Craziness at the Hammer House!

According to Mom and Sue, it has been entirely too long since I have posted new pictures of Grady... So sorry! Life at our house the past couple of weeks has been crazy! Between Josh having kidney stones and me trying to just stay afloat at school as usual, it's been a tough couple of weeks! THANKFULLY, Josh is finally starting to feel better. He gave birth to "twins" and passed two kidney stones yesterday! ha. So he's excited about not having to have surgery to have them removed! He's really had a rough time and we're thankful that this is finally over! Poor little Grady-man has just been putting up with both of his crazy parents and being SUCH a little trooper as usual! He is more and more fun every day.

Saturday we took him for a long-overdue visit to see Grandmother. She couldn't believe how big he had gotten!
Here's a picture I took tonight during our normal nightly playing routine! Grady LOVES to have our attention while he's exploring on his mat. We're still working on crawling, and he is getting there slowly but surely... hmmm...he may end up being like Aunt Sue and resorting to ROLLING instead of crawling! ha!

My sweet boys! How AWESOME to come home to this at the end of a long day! :)

"He's Getting More Human!"

This was Josh's quote of the week... "He's getting more human!!!" It cracked me up when he said it, but yes, (in other words), Grady is really growing up! He will be 7 months old tomorrow. When he was first born and I was really struggling with learning how to handle the "newness" of being a mom, my cousin Christy told me that the first few months were the hardest and you just had to suffer through them. Then, everything would be okay. I remember her saying that she and Keith would keep saying "this is my favorite age" every month or so, and then changing their minds in another month or so when the baby learned more things and got "more human" (as Josh would put it! ha!) Well, so far, THIS is my favorite age! Here are a few of his little "milestones" at this age so far:

• He is in the process of learning to sit up. He can totally do it by himself for a good little while, but he can't pull himself into the sitting position by himself. We have to help him get there, but once he's there, he can sit unassisted pretty well. We're still working on it! :)
• He seems to have the crawling thing mixed up! He can "scoot" backwards, but we don't get very far going forwards! ha! It is entertaining to watch!
  
• He squeals with delight and giggles and this is my most favorite thing to hear! He loves for Josh to raise him up and down, up and down in the air! He is also very ticklish under his arms and loves to be tickled!
• He is so very observant of EVERYTHING! Guess he gets that naturally from his dad! When we first started putting him in his jumperoo, he just jumped like crazy and didn't pay any attention to the lights and little "playthings" around the rim of the jumperoo. Now, he is way more into checking out all the little toys and seeing how they work than he is actually jumping in the thing!
• He loves to play! Balls and things with wheels seem to be his favorite toys. He is also a big fan of stuffed animals, especially his monkey and his bulldog who we have named "George" (after the real George, of course!) We bought him a big "puzzle piece" floor mat for our living room (yes, our house looks like it has been taken over by a toy store, but that's okay!). The mat is great for catching all of his drool and spit-up when he is playing and attempting to crawl.
• The spit-up issues HAVE gotten better. They still exist, but considering how bad it used to be, we are doing much better! :) Maybe the solid foods have helped!
• Speaking of solid foods, he is a little pig! He gobbles up pretty much everything with the exception of peaches and bananas...but even with a turned-up nose and a few faces, he will eventually eat even those things he doesn't like because he's not going to turn away ANY food! :)
• Sleeping: WHEW! We've come a LONG way on that! He is now going to bed at about 9:00 p.m. and sleeping until we have to wake him up to get ready in the mornings...Josh usually wakes him up around 7:00. What a NICE change from three months ago!!!!
• Bath time is the most entertaining part of our day! As soon as his feet hit the water, he starts kicking both of them simultaneously and violently as hard as he can, as if he is trying to squash a bug to death. It is hilarious! You'd think he'd get tired and stop, but he does this pretty much the entire time he is in the tub. You definitely have to have on clothes that you don't care a bit about getting wet! :)
  

Here are some recent pictures!

"Thanks to Grana, I have my very first bat! I've got to practice if I am going to play for the bulldogs one day!"

"See, I already know how to hold it! I'm going to be a slugger!"

"Next up...learning how to shoot my new basketballs!"

"I enjoyed getting to hang out with my Paw-Paw last week! He came all the way from Maryland to see me!"

"This is me hanging out with my friends Elephant and Monkey. They don't mind listening to me babble and they always let me do the talking!"

No Naps for Grady!

Grady's idea of a nap is a 20-minute snooze (IF that long!) and then he's up and ready to go again! This is what I went into the nursery to find only 20 minutes after he fell asleep in his crib! He's never been much of a napper. Now that he is doing so well at nighttime, I guess I shouldn't complain! If he wants to play all day long and wear himself out to sleep through the night, I guess that will be just fine!
He still has little chicken pox places all over, but I can tell that it is clearing up! Hopefully since he doesn't know how to scratch, he won't have any scars! :) He has been the happiest little patient ever! I know if it were ME with the chicken pox, I certainly wouldn't have been as patient as he's been!

Christmas Pics!

When we found out Grady had the chicken pox, we immediately got on the phone with our families to see who was "safe" to visit and who hadn't had the virus before...Luckily, everyone in our immediate families was okay to be around Grady. So fortunately, we were able to go on with most of our plans... There were several people that we didn't get to see, but all in all, we had a great time sharing Grady's first Christmas with everyone! Here are LOTS of pictures from the little man's first Christmas... yes, I realize he looks like a little leper... ha! But I guess these pictures will just serve as a memory of the chicken pox! :)

Grana and Pops came over to our house for Christmas Eve lunch. Grady had a BALL opening his first gifts! He was so intrigued by tissue paper! He would get so into crumpling it up and kicking it with his feet, that he really didn't care much about what was INSIDE the package! His favorite thing was this "Polar Express" bell that Faye had tied onto one of his gifts! He LOVED it and rang it all day long! He knew exactly what to do with it!
Grana and Aunt Viola made Grady the most special book! It was a photo scrapbook of the first six months of his life! HOW SWEET! We were so surprised and had no clue they had been working on it!
We went to Yazoo City to DeeDee and Pete's house for Christmas Eve night and Grady got to open even more gifts!
We've discovered recently that Grady-man LOVES pigs! He gets that from his Aunt Jenny. Beverly (Jon's mom) sent Grady this little pig that sings and bounces all around. He is so fascinated with it! It's definitely a favorite now!

CHRISTMAS MORNING!
Santa came!!!!!

Another pig!!!

My mom gave Grady my silver baby spoon that had my name and birthdate engraved on it. Grady knew exactly what it was for and started putting it in his mouth right away! :)

More MSU gear!!!!

Meeting Santa Claus

I've been meaning to post this picture... Grady went to meet Santa and tell him what a good boy he's been this year. I saw him whispering to Santa about something...I think he wants a red rider bb gun! ha!
I heard about the Santa-Workshop at Bass Pro, but didn't really know if it was worth going to. Then I saw my friend Jessica's post on her blog when she took her little girl, Emma, and said it was great! So we decided to try it. The first time we went, we weren't that smart and went right in the middle of the day on a Saturday. Poor Josh and Julie are still new at being parents and didn't realize that that was a dumb idea and that every other person in town had the SAME idea! Let's just say that the trip turned out not-so-great, and we left without a picture and kind of grumpy!
So we decided to go back again this past weekend. We went on Sunday night. The line was STILL long, but I was determined that Grady was going to meet Santa, so I stood in line with him while Josh looked around and shopped for Christmas gifts. Grady and I ended up standing in line for an hour and five minutes... all for a 10-second photo shoot with Big Red. But it was so worth it to me to have a picture of him with Santa on his first Christmas! This is the one the gave us in the store...sorry it is kind of blurry. I scanned it onto my computer!
HOPE SANTA HAS ALREADY HAD THE CHICKEN POX!!!!! :)

All I Want for Christmas is....... some Benadryl!

If it's going to happen, I think it is going to happen to the Hammers! Of all things, Grady-man came down with a case of the chicken pox yesterday! Poor little guy! He is covered in chicken pox, but as you can tell from the pictures, it is not really phasing him. He is still the most happy-go-lucky little kid, even despite all the red bumps. If he's going to have them, I guess now is as good a time as any... I am off work for two weeks to take care of him and he is too young to know that he needs to scratch the rash! He's being such a little trooper as usual!
I noticed a few little bumps (maybe like 2 or 3) yesterday morning when I was changing his diaper at 6 a.m. Mom came over yesterday to keep Grady so I could go to my school for a few hours to work and rearrange my classroom. She noticed the bumps as well and by the time I got home at lunch time, he had MORE of them. I called Gail (who keeps Grady) and found out that another little girl that she keeps had the chicken pox a couple of weeks ago. When we called the doctor, they asked us to come right in so they could see for sure. My dad was on his way to my house, so he went with me and Grady to the doctor and sure enough, he was diagnosed with the chicken pox! Dad asked the doctor if they saw lots of cases of this virus and the doctor said that since the vaccine has come out in the last several years, cases of the chicken pox are few and far between... But like I said, if it is going to happen, it seems to hit the Hammer household! ha! So when Grady starts school in 5 more years, he will be one of those few kids who turns in a shot record with no chicken pox vaccine recorded, but rather a note that he's had the actual virus!

Christmas at the Farm

Every year on the weekend before Christmas, we get together with the Fulton side of the family at the farm in Kemper County. With Grady being sick at Thanksgiving, we didn't get to make the trip, so this was his first time to go to the farm. In honor of my grandaddy, "DaddyBill" (who ALWAYS wore overalls), he wore his blue striped overalls for the occasion! First, we stopped by Aunt Ruby's house so that she could meet Grady. Aunt Ruby is DaddyBill's sister, so she is Grady's great-great aunt! She was thrilled to meet the little guy and said that he looked like Bill!

When we got to the farm, Grady enjoyed opening Christmas presents and was in awe of all the new toys to play with! The talking tractor is going to run out of batteries soon from all of the use it has already gotten! :)
When my dad was younger, he was always the practical joker at Christmas and gave Teresa, Christy, and Bill crazy gifts. One year he bought them real white mice! This year, his great-nieces and nephew paid him back with a gag gift of their own...
Grady was due the day before MY birthday, but instead came early and surprised us all! He arrived on SAM's birthday! So they are exactly 11 years apart! Grady and Sam are the only two boys in the family...how neat that they have the same birthday!!
Bill and Susan brought their bulldog, George, and we HAD to get pictures of Grady with him! He LOVED this dog! Won't be long until he's asking us if he can have one for himself! :)
Any time he can be the center of attention, Grady is a little ham! He so enjoyed getting to meet and play with his cousins! He had a BALL!

I wish that DaddyBill was here to be in this picture!!!!

"Feed-the-Beast-3"

A couple of years ago, Charles Rhodes was "the beast." Then when he left MSU, my dad named Jarvis Varnado "the beast, 2." Well, after Grady's 6-month doctor visit today, I am naming Grady "the beast, 3"!!! We have a big little man on our hands it seems! These were Grady's "stats" at the doctor's office:

Weight= 18 lbs, 8 oz. (80th percentile)
Height= 29 in. (>95th percentile!!!)
Head Circumference= 18 in. (90th percentile)

This means that Grady weighs more than 80% of babies his age, his head is bigger than 90% of babies his age (gee, wonder where THAT comes from!!! ha!), and for height, he is basically off the charts! That's why the nurse said he is greater than the 95th percentile! So, taking all of this in consideration, I felt that it was necessary to give the new "beast title" to my own son! Maybe one day, my dad will get to chant "Feed-the-Beast, 3" at Humphrey Colisseum while he watches Grady-man play for the Bulldogs! :)

A New Tradition

I decided that we needed to start a new tradition this year that would be something special for Grady to look forward to doing each year at Christmas. I hadn't been to see the lights on the square in Canton since I was little, and considering how much Grady LOVES Christmas trees and Christmas lights, we decided to take Grady and see what all there was to do! We took him into all of the animation museums and he was fascinated with all of the "moving" giant stuffed animals and lights and such! Then, much to Josh's horror, we rode on the carousel!!! (Josh thought that I was going to sit with Grady on the little bench that is stationery... when his mom and I got on and put Grady up on one of the carousel ponies, he wasn't too wild about it!! Glad I didn't tell him ahead of time...ha!) Anyway, Grady immediately reached for the pole with both of his little hands, just like he knew what he was supposed to do! I couldn't see his face during the ride because I was behind him, hanging on to him for dear life. (That thing really did go faster that you'd think!) But Faye said that he just grinned and cooed the entire ride! Every time we came around to where Josh and David were standing, he would just grin so big at them! Too cute! He had a ball! And then of course, we walked around the inside of the square where all the lights are and took lots of pictures! The weather was a bit misty and humid, but surprisingly nice for this time of the year! It really wasn't that cold at all! We had a great time and plan to make this a yearly tradition for Grady-man! Thanks for going with us, Grana and Pops! :)

Christmas Card Photo Session, Take Two

I promised Viola, Faye, and Mom that I would post these pictures... This was the second photo session for Christmas card possibilities. I ended up using the others, but these were also so cute. Doesn't he look like a little elf!?

Even little elves need their rest...

...with visions of sugarplums dancing in his head...

"Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!"