Events from the past month

I've finally figured out how to use bluetooth capability to download pictures from my phone to my computer. This will make it much easier to download pictures, which hopefully means I'll be able to update my blog a little more frequently.

I'll start by saying that Griffin turned 2 on September 10! Corey and I went back and forth about whether to throw a party for Griffin, or just have a small celebration. We decided to have a small celebration, as Griffin will have many parties as he gets older. We partly had to make the decision because it took so long to make up our minds, the date just kind of happened upon us.

He still loves trains! Because of this, I really wanted to make a train cake, but didn't want to fork out the money for something too extravagant. If you know me and baking; or cooking for that matter; my image of a train cake was to attempt to draw a picture of a train on top of sheet cake. Corey had a different idea in mind. He baked 2 sheet cakes, and then began cutting out sections, and putting them together like lego blocks.

The end result wasn't too shabby:

We used mint cookies for the wheels. I guess the cooking classes Corey took in high school paid off! Grif also got a train table, which he played with for the rest of the day.

Around this time, Griffin also learned how fun it was to climb over the back of the couch. During one of his attempts, he accidentally got wedged behind the couch pillow. It was so cute, I took some pictures.

Our zoo pass expired this past September. Since we only live about 10 minutes away from Stone Mountain Park, we decided to pay for a parking pass for this year. I found out there is a train that goes around the mountain, and the engine is from the 1930's. Since Griffin is such an avid fan of trains, we just couldn't go wrong. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of us on the train. We later went to the stone quarry, which is on the other side of the park. Corey and I learned that Stone Mountain used to be a quarry, and there were a lot of pictures and samples from the past 100 years to see. Griffin learned that it was fun to play on rocks.

Also in September was one of the worse floods Atlanta has had. We were kind of nervous, as a creek was right behind our backyard, but luckily, only a little streamlet formed, which dried up after it stopped raining. The trail about 5 miles from our house wasn't so lucky. The pictures below are hard to believe:

In October, Corey's parents came to visit. We did a lot of work around the house while they were here. Another one of our trees in the front yard was cut down (we had 8 trees in the front yard when we first moved in, which is now down to 4 trees). In fact, since it's so cold outside, Corey lit a fire with some of the logs tonight.

We also went to see the Etowah Indian Mounds in North Georgia. It was a gorgeous day outside, and in addition to the mounds was a field of tall grass. One of the goals of the preservation site is to introduce the native grasses back on the land so visitors can see what it would have looked like had we lived there hundreds of years ago. After the thousandth time of telling Griffin not to walk into the tall grass, I finally realized it was a Kodak moment, plus he'd realize how itchy it can get, and leave it alone. These pictures and the picture with Grandpa Crofford are unfortunately the only pictures I have of their visit, but they turned out well.

Last but not least, I am amazed at how much Griffin has learned over the past month. We enrolled him in 2-3 year preschool 3 days a week. The original plan was to place him in a Parent's Day Out program twice a week, especially because the cut off to turn 2 was supposed to be September 1. As I was filling out the forms, I think the director observed him running around the room. He then started pointing to letters and saying them out loud. I told the director that he could recognize half the letters of the alphabet, and she quickly took my almost completed form out of my hand, gave me a new form, and told me it was probably best for him to start preschool, and just repeat a year. I think he's learning his letters so quickly because he gets so excited to see them everywhere. Yesterday, I brought Griffin with me out to eat with a couple of colleagues for lunch, Mark and Sally. When Mark bit into his onion ring, Griffin immediately pointed to it and yelled out "C!" We all looked, and realized the way he held it after taking a bite did, in fact, look like a C. He then held up a whole ring, and asked what letter it was. Griffin said "O!". Of course, I couldn't help but show off that he has also learned how to count. I picked up two small onion rings, and asked Griffin what they were. He shouted, "2 O's". Later on while we were eating our entrees, a half of a tomato fell out of my sandwich. Griffin pointed at it and said "D!". In fact, it was shaped like a D. He is seeing letters in everything.

He can also almost, kind of, not quite there, count to 10. He can say all the numbers, and he recognizes 1, 3, 8, 9 (Maybe more, I'm not sure), but he can count to 10 with a little help.

The last, most important development is that Griffin is finally talking! He says at least 5-10 new words a day, repeating us when we say something. For example, when I dropped him off at preschool on Wednesday, one of his teachers opened the car door to get him out, and said, "Morning". Griffin immediately said, "Morning!" for the very first time. The day before, he said "hello" to his Grandpa Crofford on the phone. He's saying so many words, that I can't keep track of them any more.

He still needs to learn to say his name. At the rate he's going with letters, I still think it's going to be a close call between when he can say his name vs when he can spell out the letters.

Right now, it's about 11 pm in the evening, and we're sitting by the fire as the embers slowly die out. I think I'm going to turn in, but will try to update more frequently in the future.