Growing Up & a Big Brother?

Post date: Jan 8, 2012 9:02:54 PM

January 8, 2012 ~ It is hard for us to believe it is already 2012, that Grady Jeremiah is well over a year old, and that we have been home from the hospital with him almost a year. We have experienced God's blessings in many ways. Grady Jeremiah is growing up in so many ways, but before we get to those details, we want to let you know that he is going to be a big brother! That's right, we are expecting baby number 2 this July! We are excited about the Lord's provision in blessing us with another child. We will be posting more information and prayer requests about this new pregnancy in another post soon.(Remember, you can click on any picture on this page to see the larger version of it)

Quick developmental updates on Grady Jeremiah:

  • Weight: 16+ pounds
  • Movement: Crawling... quickly! And wanting to explore everything!
  • Sounds: Saying "B" words such as bye-bye, Bible, ba-ba (for Grady), and bubble, as well as Ma-Ma and apple! We have some pretty cool, retro Christmas "bubble lights." Grady Jeremiah was fascinated by them. When we told him they were bubble lights, he began saying "bubble." Now anything he really likes or that is exciting is a bubble to him :-)
  • Eating: Still drinking his bottles but doing great eating lots of table foods. We "mash up" for him vegetables, fruits, breads, and even some meats, and he loves most of them! He does great putting things into his mouth now, as well.

Look at how much he has grown and developed in the past year...

Exciting events since our last post:

More details on his great progress:

  • 1st Brithday Party - Our parents were able to come to Auburn to celebrate his first birthday with us. Julia themed it around one of his favorite books, Go Dog Go. It was at this party that his Papa and Nana (Grady, Sr. and Jane) and his RC and MEJ (Rick and Mary Jane) found out they were going to be grand-parents again :-)Trip to Callaway Fantasy in Lights - For the older Grady's birthday, he wanted to take the family to Fantasy in Light. Nana and Papa joined us for the trip. Grady Jeremiah loved the Christmas lights! Julia held him in her lap in the front seat as we drove through the light displays. For 45 minutes he was mesmerized looking around at the beauty of it all.
  • Christmas with families - Grady Jeremiah did great traveling to Birmingham, Montevallo, and Nashville during the Christmas break. He loved the attention of so many family members during the time together!

Since our last post, Grady Jeremiah has seen his pediatrician several times, Newborn Follow up Clinic at UAB, an occupational therapist, and an endocrinologist at Children's Hospital. We have received nothing but good reports! The doctors are very pleased with his progress. Our latest tests were growth hormone and other hormone levels related to pituitary function. Everything came back normal! Thank you for your continued prayers for his health. He has yet to be sick even once during the past year! One of Grady Jeremiah's favorite activities continues to be us reading books to him. He now will crawl across the room, pull a book off a shelf and either look to us to come read it to him, or just sit there and flip through it himself. We love seeing his curiosity to learn! Here is one example of his progress and curiosity about everything... This past week while Grady was working on taxes, Grady Jeremiah crawled from another room in the house into the home office, crawled to Grady while he was working at the computer, pulled on Grady's pants legs, and once Grady picked him up just stared at the paper and listened like an adult would as Grady began telling Julia what he was doing related to taxes! It was so sweet. The picture below will also show you his curiosity. In early December while Grady was doing yardwork, Grady Jeremiah crawled in the grass and sat down to watch what 'Ba-Ba" was doing. Now we just need to teach him how to rake leaves once he can walk :-) There are lots more pictures than we can share on this one post. We will post a few more below, but you can follow the links here to see the full albums: Pictures from Fall & Christmas Pictures from January

Again, thank you for your continued prayers for us during this journey!

Blessings,

Grady, Julia, Grady Jeremiah, and Baby #2