns the Big O-N-E!

Sorry I'm a bit late on the February Greyson update, but this past month has been a busy and exciting one for our family! I think I have to start with the celebration of Greyson turning one! We still can't believe a whole year has gone by. We've spent a lot of time looking back at pictures and video of him throughout his first year. It's truly amazing how much a baby changes, grows, learns, and develops in just 12 months. He's come quite a long way and the days of considering him a "baby" are getting numbered as he enters into the world of being more of a "little boy". We celebrated Greyson's birthday in many ways. On his actual birthday, February 19th, we did a fun birthday breakfast because unfortunately Kyle was stuck with ROTC obligations for the evening. We had a great morning full of opening some presents and we did a birthday candle in a blueberry muffin for the occasion. He gobbled it right up and loved all his new toys and special keepsakes. Then the weekend after his birthday we were lucky to have some family coming in town - my mom, step dad Mike, and sister Lisa. We spent time together, watched as Greyson had his 1st birthday smash the cake photo shoot (you'll see some of the proofs in the pictures - he literally put his face directly into the cake), and celebrated in style with a joint 1st birthday party with Greyson's best baby buddy, Leo, my friend Ashley's son who happened to turn 1 a few days after Grey. The boys ate some more cupcakes and opened even more presents and simply had a great time! We're so thankful for the all the cards, gifts, and kind words about our little man's birthday. It was a special day/weekend for our family and your thoughtfulness made it mean even more.

Along with celebrating his 1st birthday, this month has brought about some more "firsts" in Greyson's world. He's now taking his first set of swim lessons and loving it! He's such a fish and loves to be in the water. It's a great parent/child class that Kyle and I take him to on Saturday mornings at the YMCA that is teaching him some basic skills and really getting him more comfortable in the water. He's having fun and so are we - it's a weekend activity we all look forward to. Check him out screaming with glee in the pool in the video below. Another skill Greyson has acquired is climbing up the stairs. Granted our house is primarily a ranch, but we have a small set of about 6 stairs going up to our bonus room that is above our garage. He had been expressing interest in the stairs by crawling over to them, but one day it all "clicked" and he climbed all the way up like a pro. Check him out in action in the video below. He's also started saying his first "real word" - he has said MaMa and DaDa for a while, but he doesn't quite grasp that those titles belong to us, but he does have one word mastered. It's a tasty yellow fruit that he LOVES - that's right folks, "NaNa" (as in Ba-nana) is his first official word. Anytime he even glimpses one he says it over and over again. If we say the word he repeats it. He simply loves bananas! It's the cutest thing, so of course we captured it on film. See his excitement over his favorite tasty treat - now we're hoping the Chiquita company gets wind of his new development and signs him up as their new spokesperson. He's got a lot of potential!

Greyson recently had his 12 month well baby visit with our fabulous pediatrician, Dr. Seawell (we love her!), and she reports that he is doing fantastic! He now weighs in at 24 lbs (putting him in the 72% percentile - and quite a heavy weight to carry around), and he's now 31.5 inches long (in the 89% percentile - I predict I'll be looking up to yell at him in the future). He's still only has his one tooth, which he proudly shows off, but it's looking like 3 more will joining soon. He hasn't walked on his own yet, but it's coming soon. He's pulling up on everything and starting to let go and standing up on his own unassisted for a few seconds. He's a big guy so I can imagine that makes it bit more challenging to figure out the balance you need to walk. Soon enough he'll take those steps and our world will never be the same.

Kyle and I are keeping busy with grad school/ROTC for him and teaching for me. Our other main focus right now is preparing for our move. We got the "official" word from Uncle Sam that we'll be heading to Ft. Sill in Lawton, OK for Kyle's 6 months of training beginning in early July. So, were working on getting our house ready to go on the market next week and looking into finding a rental house in Oklahoma for the time we are there. It's nice that the Army will pack and move us, but all the preparation to get our house sold and research and arrangements for moving is no fun and quite stressful. Still no word on where we'll be heading to after our 6 months in OK, and we're thinking we may not know anything until more towards the summer. That's the Army for you - they'll tell us when THEY want to tell us, not when we want to know.

Hope you all are doing well and hallelujah March is here and that means that Spring is on it's way, and Winter is heading out the door - hopefully! Don't forget to check out all the February pictures. Sending you our best!

Lots of Love,
K, L, and G

P.S. Pardon all the videos this month - but we just couldn't decide so we decided to post them all for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy Greyson being a fish in the pool during swim lessons, saying his favorite word, showing off his climbing skills, and laughing like a monkey in the tub. Such a personality!

Happy First Birthday to Our Darling Boy!

We honestly can't believe that TODAY Greyson turns one! We are so in awe of how much he's grown and developed during the past 12 months, and know that he will continue to amaze us every day! Happy Birthday to our baby boy - yes, we know he's one, but he'll always be "our baby". Enjoy this little video montage I whipped up in honor of his special day.

We love you Greyson!

Mommy and Daddy

Is He Really About to Turn One?

Be shocked and awed that I'm actually getting around to the January website update BEFORE the end of the month - go me! The truth is I've had the past two days off work due to ice and snow and had more free time than usual which is much appreciated. This month has been more laid back, with the exception of our trip to Gatlinburg (east Tennessee) to have a reunion weekend with the girls I've taught with and their husbands/kids. We had 10 adults and 4 little boys which made for a rowdy good time. Greyson is really starting to love interacting with other kids and he had a blast hanging with the big boys (Connor - soon to be 3 and Patrick - 1 and half). He even got to play around in a jumpy jump house and he had a ball! We also had a great weekend spending time relaxing in a luxury cabin nestled in the mountains with great friends. Makes us realize how much we miss having them in town now that they've moved on to other places, but these reunion trips are a blast and a tradition we plan to continue.

Greyson is growing and developing at rapid speed. He has become quite the speedy crawler and he's pulling up on anything and everything. He's even getting gutsy and reaching from one object to the next while he's standing up. I think walking isn't too far in our future - oh how our world will never be the same. Another exciting event was the arrival of Greyson's FIRST tooth. Yes, he's been a bit behind in that department, but there is no really rhyme or reason when it comes to baby getting teeth. Last week his bottom left middle tooth made it's appearance. Bringing with it a few days of a not so happy baby who was in a bit of pain, but he's doing much better now and we're expecting to see some more teeth come along soon. We'll keep you all posted.

I've been keeping busy being back at work and working on the preparation for Greyson's first birthday party. I cannot believe it's already been a year - people always say time flies, but this is truly unbelievable. He's grown so much and become this little man and I can't believe I'll soon be telling people my sons age in years instead of months. We're looking forward to his birthday celebration. I'm doing a joint party with a great friend of mine who's little boy is 3 days younger than Greyson. We're in the same playgroup so we'd be inviting the same people so planning it together makes it a lot easier. My mom and stepdad, Mike, and sister, Lisa, will be joining us for the celebration. Should be a blast to watch him get cake everywhere and to celebrate his amazing first year of life.

Kyle is back in grad school and surprisingly not too busy seeing that he only has 2 grad classes this semester which is a nice change for him. Hopefully it will be a more laid back semester of just finishing up and getting ready to graduate and commission in May. We're anxiously awaiting to get Kyle's "official orders" sometimes toward the end of February/early March that will tell us where he is going for training and where we will be stationed after that. We have our fingers crossed for a few places, but it's up to the Army at this point so hopefully all will work out well.

Hope you all are doing well and we send our love! Enjoy the January pictures - I'm now using Picassa (yes, I know I was a bit behind) but it's a great program and this way you can save and print the ones you want and not have to order them like through Kodak Gallery. Enjoy!

Love,
Kyle, Lindsey, and Greyson

P.S. Two videos for your enjoyment - one of him being Greyson the pilot....of course enjoying his Pooh plane x-mas gift from Aunt Lisa and the second is Greyson "the cat hunter"....pardon my bad Austrailian accent but just had to capture him stalking his prey....too bad the hunt didn't end very successfully.

It's "Big Boy" Bath Time

We've had many requests (especially from those loving grandparents) to see Mr. G now playing around in the "big boy" tub. It's quite the sight so we wanted to give you a little glimpse before the regular end of the month update. Enjoy Mr. Splashy having lots of fun free and clear to make a mess now that he's free of the baby bath tub :)

Time to Ring in the New Year!

Happy New Year to all of our fabulous friends and family who read our monthly blog updates! Hope you had a fantastic holiday season and are settling back into the daily grind in the new year. We had a VERY busy, but fantastic month of December. We enjoyed a few down weeks at home in TN at the beginning of the month. Had some great friends come and visit from Louisville and celebrated Kyle's 27th birthday (I keep teasing that 30 is just around the corner now). Then the weekend before Christmas we headed up to Chicago for the holidays. I love getting the chance to go home and Christmas is and always will be cold and snow to me, but the major downside of going home is the 8 hour road trip. Especially now that Grey doesn't exactly fall asleep in the car all the time like he did when we he was younger. We left at about 5am so he would at least sleep for more of the trip and made both legs of the trip with only having to stop once. So, overall not to bad, but God bless portable DVD players because when Grey was hitting the wall with exhaustation and tired of being in his car seat good ole "Baby Einstein" was just the trick to calm him down. We spent a week in Chicago - seeing my family, going to Kenosha to visit Kyle's grandma and aunt, and celebrating the holidays. Greyson throughly enjoyed his first Christmas and now our house is starting to look like a playground with the many toys he recieved, which he is throughly enjoying. Gone are the days of stylish home decor and now we function with toy baskets in each room and many a colorful plastic sound making gadget laying around.

After our Christmas trip to Chicago we came home for about 2 and half days, and then left again to fly down to Florida to visit Kyle's parents for the new year. The warm 70-80 degree temps were a welcome change after the bitter Chicago cold and we had a really fun visit. Took Greyson to his first mini petting zoo which was a big hit with him. He loved seeing all the animals and we had to laugh when the only animal he got vocally excited about was a farm cat running around after seeing all these big cows, llamas, and crazy looking turkeys. Guess that cat reminded him of his buddies at home. Check out the pictures to see what a good time was had by all.

We're now happily back in TN for awhile and only have one little trip in the forseeable future - which we're rather happy about it. We have been all over the place the past 6 months so some down time at home is just what we need. We realized that our trip to FL was Grey's 4th round trip flight in his 10 months of life - he's quite the jetsetter. Speaking of Grey moving all around he is now a crazy crawling monster. When he is up he literally never stops moving! He is a speed crawler and pulling up on anything and everything he can get his hands on (see video below to check him out in action). He's starting to walk moving along a table or furniture and getting pretty gutsy with letting go with one hand. Walking is definitely coming in our near future - I'm already exhausted thinking about how much chasing around we'll be doing. Overall, he's doing fantastic....continuing to grow like a weed and weighing in around 22-23 pounds. We just can't get over what a "little boy" he's becoming, especially now that his first birthday is approaching quickly. Check out the pictures to see what a little man we have now.

Hope this New Year finds you healthy and happy and we wish you all the best that 2009 has to offer!

With Love,
The 3 H's

Happy Holidays from the H's

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