jet ski!

Can you do us a favor and give us a vote? Not only did we fall of the blogging page but we also fell off the top baby blogs! Oops. 

Back to Grayson...

This child loves adventure. 

Thrives on it. Needs it! Who in their right mind though would allow a one year old to go jetskiing? Oh that would be us. Poor grayson sits on the jetski all the time playing with the handlebars making vroom noises. How could you not let him go for a ride? Take note this "ride" was simply a putzing with zero acceleration infront of the house. We will save the wave jumping for next year! I present to you- grayson's first jetski ride.

let's go back in time

We are taking a step way back in time here. I have a ton of stuff from over the summer that i never posted that i don't want to forget about. Therefore we are going backwards for the next 10 posts or so. Try not to get confused!

 

June was an awesome month. It was just starting to get warm enough for some real beach time. I was so excited with summer ahead. Nothing makes me happier then when it starts to get warm enough to wear shorts and sit in the sun. It brings me back to every single summer as a kid. The whole day was spent outside. The sun stayed out late. The biggest worry was whose house to sleepover that night. Summers don't mean quite the same thing now that i am older but they still hold that promise for excitement. This year that excitement was grayson- sharing all of those things with him. We rounded up his friends and spent a few leisurely weekdays down in wildwood.

It was an awesome time. The kids love being around one another. I personally love having other adults to talk to and keep company. We ate junk, smuggled beer onto the beach, chased around our little monsters. We walked around the boardwalk for hours. This age is nice because they are young enough to enjoy all the lights and toys but not be screaming that they want to play every game and ride every attraction.

 

 

However i did learn that life on the beach with many children is a bit challenging. Thank goodness it was smack in the middle of the week off season and not many people were around because we were quite the spectacle. We have a million things in tow (seriously- these small people require so much stuff) and a ton of wild children. At one point the umbrella took wind and ran down the beach, eventually taking out a family. Then, without any warning at all, after hours of fun and happiness, one child started to cry, then another and another. For no reason at all! Literally every child but grasyon was balling. I have never seen so much stuff packed up so fast in my life! It was a bunch of chickens running around with their heads cut off trying to clean off sand toys and change small children. Amusing for everyone else. Chaos for us!

Despite the challenges it was still a good trip. Exhausting. But good. 

beach buddies

hanging out at the beach with grayson is lots of fun, but hanging out at the beach with grayson and his best buddy is even more fun! it took an army to get all of the stuff these two small people needed to the beach but it kept us prepared for an entire day at the beach without any meltdowns. 

these two had an absolute ball and i loved the company. 

notice how it's the dads are hanging out with the babies? that's because the moms were sitting and relaxing in the sun for once! how nice. 

they love each other, but sometimes sharing can be an issue. notice the face grayson gives her when she tried to take his shovel. they will learn. 

i love all these photos! next time though i will bring the good camera, there is only so much you can do with a cell phone. we are hoping for lots more days like this. i have learned that a wagon and beach umbrella are a girls' best friend at the beach. (and that babies can eat a ridiculous amount of sand)

sunset walks along the beach

before g the dogs got lots of trips to the beach. they love it. it's the one place they can run wild and be totally free. we usually take them a couple times in the spring but there just hasn't been the opportunity yet. monday night though we figured most of the beachgoers would be long gone and it would be the perfect time to take them for a nice long run before heading home. 

it's good to be back.

hey mind giving us a vote? we sure would love that. 

a preview of things to come

we spent the long weekend baking in the sun and swimming in the ocean down the shore. it was pretty much perfect. the weather could not have been better and the company was just as great. 

i took a million pictures, lounged around, and got a glorious tan. i think this was a little preview of the summer to come. 

grayson met the ocean

and loved it!

seriously. i do not think there is another child out there who loves the water more. it's all he wanted. more more more. waves would take him down and he would pop right back up and demand another round. i think in his eyes it was the best day of his life!

that is his best bud Landyn. they are exactly a week apart and total opposites. i think his energy exhausts her but they totally enjoy each others company. 

they had a fabulous day at the beach. i am quite certain their diapers will be loaded with sand for the next week though. more went into their mouths then into their buckets. 

the weekend was truly one of the best. i enjoy watching grayson have so much fun exploring the world. the beach was always one of my favorite places growing up, the memories i have there are endless. i can't wait to share all of that with him as the summers go on. 

me. stone harbor, nj. circa 1986?

off track

I've been pretty terrible about updating recently. Grayson is getting into everything, one second I am cleaning up a mess he just made and two seconds later he is already into something else. He is all over the place, he fell and hit his head twice last week- both falls were under my watch! I am pretty sure I cried about it way more then he did. 

I feel like I need two days squished into one. I cannot get a single thing done when he is around, we literally just sit on the floor and play all day. Errands have become almost impossible, he won't sit nicely anymore. Don't get me wrong, I love spending my days with him. I am just so spent and he keeps getting up 10 minutes earlier each day. So my days have been starting super early, and with a child who does not take naps that makes for one seriously sleep deprived mother.

I put him to bed at 8, then I spend the next two hours making/having dinner, cleaning up, getting ready for the next day. THEN my day can start. I have a million projects going on right now and it's all kind of starting to take a toll. I am exhausted, sobbingly cannot control myself, exhausted.

This week we decided to join my parents down the shore for a couple days, kind of a break. I realized how stressful this summer is going to be though. I need to be by his side at all times in that house, there are way too many stairs (that cannot be blocked off), and pointy things, and glass things, and rocks. There is not one safe spot in that house where i can just plop him. Regardless of the constant hawk eye i had to keep on him it was nice to be there. I didn't have all my housework looming over me, I had some help during the day with Grayson. I felt like I was able to catch my breath for a moment.

The weather was nice enough for a late afternoon trip to the beach. We took Grayson to the beach once last summer but he was too little to really get what was going on. This time though he got it. And loved it! The child who at home looses his cool if he is more then a foot away from me took off down the beach and didn't look back. He picked up every shell along the way and inspected it. He also ate lots and lots of sand, despite my efforts to keep it out of his mouth.

Of course I did not bring either of my good cameras but I did have my phone! They are not the prettiest photos but they capture how much he loved it, and that's pretty much all that matters anyway.

 

 

It's going to be a good summer.

beach baby!

grayson's first trip on the beach