Grady's First Taste of Ice Cream!

We went to Jason's Deli recently. Dr. Plonk said he could start tasting everything we eat, even milk products (just no actual milk or nuts). This has been fun to see his reaction to new things. He is not a huge cheese fan and that is hopefully going to change or his Dad is going to be majorly disappointed! If you know Richard, Grady is bound to be a cheeseaholic! So, we let him taste our ice cream cone at Jason's Deli. He loved it, but after awhile I could tell he was getting tired of it being so cold. After every bite he would put his thumb in his mouth for a few seconds. I guess it makes it taste better? He does this often whenever he is eating.

Triple Baby Shower!

Last week our Bible Study had a triple baby shower! Sarah, Laura and Heather are all due within 3 days of each other and all of them are having boys! We decided to have one big shower for all three of them. We had a spagetti dinner and they got lots of great gifts!

Grady was really excited to see his Aunt Sarah when she got there. He really wanted her colorful necklace.

Heather, Sarah and Laura

Laura and Grady (Richard kept him during the shower, but he came down to say goodnight to everyone before going to bed.)

Sarah with all her gifts!

Heather getting ready to open her gifts.

Grady's visit to Meme and Ditdough's House

I mentioned before that Grady had a lot of "firsts" when he stayed with my parents the other week. They got a lot of cute pictures of him and I have taken forever to put them on the blog.

Grady pulling up for the first time in the crib. It's a little blurry because it was with Meme's cell phone.

Enjoying the hammock!

My Dad calls this "I can't believe my Mama and Dad went to St. Croix and left me here!"

Dancing with Uncle Ty

Great picture of how he crawls. He has got to have some strong muscles in his arms. He always pulls his body weight with his arms. He tries all fours at times now, and we just wish he knew it would be much easier for him.

See the drool? He was just mopping the floor for Meme. Drool and army crawl to wipe the floor clean with my tummy!

Can you tell someone is happy to get some food? He has been a bottomless pit lately! I don't expect it to ever end!

If you look close you can see where his first teeth were coming in. Now they are very visible.

Meme and Grady

My parents were so sweet to keep Grady for us while we went to St. Croix. Grady loves them. When we got back Grady was thrilled to see us, but was still diving at Meme when she came close! I am so happy that he seems to know them even better! They took lots of stroller and wagon rides, but most of all Grady loved to swing in the hammock with Meme. Here are a few pictures of them together.

This was at Subway where I met Mama to hand Grady off before our trip. I cried most of the drive home. We missed him a lot, but did enjoy our trip!

A Special Gift

I forgot to include this very special gift on my birthday post. I had not taken a picture of it at the time. My Mama gave me this quilt for my 30th birthday. My Mama felt like I should have it for many reasons. It is so special to me because it was my Memaw's favorite quilt. It laid at the foot of her bed all the time, and it was laid over her casket at her funeral (she passed away on my 22nd birthday). I was given her name, Anna Louise, and we were so close. Especially the last few years before she passed away I felt we became close friends, not just grandmother and granddaughter. I will always cherish this quilt and the memories I have of her.

9 Months Old and Playgroup!

Grady is 9 months old! I can hardly believe how fast time is flying by! I took these pictures of him about a week before he turned 9 months, but we were in St. Croix without him when he actually turned 9 months. He is growing SO fast and has changed so much! Most of it happened while we were in St. Croix. He got his first two teeth (bottom), started getting up and crawling on all fours and pulling up on things all while we were gone! If we were to leave him with my parents for another week he'd probably be walking when we got back! haha! We are enjoying this time with him and love that he is everywhere! He literally is throwing his body in all directions and has taken many falls because he's not sure yet how to get down once he is standing. It's so cute and today he crawled inside his toy basket! He is also eating new foods like cheese, potatos, noodles, yogurt, toast, still lots of baby food, cheerios and tasted some Jason's Deli frozen yogurt and loved it! He is babbling all the time and his tongue is always hanging out of mouth, especially when he's concentrating to do something. We can't wait to see what he'll start doing this next month!

(Thank you cousin James for letting Grady borrow this cute outfit!)

Grady LOVES to play with Jake, his favorite buddy! It is hilarious to watch them when they first see each other. They get so excited and Grady just laughs and laughs when Jake talks to him. They are always babbling back and forth as if they know exactly what they are talking about. TOO cute! We hope they'll be lifelong buddies!

Grady with Chloe. He's intereted, but looks to me like she still thinks boys have coodies!

Cameron and Chloe! They are growing so fast!

St. Croix, Days 6 and 7

Today is our last full day here. We fly home tomorrow and can't wait to see Grady! Day 6 we took no pictures. We just lounged by the beach and on our balcony reading most of the day. Today, our 7th day, we went to the west side of the island to go snorkeling. On our way there we saw the Cruzan Rum Distillery and decided to go by and take a tour. Then we went on to our snorkeling. We really loved this one beach. We saw a huge stingray, starfish, and many other fish there. The other beach didn't have much, but there was an old canon that had fish living down in it. Then back here at our resort the water was finally calm enough that we could see clearly. There were huge sea urchins everywhere and lots of really beautiful coral and fish. All those pictures were with the water camera (will upload later). We took a few pictures of our favorite views and spots here at the resort as it was our last day.

A view of Mermaid Beach.

The Roseway sailboat way out at sea. It has these beautiful red sails on it.

View from our balcony.

Beautiful flowers everywhere!

The Cruzan Rum Distillery

The rum fermenting. It stunk so bad to me.

Our tour guide, Pedro.

The waste after fermenting. It is cooled, watered down and emptied into the ocean. This is mostly molasses and water.

Big barrels of rum.

These guys were emptying barrels of rum to go into the holding tanks. The rum goes out and through a filter under the barrels. The room that was holding the thousands of barrels made us both think of Captain Jack from Pirates of the Carribean! He would love this! haha!

Um, yeah, this place looked disgusting on the outside. My first question to Richard was, do they sterilize anything here? A man heard me and said, I guess the alcohol does the job.