Grady's Lego Party

We celebrated Grady's birthday last weekend with a Lego-themed party.  Because we took him to Massachusetts for his birthday as well, we needed to keep it on the smaller side, but it was still a great time!

The cake, made by Mama.  The Legos were chocolate!

The Lego men heads were chocolate-covered marshmallows

Lego cookies

The treats table, complete with Lego juice boxes :)

We played a few games, like this one where you needed to move the Legos as fast as you could by sucking them up with a straw

We had a few building challenges too

After playing for a while and eating treats, Grady opened gifts

Here Grady is with two friends who go to our church and the same school - Maddie and Alex

Here is a link to the video of everyone singing to him!

http://youtu.be/1BjgNN2Z4uc

Happy Birthday Grady!

It is amazing that Grady is SEVEN today!  What a fun age to be turning, and I have a feeling it will be a great year for him.  He has just been doing so well lately!  He loves school, has many friends, and has teachers who are consistently happy with and impressed by him.  He seems to have really gotten on an athletic streak lately too.  He had an incredible soccer season, a great first running race, and now is about to start basketball!  He is also really enjoying his bike and riding a lot.  Grady is excelling at guitar as well and has several opportunities to perform.  He seems to love it and really enjoys practicing.  His guitar teacher always tells us what a great job he is doing.  His other loves right now are reading (he can read ANYthing, and his teachers have determined that he reads at a 9th-10th grade level), Legos (he is getting so good at putting together even complex sets), history, geography, and crafts of all sorts.  He just built a beautiful birdhouse with only a little help from his dad, and he plans to make his own soaps as gifts this Christmas season.  He is just such a fun, interesting, kind, and sweet boy.  We feel SO lucky and blessed to be his parents.  Thank you for being the you that you are, Grady!

Here he is on our recent trip to Massachusetts!  We took him, at his request, as his birthday trip.

With Boston behind him...

At the Museum of Science, which was great!  He could have stayed forever!

He was mesmerized by this machine

At the electricity show

We went to Plymouth Plantation too.  He really enjoyed it and learned a lot.  It was a perfect time to visit - right before Thanksgiving!

At the Native American Gathering Circle

In one of the Native American boats.  They were making one while we were there too!

Trying out grinding corn

With Nana and Papa

In the Colonists' village

Then we saw Plymouth Rock

And the Mayflower!  It was Grady's favorite!

This reenactor was pretty great

Mama and G on the Mayflower

With Grampy Bruce, before getting a ride in his cool classic car

At the art museum, for family day

He knit a scarf for baby penguin!

We also looked at a lot of great art and listened to live music

It was a great birthday trip and a fun visit!  We also had a really fun Lego birthday party for Grady this past weekend.  Pictures of that coming next!

Super Grady

Grady has been doing great at so many things lately - soccer, school, running, guitar.  I think he deserves a little post showing off some of his achievements...

Here he is at the "character museum" at school.  They had to pick a favorite literary character, write a bit about them, help design a costume, and then write something they would say on a notecard.  The day of the museum they stood around the room with a button on them.  When someone pushed the button they would act like their character and say their line.  Grady recently read the Wizard of Oz with me, so he picked the scarecrow.

With his friend, who happened to be Dorothy

Camille enjoyed it very much!  She particularly enjoyed Skippjon Jones

The next day Grady ran his first race ever!  I ran with him for the one mile run, and he beat me across the finish line, running it in 7:30!  An amazing time for such a little guy!  He loved it!

He is so ready!

After the race

That week he also got to show off his guitar skills.  His guitar teacher has been so impressed with him that he set up a time when he could play for the younger kids.  Apparently he did great!  He will also be playing for the church this weekend (as part of the Noah's Ark play, in which he and Anson have parts).

We are so proud of all of your achievements Grady!

Halloween Festivities

The Halloween fun began the weekend before Halloween, with the neighborhood costume parade and party.  Here are the kids, all dressed up and ready to go

Heading over

Grady was really into his character and won the costume contest!

Here he is at the judging

There was also a little hayride

We also made and decorated Halloween cookies that day

And we decorated the pumpkins we picked.  I like to do glitter pumpkins with the kids, so they can actually do it themselves.  Then we carve a few too.

Grady's came out beautiful!

Scooping out the goop

Camille also got dressed up to go to baby story time that week!

Finally, it was Halloween!  Nana flew in that day and helped us celebrate (and wrangle the super excited children).  We had a special spooky dinner and then got ready for trick or treating!

Then Grady needed to be oiled before we headed out (told you he was into his character)

We saw lots of friends!

Most of the kids on our street

Camille bumped into a much bigger version of herself!

Grady ended up breaking off and zooming around the neighborhood with Drew and Nana while I headed home with the tired little ones (hitting a few more houses on the way).  Then they all helped give out candy for a while longer before heading to bed.

It was a very successful Halloween!