Walkers' Trail

Reid is a month old! Time is flying by. Here he is in his carseat - looking at the past month of photos, most of the ones of him are in his carseat - guess it's the only time I think to take photos! We had our 3rd Annual Brothers' Day celebration on Saturday. We had a cookout with our good family friends, followed by a viewing of Cars 2, and then swimming with friends. Grant's being a cheeseball, Kyle is flying through the air, and Grant decided to show us that he really can swim (ignore his form and notice the "not drowning" part - yay!) Grant attended the British Soccer camp last week. We L-O-V-E this camp. The coaches have been fabulous and he learns a lot. Luckily, his team for the past two years has won the camp "World Cup" - here they are celebrating! The coaches provide a player review - could this be more excellent? We were proud parents when we saw this!! Made a quick trip to go see my Granny - here is four generations. Also got to see...

Not only do we have great friends in the Heathcock family for sending a Wisconsin quarter, BUT we have great friends in the Cross family for sending a Wisconsin quarter!! And you know the cool thing? They're actually different quarters (all of the money are printed in either Denver or Philadelphia (or maybe it's Pittsburgh!)), and Grant's collection book requires that all states from EACH city be represented (so 100 quarters). One sent the "D" quarter and one sent the "P" quarter. Check out your money on one side there is a teeny tiny D or P! Thanks, Logan and Leighton ( and Mom!). You're awesome!

See our nice friends in the striped shirt and baseball hat?!?! They mailed us a Wisconsin quarter after reading my blog post below about Grant's quarter collection!!! Thanks, Erin and Bryan - he is thrilled! This picture is in 2005 at a baby shower for Grant that our friends in dental school had for us (for some reason, I can't find any of the pictures of the four of us from the OSU/Texas game - that was 2008, right??). Since then, they now have THREE GIRLS and we have THREE BOYS!

I have to admit - as much of "good" mom that I consider myself to be, it is very difficult for me to find creative educational things for Grant so far this summer - kinda been busy with a newborn! My mom has had special days with both Grant and Kyle. During Grant's stay, she created a "store" by using grocery items in her house and then got some currency and coins. She gave each item a price and they played store for hours (and we still do when we go over there). It has helped him learn the coins, and is excellent for his math skills since he has to add up the prices, and then provide the correct payment, and THEN he has to provide change when we will give too much money for items! The next fun project they started: collecting quarters from all fifty states! Grant is so proud of this and now has a collectors folder. We have 49 of the 50 - anyone have Wisconsin? He'll be your best friend if you have it!!!! :)

What does a post office scale, a Saturday, and a newborn baby have in common?!?! that's where we have taken Reid the past two weekends to see how he is growing! and you know what?!?! He was right at 8 pounds today!!! what a chunk! If you don't know, he had dropped to 6.10lbs at his two week check up. Since nursing/breastmilk is important to us, we/I decided that I would start pumping milk for bottles to make sure we know what he was consuming. Last Saturday, our babe was 7.0 so he gained a pound in one week - that's quick weight gain for an infant! Hopefully, Reid will catch on to the concept of nursing soon so I can put away the pump and bottles! This ring is a gift from Jason to me for our family... do you get it?! The two gold bands are for the two of us, and the three silver represent our boys! Pretty cute, and since I usually wear gold and silver jewelry, it's just basically perfect!

My precious friend, Kristy , offered to take photos of Reid as a newborn! We've never had photos taken of our other boys... who says the third child always gets left out?!?! Not ours!!! Isn't he darling? He's such a cute, cuddly little guy who still loves to flail his arms and wants to pull his legs into the fetal position... both will be quickly outgrown soon!

Kyle has really enjoyed trying to be such a big helper with Reid. He always lets me know when he "throws up" (tiny spit up), cries, or poops. Reid usually naps in the co-sleeper in our bedroom, but yesterday, I needed to be upstairs to pick up and decided the big brothers and I would spend time building Legos and Lincoln logs in Grant's room. Thus, Reid got to nap in his own room upstairs! I laid him down and then headed to Grant's room to put clean sheets back on his bed. I was away from Reid for about 4-5 minutes and then headed back to check on him. As I walked in to his room, Kyle was standing there, bear-hugging Reid, in the middle of the floor. I quickly went to grab him (without even getting mad!!!) and asked Kyle what he was doing... "Mom, Reid has a poopy diaper! I went to the bathroom to get the stool, and then I picked him up out of his bed and was coming to get you." What a (whew) helper. I have no idea how Kyle managed to reach that far in to...

Grant: (by guest writer, GG !) A few days after Reid was home from the hospital, I ( GG ) had an appt . to get my hair colored. In an effort to help Stacy, I asked Grant if he would like to go with me. He loves to work in activity books and read so I thought he could entertain himself for the hour+ appt . In the car going to the appt , I tried to tell Grant what he could expect to happen including that Pat would "paint" my hair to help cover up the gray hair. He quickly informed me I didn't have any gray hair. So, I showed him my "part" and he said "oh, you do!" He behaved beautifully and we had a nice time completed with a lunch date and a trip to see Aunt Anne's library. A couple of days later, Bubba (Doug) was working from home. We always enjoy Hideaway's lunch menu, so we invited the Walkers to go with us. Grant was sitting between Bubba and me. Out of the blue, he looked at me and seriously asked " GG , why doesn't Bubba get h...

Reid Jeffrey Walker arrived on May 26, 2011, at 6:58 p.m. He weighed 7 pounds 12.5 ounces, and was 20 3/4 inches long. His apgar test results were an astounding 9 and 10! Many of you have asked throughout our pregnancy a simple question: "what is his name?" and we had just not been able to decide on a fitting, appropriate name. Reid has been on our list since the beginning and in the past nine months, there have been other front-runners. However, Reid won out! The meaning is "red", which isn't too exciting, but we find it similar to his brothers' names, and it is an easy name that isn't too popular, hoping he won't be one of eight of them in his future classes! Jeffrey is his middle name, which means "divinely peaceful," and was chosen to honor a family member. The rest of this entry will just be detailing our time in the hospital and our overall experience - feel free to stop REIDing if you don't really care about it! This is for a k...