Grant turns ONE

 Grant turned 1 on April 8th! It was pretty crazy thinking about exactly one year from then and all the craziness surrounding our family at the time. It was definitely one of the craziest, most emotional times of our lives! With Dave's dad passing away 7 days previous and his funeral being the weekend of my due date, us hoping the doctor would let me get induced before Dave took off for the funeral, Dave trying to figure out which job he should take and continually flying every weekend previous for interviews, then Dave leaving to fly home for the funeral a day and a half after grant was born (luckily taking Bella and Gaines) and leaving me with a newborn and Tinley for a week alone, and then Dave having flight trouble coming home, then getting home and literally having to go back to work the second he walked in the door because his flight had been delayed a day, and just all around emotional-ness! I don't think I have ever been that emotionally drained before.

It's nice looking where we are at now though and seeing that things are completely different and Dave has a great job that he loves, and wonderful staff, and we have been blessed with Grant who is the happiest, cutest busiest baby! And, to top it off, we are now surrounded by so much family! It is nice being home.We love this little guy so much and couldn't imagine life without him! Even though he came at a crazy time, we were definitely made stronger by it. Happy birthday big guy!

 A few weeks leading up to his birthday he started taking his first steps. I love that milestone!

 What better time than your first birthday to have your first car-cart ride?! He loved it and felt so big!

 He loves balls so I thought I'd make him a ball cake hoping that might help him want to grab it. Lets just say it didn't go as planned. He screamed and didn't want a thing to do with cake! Even when I tried to stuff frosting in his mouth, because you will eat sugar on your birthday (ha!), he just screamed louder. So after letting him settle down, we pulled out some presents. His siblings were may more interested and he just wanted his bed for his birthday present. And that is why I don't buy many gifts for their first few birthdays :)
They don't have a clue what is going on! 

Grant loves to crawl in tight spaces, climb, pound on anything he can to get it to make noise, throw anything that goes in his hand, wander, loves dirt, loves to throw dirt, loves to roll in dirt, throw rocks, eat rocks, absolutely loves his blankets and binkie, and is just all around BUSY! I feel like I have to keep a close eye on this one. None of our other kids were climbers. This kid, is a climber and seems to have no fear! One day he went outside, and sometimes I feel ok letting him outside and letting him wander and play in the dirt and rocks, well luckily this day I sat outside with him and he went straight for this little green chair, climbed right on it and just stood up with no hands. He has also learned to climb on the kids step stools we have around the house. So I started just flipping them over so he couldn't stand on them when I wasn't looking. One morning I was cooking breakfast and Gaines comes running to me saying, "Mom! Grant is standing on the stool!" I was like, "Why is the stool flipped over?!" He then says, "I didn't do it, he did it himself!" And sure enough, I go back in the room and he flips the stool, then stands up on it just in the middle of the room with the proudest smile on his face. Then, proceeds to just step off of it, tumbles, then does it again. So now we have to hide the stools or put them out of his reach. I'm a little nervous for the coming year as he gets older and smarter watching his siblings!

He has another push toy that he used in learning to walk, and now that he can walk, he likes to use that walker to push it down the driveway at full speed. He even fell as it went into the street, as his knees dragged a little bit, and he didn't even care. He's a pretty tough cookie. I guess you need to be if you are fearless! He's going to be the one to give me heart attacks I think!

He likes to push his chair back a little from the table and kick that one leg up.

He also loves dirt! See video below!

The aftermath. Mmmmm dirt! Happy as a lamb! He continued to try and eat it 3 times. Unreal.