Grandma and Grandpa and KENZIE come to visit!

Okay, I have been terrible about blogging lately. I am really feeling like part of being a grown-up is feeling like stuff is always falling through the cracks. We're never DONE with everything we're supposed to be doing. And definitely not like blogging is something I'm SUPPOSED to be doing, it's just something I'd like to do in order to keep in touch in the most basic of ways. We have been making a lot of progress lately on other things in life, like getting close to getting our house kind of put together, and dealing with other things like doctor's appointments and oh yeah, our two demanding kids, so taking care of our pictures is not working out like it used to. I haven't blogged because our pictures are just PILED UP on our computer in unnamed folders and not organized in any fashion. It's just too overwhelming! But here's a stab at it for now...

A few weeks ago Tommy's parents and youngest sister Kenzie came out to visit us for a week. Kenzie had only a few days of school that week and we were super excited to have guests to have an excuse to do fun things with. There are some cool places here in the Dallas area that we never go to because they are a 45 minute + drive away, and are too expensive for me to want to go with just the boys and myself on a regular day. But we had lots of fun plans for when our fun visitors came. We showed them all the best things we could, did some fun things around our own neighborhood, and tried to stuff them full of all the best Texan food (barbecue, soul food, and tacos) we could find. And Greg and Jackie are the best kind of visitors--happy to play with the kids and do nothing, happy to go do stuff, and really happy to stock up our pantry full of food from Costco, which was definitely appreciated :).

We've always heard great things about the Dallas Arboretum, but it falls into the far-away-and-expensive category, so we'd never gone before. We had SUCH a good time there! They have a Children's Garden dedicated just to kids (kind of like a huge outdoor science museum) and we all really had fun.

They also had an enormous fall "pumpkin village" with tens of THOUSANDS of pumpkins, which was really cool. We didn't get any GREAT pictures because it was already way past Dane's naptime at this point and he was totally not able to cooperate any more, but it was really fun to look at.

On Monday, October 12--MY BIRTHDAY!--we went to the Texas State Fair! As you can imagine, it was ENORMOUS and crazy and PACKED and really fun. We went to a kids' petting zoo, Dane went through a little toddler play farm where they got to pretend to be farmers and do all their chores, we got a lot of fried food, and rode on the HUGE ferris wheel. 

Feeding the camel with Grandpa!

Graham was such a good sport. He was totally exhausted with no regular naps from all these outings but he would eventually just go to sleep on Tommy's shoulder and look so dang cute.

Big Tex--the mascot of the Texas State Fair. My cousin Ethan said, "He's really big and creepy, and he has a bottom chin. Ew." Hahahaha. Enough said.

My main goal for the day--eat fried fair food!

Riding on the giant ferris wheel. Boom!

Some fun snuggles with my boy on my birthday. Love this boy.

Graham really loved being held by Grandpa. He fell asleep on him like this several times.

We took them to Babe's Chicken Dinner House--the best EVER--and we all did the hokey pokey when it came on!

And since it was my birthday the day before, I had to wear the chicken hat while they sang happy birthday to me!

Leiningers--UNITE!

Dane loves his Grandpa.

We also took them to the Heard Museum to see the dinosaurs there--we knew Kenzie would love it as a recovering dino-holic :) Dane was VERY BRAVE and didn't act totally terrified this time. As long as Grandpa was there to hold him as he walked past each dinosaur, he was okay.

We also took them to our favorite pumpkin patch and carved pumpkins with them!

AND made doughnuts from scratch!

Of course, since we're in Texas, our carved pumpkins were rotting within three days because the sun was beating down on them in the 90 degree October weather. But they looked awesome while they lasted!

The big hurrah--on their last day we took them to the Fort Worth Stockyards to see the cattle and the cattle drive. This is the most stereotypically Texan thing I can think of to show anybody--the Texas of the 1800s, at least--and it was a lot of fun to go together. Dane really wanted to wear his cowboy hat and was very proud of himself.

Another day, another petting zoo--what a lucky guy. This time he let the llama eat out of his hand and he was really brave about it!

Dane's reaction after being licked by the llama.

Reenacting his cute picture from when we went to the stockyards a year ago. 

Watching the cattle in the cattle drive. We met up with Tommy's cousin and family there to watch the cattle drive and have lunch before Greg and Jackie had to take off to the airport. 

We did more fun things this week with the Leiningers visiting than we have for the last three months--not even kidding! It was awesome and of course it was so nice to just be able to spend time with them. Dane and Graham were both so happy to get so much attention and to have so many fun playmates around all week. Thanks so much for coming, Grandma and Grandpa! Come any time!!

Purity and Innocence

Like every three-year-old, Dane has his moments of being the sweetest and most adorable creature alive, and then his moments of being super naughty, frustrating, and stereotypically toddler-esque. He can sometimes even have moments of highs and lows within five minutes of each other. It's crazy.

For example, some frustrating/naughty/hilarious moments lately:

Yesterday he got out of his bed and I found him playing in his toy room after I can out of Graham's room during nap time. He knows that is a BIG no-no. I put him in his crib, since that's what happens when he gets out of the big boy bed. And he spent the next 35 minutes yelling angrily at me from his crib. "DO YOU HEAR ME MOMMY? DON'T EVER DO THIS AGAIN! NEVER EVER DO THIS AGAIN! YOU'RE IN BIG TROUBLE MOMMY! I'M SERIOUS!"

Also, he has been having tons of small potty accidents this week, after weeks of being fine with the potty training, which has been frustrating. The other day I asked him if he needed to go potty and he said, "No, I think I'll just wait until I'm having an accident." GAHHH!

But his sweetness is just too much too. He named this chick toy his "sweet little love chicky" and walks around holding it and giving kisses to it. 

Even sweeter, Tommy and I were talking after conference about how President Monson didn't look so good, and how he was getting old. Dane heard us and said, "Is President Monson getting sick? Maybe we should say a prayer for him so Heavenly Father will help him!" And now he reminds us with every prayer that we have to pray for President Monson. And if we forget, he also reminds us to pray for for Great-Grandma Murphy and Great-Grandpa Myres, for Callie on her mission and for Troy to find a job. 

This sort of thing is what kills me. And makes my heart explode. And what makes it possible to push through  the really long days and low moments of every day. 

Graham Canyon at six months

Yesterday Grammycakes turned six months old. That seems SO LONG, but it's also almost hard to remember the time before he was part of our family. I felt like we had just Dane in our family for such a long time, but now that feels like it was so long ago, like it hardly even happened. Life has been so sweet with this cute boy in our family. 

I had some serious fears about adding another kid to our lives six months ago, about transitioning to two. And mostly they were unfounded. The first few months are seriously difficult under any circumstances, so there's not too much to do about that. But for the last two months, things have for the most part been UNDER CONTROL. And that feels amazing. We are getting out and doing things, Graham doesn't scream the whole time we're in the car any more (usually), we've got a schedule so I know when things need to happen. Things are good. Babies can be so FRUSTRATING--like when you're trying to sleep train--but oh man they are so so so much joy too.

We got back from our month-long summer trip almost exactly two months ago. At that point, Graham still was waking up 3-4 times a night to eat (torture!), was still swaddled, was still sleeping in his swing, was still needing to be rocked completely to sleep every nap and bedtime. He was still solely nursing. And now, two months later, it's amazing how much progress we've made. We're almost at baby sleep nirvana--if only we could get him to stay asleep all night! He isn't swaddled any more, he lets us put him down and goes to sleep on his own (sometimes it takes 2-3 tries), he's generally sleeping much better at night. (Except last night, when he was up for two hours off and on. We realized this morning that he has another tooth poking up so it probably was a lot having to do with that, poor baby!) He naps at the same times every day and he takes GOOD naps (1-2 hours) almost all the time! He's now just taking a bottle (as of yesterday!), and starting to eat solid foods. It's amazing what two months can do for a baby.

Graham is much more opinionated than I remember Dane being at this age. He fussed so much more while nursing and was so impatient and refused to eat for long enough to get all the milk that was in there (one reason why that is in the past now). He gets much more offended about things not being just how he wants them. He has a lot more willpower to cry for longer periods and force himself awake if he doesn't want to sleep. Makes me worried for what he's going to be like as he gets older. But he's a much better napper and he's JUST as cute and sweet and lovable. He is totally in the lunging-at-your-face stage where it's like he can't contain his love for us and has to try to eat us. 

His favorite person in the world is DANE. He likes me and Tommy a lot, of course, but Dane holds his attention, makes him laugh, makes him stop crying when he's sad. He is happy as long as he can just sit and watch Dane play--and when Dane's not there, like when he's napping or they're in their separate rooms in the Fun Club, Graham gets bored FAST. He just looks at his big brother with this look of total adoration on his face, and Dane is so good with him. From day 1, he's been constantly the sweetest big brother, and is always happy to run and help him if I'm busy. It's sweet to see them bonding together.

A few other random recent pictures of this cute boy:

Graham is in charge and he totally knows it.

Look at those two teeth! He's getting too big!

He is obsessed with water bottles, just like his big brother was at this age. I love it. He sees Tommy's or my water bottles and starts groaning and panting with excitement until he gets his mouth on them.

Getting so big! He loves bananas and applesauce, hates carrots and sweet potatoes. So far... just you wait, little Graham--I can wait you out!

He looks so chubby and cute here at his six-month doctor's appointment. I love it.

So cute and tired after his shots at the doctor's this morning! He has NEVER done this--fallen asleep on his playmat AND on his tummy. Two things he normally refuses to do.