The best thing about PA

One of the best things we've discovered about living away from the land of a million children is that everyone, and I mean e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e. (grown men on the side of the street-not in a creepy way- old guys at Home Depot, women of every single race and age) stops me to look at Graham. They absolutely love him and can't get over how gosh dang cute he is. I obviously agree, but whoa. This is way different than living in Utah.

The fact that children (and apparently super cute and social ones) are few and far between here definitely has its perks.

This sweet older woman, Lynn,  is always walking her dog "Ribbit" during our morning walks. Graham loves to pet "puppies" lately, and Ribbit is super old and chill, so Graham smothers her. The other day we ran into them and Lynn asked if we might want a little push bike for Graham. Um yes please. She came and dropped it off, but apologized because the helmet she had was a pink and purple one. Well, Graham has no idea, and we like his brain, so we strapped it on and off we went. 

He is a rockstar here. And he is not complaining. 

August Catch Up!

I've been horrible at taking pictures this month, partly because school is in full swing and we've fallen into a routine that's pretty boring! We take Paul to school in the morning, come home and have breakfast, join our walking buddies for a nice long walk, then have our first nap. We usually keep ourselves busy after that with projects, playing at the insanely outdated and unsafe park behind our house, kicking a ball around, and playing with cars. Then it's time for nap #2 just before Dad comes home, then we finish the night playing with each other and enjoying the simplicity of our lives at the moment. 

This kid is keeping me soooo busy, but I love him and his cute little personality. He has so many endearing things about him, and he's just so dang easy to love. 

Speaking of, guess who's walking around like a champ!?

It's usually with one (or more) softies in tow. More often than not, he's stuffed them in his mouth and looks like he's being gagged. 

 He could survive on softy love and Goldfish. And milk "babas"

Still loves the monkey on his back.

His favorite day is white laundry day. 

Obviously.

Us outside the Hershey Chocolate factory

We're incredibly close to the Hershey Chocolate Factory. On days when we have nothing to do, we drive 5 minutes and ride the tour- they even give free samples at the end. Graham loves the singing cows in the ride. Jury's still out with me. If you want to read a little history on the city of Hershey, it's seriously impressive. We've loved learning about it! Milton Hershey and his wife couldn't have children, so they started a city and school for underprivileged children. When they died in 1930 they left over 60 million bucks to the kids and for the beautification and betterment of the city. They also gave the medical school over 50 million to build the school in Hershey so that the citizens would have access to great healthcare. 

 Other great things about Graham right now:

 He's figured out that keys open doors. He obviously doesn't have the motor skills to do it, but he finds the keys and tries to put them into the doorknob.


He loves to read. All of the time. I'm convinced he's smarter than most because he absolutely knows the correct orientation of a book, without fail.

 He loves to be outside exploring. He loves to walk around picking up the tiniest of rocks and sticks and carrying them carefully. He willingly gets his shoes on because he knows that means it's outside time!

Other fun things about Graham:

*He loves going on walks, reading in his carseat, helping to "buckle" his carseat, and SOFTIES. He can find them almost anywhere.
*He's been a picky eater lately. The only things he'll eat consistently are goldfish crackers, "baby" yogurt (the yo-baby yogurt with a baby on the carton) Gerber baby food (only Gerber. Because of the baby. He'll kiss it between every bite) and of course those stupid drinkable baby food pouches. The ones that are like $1.50 each.  No veggies (except frozen peas), fruits (except frozen blueberries), and fruit snacks.
*He kicks a soccer ball super well (yay!) but won't shoot a hoop on his Little Tikes bball hoop (sorry Brox)
*He hates the bathtub all of a sudden
*Whenever we Skype with family he reaches for the people we're talking to. I think he misses them!
*He hates slides
*He LOVES cars and trains. He's very into small pieces of cars and loves studying the wheels still. He'll drive the cars along the ground and along people sitting by him.
*He loves Curious George and Jake and the Neverland Pirates
*LOVES Hide and Seek. "Boo" is one of his favorite words.
*He's so social and loves to show off when people come over. Whenever we're at a store people generally stop me to say how gosh darn cute he is, and he'll be all smiles and waves for them:)
*Please and thank you signs! Whenever he wants more of something he'll sign "More please." So what if he eats a package of fruit snacks in three minutes?!

A few frustrating things about G man as of late:
"Stop"- generally accompanied with an eardrum bursting shriek. I CANNOT stand that shriek. Ugh. How do I stop it?!
We're getting better- but he'll still hit if he's tired and annoyed
The finger. (the pointer one) He's been lectured by a few of the neighborhood girls and he picked that up real fast.


Words he says:

Graham's quite the little sponge these days! I have to be careful of what I say around him and the tone I say it, because he imitates a lot. Some words he's saying lately:
"TickleTickle"- My favorite. He wants to be tickled all the time, and knows just what that word means!
"Ah ga"- All gone
"Mama/Daddy"
"Ino"- I don't know
"uh-oh"
"Oh no!"
"Sie"-Outside
"Puppy"
"Baby"
"Baba"
"Pappy"- passy
"Kitty"
"Car"
"Truck"
"Yum"
"Boo!"
"stop"
"stop it!"
"No!"
"Hot!"
"yeah!"
"yep!"
"go! go! go!"

He is the best kid ever. Full to the brim of personality and strong will! Love him!

The post where I make up for 3 months... with 50 pictures.

 I've debated whether or not to continue the ol' blog, simply because I have zero desire to keep up with it. However, now that we're living across the country from family and friends, I really should. So, as penance, here are the last few months.

Graham is no longer the baby on the King side! Melynne and Brigg welcomed Bridgette in April and Graham was in love. 

 At Maddie and Morgan's high school graduation. Paul was a saint and took him without me; our 6th grade graduation was the same day, same time, so the moment it was over I bolted to UVU just in time to take some family pictures!

 

 On the last day of school Graham joined us as we said goodbye to some great friends. My dad also came and made pancakes for my class. I am so sad to leave Mt. Mahogany Elementary behind. I have some incredible memories and friendships that I'll take with me. It's weird that as August rolls around I'm not stocking up on notebooks and school supplies, but I'm excited to start my new job- Mom at home!

 

 Graham just being handsome. He does it well, wouldn't you say?

 The Birthday Party

For Graham's first birthday party I really wanted to pull out the stops. Paul would say that I went a little overboard. However, I knew it would be the only birthday that Graham would be celebrating with family for probably a decade, so I wanted to make it memorable. Plus, it was his first birthday, so hello! Make it count!

 Some of the birthday prep pictures. We went with a circus theme, so here he is as the ringmaster :)

 

 

Our friend Nick generously agreed to come and celebrate with us, and took some great pictures of the party! 

The birthday kid enjoyed all of the sugar splendor. He took one look the goodies available and never looked back. He inhaled oreos, cupcakes, corndogs, snow cones, animal crackers; you name it, he ate it! He was the perfect party host, and even acted excited with he opened his gifts. We followed the festivities up with a dip in the pool and called it a day. Our family and friends were so great to come spend their 4th of July with us!



July came to an end and it was time for us to leave for Pennsylvania. These were taken the night before Graham and I flew out to meet Paul who had driven the moving truck with a friend. We had been missing our Daddy! He quickly hits his limit in these pictures...                

Now that we're here in PA, we're finding lots to do!

Crawling everywhere. Usually without clothes on.

Enjoying the easy accessibility of the "babas"

                          

His absolute first love. Blocks

Eating popsicles. Once again, with no clothes on.

"Stirring"

Finding that he loves Elmo

"Fast shoes" and driving his cars e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e.

Aunt Leigh, Uncle Brian, and Nixon sent us a package... Graham was a little excited!

This monkey was in the package. I put it around his neck and he left it there for close to an hour. He only knows the monkey sound (despite many many attempts at teaching other sounds) and he'll say it all the time.

Finding snacks left over from our morning walk. Gross.

We've found some pretty decent farmer's markets that make us feel like we're still at home eating Harward Farms corn!

Paul has since started school, but before the actual school part started, he had what was called the "White Coat Ceremony." It's a cool little ceremony where the students get their first white coat (it's a short one- once they graduate, they get their long coat)

I thought we were going to be safe, because as we pulled up, Graham had fallen asleep. I got him out of the car carefully enough that he stayed asleep. Until the ceremony started with an applause for the pianist. This is what we spent the remainder of the ceremony doing after the 20 minutes where snacks and books entertained us.

Practicing his spell casting

Practicing the worm dance move

The quick crappy shot I got as Paul got his coat. This was mid-Graham-wrestle.

Making friends with random ladies out in the hall.

Congratulations Paul! Here's to 4 more years of school!!

Don't let the smile fool you.

We love you Daddy!!!