Five firsts in one week

First #1: Tate has figured out how to crawl.
For about the past month, Tate has been in a pre-crawling state, up on his hands and knees--moving backward or just rocking back and forth. This past week he has discovered forward motion and every day he become a quicker and more efficient crawler. This is nice because he is much more content now that he can better satisfy his curiosity and this is not so nice now that I have to be extra vigilant about keeping the floor clean and baby-proofed. He can find any random piece of paper, small toy or otherwise chockable item quicker than I can pick them all up, he's a sly one.

First #2: Tate can sit unsupported.
Right about the same time he started crawling, he began putting himself in the sitting position and remaining stable. Before this time, I would always put a pillow around him while he was sitting up because he would inevitably fall backward and hit his head. He still has had a fall or two this past week but otherwise will remain sitting until he sees something else he wants to play with and crawls away.
First #3: Tate wants to pull himself up on everything.
Okay, I was pretty excited about the previous two firsts. He can crawl around, sit up and play which keeps him entertained for much longer than ever before. The pulling up on things would not be a problem except that he is still quite unstable on his feet (as you can see in the picture he looks like he's in the process of falling). I'm not ready for this stage where you have to follow them around the house, ready to catch them from a head-banging fall at any moment. Right now I try to keep an eye on him and redirect his attention to toys on the floor, etc, or just stick pillows in positions that will hopefully catch his head when he comes crashing to the floor.

First #4: Grant has a big-boy bed.
Sorry no picture yet. I'm planning on posting one after I get the cute bedding I've been looking at. We actually got bunk beds that convert to two twin beds. We set the top bunk with the side railing up for his bed so I think Grant thinks it's just a big crib. He hasn't even tried to crawl out (although he easily could) but I'm not complaining as he stays in his bed for naptime.

First #5: Tate is finally in the crib.
That's right. After 6 months of life Tate can say goodbye to the hard, uneven boards of the pack-n-play and say hello to the soft, comfortable mattress in the crib. He is even starting to sleep better. The past couple of nights he has not awaken to eat until 5 am (he usually wakes around 3 or 4am) and then went back to sleep until 8 am. I'm hoping the trend will continue until he's just sleeping right through the night. I guess we will see...

This picture is not a first but I figured I needed a picture of Grant on here as well as Tate. One night we were going to say our prayers and Grant insisted that George kneel down to pray as well. They both made it through the whole prayer :)

Happy Anniversary!

This is actually a few days late, but better late than never! We celebrated our 5th anniversary on the 19th and got a night out on the town the weekend before (thanks Scott and Carol for babysitting!). This year was my turn to pick what we were going to do so I decided we should hit up German Village in Columbus and try out Schmidt's Sausage Haus. I'm not one to gravitate toward German food (and especially not sausage) but I saw a clip about this place on the Food Network so I thought we'd give it a try.

Here's Ryan with our spread and a fork-full of knackwurst and sauerkraut. Ryan got the all-you-can eat sausage buffet which had all their famous sausages and brats along with German and American side dishes. I decided to get ethnic and got the Weiner-schnitzel with spatzel and german pancakes. And the verdict: mine was better. Americans don't eat many sour foods and that was the predominant flavor in the food we got. They even gave me a lemon to squeeze over my dish which I thought made it more delicious.
Here's a lovely shot of me stuffing my face with weiner-schnitzel. Yum! (Come to find out, weiner-schnitzel is not a sausage, like you might think. It's veal cutlets, battered and fried. Who knew?!)

Ryan was really into the first couple of sausages, but then the sauerkraut and fat started to get to him. This pic shows the sudden wave of nausea that hit him at about brat #4 (don't worry, the nausea didn't last too long:). He said most of his food ended up tasting like you would except buffet food to taste.
So that was a little dissapointing but it was a lot of fun to go and experience it all.
Afterward, we went to a bookstore in town that they had made out of one of the historic buildings. The whole store was several levels that had been made into 32 rooms of books. The rooms were pretty small and all connected by narrow hallways and staircases. You had to weave through the maze of rooms, hallways, and staircases to get through the place. There were people on their cell phones trying to find other people in the maze-store, with references to landmarks like "I just went up the double-staircase by the pirate books and am now in the room with horse books and car books. Where are you?" It was a pretty fun set up. And Ryan and I love meandering through book stores so we had a blast.
Thanks honey for being such a wonderful husband. You've made these past 5 years incredible. I love you!

Tate eats solids, sort of

Tate is now six months so we decided it was high time for him to try the deliciousness that is rice cereal. There are actually two parts of this video, at the beginning of his feeding and near the end. Hopefully tomorrow he will take more than three bites before gagging.

He's quite a singer

Grant felt like singing one evening so we kept giving him requests. We didn't even know he knew this whole song, I guess playing the Primary music CD helps.

What we've been up to...

Amidst Ryan's school and continuing to organize the house we have been keeping ourselves pretty busy around these parts. Here are some of the things we've been up to:

Tate got a new exersaucer (go Craigslist!) that can buy me about 5 minutes of entertainment time a few times a day. Hey, sometimes 5 minutes is all you need.

For the 4th of July we went to a BBQ with some of the orthodontic department. I decided to pull out the apron and make some festive cupcakes. That helped satisfy my need to bake for about a week (I tell you, I have issues).

Grant loved the BBQ because they had games and tons of snacks and prizes for the kiddies. He won this lovely giraffe hat as well as a spiderman backpack and coloring book.

This giraffe hat has been quite popular in our house and makes for some cute pictures.

In the meantime, Tate turned 5 months old and has been getting cuter by the minute. He rolls all over the place and can scoot around pretty well. When I put him down on his play mat he's usually a couple of feet away by the time I come back to get him. He also continues to be a very happy boy and loves to laugh and smile at anyone who will look at him.

He has also started to get into this position, so I imagine his mobility is going to increase dramatically in the next month. Time for baby-proofing again!

On the weekends we have been taking advantage of the unseasonably cool weather and visiting local parks. Come to find out the Columbus area has an awesome park system. There are tons very close to us that are beautiful. The past two Saturday's we have loaded the boys up in the Double Bob and gone for a run on nature trails. Both times the weather has been overcast and cool which have been perfect for running and enjoying the scenery. This picture is when we got home from our last park outing. Grant was wearing his coat because it had been raining and the temperature was in the high 60's, in July! Can't complain!

Ryan and I were able to do a babysitter swap with some friends and went to the Movie Tavern this past weekend to see Harry Potter. This is a theater were you can order and eat food while you watch the movie. The movie was great but Ryan and I both agree if we go to that theater again we would eat before hand, it was not very good. At least the seats were very comfy!

One final activity was a stop into the Steak n' Shake. It's a burger chain they have out here that we wanted to try (there were not many shake and burger joints in NC). It was cheap and pretty good, although we did not even want a shake so we'll have to go again and try one. They did give Grant a fun little paper hat and '56 Chevy Bel Air that he's been loving. He calls it his pirate hat and hot rod.

Wood Family Reunion

We were lucky to spend the last week of June in Utah visiting family and attending the Wood family reunion. We spent the first couple of days of our trip at Nana's house and got to hang out with my brothers, see some cousins and meet up with my old roomie, Jenna, at BYU. Then we headed over to Gavin's house in West Haven (north of SLC) for the reunion. It was a lot of fun! Some of the activities included: checking out the Thanksgiving Pointe Gardens, touring the open house of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, spending a day at Lagoon (mostly at the water park), enjoying the West Haven Days parade and breakfast, eating yummy food, talking around the fire pit at night and just enjoying each others company.

The first and following pictures are of our first ride on the carousel at Lagoon. We did not buy Grant a pass since it was free for kids under 3 who only went to the water park and rode a few specified rides, the carousel being one of them. So we spent our day between the water park and carousel. I guess it was good that Grant enjoyed the carousel much better than he did last year.

Here is a picture of the Wood men and little Brooklyn. Glade a Misty waited to have her blessing at the reunion so the family could take part, it was very nice.

All the late nights chatting over the fire pit started to catch up with Ryan so he tried getting some sleep while he could. One morning Tate fell back asleep after I had fed him in bed so I just left him and Ryan to sleep in some more. I came to check in on them about 1 1/2 hours later and they were still cozied up and sleeping, I had to get a picture.

Another morning I came down to get something out of the room and found Ryan like this. Yes, he's using a nursing pad to block out the morning light. I guess you have to grab whatever you can find.

Tate had fun at the reunion being passed around among the family and charming everyone with his big smile. He's quite the social kid and will get all excited and smiley whenever anyone looks at him. It makes him easy to hold.

Grant especially had a fun time this year. He loved playing with all his aunts, uncles and cousins and really loved all the great toys Gavin and Wendy have at their house. He spent a lot of time trying to recruit people to go play with him as he would go up to his uncles and ask "wanna go downstairs and play cars with Granty?". It was hard to resist and they were nice to oblige.

Cheryl helped Grant discover the many uses of the gaming chairs. As seen above she showed him how they could rock all the way back to the ground and up again, and then had to show him again and again...
The week ended too quickly and we were sad to say goodbye. We got back to Ohio Sunday night at 10pm and Ryan started up with school Monday morning. The first week actually went quite smoothly and we are now trying to get back into the swing of normal life.

Moving, moving moving....

It has been quite a busy time for our family this past month as we are now finishing up the unpacking process in our new home. After graduation we had a couple weeks left in NC to pack up and complete everything we needed to do before moving. It was a fun time since Ryan had no school responsibilities so we were able to go out and play almost every day. We were also able to spend some time with some of our good friends before we left. Leaving our friends is one of the saddest parts of moving! We will miss them so much!

After we moved out of our apartment in Chapel Hill we had 2 weeks before we could move in at Ohio so we drove up to stay with my parents for ~10 days. We really enjoyed our time there especially since we won't be able to make trips to their house so easily (now a 10-hour drive). Our time was spent playing, working on projects (Ryan replaced the brake pads and one of the calipers himself--he's very handy; and we worked on an art project for Grant's new bedroom), eating my Mom's delicious food and desserts, and more playing. We took a couple trip to the beach, went to the Norfolk Zoo (which I don't think I'd ever been to), went to several parks and to a kid's museum in Portsmouth. Grant especially loved the museum where there were life-size vehicles the kiddies could play on among the fun attractions (see Grant enjoying the police motorcycle in the first picture). We were sad to have to leave but also ready to finish our move and get settled in our new house.

With the help of my dad and brother, we all drove back to NC to get our belongings out of storage and then hauled it all up to Ohio. We have since been cleaning, unpacking and organizing. As you can see above Ryan had one of the least-desirable cleaning projects, but believe me, it had to be done. I would post the before picture of the inside of the dumpster but I don't want to make anyone sick.

We moved into a townhouse in an area where a lot of other people in our ward live and so far we really like it. It is three levels and has a 2 car garage so we are enjoying the huge increase in storage space. We also really like our back deck and yard that is fenced in. We are able to let Grant go play out there by himself and not worry about him escaping.

So if any of you will be passing through Ohio please feel free to stop by; we would love guests!