Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from our little pilgrims! We hope you have a wonderful, turkey-filled day!(pilgrim hat courtesy of Aunt Cathy!)






And an outake (poor Cole!)....

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Mia's on Santa's Nice List

Click HERE to see a special video of Santa featuring Mia. You can make one for your kiddo at the end too. Mia's napping, but I can't wait to show her when she wakes up. :)

Friday, November 21, 2008

Visit From Kristin and Ty

Kristin and Ty recently were in town from Ohio and wanted to make sure they visited the two newest babies in Bolingbrook-Cole and Aaron. Venessa was gracious enough to let us meet at her house one afternoon. It was great to see them, especially to see how big Ty has gotten recently. It's one thing to see him on the blog and another to get to see him in person. :)

Here's Tyler checking out Cole and Cole looking slightly suspicious. :)
Kristin and Cole Cole and Aaron-this picture makes me laugh! Do you like the tilted hat look on Cole?
Tummy time!
And a break-The boys are about 3 months apart
Kristin and Ty
Aaron
Cole

Swaddle-Free

I had to update quick to say that we are officially swaddle-free! At Cole's 4-month appointment we commented how we were having some issues with Cole waking up because of his pacifier falling out and him not being able to find his hands to soothe himself. The doctor said to go ahead and give it a try putting him down unswaddled. It took a couple of times for him to get used to it, but we are now swaddle-free!! Yay!!

I should also add that our big boy is going to be hitting another milestone soon-size 3 diapers. He is just so big and we are having frequent enough blow-outs that I think as soon as I can get to Babies R Us I will be picking up a case of 3's. He is crusing through those diaper sizes quick! He will be caught up to Mia before I know it. :) Actually I take that back, hopefully she will be out of diapers by then!!!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

A Visit to Mike's Clinic

We are very lucky that we have two veterinarians in our family-Cort's dad and Jen's husband Mike. Recently Jen and Mike invited our family to visit Mike's clinic, which we had never been too. They knew both Mia and I were animal lovers and would enjoy seeing it-which we did!! The clinic was very impressive, but of course the best part was getting to see the animals. The clinic takes care of puppies for a local pet store and Mike was kind enough to take some out to let us pet. Mia loved it and I wanted to stick one of the puppies in my diaper bag to bring home. :) Afterwards we headed to Oakbrook to check out the Christkindlmarket and have dinner at Corner Bakery. Thanks Jen and Mike for the invitation! We had a great time!

Mike letting Noah and Mia pet two of the puppies
This puppy SOOOO belongs in my family-look how he's looking at the camera!! :)

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Cole-4 Month Pictures

So I promised some 4-month pictures of Cole and here they are (these are all pretty similar)....

I always have grand plans for what I want to do, but reality sets in and I realize I have about 5 minutes and I better just settle with what I get. :) I will hopefully be taking some more later this week. Here is our cute guy at 4 months old...

Drool! I forgot to mention that this kicked in full-force about a month ago The serious look

Enough already!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Cole-4 Months

I cannot believe it, but our baby boy is already 4 months old! In one way, it seems unbelieveable that 4 months has already passed and in another way, it is like he has always been here with us. Crazy how that works! Anyhow, we had his 4 month check-up yesterday and everything looked good. I'll start with the stats first:

Weight-16 pounds, 6 ounces---75th%

Height-27 1/8 inches---95th%!!!!

Head-16 3/4--50%

Needless to say, it appears that Cole has his daddy's height. When the doctor walked in one of the first things she said when she saw him was "Wow! He's long, huh?" :) Everything checked out great with Cole, the only concerns we had were checking his head and neck again and his napping pattern. As far as his head and neck, everything looks great, so it looks like we have no worries with that anymore. In terms of the napping, Cole is the king of the 45-minute nap. This is not always the case, but it is pretty common that he takes many of these cat-naps throughout the day. The doctor told us that that is just the sleep pattern of some babies and we can hope for it to stretch out in the future. Let's home that time comes soon, because 45-mintues isn't the longest time when you're trying to get stuff done! :) His night sleep is better though, even though it is not consistent. We put him down between 7:30-8 and his is normally up once during the night for a feeding-often around 3ish. He then goes back to bed until around 7 or 8, which is nice because I am normally able to feed him before I go. Last night though, he slept from 8:30-6--that felt like heaven!! I would love for that to stick, but I think it was probably due to the 4 shots he had to get. :(

What is Cole doing now? Well, he is a busy little boy. He has recently discovered his hands and feet. He will stare at his hands like they are the most amazing thing in the world. When he is laying or sitting up on our lap, he will grab at his feet for long stretches of time. Cole's favorite activities include laying on his playmat and trying to catch all the dangling toys (sometimes trying to mouth them as well), and also to cuddle with his "lovey" and put it up over his face. He is a crazy kicker and just kicks away when he is playing on his mat or when he is excited. In the last couple of days he has become quite the talker and just squawks so loudly it makes us laugh. He can roll from his stomach to his back and is SOOOO close to going from his back to his front, but that darn arm keeps getting in the way. We thought he almost had it the other night with Mia, Ava, and Aidan all cheering him on, but needless to say he got stuck. :) Cole's temperment continues to be mild. He is a very content, happy little observer who very willingly gives out the smiles and laughs. He also loves to watch Mia and will follow her movement and give her lots of smiles. He likes to hang out in the Baby Bjorn, now facing outward with daddy, which is very cute. He still has very little hair and I am pretty sure his eyes are going to end up dark, unlike Mia. I am well overdue for some good pictures of him, but that is my goal for this week. Until I get one or go through my pictures and find a better one, I leave you with a not-so great snapshot of both Mia and Cole....

Don't mind the pink nose-it was from face painting at the zoo

Too Long!!

I know, I know, it has been WAY too long since I have updated. I have taken some grief from friends who shall remain nameless--Kristy, Kristin, Melissa, and Alyssa (your comment made me laugh-I promise there are currently no more Graskes on the way!) and I know I need to get back on track! I thought once Cort was home with the kids I would have lots more time, but needless to say I was wrong! Going back to work has kept me busy. My mornings are busy with work and by the time I get home I am wanting to spend time with the kiddos. Afternoon naptime is normally spent trying to take care of loose ends. By the time the kids go down at night I am normally spent and the whole routine starts again! Despite the craziness, things are going well and we have been busy doing lots of fun stuff. I will try to get back on track and start updating again soon. Check these next couple of days for lots of updates (I hope!)