Little Boy Land

Well, Greyson recently had his 15 month appointment and his new stats are in. He now weighs in at 25 lbs 6 ounces (yes, are arms are getting buff carrying him), and he is 32 and half inches tall - putting him the 90% for height. Definitely think I'll be looking up to yell at my little boy one day. He's been playing around some 2 year olds lately and is about the same height....better get him practicing some basketball skills soon! He's a walking/running monster who loves to get into everything. Gone are our mellow babies days and we've officially entered little boy land. Full energy all the time!

The month of May have been a busy and exciting one for our family. It's a winding down time in our lives as we prepare to leave Clarksville now that Kyle has completed his masters degree and been commissioned as an Army Field Artillery Officer. His commissioning and graduation were at the beginning of the month and both were wonderful events where we and our parents were thrilled to share in Kyle's accomplishments. Kyle former "boss" 1st Sergeant Money and his family came to be his first salute - so awesome of them! I proudly got to "pin" on his new rank of 2nd lieutenant. It marks a major accomplishment in his Army career and he's now preparing to begin his training in Fort Sill in early July. Speaking of Fort Sill - we will be moving to good ole Ooooookalahoma on June 10th. I can't believe moving time is here. Clarksville has been great to us and we've made some lifelong friends here that I know we will continue to keep in touch with no matter where the Army sends us. Our packers and movers are scheduled to come next week and then Kyle's parents will be flying in shortly after that to help us make the lovely drive to Oklahoma. We're so thankful for their help in driving our other car and helping us to get settled in our new home. Sadly we didn't end up selling our house here, but we did find a wonderful family to rent it and a great property manager to take care of the details in our absence. It's a rough time to try to sell in this market, so we're hoping to rent it for a few years and then try selling again once the market improves.

The other change in our household is that I'm now officially done teaching for the foreseeable future. I finished the school year last week and I'm now changing my job title to full time stay at home mom/online grad student. Basically I now have a new boss and he's a high energy 15 month old little boy who is quite demanding, but darn cute! I recently started my first grad school class (online through Penn State) and I'm really enjoying it. Kyle has been great at showing me the ropes with online classes, and I'm enjoying the thought provoking discussions with many other fellow teachers in the program. I plan to take a class or two over the next few years to piece meal my degree slowly, but surely. I'm thrilled to now be able to be home with Grey all day, though I know Kyle is soon going to be missing his special time with him when he's back to full day training. Though I know he'll find a way to make extra time for our little man - they have such a great bond together.

Well, I'm off to go organize a bit more to prepare for the move. Thankfully the Army takes care of most of it, but we do need to set aside what we're moving ourselves as the moving truck may not arrive in Oklahoma for a few weeks....oh what fun it will be to live out of boxes and suitcases. Wish us luck on our new adventure in life and be on the lookout for an email in the next few weeks with our updated address so you can update your address books. We'll be in Oklahoma from June through January and then we're headed to Colorado...yahoo!!!

Lots of Love,
Kyle, Lindsey, and Greyson

P.S. Enjoy the May pictures of Kyle's commissioning, our adventure strawberry picking, and playing around our house.

Here is Greyson being his usual goofy self at home.


Below is our big boy eating - he's come along way and even likes to switch it up and feed Mommy sometimes.

Walking on Sunshine

Well, it's official he's walking. It was truly amazing - one day he took a few steps, then the next day a few more, and so on to now he rarely sits down! Soon enough he'll be up and running and we'll be exhausted running right behind him. Posted a few videos to show off more of his skills and another amusing one of the "toilet discovery" Greyson made - sooo funny!

In other news we took a trip to fabulous Lawton, Oklahoma (home of Ft. Sill) in early April and found a great rental house that will be a nice fit for us for our months there during Kyle's training. Kyle and I enjoyed our first few nights away without Grey and Daryl and Joyce had a fun filled weekend babysitting their grandson. Now that our housing is situated in Oklahoma we're trying to get things figured out for our house here in TN. Unfortunately it doesn't look like it's going to sell - the market is just too saturated and with it being such a buyers market we've had many "the house is great, but we went with something else" showings. Oh well, our plan B is to rent out our house here for a couple of years and then try selling again when the market bounces back. We already have quite few interested renters, so it looks like that shouldn't be a problem. Looks like we'll be moving around June 15th, crazy to think we'll be out of here in a month or so...time flies.

Speaking of time flying, Kyle's graduation and commissioning is coming up this weekend. I'm so excited for him in this momentous occasion in his career and sharing in the accomplishment of him getting his masters degree. He's worked really hard the past few years and it's great to celebrate all his success. We're looking forward to my mom and step dad, Kyle's parents, and his brother and his girlfriend all coming in to town to share in his moment. Should be a busy and fun filled weekend. I'm excited about it, but still coming down from my exciting weekend in NYC with my sister and mom in honor of Lisa's 30th birthday. We had a FABULOUS time enjoying the city life, taking the "Sex and the City" Tour (we're all big fans), seeing "Billy Elliot" (GREAT show!), and enjoying shopping and lots of tasty food. Kyle played "Mr. Mom" and had a great boys weekend with Greyson while Mommy was off in the Big Apple. Overall, we've had a busy and fun filled April and we're sure this next month will keep us quite busy tying up loose ends here in Clarksville and get ready to move to our next stop in Oklahoma.

With Love,
Kyle, Lindsey, and Greyson

P.S. Enjoy the April pictures and videos.

Walking and Playing


A Little Harmless Wrist and Foot Rattle Fun


The Toilet Discovery


Mr. Goofy

Walking Monster

Well folks, it's pretty much official - Greyson is FINALLY walking. We've seen signs of it for months now, but now at 14 months and a couple of days he's now growing the confidence to explore the world on 2 feet. He's still not exactly consistent or graceful in his walking ability, in fact, at times he stumbles around like a drunk man. But we're proud of his accomplishment and wanted to share a quick glimpse of his skills. Sorry it's not the best footage - just captured a quick moment of it on my Blackberry, but you get the point. Watch out world....here comes our little monster.

Springing Into Spring

Springtime has arrived and we're enjoying the warmer days and not so enjoying the icky rainy cold days, but soon enough HOT summer will arrive in Tennessee and we'll be wishing for cooler weather. March has kept us busy as usual - we enjoyed a visit from Kyle's parents, Daryl and Joyce, earlier this month. Great to have them come and hang out and spend time with Greyson. Kyle has been busy with ROTC - spring tends to keep him out in the woods for the weekend "playing war". He's winding down on grad school and will graduate in about a month. Can't believe it's been 2 years with him at Austin Peay. I enjoyed having a week off for spring break this past week and we managed to keep busy with lots of fun activities. Kyle and I took Greyson to the Nashville Zoo and had a blast seeing many animals. Then Greyson and I drove down to Atlanta to visit my sister, Lisa, and enjoyed time with her and visit the Atlanta Aquarium. We had a blast!

Greyson is doing really well! He's becoming such a little boy - always getting into things and making a mess with a big ole smile on his face. He's not walking yet, but I predict it's coming SOON! He's pulling up and standing unassisted on pretty much everything. Just waiting for him to get the courage to take those steps...hopefully I'll be ready with the camera nearby. He's developing more and more of a vocabulary everyday. He says MaMa, DaDa, BaBa (ball), Nona, Tillo, and a few more. He's also an expert waver. He LOVES to wave at people. Pretty much everywhere he goes he waves at anyone passing by - how polite! He even waves when there is a no one there. I took him for a walk around the neighborhood and he was just waving to the left and waving to the right - I think he's convinced he's royalty in a parade. Too funny! He's also developing his sign language skills. He's been watching a great DVD from the "Signing Time" series and he's picked up the signs for milk, ball, more, eat. Great to have another way for him to communicate his needs and wants to us.

We're gearing up to move in a few months and dealing with the "fun" of having our house on the market. We've had a few showings, but nothing has come of them so far. We're keeping our fingers crossed and hoping to sell soon. Next weekend Kyle and I are off to Oklahoma to get things figured out for our move coming up in June while Daryl and Joyce (Kyle's parents) are kind enough to come and stay with Greyson at our house while we're away. This is the first time we've left him overnight, but we know he'll be in good hands. Kyle and I are looking forward to a few nights to ourselves - granted Lawton, Oklahoma isn't exactly the most romantic of destinations, but we'll take what we can get. We're also REALLY excited about the news of Kyle's orders to Fort Carson when he's done with his training in Oklahoma. We're excited to be living in such a beautiful place come January and we know that Colorado Springs will be a great place for our family to be for the next few years.

Well, that's all for now. Hope you're enjoying the spring and here's to hoping the April showers bring lots of pretty May flowers.

Love,
Kyle, Lindsey, and Greyson

P.S. Don't forget to check out the March 2009 photos as well as the two videos below - Greyson shows off his skills with Mom's Blackberry and flying airplanes with Auntie Lisa.

Breaking News....

Make a Smilebox slideshow

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