Happy 1st Birthday Grady Josiah Blanchard!

One year ago today, God blessed our family by giving us a precious baby boy, Grady Josiah. This was one of his first pictures. I can barely believe that my little baby is now 1 year old. He was born on November 7th, 2008 at 11:54pm at 8lbs 1oz and 19 3/4in long. As you can see, he was one of the most handsome babies; now he is one of the cutest soon to be toddlersThis year has been full of new discoveries, new adventures, but most of all new blessings. Over the last month, Grady has had some amazing milestones. He has started to walk all over the place and has fun moving from one item to the next...he especially loves running into the arms of Mommy and Daddy. He has also started to say some words; he can say what a cow says and what a puppy says. He understands no and shakes his head when he hears it. He loves to snuggle with Mommy and Daddy in the morning and still loves his milk over table food. We have been hit by the H1N1, but Grady is such a trooper; he's starting to feel better already. We could not have asked for a more precious child or a more amazing opportunity for God to cultivate us into His likeness. I know the toddler stage will offer some amazing discoveries and challenges, but I cannot wait to see my baby continue to grow and become the child of God that he is designed to be.

We had his one year old pictures taken in the park. It was somewhat cold for the little guy, but obviously he was still willing to smile. Here is one of my favorite collages, probably because it was such a great idea by Mommy! Fun to be one...Grady can put his finger up when we say..."How old is Grady?"He looks so cute smiling with his two little teeffersSo much fun in the leaves!Grady has just started to love stuffed animals; he loves to attack them/give them loveHe was so chilly so we put up his hood and wouldn't you know that it was so cute. Grady can really rock out most apparel!Of course I had to take his skunk costume...he looks so much like a real woodland creature. I just melt at this picture.Our little stinkerThis quote is so true...Family, life's greatest blessing! Happy 1st Birthday Grady Josiah Blanchard!

Fall, fun, and stinkers

It has been awhile since my last post, so I wanted to catch everyone up on Grady's happenings and discoverys over the last month. This was his first fall season and all that comes with it...leaves, pumkins, and of course Halloween.

Here is Grady having fun discovering the insides of a pumkin....he loved to suck on the actual melon; I tasted it and not much taste.Grady's Aunts decided to help carve pumkins as well. It is such a blessing to have family around to watch Grady grow.I took Grady out during the cool days of fall while the leaves were falling. He had fun playing with the crunchy leaves and feeling the grass. Grady's Grandma Mary was so great and made Grady's skunk costume for Halloween. He was so cute as a little stinker and Mommy had fun showing him off to everyone.Mommy's little stinkerMy coworkers and I planned a Halloween playdate. Here is Finnean the cowboy, Neva the flower, and Grady the skunk. No matter how hard Mommies try to plan the perfect playdate, the babies tend to predict what happens. I think we were able to have around 20 minutes of fun playtime. Here is Grady with his Daddy sporting his fun winter hat. The weather has been so unpredictable that one day it will be short sleeved weather and the next it will be winter coat weather.

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!

Our baby's growing up!

Yes, I know, it has been awhile and to be honest it does not look like things are going to be slowing down for the Blanchard clan anytime soon. Everyday it feels as though Grady's "baby" days are coming to a close and that we are right around the corner to the toddler years. He is now 10 1/2 months old and he is just doing so many fun things. He is a crawling maniac! He loves chasing the cat and being chased by mommy and daddy. He also enjoys mimicing others, playing "so big" and learning to click with his tongue. He just stood by himself for the first time today for at least 5 seconds! I can see walking is going to be right around the corner. He continues to make motor noises and he "drives" everything he can find. His favorite toy right now is his John Deere tractor that he walks with. My little baby is growing up and we are just enjoying every moment of it!

This is Grady at 10 monthsThis is our little man after sleeping through the night for the first time in 10 months! After Labor Day, Mommy and Daddy set a date to "help" our baby sleep through the night. It was difficult to listen to him plead for Mommy, but now I am seeing that the benefits of a full night's sleep outweighs the "trauma" of a couple of nights of screaming. Bright eyed and Bushy tailed!Grady so enjoys swinging and all the aspects that a playground has to offer. He has so much fun on the swings and will even cry if we take him out before he is ready. Yes, we are already at that stage. This is our baby sleeping through the night. He has a tendency to "burrow" beneath his covers. It is always a surprise to see what position we will find him in. Grady's new game is growling and "scaring" Mommy and Daddy. This video just cracks me up every time. He reminds me of a little lizard here.

Places and Faces of Grady

It's been a while since I've updated the blog and Grady has been so many places and given the camera so many faces. He just turned 10 months old and he is crawling all over the place. Because of his constant movement, I have not been able to take his 10 month pictures just yet, but hopefully they are in the works. Here are some recent fun pictures of our little man.

Here is one of his fun faces after making a ton of noise. He really is getting expressive.

Since he can pull himself up, he thinks it is really fun to look out Chicago's window. He has fun talking to the squirrels and the cars that pass by as well as blowing spit bubbles.

Here he is with his "puppy" both enjoying the great outdoors from the nice air conditioned house.One Saturday morning, I needed to work on the computer so I decided to see what would happen if I put a Baby Einstein video on the TV...Needless to say, Grady was captivated. Over the Labor day weekend we went to SD to visit my family. We decided that Grady was old enough to visit the famous Corn Palace. So Ben and I went and did the whole tourist thing with our little guy. He seemed to love it, but of course who wouldn't love a big building made with corn!This is one of my favorite family photos. We all put on coonskin hats while visiting a souvenior shop. Daniel Boone, here we come!Grady had fun with his Papa Chuck on the farm. Here he is on his first 4-wheeler rideFamily picture on the SkidloaderPlaying on the hay bails with the cousins
Wrapping it up with the cutest face ever. What a blessing to be mommy to this child!