Grant is POTTY TRAINED!!!

What we thought was going to be impossible has happened!  Grant is potty trained!  The reason that we thought this was next to impossible was past experiences with him.  We tried about a month ago to work on potty training and Grant was having none of it!  He would scream and throw the biggest fit when it was time to go potty.  He even held it for 22 hours before having an accident!  So we gave up after that and claimed he wasn’t ready.

Then Friday before last Grant told me that “he would like to wear big boy under-roo today”.  Honestly I thought to myself “oh great, do I really want to do this today”  But then I realized that I need to be excited about this.  So I put Grant in “big boy under-roo” and he rocked it!  He went in the potty every time we asked him if he need to go.  We gave lots of hugs, candy and high-fives!  He also loves to “go tell everybody” that he went to the potty!  Matt took him to go pick out big boy underwear at Target and he loved it!

It has been a little over a week and he has only had 2 accidents and both of those were in a pull-up at night, so we don’t count those as accidents.  We are so proud of him!

Grant’s a big kid now!!

Charlotte is 3 months old!

A friend once told me that once you get through the first three months with a newborn baby it gets a lot easier.  Honestly, this time around with Charlotte the first 3 months were a lot easier than with Grant.  Maybe it was because I was more calm being she is our second child and I felt like I knew what I was doing more.  These first 3 months seemed to have flown by and I tried very hard to treasure each moment.  She is so wonderful and I cannot believe that 3 months has gone by already!  Here is what she has done this month:

• you are still sleeping in our room (only because I cannot seem to bear the thought of moving you to your own room) and going to bed every night between 8:00 and 9:00pm.  You are sleeping great!  And giving us about 6 to 7 hours of straight sleep a night!
• you love to look at faces and coo and smile back at them.  You are quite the talker!
• you are almost starting to giggle and laugh…you are squealing and getting very close.
• you can lift your head completely and hold it up when doing tummy time.
• you are now strictly bottle fed and loving it.  You are eating about 4 ounces every 2-3 hours.
• you love to sleep in the car…put you into the car and you are out like a light!
• you celebrated your first Christmas this month and met lots of new family.
• you still love to be held and rocked, and we love it too.

Sittin’ with Santa 2009!

This year was the first year that Grant was excited about going to see “Sana” and “sitting on his wap”!

Mommy: “Grant, what do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?”

Grant: “Presents..”

Mommy: “What kind of presents, Grant?”

Grant: “Toys!”

Mommy: “Do you want girl toys or boy toys?”

Grant: “Mama, me want boy toys, me not girl…Tatoe (Charlotte) a girl!”

Charlotte: “snore…snore..”

Hahaha!  And that is how the conversation went in the line to meet Santa.  We were in line for around one hour but Grant made friends with the cutest little 5 year old girl in front of us that read books to him and played with him.  Luckily for us, Charlotte decided that she would sleep peacefully in her stroller until it was time to meet Santa.

No crying from the Crump kids this year!  Grant ran right up to Santa and practically jumped in his lap!  He got a little nervous when we (mommy and daddy) walked away from them to get out of the way of the picture and didn’t want us to leave him.  Charlotte was still half asleep so didn’t care much one way or the other.

And just for reminiscence purposes…

Sittin’ with Santa 2007

 

Sittin’ (screaming) with Santa 2008

Christmas Card 2009

One of my favorite things about Christmas time is receiving Christmas cards in the mail from our friends and family.  It is so great to hear from friends that we haven’t seen in a while and even hear from the ones we talk to often.

I always enjoy getting our family Christmas cards together every year and picking the cutest pictures of the kids.  This year we were so pleased with the ones that we got from http://www.krisevans.com/.  She captured the sweet nature of both of the kiddos.

So with further ado…Merry Christmas from the Crump Family!

Just for fun let’s see how to cards have changed over the years!

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2007

Christmas 2008

Wow how things have changed over 4 years…we are so blessed!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

One of Santa’s helpers stopped by to say “let’s get this show on the road, it’s almost Christmas time!”

Let it snow, let it snow….

Yes, you read that correctly!  It actually snowed here in Houston this year!  Although it was not enough to really stick Grant still had fun going outside and running around in the falling snowflakes!

He kept asking me when we could make a snowman.  So cute, but unfortunately there was not near enough snow for that.  Oh well, here in Houston we take what we can get!

Thanksgiving 2009

I have a really bad habit of taking pictures during family get together such as Thanksgiving holidays.  And this year was no exception, especially with a brand to baby to tend to. 

We enjoyed Thanksgiving this year with Matt’s family at their house.  As usual, the food and the company we great and we all had a great time!  Maybe next year I will take more pictures of all the festivities!

Family of Four Photo Shoot!

When Grant was a month old we had a family photo shoot and it was important for us to do the same when Charlotte was added to our family.  Plus we needed a cute picture for Christmas cards this year.  Kris Evans (http://www.krisevans.com) was great!  She worked really well with the kiddos and Grant loved to play with her youngest daughter.  We got lots of cute pictures!  Thanks Kris, we will be seeing you again!

Charlotte is 2 months old!

Another month as flown by and Charlotte is now 2 months old!  It just seems like I blogged about her 1 month birthday!  Here is what she has done this month:

• you are still sleeping in our room in the pack ‘n play and you slept your longest stretch yet 9:00pm to 2:45am.  We loved the extra sleeping time.
• you like to lay on your activity mat and look at the animals.
• we have tummy time almost every day and you have rolled over three times…from your front to your back. 
• you started smiling at mommy and daddy!  The first smile mommy was changing your diaper and you  just looked up and smiled!  So sweet!
• you love to look at the ceiling fan in all the rooms and you give them lots of smiles too.
• you have started to coo and “talk”…we love to listen to you.
• you are still nursing about 5 times a day and taking a bottle about 2 or 3 times.  Although your feeding are getting farther in between.
• you are taking great naps during the day.  Your longest one in the afternoon.
• you outgrew your newborn clothes and are now in 3 month clothes. 

We are taking Charlotte to the doctor next week for her 2 month check-up and we are excited to see how she has grown!  This past month was so exciting with lots of milestones!

Let’s compare…

Growing bigger every day!

Two Beautiful Kiddos!

You can never have too many picture of your kids!  I’m sure that many times Grant and Charlotte get tired of me having my camera stuck in their faces!   This post is mostly for the grandparents and great-grandparents that can’t get enough of their grandchildren!

Thanksgiving “Feast”

Grant’s preschool had a Thanksgiving “feast” for all the kids and their parents on the last Thursday before the holidays.  Each parent signed up to bring a dish and all the kids “feasted”!  Matt went on his lunch break to eat with Grant and Charlotte and I came a little later. 

It was so cute, Grant was dressed as an Indian!  Matt and I were both surprised that he was actually wearing the headband and leaving it on.  There were tons of kids there and an equal number of proud parents taking pictures.

Grant got to feast on turkey slices, cheese cubes, cheetos, grapes, macaroni and cheese and ,of course, lots of desserts!  He had a great time with his friends and teachers. 

We thank God for Grant too…everyday!

Matthew turned the big 30!

Yes, it is true…Matt is officially out of his twenties and onto the thirties!  We were so blessed to get to spend this special milestone with lots of friends and family.  We organized a birthday party dinner for Matt and 20 of our friends and family at a restaurant we love called Cava Bistro.

We had a 4 course dinner complete with appetizer platters, salads and soups, entrees, and desserts platters.  The food and atmosphere was wonderful and the company of friends and family was even better.

Many of the friends there were Matt’s friends from high school and even some that he knew from elementary school!

We had a great time and everyone was very complimentary of the food, company and atmosphere!  We are so glad that we have such special friends to share these special times with! 

30 is the new 20 after all!

Desperate for some sleep…

Happy Halloween 2009

We had such a fun Halloween this year!  Grant actually let us dress him up and we were so happy to have Charlotte here to celebrate with us too! 

We started the day off with some Halloween treats for breakfast…banana ghosts and “bones and blood”.  The banana ghost were just bananas dipped in white chocolate and the “bones and blood” were cinnamon-sugar breadsticks and strawberry jelly.  Grant really enjoyed both of them!

Around lunchtime we headed to the front of our neighborhood for the festival that was going on.  They had games, a cake walk and lots of “bouncy houses” that Grant loved to play in.  He also enjoyed his first bite of blue cotton candy!  Unfortunately I did not have the camera so no pictures from there!  Lunch was also in the form of a Halloween treat.  We made mummy hotdogs!  Just hotdogs wrapped in breadsticks with mustard eyes…they were a hit and gobbled up!

Our kiddos are just so adorable that we cannot help taking lots of pictures of them…and now that Charlotte has come along it has gotten worse.  We tried to get them to pose together in the rocking chair and it worked for about a minute…

And then it turned into this…

Oh well, maybe one day Grant will like to be near his baby sister!  After a long nap for everyone it was time to get ready for trick-or-treating!  Grant was the cutest little fly fisherman that we have ever seen!

Charlotte was so little that it was hard to find a costume for her so we just decided on a cute onesie and bow.  Since it was chilly outside we thought that a hat might be better…but as you can see she did not approve and wanted her bow back.

Grant’s friend, from across the street,  Isabella stopped by for candy so we decided to trick-or-treat with her family.  She was the cutest angel ever!  They went from house to house together collecting lots of candy!  Grant would say “more me house” after he would get candy and was very polite saying “tank you” to everyone too! 

 

Grant got lots of candy and got to eat 2 pieces when we got home.  He also really enjoyed ‘helping people” that came to the door to get candy from us.  About 8:45 everyone was tuckered out but we had had a great Halloween day!