boy, oh boy!

WI Dells

2010-10-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

The Gestl Family decided to join the James Family for a nice camping trip up in WI Dells. It included a fun day at the waterpark at the Wilderness, hours of fun at Knuckleheads playing games and the Tommy Bartlett show for Grant's first experience there. I think he absolutely loved it! : )

Hopefully we won't see these exact faces in 15 years while being arrested...

2010-09-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Daddy & Mommy!

2010-09-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

Grant was such a good sport celebrating daddy and mommy's 28th birthday with them and all their friends and family. : )

Celebrating Turning Two!

2010-09-04T10:20:00.001-07:00

Turning two causes for a large celebration, especially for my little boy! : ) To celebrate his birthday, we threw three different parties for him. One party was specifically the Woyak side of his life, the next party was specifically the Gestl and Hahn sides of his life and the third and final party consisted of all of his friends. We also had our very own little celebration just the three of us when we went to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum downtown the morning of his actual birthday, but it was so much fun celebrating with everyone later on.

Swinging Away!

2010-09-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

For Grant's second birthday, all the grandparents chipped in together and bought Grant his very first swing set! Daddy and Uncle Jim put in a lot of hours building it together and all their hard work was totally worth it seeing Grant's face when he plays on it. He absolutely loves it!!

Dueces!

2010-09-04T10:10:00.001-07:00

My little baby turned two years old and I feel as if I officially shouldn't call him my baby anymore. His two year check up with Dr. Quejada went as wonderful as possible. He is a very healthy boy and she said that he is developing extremely well. His weight and height are still above average, but he's consistent and that's all that matters! Haha...

Happy Easter!

2010-09-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

This Easter was filled with lots of love and laughter and not a lot of time spent taking pictures with the Easter Bunny. Grant is now at an age where he's a little frightened of large animal costumes so we took him to the mall during off times and let him sit on the carrot chair by himself and snapped a few photos. : ) We also dyed Easter eggs as a family and woke up Easter morning searching for Grant's basket which was filled with lots of goodies (especially candy and bubbles which are two of his favorite things). We then went to Grammy and Papa's house and then Great Grandma and Grandpa Hahn's house. The Easter Bunny visited each house and left a goody for Grant all over town. He is such a blessed little boy.

Grant's First Bucks Game!

2010-09-04T09:32:00.000-07:00

We finally took Grant to his very first Milwaukee Bucks game, and he absolutely loved it! They even won, too! Milwaukee played at the Bradley Center vs. the LA Clippers on Tuesday, March 30th and the final score was 107-89.

Yo! Gabba Gabba

2010-06-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

On March 14, 2010 the Gestl Family traveled to the Riverside Theater downtown to witness one of the greatest live television shows ever...Yo Gabba Gabba! (Ok...joking. Kinda.) Nanny surprised us with three tickets and Grant absolutely loved it! Nanny also made all three of us outfits to wear to the show which all included Muno (one of Grant's favorite Yo Gabba Gabba character). Grant's friend Colton was also there with his parents and he had a great time, too!

Lyla Jean James

2010-06-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

Grant's newest best friend was born on March 13, 2010. Auntie Mandy and Uncle Josh gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Lyla Jean James. She is so unbelievably precious and Grant already loves helping out with her! Our Tuesday night family dinners just got so much better with her arrival!

Dance, dance, dance

2010-03-20T07:09:00.000-07:00

Grant's a little dancing machine!

My little Travis Barker

2010-03-20T07:07:00.001-07:00

Grant's Grandma thought it was a great idea to buy him a drum set (thanks, mom!), and he hasn't stopped drumming away ever since! Whenever we have music on in the house he has to run to his drum set and start making his own music. He even hits the drumsticks together and counts, "One, two, three" and then starts drumming! : )

Swim class

2010-03-20T07:01:00.000-07:00

Well, we signed Grant up for swim classes, again. However, this time he absolutely loves it! We go for 30 minutes every Monday and Wednesday night with his friend Chase at the pool inside the Franklin High School.

Happy Golden Birthday...kinda!

2010-03-20T06:57:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Grant's "golden" birthday on February 22nd. (He turned 22 months old on February 22nd.) Auntie Kristin was still up visiting, and then we also had both Grandmas, Papa, Uncle Jim, Auntie Mandy and Uncle Josh over for a nice Mexican dinner...and cake, of course!

Fun in the snow

2010-03-20T06:52:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful snowy day outside so we decided to get out and enjoy it a little bit. Grant didn't enjoy getting all bundled up but I'm pretty sure he thought it was worth it once we got outside. He laughed the entire time watching daddy and Oscar run around the yard in the snow. We pulled Grant around in his little penguin sled and then busted out the new sled that his Grandma bought him this year and went down the hill in our backyard with daddy.

Nolan Jonathan Stikl

2010-03-20T06:48:00.001-07:00

Papa with his two grandsons. Grant's first "boy" cousin was born on February 4, 2010! My sister, Rachel, and her husband, Jon, gave birth to a beautiful and healthy baby boy. These two are going to cause so much trouble together, and I can't wait!

Messy little lunch

2010-03-20T06:26:00.000-07:00

Grant keeps saying, "Cheese!" because he thinks I'm taking a picture of him and not a video!

Haha...

He gets his cheese from me!

2010-03-20T06:24:00.000-07:00

My little cheeseball...

Grant...Ryan Grant that is...

2010-03-20T06:20:00.000-07:00

The Gestl Family in our Grant jerseys.

Too bad it didn't produce a Packers' win!

: (

Grant's 2nd New Year's Eve!

2010-01-22T08:23:00.001-08:00

Grant also celebrated his second New Year’s Eve! As always, we headed over to the Lindner house for a great dinner, some great company and definitely great games and fun! Grant was able to stay up until 9:00, but then we put him down in his pack’n’play in a back room while the rest of us stayed up to ring the new year in.

Playdate

2010-01-22T08:22:00.000-08:00

Grant finally hosted his first playdate on December 30th. For a little over a year now, a few of my friends and our children have been getting together once a month for some pizza and to just let the kids play together while us girls catch up (and sometimes husbands, too!). It’s always so nice to see all my girlfriends and it’s also nice to get Grant some interaction with other kids.

Grant's 2nd Christmas!

2010-01-22T08:21:00.000-08:00

Wow! I apologize for such a late entry, but I just realized that I never posted a blog regarding Grant’s 2nd Christmas! Well, as you can safely assume…it was a busy one! We are so blessed to have so many wonderful family and friends to share this holiday season with. Christmas at our house amazingly lasts almost an entire month and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We hosted Christmas morning at our new house this year (had my mom over right away in the morning for coffee/light breakfast and gift opening and then the Gestl family over for the big ham brunch and more gift opening) and that worked out extremely nicely for us because we didn’t have to get out of our pajamas (and into the cold!) and we were able to put Grant down for a nap as soon as he started to get sleepy. He did much better this year than last year in regards to opening up his own presents. However, once he opened the first one then it was all over and he just wanted to play and didn’t care that he had so many more presents to open! Again, you can safely assume that Santa was very good to him this year because he was such a good boy. A few of his favorite presents includes the Wall-E robot and table from my mom, the play kitchen set from Nanny, the Harley and baby grand piano from Papa and Grandma Wendy and the basketball hoop from Grammy and Papa.

Resemblance?

2009-12-21T10:32:00.000-08:00

St. Nick

2009-12-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

Since Grant was a very good boy this year, he woke up Sunday morning with a stocking full of treats from good ‘ol St. Nick (actually a few stockings & toys from a few different loved ones, as well!). The first thing that he pulled out of his stocking was a packet of fruit snacks and that was the end of it…he didn’t even look any further and just devoured the entire packet. After that, he played with a few of his new toys, however, his favorite was something not even found in his stocking. He loves to take his drumstick and bang it over and over again on top of the tin that Christmas cookies come in. Look out Tommy Lee! : )

New Home!

2009-12-16T14:26:00.001-08:00

It was very bittersweet, but we have officially moved into our new house! We were very excited to not be homeless anymore, but I’m sure that Matt’s parents were even more excited than us. We closed on our old house on October 28th, but didn’t close on our new house until November 17th (with a move in date of November 21st)…which left a few weeks for the Gestls to enjoy the nomad life. We stayed at my dad’s house the first week (while he and Wendy vacationed in Florida), then we stayed the second week at the Freimark Farm (while they vacationed in Arizona) and we finished the rest of our nomadic life at the Gestls house in Oak Creek. Though Matt and I were very sad to say goodbye to the home that we started our family in, we look forward to making many new and wonderful memories in our new home.

18 months old

2009-11-18T14:21:00.000-08:00

Holy cow. My baby is not a baby anymore! Grant turned 18 months old, and he is already 27 lbs 8 oz and in the upper 97th percentile for his height (35 ¼”). “What has he been up to”, you ask? I say, “What hasn’t he been up to?” He has imaginary conversations that leaves me wondering if he actually thinks he’s saying real words, he counts to 10 with you (however, the only numbers you can recognize are three, four, five and ten…and ten is screamed with pure delight for finishing), he says the alphabet with you (and by that, I mean he says “I” in the correct note for the entire song until he says correctly “G”, “elemenopee”, “S”, “T” and “Z”, he tells me the sounds of almost every animal that I know the sounds to and he also points to the correct colors and shapes on his learning boards. I really now understand why people call children sponges because he absolutely observes and mimics every little thing that Matt and I do even down to our sneezes. He has us laughing every single day and I couldn’t be a more happy mom.

Swim Class

2009-11-04T05:36:00.000-08:00

Grant had his very first swim class at Franklin High School last Thursday night (October 29th), and he had an absolute blast! My friend, Dina and her husband Neil also bring their son, Seth, to the same class and he is only 2 days older than Grant. The swim class basically consists of jumping around, splashing water and signing (No, Grant isn’t going to actually be swimming by the end of the session). It sure does wear Grant out, though! The class runs every Tuesday and Thursday night for 6 weeks and Matt goes in the water with him every Tuesday and I get every Thursday. So far, he seems to really be enjoying it!

Grant's Last Supper (in our first house)

2009-11-04T05:35:00.000-08:00

We officially closed on our house on Wednesday, October 28th. Therefore, the night before, we gave Grant one last awesome supper in our house. We gave him everything that he likes; grilled cheese, peanut butter sandwich and cocoa puffs. I know it wasn’t very nutritious, but it was a special occasion for him!...He was leaving the first house he ever lived in! Ok, perhaps I was a little sadder than he was, but it was still a special moment for us. And now we’re homeless for exactly 20 days. Fun, fun.

Trick or Treat

2009-11-04T05:33:00.001-08:00

Grant went on his very first trick or treat trip on Sunday, October 25th. The weather was absolutely beautiful when we all met up at Mrs. Henderson’s house in Oak Creek. Grant and his buddies Evan, Emmalee, Logan and Colton were all the Milwaukee Brewers’ Racing Sausages. Grant went as Chorizo, Evan was the Hot Dog, Emmalee was the Polish, Logan was the Bratwurst and Colton was the Italian. Grant was able to walk to the entire trip, and he got lots of good candy for me to eat! : )

Pumpkin Farm

2009-10-15T08:41:00.001-07:00

The Gestl Family made our traditional (2nd year in a row can qualify as a tradition already, right?!) trip to Swan’s Pumpkin Farm. This time we made the trip with the Freimark Family along, as well! It was an extremely cold Sunday and we decided to dress the boys up in costumes (kind of wanted to dress them up because it was so darn cute and kind of wanted to dress them up because the costumes were so darn warm). Grant was a roaring tiger and Own was the most adorable monkey that you would have ever seen!

Grant absolutely loved the pumpkins! He was running all over the place, sitting with the pumpkins, trying to pick up the pumpkins and even found white pumpkins that I think he thought were soccer balls and was kicking them all around. We all went on the boys’ very first hay ride and Grant continued to say “Vroom, vroom” the entire time looking at the tractor. We then ate lunch and drank hot apple cider before heading over to the Freimark Farm for carving of pumpkins. (See photo of the moment for my favorite pumpkin.)

DFW

2009-10-06T12:26:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned earlier, we all went to Dallas for an extended weekend (Friday morning – Tuesday afternoon). It was such a great vacation for all of us, and we all had such a blast. Also as I stated earlier, we were going down there to attend Matt’s cousin Jenny’s wedding to Adam so we had a lot of family festivities to keep us busy. We still wake up every morning thanking God for having such a wonderful Nanny for Grant, and she continued to amaze us on this trip and she also flew down to be with us for the majority of the weekend (with her son and one of our best friends, Ross).

On Friday night, Matt and I attended the rehearsal dinner with all of the other adults while Grant hung out with Nanny and Ross in their hotel room. The rehearsal dinner was at a beautiful restaurant in downtown Fort Worth, and then we all headed to the bar on the rooftop for some after dinner drinks. On Saturday, Matt, Grant, Nanny, Ross, Uncle Jim and I all visited the Fort Worth Zoo during the day. It was the most beautiful zoo that I have ever been to! Then, we came home in the afternoon and got ready for the wedding ceremony. In fear that Grant may scream and be a distraction on the wedding video, Grant stayed with Nanny and Ross in our hotel room while we attended the beautiful ceremony at the chapel on TCF. We then proceeded to the dinner reception at the Fort Worth Club which was absolutely amazing! Since our hotel room was also at the Fort Worth Club, Matt and I went to get Grant right after dinner so he could come up to the reception for some dancing. It was a great night!

Sunday morning, Nanny and Ross left for home and we attended the opening of the gifts brunch which was hosted at the clubhouse in Jenny’s subdivision. We then proceeded to check in to our next hotel (in Dallas now), and then ended the evening at Matt’s Aunt Joann’s house for a delicious dinner.
On Monday, Matt, Grant and I did a lot of sightseeing! We did downtown Dallas, saw where Kennedy was shot, saw Rangers Stadium and the brand new arena that the Dallas Cowboys play in (boo!), and then went to the Dallas World Aquarium. Grant absolutely loved seeing all the gigantic fish at his eye level (see picture above). We then did a little shopping at the Grapevine Mills Mall, ate dinner and had to check out their local Chuck’E’Cheese! (It’s exactly the same as ours in Wisconsin. It even had the same bratty kids that skip and try to steal your tickets.) : )Tuesday morning we were able to sleep in a little bit, eat breakfast at the hotel and then head to the airport for our wonderful flight home (and I mean wonderful…Grant slept on our laps for almost an entire hour of the flight!). It was a great end to an even greater vacation.

Grant earns his wings

2009-10-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

Grant went on his very first plane ride! The Gestl family all flew down to Dallas, Texas on September 18th via Midwest Airlines in order to attend Jenny and Adam Fox’s wedding. We had a morning flight that was not booked to capacity which was extremely nice because we were able to have an entire row of seats to ourselves! It was a little exhausting for Matt and I because we were constantly pulling tricks out of our bag to keep him entertained, but overall he did very well. He watched a few minutes of about 5 different movies, he played with every toy that I could fit in our carry-on that didn’t make noise, he drank over 32 ounces of water and he ate almost all of the snacks that I could legally bring on the plane. It was a fun two and a half hours! Right when we landed we put him in his stroller and he was sleeping by the time walked to our rental car facility.

Wisconsin Dells...Again! : )

2009-09-04T08:31:00.001-07:00

Matt and I decided to take Grant to Wisconsin Dells to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary (Aunt Kristin joined us for the majority of the trip as well, which was nice). We stayed in a 2 bedroom suite at the Atlantis right on the strip which was extremely convenient. Aunt Mandy and Uncle Josh were also staying in the Dells to celebrate their one year anniversary so we were able to meet up with them a few times. We drove up on Saturday afternoon and spent that afternoon/night shopping at the Tanger Outlet Mall, ordering Moosejaw pizza and hanging out with everyone in the room while the Brewer’s game was on. We also spent a lot of time playing with Grant in our whirlpool tub in our room. He loved turning the jets on and off. On Sunday, Matt and I went to look into a Wyndham Vacation timeshare while Aunt Kristin hung out with Grant. When Matt and I were finished, we all met up for a ride on the Dells Army Ducks. We bought Grant a “quacker” that he could just not get enough of! He blew into that thing the entire rest of the day! (See picture above. We couldn’t even get it out of his mouth long enough to take a picture!) We then all went to Monk’s for dinner, and Grant continued to play with his quacker. On Monday morning, we woke up and headed right for our hotel’s waterpark. Grant had a lot of fun going down the slides with daddy. We then decided to have Marley’s for lunch because it was almost right next door to our hotel, and then Kristin had to head home. After Grant’s nap, we decided to hit up the shops downtown and take a walk along the river. Matt and I then took Grant to Buffalo Phil’s for dinner and then decided to play at Knucklehead’s indoor theme park for the remainder of the night. Grant was a bit too short for most of the rides, but he sure did have fun playing with all the buttons on the games. We even won enough tickets to buy him a few small prizes. Then, on Tuesday we spent the entire day at Mt. Olympus and had an absolute blast! That place was so huge! They had a huge outdoor and indoor waterpark as well as roller coasters, rides and go-carts. After about 5 hours of running around that place, Grant completely crashed in his stroller on our walk to our vehicle and we headed straight home from there. What a great weekend!

Great Grandma Gestl

2009-09-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

Grant always has a blast visiting his Great Grandma Gestl. He loves exploring around her apartment at Franciscan Courts, and he especially loves it when she takes him on rides on her walker to get ice cream from the parlor. : )

Zoo-a-la-carte

2009-08-25T12:53:00.001-07:00

On August 23rd, Matt, Grant, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Jon, Tyler, Anna and I all went to Zoo-a-la-carte. Grant has been to the zoo many times before, but this was his first a-la-carte trip! He absolutely loved it. We realized that Grant is just about to get to the age where he can’t stay in the stroller for much longer than 30 minutes or so. Therefore, we had to keep taking him in and out of the stroller so he could run around a bit. But, boy…do we have to keep track of holding on to his hand very tightly because he tries to let go and the second he gets a glimpse of freedom…he takes off! It’s kind of funny for right now. Haha…he had Auntie Rachel on her toes as she helped out a lot. : ) We also met up with Grandpa P, Grandma Wendy and two of their friends to see a Styx tribute band that was really good. We ended up staying for about 5 hours and Grant hung in there the whole time! It was a great day. : )

Crooked Lake

2009-08-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

On August 22nd, Matt, Grant, Aunt Mandy, Uncle Josh, Aunt Kristin and I all headed up to Crooked Lake to meet up with the rest of the Woyak family. My grandparents used to take my dad and all my aunts and uncles there when they were little and they all squeezed inside two cabins. Matt and I decided that Grant is still just a tad bit too young to do the whole camping in a tent thing (we basically just don’t think he would ever go to sleep if he can hear all of us outside). So, we drove up for the day and had a blast. It was absolutely freezing (ok, so maybe it was like 65 or so, but for an August day…it seemed as if it were freezing). Therefore, we did a lot of games and playing in the sand instead of laying out and swimming. Since we didn’t have a tent with us, Matt had to take Grant on a little ride in order for him to get a little bit of a snooze in and then he was good for the rest of the day! We left around dinner time, and we were home by the time the Packer’s pre-season game started. : )

(Picture above is Grant with his Great Uncle Jesse, Great Uncle Bobby and Great Aunt Teri)

Cream Puff!

2009-08-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

Matt, Grant and I decided to tackle the 2009 Wisconsin State Fair this year on Monday, August 10th. The day brought beautiful weather, and Grant had an absolute blast looking at all of the animals. We realized that it was a little harder now to keep him entertained while staying in his stroller because he really likes to get out and run around, however, we were able to give him a few opportunities to get rid of some energy. Before we knew it, it was 2:30 (WAY past Grant’s nap time) and we were on the verge of a huge breakdown from him if we didn’t get the heck out of dodge…so he didn’t get his cream puff. : (

However, Grant’s Auntie Kristin gave us three free tickets so we decided to all try it again on the fair’s very last day and this time brought my mom with, too! Grant got a little tired towards the end of this trip, as well, so we quick bought a 6-pack to go and went home. Once Grant woke up from his nap, we gave him his cream puff surprise and boy, did he love it! He liked it so much that he was actually giggling while eating it! It sure was a mess, but it was worth it. He had the entire thing in his belly in 15 minutes flat, and Oscar was right there with every bite to help him clean up the falling cream!

15 months old

2009-08-12T06:12:00.001-07:00

Grant had his 15 month check up and it went absolutely wonderfully. He loves his pediatrician, Dr. Quejada. She informed us that Grant is still in the 95th percentile for his height (33 ¼ in.), and his weight landed him in the 60th percentile (25 lbs. 6.5 oz.) with his head being exactly the 75th percentile ever since he was born. I think he’s going to be a tall, thin boy just like what his daddy was! I think Grant is pretty much doing everything that an average 15 month old is doing. He runs just about everywhere he goes now, he climbs up onto furniture (I turned my head for a second the other day and when I looked back he was standing on top of our end table in the living room!), he is desperately trying to communicate to us in any way possible, he feeds himself if it’s something that he can pick up or stab with his fork and he gives me kisses all the time (or at least every time I ask for one). He is such a good baby. Is he still a baby? I guess he’s my little toddler now, and I can’t wait to see what the next few months have in store for us!

Molars

2009-08-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

More proof that Grant was sent straight from heaven…his molars are coming in with full force and he still is normal happy-go-lucky self! Within the last week, Grant went from having 7 teeth, to having 11! Poor guy. The only reason we know that he is teething is because he gets his routine “teething diaper rash” that he gets every single time teeth are popping thru and his #2s are… (well, I will just stop there but you can tell where I was going with that). He has been waking up at night which is very unlike him, but we comfort him and sometimes give him a little Baby Tylenol and he goes right back to bed. What a little angel!!

First Brewers Game!

2009-08-07T09:35:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Grant’s best friend, Evan’s, parents we were able to take Grant to his very first Brewers game on Wednesday, July 29th. As soon as Matt got home from work, we (along with Auntie Kristin) packed up and were off to meet up with the Hendersons for a little tailgating beforehand. It was a 7:05 pm game, so we weren’t quite sure how it was going to go considering Grant usually goes to bed around 8:30, but he did absolutely wonderful! As soon as we walked in, Ryan Braun hit an RBI and the crowd went wild! I’m pretty sure that Grant thought the entire stadium was cheering for him so he brought his ‘A’ game out and was laughing, clapping and screaming uncontrollably. It was downright hilarious. Thanks to the great pitching by Manny Parra, the Brewers beat the Washington Nationals 7-5. It was a great night.

Uncle Josh & Aunt Mandy did it again!

2009-07-24T12:06:00.001-07:00

Grant’s Godparents love to spoil him rotten, and they bought him a ball pit to go in the toy area of the basement. I’ve never heard him continuously laugh as long as he did when he played in that thing for the first time. He loves his ball pit, and he loves his Uncle Josh and Aunt Mandy even more!

Festa Italiana

2009-07-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, July 18th me, Kristin and Grant’s Nanny, Roxanne all took Grant to Festa Italiana. Though, I do not believe he has any Italian heritage, he still had an absolute blast. Roxanne bought us all an Italian frittelle, and Grant loved it! He kept signing for more…it was hilarious. We then walked over to a stage where a band was playing and let Grant run around and dance for a little bit. Before we left we made sure to take Grant on a carousal ride and show him the Pinocchio sand sculpture. His afternoon nap was about 3 hours long!

Now possible = hiking

2009-07-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, my mom and I were taking Grant on a walk around the neighborhood and stumbled upon a rummage sale. Though, I don’t normally care for other people’s crap…we saw a baby backpack carrier that I couldn’t pass up! For only $10.00 we can now take Grant on hikes and to the dog park with Oscar. Just the other day when Matt and I were both off on a Monday we took Grant hiking in Grant Park, and had an awesome time. He absolutely loved being on daddy’s back. However, since we had to keep Oscar on a leash the entire hike, we then went to the dog park and walked around there a few times with Grant still in tow and loving it!

Cheese!

2009-07-24T12:03:00.001-07:00

I’m not sure where he learned it from, but Grant’s smile is getting cheesier and cheesier by the day. At first I was wondering if he squints his eyes because the flash is too bright, but I realized that there is rarely a flash on our new camera…so that can’t be it. Either way, I love it. Perhaps he likes to simply cheese it up in front of a camera as much his mother does! : )

(Picture taken at Grant's first Pat McCurdy concert.)

Zoo Train

2009-07-07T16:46:00.000-07:00

Grant's Uncle Josh and Aunt Mandy bought Matt and I a family zoo pass for our birthdays the last two years, and we just absolutely love taking Grant there. He goes a few times a month, but this last time was Grant's very first time on the train. We weren't sure how he would be, but the second he saw it pull up he had a HUGE smile on his face! We knew that it was going to be a hit. When it was our turn to hop on board, Grant actually started to giggle and this beautiful giggle didn't end until the train stopped. I can't wait to take him back next!

Happy 4th of July!

2009-07-07T16:45:00.001-07:00

What an amazing 4th of July! Grant's 2nd Independance Day started with the Oak Creek parade at 9:00 am. We met up with approximately 30 of our friends and their children in our "usual spot". (And by "usual spot"...I mean the spot that we sat last year!) : ) Grant absolutely LOVED the parade. He sat in Matt's lap almost the entire time (which is amazing...I don't think he has ever sat in one spot for longer than 5 minutes prior to this day). Grant clapped, waved and smiled at every float and vehicle driving by. He especially loved the truck that Grandpa P. and Grandma Wendy were in! After the parade, it was Grant's nap time so we had a few friends over for some awesome turkey burgers (my fav!) while Grant slept. When he woke up we then took him to my cousin Jimmy's graduation/leaving for the Marines party. We had four car loads full each following each other all the way from my house to my aunt and uncle's house in Brookfield. It was a great party, and Grant even enjoyed going in the jumping house that they rented. : ) After the party, Grant crashed on the way home and then went straight to bed while I went with the girls to the Oak Creek fireworks. Even though we missed about 5 other parties because it's a little harder to make so many different stops now with a little one...I couldn't have asked for a more perfect day to spend with my family and friends. Happy Birthday, America!

Road Trip...Again!

2009-07-05T22:13:00.001-07:00

The Freimark Family was very generous to invite us to their house on Hawk Lake in Upper Michigan, and we had such a great time. It was a 5 hour drive that we made in about 7 hours. Haha…Luckily we planned our travel times pretty well around the babies’ sleep schedules, but it was still a little hard to get Grant to go down when he could see me sitting in the back of the SUV with him. I actually held a blanket up so he couldn’t see me from Greendale all the way to Oshkosh! The rest of the weekend was spent in the house watching Grant and Owen play together. Ok…maybe not quite, but give them about one more year and they’re going to be the best of buds playing together all the time! : )

"I'm on a Boat!"

2009-06-26T07:32:00.002-07:00

Grant went on his very first boat ride! He was pretty crabby the entire day leading up to the boat ride because he just wasn’t sleeping very well, but he turned it all around once he was on that boat. He didn’t even mind having his life vest on! He wasn’t sure if he could move his head while it was on at first (his eyes were the only things moving for a while!), but then he realized it was ok and he was all about it! Grant even sat on Uncle Jim's lap and helped drive the boat. Thanks to Gerrie and Glenn Maass for the wonderful experience!

Happy 2nd Father's Day!

2009-06-26T07:32:00.001-07:00

We had an absolutely wonderful Father’s Day this year. We were spending the weekend up in Shawano with the Gestl family, and we had beautiful weather up there! We all woke up and Grandma Gestl cooked a delicious breakfast. We then spent the entire rest of the day in the lake swimming, playing, squirting and going on paddle boat rides. Grandma Gestl also cooked a delicious steak dinner (which Matt had to eat in the backseat of our car because that was the only place Grant was taking his naps at this point!). I kept asking if he would like to switch with me and go inside to eat with his family, but Matt kept insisting on staying out there with Grant while he sleeps. I guess he just wanted to be with his boy on Father’s Day. I’m so blessed to have given Grant such a wonderful father.

Road Trip

2009-06-26T07:31:00.001-07:00

Well, Grant is definitely getting his fair share of road trips these days! Thankfully, he LOVES his car seat. Our latest road trip was up to Shawano. It is about a 2 ½ hour drive, but we made it there in 3 hours. Haha…we stopped about half way at a gas station to let Grant run around for a while and burn off some energy. Then, it was back in the car! I now understand why so many families opt for putting in televisions behind the front seats in their vehicles. Our next family car will have those for sure!!

Swinging Away!

2009-06-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

We have come to the conclusion that both Matt and I having off on Monday’s is a real treat for Grant. Almost every Monday we spend it either doing something that Grant would enjoy or buying something that Grant would enjoy. A few Mondays ago while walking aimlessly up and down the aisles of Babies ‘R Us we came across an outdoor toddler swing and had to buy it for him. We were a little unsure if he was going to like it or not, but as you can see in this video…he absolutely LOVED it! He’s been in it almost every day ever since!

Weekend at the Waterpark

2009-05-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

To celebrate our 27th birthdays, Matt and I thought it would be fun to go to the Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells. Matt and I have been there many times before, but it was Grant’s first! We stayed in a two bedroom suite with my mom, my grandma and my cousin Sam all joining us. Kristin drove up to join us for the day and Mandy, Josh, Joe, Terri and Dennis were all also staying at the resort in a different room. This resort had three indoor waterparks and boy did that cause baby overload! Haha…

We left Sunday morning and went to Monk’s immediately for lunch. A few of us then went on a horse and buggy ride before hitting the first waterpark. Grant was definitely not sure about anything that he was seeing. He knew that he liked water, but was not too sure about this much of it all at once! Therefore, I took him back to our room to play with his familiar toys and ordered Moosejaw pizza (our favorite!). That night Matt and my mom went to Ho Chunk Casino and came back with more money than they left with…so that’s always a good thing!

Day two was Matt’s birthday! Yay! We started the day at Paul Bunyan’s for breakfast and then headed back to the waterpark where we had a cabana reserved for the day. Grant liked this waterpark slightly better than the other one because it had a lot more room for him to run around (and not get sprayed by water in the mean time). After a tiring day in the water, all 11 of us went to Damon’s for dinner and to catch the Brewer’s game on their huge screen TV.

Our last day came way too quickly, but we decided to do a little “dry park” action that day and go to the arcade instead of press our luck with another waterpark. Between all of us, we ended up “winning” Sam over 1,000 tickets so she could pick out some nice prizes. We then went to Survivors for lunch and headed home…relaxed and tired. What a great weekend away!

One year old

2009-05-06T07:32:00.000-07:00

So, as if turning one isn’t fun enough…we actually had some business to take care of! Grant had to go in for his one year doctor’s check-up. He loves his doctor…so I think he was looking forward to it. : )

Grant is measuring 32” long which still lands him in the upper 97th percentile for his height, and he weighs 23 lbs 10 oz which puts him in the 65th percentile for his weight. Other than statistics, we were able to tell her everything that Grant has been up to lately! He now is basically running around the house getting into anything and everything. He blows out lights and candles (which he had lots of practice with this last month!), he gives kisses (he blows you a kiss or just sticks his lips together and leans towards you), he will do sign language for “more” anytime he wants more of something, he sticks his hands up in the air whenever we say “touchdown” and he has the ability to melt my entire heart just by laying his head down on me to rest. His next doctor’s appointment is not until he is 15 months old. In the mean time, we’re going to start working on introducing him to more of our everyday food and start getting him to like drinking from a sippy cup more often.

Grant in Grant Park

2009-05-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

Like I stated earlier, we took Grant to “His Park” on his birthday, but what I didn’t mention was that we went there with our friend, TJ, who is an amazing photographer! TJ took over 400 pictures of Grant so we can have some great keepsakes for his one year birthday. This is just one of our many favorites! : )

Fiesta!

2009-05-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

Is this post for real?! Is my baby seriously one year old already? I know that I have said it before, but I am going to say it again…I absolutely can not believe how fast the time has gone! I guess the saying is correct…time really does fly when you’re having fun. And boy did we have fun celebrating my baby’s big birthday (or should I say birth month?!). It all started on April 5th when he had his very first fiesta. Since our basement was not finished on time to hold all of the Woyak family, my dad and Wendy let us host the party at their house. It was such a wonderful time, and all of the Woyaks were there. Grant was a little cranky at first, but the next morning I found that a tooth had popped thru…so in retrospect, he was a real trooper! His next birthday party was on April 19th and that party was held in our newly finished basement. This party’s attendees included the Gestl and the Hahn Families, and Grant was loving every minute of this party!

Then, his actual birthday came! Since April 22nd fell on a Wednesday this year, Matt and I both took vacation to spend the day with Grant. After his morning nap we (along with Aunt Kristin) took Grant to Monkey Joe’s in Waukesha to play on all of the inflatable slides. He didn’t like the big slides that we went down with him on too much, but I think he really enjoyed the toddler area with daddy (not to mention Kristin and I loved playing Deal or No Deal!). He was so tuckered out that we took him home for a much needed nap. Once he woke up we took him to Grant Park (or as we like to call “His Park”). It started to get a little chilly outside so we headed back to our house for dinner and cake with a few of Grant’s closest loved ones. Aunt Mandy and Uncle Josh brought him three balloons which ended up being one of his favorite gifts! I never knew how much he liked balloons until then! After all of the festivities, Grant crashed and slept for 13 hours straight that night!

The next Friday, Grant hosted a playdate with a few of mommy’s best friends along with their little ones, and then Grant had his very last first fiesta on Sunday, April 26th with even more of his closest friends. Whew! I think that is all! Overall in the month of April, Grant hosted get togethers for over 100 of his friends and family members and we wouldn’t have had it any other way. Next year, however, we are having one party and that’s it! Haha…

Yay!

2009-05-06T06:09:00.001-07:00

Our basement is finally done! This entire project started with a great idea to turn our basement into a rec room, and it ended with a lot of blood, sweat and well…maybe not tears but close enough! I really have to hand it to him…Matt did a wonderful job with everything. I have to admit, it was only my idea…and from that point forward I just took care of Grant while Matt and his amazing helpers worked countless hours down there. We started the project in January and with only working on it one or maybe two days a week, we finished in April (the night before Grant’s first birthday party…to be exact!). It’s amazing how you can realize just how many toys a little guy has when they are all in a central location now! Grant loves playing in his play area now, too! Special thanks to my Grandpa, Jim, Dave, Aaron, Eric and Schaefer for all of your help with this!

Weekly Target Run

2009-04-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

Grant loves playing in Target just as much as I do!

Happy Easter!

2009-04-13T18:27:00.001-07:00

Grant not only survived his very first Easter, but he also had an absolute blast! It was almost like a late Christmas or an early birthday for him with all of the stops that the Easter Bunny made for him. His Easter celebration began a few days early by receiving his very first Easter basket from his best bud Evan's parents! It was then that he realized that he was going to love this holiday! Next, Aunt Kristin and I took Grant to Southridge Mall to sit on the Easter bunny's lap. He loved the Easter bunny so much that he kept wanting to play with him. (Is the Easter bunny a "him"?) His Easter celebration continued with his Aunt Mandy receiving her confirmation at the Easter Vigil held at St. Louis church (that Grant couldn't handle due to more teeth coming through). She and Uncle Josh got Grant a super cute Easter basket with his name personalized on it and lots of goodies on the inside, too! Then, Easter morning Grant had to look for his basket from the Easter Bunny himself and he found it right away! (I should note that it was just sitting on his favorite chair, but hey...we couldn't make it too hard for an 11 month old!) After searching for his basket, we dyed a dozen Easter eggs together as a family. Grant got pretty bored almost immediately...so he went to play with daddy while I finished up. We then went to Grandma and Grandpa Gestl's house at 11:00, and Great Grandma and Grandpa Hahn's house at 4:00. He loves getting together with family, and he loves it even more when he gets Easter baskets from everyone!

Eleven months old

2009-03-26T12:03:00.000-07:00

What an exciting month we had! As you can see from previous posts, Grant has decided that after 10 months, he is ready walk. It has been very fun helping him along this process…as it has also been very fun finally baby-proofing our entire house. It’s amazing the things that he can get into! We have now put up a gate to block off the living room from the rest of the house because we just had to face it…the ottoman was not going to work forever. Now we can also keep Oscar away from Grant when needed.

Speaking of Oscar, this month was not filled with all “good” excitement. Oscar started to “act up” while Matt and I were away and he actually bit Grant. Grant was fine…just a little marking on his forehead and under his eye, but it was one too many bites in our eyes. We now have a joint custody arrangement with Grandma & Grandpa Gestl. They have Oscar during the week when we are away at work, and we take him on the weekends when we are home. Oscar is absolutely fine with Grant when Matt and I are around, so this arrangement has been working out great for us so far.

Besides having strep throat this month, Grant also experienced his first cold (yes, at the same time as having strep). Poor guy had a runny nose for almost an entire week! However, his first cold was remedied fairly quickly with lots of kleenex and cuddling.

Finally some good news from this month was that another one of Grant’s friends was born! Katie and Eric welcomed little Owen Patrick Freimark into this world on March 11th. He weighed 10 lbs. 4 oz. and was 21 inches long. Grant went to visit him twice already, and I can see a very good friendship brewing.

Also this month, Grant celebrated his Godmother’s birthday. Mandy turned 26 years old and we spent the night eating wings and playing Wii (while Grant watched us and laughed). Sam also came over this month to spend the night with us and Grant. Grant loves to play with Sam, and we even went to the zoo because the weather was so wonderful outside! Grant spent his 11 month birthday at his girlfriend, McKayla’s, 1st birthday party at the Racine Yacht Club. He even ate half of a cupcake!

The Luck of the Irish...

2009-03-20T07:16:00.000-07:00

...was not with Grant for his first St. Patrick’s Day! The night before, Grant probably slept a total of 4 hours. This is extremely unlike him because ever since he was 8 weeks old, Grant has slept through the night almost every single night. On this particular night, we knew something was wrong because he was screaming bloody murder! What was also fan-flippin-tastic is that he could only be consoled by his “mamama”. This melted my heart at first, but after rocking him for hours on end…I would have loved to be able to tap out for a little bit so I could get some sleep. However, going on only a few hours of non-consecutive sleep, I went into work the next morning and Matt woke up with Grant at home. He said that Grant was as happy as ever in the morning and that nothing seemed to be wrong with him at all! I still wanted him to get checked out by his doctor, though, so Matt took him in at 10:30 that morning. She checked his ears twice and said that they looked fine. Then, even though he didn’t have any symptoms of strep except a slightly reddened throat, his doctor thought she would test for it anyways…and sure enough…it came back positive! I have no idea how he would catch such a thing, but if this is what Grant is like when he has strep throat, I am absolutely convinced that God has blessed me with an angel disguised as my baby.

Watch out World!

2009-03-20T06:56:00.001-07:00

We have a walker coming through! As you can see from my previous posts, Grant has been pulling himself up and walking along the furniture for quite some time now. I was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to round up enough courage to step away from the stationary objects. Well, at the end of February he started to let go of the furniture just long enough to stand for a few seconds and then fall onto his diaper padded behind. Then, on March 10th we finally saw him take a few steps all on his own! Matt and I quickly grabbed him and had him walk back and fourth in between us as we stood a few feet away from each other. He loved it, and now he walks all the way across the entire length of the living room!

Jamaican Me Crazy!

2009-03-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it. Matt and I were jointly away from Grant for the first time since he was conceived, and I think we did fairly well with it (or at least Matt did). On March 1st, Matt and I along with 58 other people flew down to Jamaica to stay at the Breezes Runaway Bay Golf and Spa Resort. We had an absolutely wonderful time relaxing and hanging out with friends and family. My dad and Wendy got married on March 6th, and it was an absolutely beautiful event. I’m so happy that Matt and I were able to witness something so great, but we could not wait to get home to squeeze our little guy! We came home on March 8th to a smiling and laughing little boy. What a great welcome home!

Ten months old

2009-02-25T18:39:00.000-08:00

Well, I wish that I had more to write about this month, but I'm either really tired or not too much is new. Grant just turned ten months old, and he is on his way to some exciting things! He is on the verge of walking very soon. He likes to pull himself up onto furniture or walls and then walks alongside them with assistance. Sometimes he will pull his hands away just to show us that he can, but then he will quickly fall onto his behind. It's pretty cute. Oh, and how could I forget?!...I think his rolling days are finally done. His preferred mode of transportation is now officially the crawl. Finally!

We found out this month that Grant LOVES his cat, Shelby. Everytime she is in the room he gets extremely excited and tries to get to her as quickly as possible. We're trying to teach him how to pet "nicely", but sometimes he gets a good smack or a pull of the tail in there. I think she's starting to warm up to him a little better, though.

Also this month, Mandy, Joe and I took Grant to the zoo on a beautiful Saturday morning, and I think he really enjoyed it! I can't wait to take him there this summer. Hopefully he will be walking by then! Haha...

He also attended Great Grandpa Hahn's birthday dinner and Cousin Sam's birthday party this month. He had lots of fun at both, and I always have fun watching him have fun! : )

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-25T18:33:00.000-08:00

Grant celebrated his very first Valentine's Day and he was a true gentelman! He stayed sleeping just long enough for Matt to make me crepes for breakfast (my absolute favorite!). Then, he woke up and spent the day playing with me. He even bought me a beautiful card and even more beautiful roses! I love my little man. Later in the day we went to the Lindner's house to play Wii all night long and found out that Grant loves golf! What a great, low key day with the one's that I love.

How lucky am I?

2009-02-18T18:10:00.000-08:00

This is what I get to wake up every morning to.

: )

Nine months old

2009-01-25T16:43:00.000-08:00

Grant just turned 9 months old, and this was his busiest month so far! It was filled with lots of ups and downs, but it was overall a great month. : ) Grant's 9 month doctor's appointment went great! He is now 21 lbs. 11.5 oz. and 30.5 in. long. His weight sets him in the 75th percentile, but his height puts him in the upper 97th percentile! I think he may be a tall one! With his daddy standing tall at 6'4", I can't say that I'm surprised. This doctor's visit also entailed some blood work in which Grant just looked at the nurse and smiled. Matt and I were both cracking up. However, he wasn't smiling when he was receiving his shots! He only cried for about a minute, though, and then he was back to his smiley self.

On December 23rd Grant received his very first hair cut! My good friend, Katie Peppey, does my hair as well and she cut Grant's hair in the middle of my dye job. He did such a great job sitting still. All we had to do was plop him on my lap and let him lick a sucker! It was funny. Then, Grant survived all of the Christmas festivities that consumed the entire next week, and it was already the end of 2008! We are officially no longer in the year that Grant was born (tear). Every year Matt and I go to the Lindner's house to celebrate New Year's Eve, and this year they opened their party to Grant, too! Grant was having a great time, however, we decided to drop him off at Grandma and Grandpa Gestl's house before bed time so mommy and daddy could party. : )

Later in the month Grant attended Katie Peppey's baby shower, and he had a blast hanging out with Eric.

Matt and I are so intrigued by Grant's milestones that he's reaching! He waves hi and bye to anyone and everyone everytime they are either coming or going. Sometimes it looks as if he is waving to himself, but most of the time his hand is turned the correct way. : ) Grant also is finally splitting his rolling time at least half way with crawling time. I still think rolling is his preferred mode of transportation, but he at least crawls some of the time. He also walks along the furniture pretty well now, and loves walking with his walker. The rest of Grant's month was spent trying to cut a tooth. That's where the "downs" of this month enter. Overall, Grant did really well (considering the circumstances), but holy cow did we feel bad for him!

Teeth!

2009-01-25T07:38:00.000-08:00

Well, it finally happened. On January 16th, Grant's first tooth popped through! It was actually his top left one that decided to make the first debut. My first thought was "finally", however, it was FAR from being over at that point. The other front top one was following right behind along with BOTH bottom teeth and BOTH top incisors! My poor guy!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-17T09:53:00.000-08:00

As I celebrated the end of 2008...I took a step back and realized that 2008 was the best year of my entire life so far. Here is why...

My 2008 in review...

Kissed Matt on New Year’s Eve and partied with a few of our best friends in our pjs.
Gave birth to a perfect son and realized a whole new kind of unconditional love.
Celebrated my first Mother’s Day as a mother.
Voted in my third presidential election.
Celebrated my third wedding anniversary by falling in love all over again.
Was asked (with Matt) to be Godparents for a beautiful baby boy.
Stood up as a matron of honor twice in my two best friend’s weddings.
Found joy in laying on the living room floor with my family.
Spent a week relaxing in the Jamaican sun.
Celebrated my Grandparent’s 50th Wedding Anniversary.
Took nearly a million pictures of a smiling baby boy.
Had my oldest friend come visit from California.
Celebrated my Grandma’s 70th Birthday.
Sweat my butt off at a Brewer’s game with Matt and his parents and then witnessed them making the playoffs for the first time since ’82.
Watched as Aaron Rodgers became the Packer’s starting quarterback for the first time.

I should have known...

2009-01-05T17:10:00.000-08:00

...it was too good to be true. Literally two days after Grant turned 8 months old (and I was able to report that his first word was "mama" on his 8 month birthday blog), he started to say "dada". Now at first I was extremely happy because I know how it absolutely melted Matt's heart, however, Grant hasn't stopped saying it ever since! He says "dada" right when he wakes up, "dada" when he goes to bed and "dada" at every stop throughout the day. Boys!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-28T20:41:00.000-08:00

Grant survived his very first Christmas! It was a busy one, but it was my favorite one so far! It began on Christmas Eve. Aunt Mandy and Uncle Josh stopped over and we then went to Great Aunt Michelle and Uncle Bobby's house for the Woyak celebration. Unfortunately, we could only stay for 2 hours and then we went to Great Grandma and Grandpa Hahn's house for the remainder of the night. Grant got to open up lots of presents, and he loved them all! He ended up falling asleep and we had to wake him up to bring him home on time for Santa to visit! We woke up Christmas morning and had breakfast with Grandma Jenny. Grant then opened up even more presents, and we were off to Grandma and Grandpa Gestl's house! Grandma Gestl made a wonderful meal, and Grant enjoyed some baby applesauce. Then, Grant opened up even more presents and we were off to our next stop! Next, we went to Great Aunt Diane and Uncle Tom's house for dinner and then on to the Lindner's house! Aunt Mandy and Uncle Josh bought Grant lots of great presents along with everyone else in Grant's life! His favorites were all the toys that made lots of wonderful noices! However, the festivities did not stop there...

Saturday night we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa Gestl's house for another celebration, and we celebrated with Grandpa P, Grandma Wendy, Aunt Rachel and Uncle Randy on Sunday afternoon. Grant was then completely done opening up his presents this Christmas! Grandpa P and Grandma Wendy bought him a talking Elmo which stole the show! Grant absolutely loved it!

Even though there was a lot of mention regarding presents in this Christmas posting, I want to take this time to thank God for everything that I have and to not forget the true meaning for this season. He has blessed me with such an incredible life. I feel so wonderful that we had so many family and friends to celebrate this season with, and I love you all.

Eight months old

2008-12-23T18:26:00.001-08:00

Our little Munch is already 8 months old! He had a very busy month, too! We celebrated Grant's very first Thanksgiving this month. We began the day at his Grandma & Grandpa Gestl's house for lunch, and then ended the day at his Great Grandma & Grandpa Hahn's house for dinner. We then also celebrated Thanksgiving the next day with the Petre Family. Also this month, we celebrated Great Grandma Hahn's 70th birthday, Grant attended his first Christmas party that Aunt Mandy throws every year and he attended his first Woyak Christmas cookie decorating extravaganza at Cassie & Jim's house. We even decorated a cookie with Grant's initials on it, in which he decided to bite into immediately. : )

My favorite milestone of Grant's so far happened this month!!...Grant said his first word, and it was "Mama". Well, it started off as "Mamamamama...", and now it has shortened up a bit. It is honestly music to my ears. I can listen to him ramble in those words every second of the day.

Grant is also still a little rolling machine! He hasn't crawled yet, but he has done absolutely everything else. He will get on all fours and rock. He will even move backwards. He just doesn't know how to get the transmission out of reverse. He will even see something across the room that he wants and position himself just right in order to barrel roll over to it.

Giggle Monster

2008-12-16T12:12:00.000-08:00

Family Time!

2008-12-07T12:08:00.000-08:00

JC Penny's has a special event on the last Sunday of every month, and you can bring your dog in! We had Oscar's first professional picture taken and then took advantage of the event and had our first family picture taken (minus Shelby, of course). Oscar was a natural. : )

Photo Shoot

2008-12-07T12:04:00.000-08:00

I wanted some nice pictures of Grant for Christmas time so I asked my friend, TJ, to come over and snap a few for us. Grant was ready to go down for a nap right when TJ got to our house...so I knew it was going to make for some interesting pictures. Enjoy!

Santa Claus is coming to town

2008-12-07T11:56:00.000-08:00

My best friend, Kristin, and I decided that we needed a little "retail therapy" the other day and we (with Grant in tow) hit up Brookfield Square. As we were walking through the mall we saw that there wasn't a line to get your picture taken with Santa. I rememebered hearing from friends that this is something rare and that there is normally an annoying long line...so we decided to take advantage of this and plopped Grant on the jolly old man's lap. As Grant handles most situations, he kind of just went with the flow. I thought he would at least have a reaction to the jingle bells, but he kind of just looked at them and smiled. He must have known that this jolly old man brings him presents every year and he didn't want to act up.

"Baby, it's cold outside."

2008-11-26T06:48:00.000-08:00

When we all woke up on the morning of November 24, 2008, we could not believe our eyes! There was snow covering the ground! We quickly ate breakfast, changed into our winter clothes and went outside to play. Grant’s cousin, Samantha, gave him her old blue sled and Matt and I pulled him around the backyard. We even tied the sled up to Oscar’s leash and had Oscar pull him around a little bit (until we pictured Oscar taking off after a squirrel or something and taking poor Grant and a wild goose chase)…so we unlatched them.

Seven months old

2008-11-26T06:45:00.000-08:00

Grant is 7 months old already! This month was filled with lots of fun things for Grant to do! He was very busy celebrating his Grandma Gestl, Aunt Rachel and friend, Logan’s birthdays, trick-or-treating, voting in the presidential election, swimming with Aunt Mary Kay and watching lots of Packer’s games! He even went down to Gurnee, IL to visit Aunt Rachel and Uncle Jon in their new apartment. He loves to travel.

This month also brought on his first diaper rash experience which was brought on by the wonderful teething stage. That resulted in a few days of pure hell for Matt and me, but thanks to Grandma Gestl (and triple paste)…we had some much needed help!

Michael Phelps in the making...

2008-11-26T06:44:00.001-08:00

It was a cold Monday morning, and since Matt and I both have off of work on Mondays…we decided to take Grant swimming with his Great Aunt Mary Kay at the YMCA. He absolutely loved it! He kind of just “goes with the flow” with pretty much everything that we make him do, and this was no exception. Great Aunt Mary Kay taught him how to kick in the water and he even went completely under twice! I’m signing him up for “Little Dipper” classes that start in January…so we’ll see if his excitement for the water continues! : )

Mini-Matt

2008-11-12T09:58:00.000-08:00

As it becomes increasingly apparent as Grant gets older that he looks like an identical mini-image of Matt…I sometimes find myself starring at him hoping to see a glimpse of a trait that resembles something from my side of the gene pool. Then, just as I took the above picture…it hit me like a ton of bricks. The lucky little guy inherited my wonderful “one eye closes more than the other when smiling hard” characteristic. As if that wasn’t one of the sole characteristics of mine that I always tried to ignore/pretend didn’t exist…there it is smiling right back at me! Somehow he makes it look so cute, though.

My Little Cowboy

2008-11-12T09:57:00.000-08:00

So, I was at a loss for a “cute” outfit for Grant’s six month pictures (that I get taken at JC Pennys), and I think my solution is going to cost me counseling dollars down the road. Instead of wasting time trying to put an outfit together, I just took everything off of him except his overalls and magically a little cowboy appeared. Yee haw!

Election Day

2008-11-06T06:29:00.000-08:00

Well, Grant survived his very first presidential election day. We woke up bright and early in order to walk to the polls before I had to go to work for the day. It was a beautiful morning, and everyone working at the polls fell in love with Grant. He went into the booth with me to help me vote, however, Barack Obama/Joe Biden won the election. Though I don’t believe in the same ideologies as Obama, I am very pleased that America has elected our first African American for President. He has big shoes to fill, and I hope he does a wonderful job. After all, it is my baby’s future!

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-05T11:03:00.001-08:00

Grant celebrated his very first Halloween! : ) He went trick-or-treating at our next door neighbor’s house and his grandparent’s houses. He was the cutest little pumpkin ever, and he scored lots of squash! We also took him to a Halloween party at the Lindner’s, and he had a blast in his pea pod costume. He kept trying to eat the “peas” off of his “pod”!

Six months old

2008-10-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

Happy 6 Month Birthday, Grant! Well, our Chunky Monkey isn’t the chunkiest one on the block anymore! At Grant’s 6 month check-up he weighed 19 lbs. 8 oz. which only put him in the 80th percentile this time! No more upper 97th percentile for him! He was 28 in. long which put his height in the 90th percentile, and his doctor said that everything else looked great! She was surprised by how good he sits up all by himself, and she had him cracking up in the exam room…all up until the nurse came in to give him his routine shots. He didn’t like those at all, but thankfully it was nap time immediately following and he just crashed on the car ride home.

This month was very exciting for Grant because his future BFF was born! Evan Cole Henderson was born on September 30th. Though they are both still too young to play together, I can see the beginnings of a great friendship!

Grant also went on his second road trip this month! We went and visited Great Grandma and Grandpa Woyak up north. While up there, we took him to a Pumpkin Fest and he loved playing in the leaves outside and singing in church.

Grant also really enjoyed visiting Grandpa P at work for his birthday. Who knows?...Maybe we have a little letter carrier in him!

My Wittle Weepublican

2008-10-22T10:12:00.000-07:00

Though, still too young to vote, Grant is already showing very promising signs. He has watched all the political debates and has made the very intelligent decision to throw his support behind McCain/Palin. Let’s hope they win!!

My lil Pumpkin

2008-10-13T12:05:00.000-07:00

Grant and his buddy, Oliver, went to Swan's Pumpkin Farm to pick out their pumpkins together for this fall. They were super cute, and I think they had a really great time!

Squash!

2008-10-01T06:45:00.001-07:00

So, cereal twice a day just wasn’t enough for Grant anymore. We decided to start actual baby food, and it has been a real adventure! His first feeding was the very scrumptious squash. The facial expressions that were coming from Grant were absolutely priceless while he tried to swallow the disgusting slime down. However, since eating is his favorite pastime, he changed his opinion on squash fairly quickly. He went from basically choking it down…to mad at me for doing this to him…to absolutely loving it. By the third day, Grant could down an entire jar in under 5 minutes. He’s so impressive. Hahaha…

Sit happens...

2008-10-01T06:43:00.000-07:00

My little guy is growing up so fast! He now sits up all on his own!…Well, ok…he tips over fairly often, but give me a break!...He can at least sit up for a little bit all on his own, and that is pretty much our most exciting thing to happen to us lately. : )

Five months old

2008-09-22T17:21:00.000-07:00

The love of my life turned 5 months old today, and I can't believe it. This month has been filled with tons of smiles, giggles and full blown laughter. Just days after I was busy bragging about how Grant has been sleeping completely through the night ever since he was 8 weeks old...Grant decided to start waking up a few times a night! We realized that our chunky monkey needed more food! So, I called his doctor to ask what she recommended we do, and we have now started feeding Grant 8 ounces in every bottle AND cereal twice a day! He's my growing little man. : )

He is also my rolling little man! Grant has been rolling all over the place now. He has been able to "skootch" himself off of the blanket that we laid on the ground for him, too, so we can't wait for him to start crawling! Well, actually he is probably a lot easier right now! : )

How a giggle can quickly turn shitty...

2008-09-19T15:54:00.000-07:00

Grandpa Grant

2008-09-11T05:23:00.000-07:00

Our little guy is growing up so quickly, but we can't help but call him Grandpa Grant when we see this picture. He's my little old man! : )

"People, let me tell you 'bout my best friend."

2008-08-31T08:53:00.001-07:00

Big brother, Oscar, allows Grant to pretty much do whatever he wants to him! What a great best friend!!

Four months old

2008-08-30T06:43:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th Month, Grant! Well, Grant is 4 months old now and he is officially in the upper 97th percentile for his weight and his height. Haha…he now weighs 17 pounds, 6 ounces and is 26 inches long! He’s my chunky monkey and I love every little roll on his body. : )

This month was a very fun month for Grant. While Matt and I had to work, he would go and hang out with his Great Aunt Kim! Aunt Kim played with him all day long and she even took him to school to help with her classroom before the school year begins. Grant also attended his first bachelorette party this month! I threw Mandy's bachelorette party at my house and Grandma Jenny came over to watch him…so he was passed around for a little bit until he couldn’t take it anymore and went to bed. Then, the very next weekend our friend, Nekisa, came to meet him all the way from California and took Grant to Hooters for the very first time. He even got his picture taken with one of the very pretty waitresses. : ) The weekend after that, Grant got to watch his Godparents get married! He sat in the back of the church with Grandma Jenny and quietly talked throughout the entire ceremony and then he even posed for a few pictures.

The rest of the month was spent talking, laughing and rolling over. He's such a happy baby. Matt and I are extremely blessed.

And the mess begins...

2008-08-29T06:03:00.001-07:00

In order to keep up with my Muncher, we have begun to feed him rice cereal on a spoon. This has been the most fun adventure so far! I'm pretty sure that only half of each feeding actually makes it to his belly, but he will get the hang of it soon enough. In the mean time, this calls for lots of funny pictures (like this one provided by Aunt Kim)!

Word!

2008-08-29T06:01:00.001-07:00

Grant is beginning to get a bit sassy nowadays!

*Note his finger placement. : )

My Baby Lifeguard

2008-08-29T05:57:00.000-07:00

Grant is sad that the summer is almost coming to a close. He wishes he was on Hermosa Beach with his Uncle Randy and Aunt Sherri.

State Fair 2008

2008-08-10T18:01:00.000-07:00

Well, it was the final day of the State Fair but the Gestl family finally made it out there! Along with Kristin and Matt Schaefer, we all walked around the fair looking for different things to eat. Of course a trip to the state fair is not complete without eating a cream puff, and Grant ate one for the first time! (Ok, or we just put cream on his mouth and watched him lick it off.) Regardless, it was reason for a few laughs and a super cute picture. : )

A Baptism Celebration

2008-07-30T16:57:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, July 6th Grant was baptized at 11:30 am with the help from his Godparents, Josh and Mandy. Deacon David Backes performed the celebration at Divine Mercy Church (which is the same church that I received my confirmation at!). Grant wore a super cute white satin baptismal outfit but had the baptismal gown from the Gestl family drapped over the top of him during the blessing. It was a beautiful day outside, and there were over 50 of Grant's family and friends that came to celebrate with him! Grant is so blessed to have so many wonderful people in his life, and he wants to thank everyone for all the help they gave his mom to put on such a party. Also, he absolutely loves all the gifts he received, and I love the fact that he has a college fund already started!

Three months old

2008-07-23T17:51:00.000-07:00

Grant is THREE MONTHS OLD already! I can't believe it. Well, Grant really started to get into a nice routine this past month. No lie, we were putting him down for bed around 8:00 pm and he would sleep until around 10:00 the next morning! I would actually go in and try to pretend like I was cleaning or something just so he would wake up so I could play with him! Also this month, Grant found his vocal cords and started rolling over! Now we're in for it. Stay tuned for his first word!

Three months old was not only a big milestone for Grant, but it was also a big milestone for me...I had to go back to work. : ( Though, I can't complain...I took a little over 12 weeks off to be with him! : ) However, it was still extremely hard to get back into corporate America! Matt and I are very fortunate to have Grant's Great Aunt Kim volunteer to watch him until her school year starts back up again, but I'm sure she was regretting her decision when I couldn't even make it until 10:00 am without calling her to see how Grant was doing on the first day. Hahaha...

Intense Competition

2008-07-15T19:30:00.000-07:00

Do not challenge Grant in a stare down...you will lose!
You actually won't even stand a chance. I've seen him go many minutes without a single blink!
I tried telling that to Oscar, but he had to see it for himself.
: )

Happy 4th of July!

2008-07-08T17:40:00.000-07:00

Grant celebrated his very first 4th of July, and he absolutely loved it! We took him to the Oak Creek parade first thing in the morning where we met up with a lot of Grant's friends. He was even able to wave (with help) to Grandpa P. and Grandma Wendy who were in it! We then took Grant up to the legion where Grandpa P. showed him off to his friends. It was then off to Uncle Jim and Aunt Carol's house for a pig roast, and we ended the night at Randy and Leah's house to watch the Franklin fireworks from their backyard. Grant slept for approximately 12 hours straight that night! : )