Grayson LOVES...

You know how there's Cookie Monster on Seseame Street? Well Grayson is Blueberry Monster!!

One of Grayson's favorie activities is cooking with Mama. Here he is helping me make banana bread... I know raw eggs, but I ate TONS of dough when I was little and I was FINE!

Lake Powell!

Here we are at some Anasazi ruins. I decided to run around in my underwear to feel more native ;) It was pretty cool, there were some pictographs on the wall from like 1210AD. There were 4 warrior like stick figure men and one of them had a little something between his legs. Sure enough as soon as Jake saw it he said "Hey dad look that one has a weener!" He must have been the tribe leader. Men and their complex about their 'business' dates back quite a long time!

You guessed it, here Grayson is driving the boat... his new favorite past-time! He would get on Papa's lap and put his hands on the wheel and push Papa's hands off. He only liked to turn right- so that became a problem when we started going around and around in circles- but then Papa tried to correct the problem and Grayson got really mad. We learned pretty quick that if we were going to have a happy trip we would have to learn how to say 'No' to the cute little guy!Lovely face shot of the brotha and me. We dont look so much alike anymore since I died my hair some weird color!

Jake was tube surfing and I was trying to keep Grayson from falling off! Whenever we played on the tube when the boat was stopped Grayson would go to the side and lean over face first and fall in. He did it a few times and never seemed to learn. Oh, speaking of his face in the water... thats a problem I'm not quite sure how to correct. He drinks the bath water (no big deal the soap is really mild) oh but wait he drinks the pool water (chlorene supposedly gives kids diareaha but he hasnt gotten that yet) but the worst is he sticks his face in LAKE POWELL and drinks that water! I'm pretty sure LP is the nastiest germ infested poop infested dead body infested place in the Western United States! So I really hope he doesnt get some kind of stomach infection. But seriously how do you teach a 16 month old what water is okay to drink? It's all the same to him!



It was a fun little family trip, we were just missing Natalie P from the original Kessler clan. At nights it was almost like Lake Shasta when we were kids but with a crying baby and no foot massages! Grayson had a hard time sleeping the first night, did a little better the second night, then the third night (our last night) he seemed well adjusted-just in time for us to leave! Beautiful right?!? And yes its true Dan doesnt really like LP that much but he wasnt on the trip because he was busy with work. I would have made him go otherwise :)

Summertime is here!

'Look Mom, I have 4 arms!" We went up the canyon with some friends in the ward and had a nice time despite little Silvester conking his head 4 times on the concrete with 4 large goose eggs to show for it (4 seems to be the lucky number) then after all the head trauma, Grayson decided to follow Silvester around the camp site and try to pinch his face off. So we strapped Grayson in the stroller and had a few peaceful moments of conversation before it was time to go. Hope we can go up again soon, its nice to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city. I'm so glad we live close to the mountains! Fathers Day: Well I am so grateful for my father and am so grateful for Grayson's wonderful father. I am lucky to have them both in my life! Below are pics of Grayson and "Dada" at the park and then one of Grayson and "Papa" driving the "bumf bumf" home from the park.

Here is Abby my Cling-on niece. She is the fattest little baby. I dont know weather to take a bite out of that marshmellowy chub or stick her behind my neck and use her as a pillow! Either way she's a cute little thing.

Family Photo

Good thing we dont look like Easter eggs!

16 month stats/Truck obsession

We finally have health insurance so I took Grayson to the doc for a check-up.
23.7 lbs=30 percentile
33.46 inches tall=95 percentile
18.8 inch head=60 percentile
So this pretty much tells me he's got Dan's build :)
This picture is when we went to Army family day/BBQ...The look on Grayson's face says it all. Anytime he sees or hears a truck or pretty much anything that has wheels on it he FREAKS out. He makes the 'O face' and then says 'bumf bumf bumf' (diesel truck noise), points and insists on going to it. Whenever we go to Papa's house he HAS to go outside and 'drive' the truck. He could sit in the truck for an hour and be the happiest kid on earth.

Four's a crowd!

When Dan and I bought Koko he said he wanted her to be able to sleep at the foot of our bed once she was potty trained. Well I thought it would bug me and held my ground for a few months. Now she sleeps at the foot of our bed every night and yes, it bugs me sometimes, but I get over it. So a couple of days ago I decided that its time to train Grayson to learn to sleep in a normal bed(we dont have one so I took down one side of his crib and bought a little guard to keep him from rolling out while sleeping). The first night I was full of patience and love and it only took me about an hour-which included climbing into his crib and telling him stories till he fell asleep. He slept through the night EUREKA I had a breakthrough! Then came the next day of naptime and me teaching him how to climb in and out of the crib. Well lets just say he picked that up pretty dang quick. That night I was asleep in my bed when a little boy walked into my room and said "Mama" in a sad sleepy little voice. So I picked him up, took him back to his crib, layed him down and said good night Grayson! Five minutes later...little boy in my room... pretty much like a wash cycle, wash, rinse and repeat. Pick up, take to crib... Five minutes later pick up, take to crib etc for about half hour. So then he started getting sad and crying and I was just so tired myself I decided to see if he would snuggle me in my bed (most of you know I'm quite the snuggler so you can imagine how much I would love that). So our bed was packed with four warm bodies and I was trapped on the edge of my bed. Well it lasted about 20 minutes then I moved. And Grayson FREAKED out! Not as much as this round blonde curly haired kid in my ward, but nonetheless a good freakout for Grayson. So after a while of feeling like he was a newborn again-rocking him, patting his butt and quietly setting him down only to have him wake up again. I finally got him to sleep. Oh then at 4am he woke up screaming bloody murder because he pooped and had pretty bad diaper rash. The next morning "bags" under my eyes were an understatement. Then last night I used up my patience and love in a time span of 2 hours trying to get him to go to sleep. That might be normal for some kids, but I usually just put him in his crib and he's asleep after about 15 minutes. I was at the end of my rope and came out of the bedroom (for the sixth time) thinking I had succeeded and I said, Dan if he comes out here one more time I'm putting the crib back up. Well turns out he did, so pretty much we're postponing the "normal bed training" for now.