Merry Christmas!

We began our Christmas celebration the Sunday before Christmas with dinner and presents at Pop & Chaz's house. Griffin got his own digital camera and a Lightning McQueen TV/DVD player (or, as Griffin says, a "T-teev").
On Christmas Eve, we went to church with my family and then had dinner with Pop & Chaz, Bebe, Lacy & Max, and Richard, Karen, Meredith, & Alex. Griffin got lots of presents including a bunch of movies that he can watch on his Lightning McQueen TV, a Lightning McQueen suitcase, pillow, and blankie that he can take with him when he spends the night away, and a Lightning McQueen dinner set.
On Christmas morning, Griffin went downstairs to find his presents from Santa. He had a stocking full of fun stuff and some new Thomas trains and tracks. Weezy came over with more presents including remote-controlled Lightning McQueen and Mater, a magnetic fishing rod set, and a little pair of cowboy boots!

Mimi, Papaw Al, Aunt Holly, Uncle Jason, Harper, and Aunt Heidi came over for brunch a little while later. After brunch, we all went to Mimi and Papaw Al's house for even more presents. Griffin got more Lightning McQueen stuff, some Thomas books and stickers, cute clothes, and all sorts of fun little boy things!
It was about 2:30--well into Griffin's nap time--when we got home,but he just wouldn't stop and settle down. He just wanted to keep playing with all of his new things. Since he wouldn't take a nap, we made our last stop of the day at Mamere and Grandad's late that afternoon. We didn't make it over there with the camera so, unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Griffin with his great-grandparents.

When we got back home, Griffin opened his presents from us. He was most excited about the box full of Thomas track and trains. With all of the festivities and unwrapping behind us, he finally got to just enjoy being home and playing with all of his fun new toys.

Visiting Santa

We made a couple of visits to see Santa this year. We were invited to a Cookies with Santa party on December 14th at Ms. Sherri's house. I wasn't sure how Griffin would react to Santa this year. We had been warned last year that a lot of toddlers don't do well. Last year, he didn't cry but he was very hesistant about sitting on Santa's lap. At the party this year, he walked right up to Santa and then turned his back to him so that Santa could lift him up on his lap. When Santa asked him how old he was, he said "two," then he paused for a second and added, "two and a half." When Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas he said Lightning McQueen and Thomas.
Ms. Sherri had lots of toys set out for the kids to play with and even had a bounce house outside. And of course there were cookies since it was a Cookies with Santa party. It was such a cute, fun event for the kids!

On December 18th, we went to the same little portrait studio that we have used the last couple of years to get more pictures with Santa. Once again, Griffin went right up to Santa and let him lift him onto his lap. And when asked what he wanted for Christmas, Griffin's responses were the same (good thing!).

What a big boy!

Griffin turned 2 1/2 on December 9th. It's amazing how much he has changed in the last 6 months, and he's so proud to be doing so much all by himself these days.

The night before Thanksgiving, we converted Griffin's crib into a "big boy bed." It's really like a little daybed, and he was very excited about being able to get in and out of his bed all by himself. Of course, he got out a lot of times when he didn't mean to. In the first few days, between 3 nights and 2 naps he only managed to stay out of the floor one time. The good news is that rolling out of his bed and onto the pallette (and sometimes even off the pallette and onto the rug or hardwood floor) didn't seem to really interrupt his sleep! And he very rarely rolls out of bed these days, but that is at least partly due to the fact that I have made a barrier with a rolled up sheet and stuffed animals along the length of the bed.

We're also making a lot of progress with potty training. We've been letting Griffin take the lead so far, but we're trying to get more serious about it now (although he's still ahead of my expectations since I'd always heard that boys are harder to train). He wears Lightning McQueen Pull-ups to school every day. We have bought Lightning McQueen, Mickey Mouse, and some other underwear, but we aren't quite ready for that yet. Here he is showing off his "big boy pull-up."

Here he is a couple of months ago modeling his "big boy underwear" over his diaper!

And yes, he's a huge Lightning McQueen and Cars fan! Anytime we talk about him growing up, he asks, "I'm growing up? I'll be bigger than Lightning McQueen?" And he really is growing up--he's about 35.5 inches tall now.

Football Fan

Last year, we took Griffin to one football tailgate, and then he and I went home and Daddy went to the game. This year, we decided he was ready to go to his first UT game. Matt and the teachers at his school have already done a pretty good job on him--every time he sees anything with a Power T on it he says "Tennessee!" and he knows the chorus to Rocky Top. So when we told him that he was going to get to go to the game with us, he was very excited and talked about it for days.

We decked him out in his Tennessee clothes and headed up to campus. He's usually a little chatter box, but he barely said a word on the walk from our parking spot to Aunt Holly and Uncle Jason's tailgate spot. I think he was just taking it all in.

A man we passed on the walk over had given him a little plastic football. As soon as he got out of his stroller at the tailgate, he started running circles around us and kept spiking his football on the ground.

He was having so much fun tailgating that he really didn't want to leave to go into the stadium. But once we were inside, he was enthralled with all of the action...and the fact that he could go up and down the couple of steps right next to my seat. He clapped along with the crowd and gave Daddy high fives every time the Vols scored.
But to my fellow Georgia fans, don't worry--I haven't let Matt completely brainwash him. At one point during the game, I said to Griffin "Go Vols!" and he responded, "Sic 'em! Woof, woof!"

We knew he wouldn't make it through the whole game, especially since it didn't start until 7pm. But it wasn't until a few minutes were left in the half that he started wearing down and asking about going home. He also asked to watch something (meaning something other than football) on the TVs that are mounted above our seats. Too cute!

Happy Halloween!

We managed to stretch the Halloween celebrations out for more than 2 weeks! We started with Boo at the Zoo on October 16th. Griffin dressed up like a tiger that night, and it took him no time at all to get the hang of holding his treat bag up at all of the treat stations set up along the walkway so someone could stick a treat inside.
On October 30th, Matt took Griffin to the Halloween party at The Little Gym. After the party, they went to Pop & Chaz's to Trick-or-Treat a little early. Griffin was dressed up like a fireman, and he completed the look with his little battery-powered fire truck. My little sister graduated from college in Orlando that morning so I hadn't made it home yet.
I flew home on Halloween morning. I left it up to Griffin to decide what he wanted to be on Halloween night and he chose the giraffe costume. Unfortunately (in my opinion at least), UT had a home game that night so Matt was at the game. Since it was also a drizzly night, I decided to take Griffin to the mall for some indoor Trick-or-Treating. He had fun seeing all of the other kids dressed up and filling up his treat bag.
After we had a treat bag full of candy, we went to Weezy's house to visit with her and her friend Connie.
Since Mimi and Papaw Al hadn't made it back from Orlando by Halloween, Griffin dressed up as a fireman one more time on Nov. 1st.

Weekend Getaway

We decided to make one last trip before summer ends (and ours is about to end since I start student teaching this coming Monday). We had a wonderful weekend in Gatlinburg and the surrounding area.

We went up Friday afternoon, checked into our hotel, walked all around Gatlinburg, and then grabbed some dinner. After dinner, we went to the Smoky Mountain National Park visitor's center and did a little hike to a waterfall behind the visitor's center. Griffin walked almost all of it by himself and he loved walking on the railroad ties like they were balance beams. (Unfortunately, we didn't get the camera out of the car before we set off on our hike...so no pictures of this one.)

On Saturday, we started the day with a hike at Laurel Falls. This is a relatively short, easy hike and it is paved the whole way so we were able to take the stroller. This isn't usually a very impressive waterfall, but we had a lot of rain Thursday and Friday so it turned out to be great timing on our part. In fact, the waterfall was so loud that it scared Griffin when we got too close.


After our hike, Matt wanted to drive over to Cherokee, NC for lunch (about 30 miles from Gatlinburg). After lunch, we decided to do another hike and stopped at the visitor's center on that side of the park to find out what trails would be options for a 2-year old. The ranger gave us 2 options and we chose Deep Creek trail in Bryson City, NC. We were driving through downtown Bryson City in search of the turn-off to Deep Creek when I noticed some cute Thomas the Train shirts hanging outside a little shop. I told Matt that we would have to stop there on the way back. We passed another store and a little train depot...and then all of a sudden I saw a BIG Thomas engine on the train tracks! We found a place to park and got out to go see Thomas and take some pictures. Then we found out that it was a whole event called "A Day Out with Thomas." We bagged the second hike and bought tickets for the next train ride.

After the train ride, we visited the other attractions that were part of the event--the train tables, Thomas made entirely out of Legos, the bounce train...and the sno-cone vendor at the storytelling tent.

I was planning to buy Griffin a Thomas shirt anyway, but he ended up having to wear it home because he was soaking wet from spilling his sno-cone on himself. We also couldn't resist buying him a couple of new trains for his Thomas train set at home. Here he is wearing his new shirt and proudly showing off his new trains.

There was also a Lionel electric train museum (a permanent fixture in Bryson City) that we were able to tour as part of the event. Griffin was awestruck by all of the trains lining the walls in the display cases and by the HUGE train set that took up an entire room.

This was such a fun afternoon...especially since we had no idea what was going on until we just happened to run right into it! After all of that excitement, we headed back to Gatlinburg for dinner and a round of putt-putt.

We finished our action-packed weekend with a visit to the Ripley's Aquarium. Matt and I had been once before when it first opened, but this was Griffin's first visit. It is a great aquarium--definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. The best part is the long tunnel that goes through the tank so that the fish and sharks are swimming right over your head.

Family Fun

A bunch of Griffin's cousins were in town from Nashville and Port St. Lucie, FL this weekend. We all got together at Aunt Patricia and Uncle Ralph's house for a fun afternoon. Patricia and Ralph had a big blow-up water slide set up in their backyard. Griffin couldn't climb up all by himself and I couldn' lift him all the way to the top, so I kept hoisting him up as high as I could and letting him slide down. He loved it! He went down on his bottom, on his tummy with his feet first, and even on his tummy head-first.

In a family with so many girls, the boys have to stick together! Chance wanted to play with Griffin just as much as Griffin wanted to try to keep up with Chance. Griffin had a blast and kept asking me the whole way home, "Where are cousins?" and "What cousins doing?" He was so worn out from playing that he didn't get up until 8:15 this morning (about an hour later than usual)!

Slumber Party!

Aunt Holly, Uncle Jason and Harper were in between houses for a little while after their old house sold and they hadn't yet closed on their new house. That presented the perfect opportunity for Griffin's first "slumber party."

Aunt Holly read them bedtime stories and they were really enjoying their slumber party until it came to the actual "slumber" part. Harper was in bed almost asleep, but I had to read and sing to Griffin a little bit longer to get him to settle down. That disturbed Harper, so by the time I got Griffin in bed Harper was tossing, turning, and grunting which, in turn, disturbed Griffin. It took quite a while to finally get them both to sleep...and it confirmed that I would not know what to do if I ever had twins!

The best thing about a slumber party? Your friend is still there when you wake up and you can have another day of fun together! After Holly and I took the tots for a walk around the neighborhood, we all went to the playground together (Daddies, too).

Happy 4th of July!

We started the day with the trip home from Florida. Griffin and I were traveling alone since Matt had gone home in the middle of the week for work. Griffin mostly entertained himself while we waited for our flight. He kept trying to "catch" a fish on this big flat screen, and he loved pushing the stroller all over the terminal.

Matt picked us up from the airport and we went straight to the lake house to see Pop & Chaz.

This was the first time this summer that Griffin rode on the Sea-Doo. He was definitely more into it this year than last--he was even telling Daddy which way to go!