Fall Forward

Life continues to move forward and Grady continues to grow and develop and move farther away from being my little baby. He will be turning 1 year old in 3 weeks and I can barely believe that a year has almost past since we brought him home. Here he is at his 11 month photo shoot. These picture opportunities keep getting more difficult as he gets more mobile and more feisty. He is 24lbs. and 291/2in. long. He is starting to attempt to say more words as well as thinking about walking soon; he is an expert crawler. Grady absolutely loves playing with his daddy. He especially loves being chased and tackled!His hair is getting somewhat out of control but it is sure fun to play with during tubbiesGrady loves getting together with his friend Finn. I think Finn thinks Grady is a little crazy since he is so loud and all over the place, but I think Finn likes being entertained. Grady's parents sure love getting together with Finn's parents as well. We went to visit Ben's sister and brother-in-law in St. Louis because it was their daughter, Abigail's first birthday. The whole family was together to celebrate.Abigail and Grady were born 2 weeks apartWhile in St. Louis, I made the difficult decision to get Grady's hair cut as it was always in his eyes and since Ben kept calling him our "hippy" baby. Ben's mom, the family beautician, whipped out her scissors and her cape and went to town. She was so quick that I barely was able to snap some pictures. It was a good thing that she was so speedy since Grady was only still for about 3-4 minutes. I had to hold back the tears, but it is amazing how one haircut can take a baby to a little man.Here he is after his haircut..."Where'd all my hair go?"At my coworker's suggestion, we took the family to a pumkin patch to commemorate the fall season as well as to get out of the house. We had so much fun going through the corn maze and watching Grady explore the corn and pumkins. Grady found the perfect pumpkin!Aunt Jen and Auntie Kim came with to have some fall fun. It is so great to have family around. Here is our little farmer hanging out in the corn field with his overalls, cap and all. He thought the corn tasted pretty good. Makin Papa Chuck so proud right now I'm sure.

What a sweet "little love"

Big blue eyes!

So many cute photos of our little man that I felt another blog post had to be done. Some exciting new developments including: Grady saying MaMa....finally, standing on his own, and walking all over with his John Deere; he also really enjoys chasing the cat. At daycare we are told that he has daily screaming matches with his friends and he is able to win many times. He keeps our lives exciting.

We took family pictures with my side of the family. This was one that the photographer captured. He is just so handsome!Here are a few family pictures and one of the whole Herman clan...Grady absolutely loves walking all over the house with his tractor. He can't quite figure out how to turn it around when he gets stuck, so he just screams until Ben or I point him in a clear direction.Grady is such a great eater. He still really loves his milk, but he also enjoys feeding himself. What a mess, but at least we have a dog that doesn't mind cleaning up after us. Grady not only likes our food, he also loves drinking from our mugs. He's quite proficient at sucking out of a straw.We decided that every little boy needed a ball. So we went to the store and started looking. We found this one and let Grady play with it in the store. We weren't sure if we were going to get that one so we took it away and put it back. Not a good idea...screaming, real tears and all...needless to say, we purchased the ball! Grady really loves "reading" books. Here he is will Daddy right before bedtime. Grady loves giving Mommy hugs; here he is squeazing me and squealing

To end the post, here is Grady in his precious little man pj's. At the end of every day, I thank the Lord for what a blessing it is to have a child; especially one this cute!