Blue Tricycle

A few weeks back John Grayson made his Christmas Wish to Santa. Well it turns out he was a good boy and today Santa delivered.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAERppjmodI

How much do you love Daddy?

Allison asked John Grayson to tell Daddy that he loves him.

He obliged.

As JGray was giving me a great big hug, I asked him how much he loves me, he responded;

'Daddy.... I love you more than balls'.

Seeing that he plays with footballs, basketballs, soccer balls, and baseballs all day long, I'm quite touched.

Christmas Cookies and Tacky Lights

Some of you may know that John's family has a sugar cookie recipe that has been around for generations. How the Virginia Schmitt's are the ones carrying on the tradition is beyond me, but we've gotten pretty good at them. Hopefully we make the family proud.

This year we decided to make John Grayson a more active participant in the two day process. John and I made the dough on Tuesday night (god bless the KitchenAide mixer) and then JGray helped make cookies and decorate them on Wednesday night. Since the last day of school was Thursday, we were on a pretty tight timeline to have the cookies made and wrapped.

Not only do we have a future singer on our hands, but we may also have a future chef. JGray was very good at spreading flour and making the perfect amount of mess, although we're not sure if more flour ended up on his shirt or on the cookies.

Here are a few photos from our baking bonanza:

Fun with flour. Note that the shirt is still relatively clean (but not for long).

Still having fun, although he's wearing a lot more flour at this point in the evening.

Tasting the final product. Is it me or does he remind you of that mom in the Rice Krispie treats commercial who throws flour on her face to make it look like she worked hard??

We also decided to do our own mini Tacky Lights tour on Saturday night. We substituted chocolate milk for hot chocolate and brought a few of our masterpiece cookies along for the adventure. John Grayson loved looking at the lights. There were lots of "Ooooh"s and "Oh"s coming from the back seat. His favorite part was the house that you could get out and walk around to see the lights. Daddy has his work cut out for him next year if he's going to be able to impress JGray :-)

Since this may be the last blog posting before Christmas, we wish a very Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family. To our family in Chicago, we will definitely miss you but will not miss all of that snow and those freezing temperatures!

Our Little Star

We received an early Christmas present to ourselves (a new iMac) and have been testing out its different capabilities. JGray provided us a stand out performance that gave us a chance to try to edit some video. Enjoy!




While he might not be American Idol worth just yet, we were quite entertained. Hopefully we will be able to get a Christmas carol out of him in the next couple days!

Earning a visit to Santa

In recent weeks a few there have been a few exciting developments that in many ways are telling us our little boy is growing up. As evidenced below, not only has he started to get along with the dog (Dusty is learning to tolerate him), John Grayson is also wearing a size 10 1/2 shoe. 

I do still feel a little room in the toe, but the boy sure is able to run around in them well. And by the way, doesn't he make Daddy's silly running hat look good? In addition to running around in my shoes, he has learned to 'help' me with the leaves. Once again, he convinced the dog that it would be a good idea to 'help' as well. 

Although we raked for about 3 hours, we made little progress (only 10 bags of leaves), so we still have quite a bit more to do. John Grayson has also become a big helper in setting up Christmas around the house. I will let you at home guess if he is putting up or taking down an ornament in this picture. 

As you can see, our little boy has been an exceptional help around the house the past week. For all of this good behavior, he earned a trip to see Santa at the Regency Mall this morning. Our Santa experience did not go so well last year, so Allison did not know what to expect. Well, this time it was an absolute success. 
John Grayson ran up and gave Santa a high-five. Santa picked him up on his lap and started asking him what he wanted for Christmas. John Grayson replied 'A big boy tricycle'. Good! Santa was already in the market for one of those... so this was going to be easy. But then Santa asked, what color do you want it? John Grayson looked at Santa, though for a second, and replied.. 'Blue'.  Hmmm, Santa's job just became a bit tougher....

Gobble Gobble

This is the first year that John Grayson has showed any interest in holidays, probably because now he understands that they involve yummy food and fun songs. Oh yeah, and Mommy will still let him have dessert, even if he doesn't eat much of anything else :-)

We were able to teach JGray to say "Happy Thanksgiving" but he preferred saying "Gobble Gobble" while shaking his hips. Gotta love the stuff they teach kids in preschool!

We had dinner at MaMa and Pop's house and succeeded in making far too much food for 4.5 people to consume. Yay for leftovers! John Grayson's favorites were the mashed potatoes, corn pudding and lime jello salad. Daddy convinced him to have a few bites of turkey, but the kid knows what he likes and stuck with the side dishes.

Mommy, Daddy and John Grayson eating Thanksgiving Dinner

Mommy did cave in on her threat to withhold dessert if he didn't eat more turkey or apples, so JGray made the most of the situation and tried both the pumpkin and cheese pies. In typical Schmitt fashion, he asked for extra Cool Whip on both!

Yummy!!!

We are very thankful to have such wonderful friends and family! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

You Don't Need Me

You may have noticed we haven't mentioned much about out little girl lately... other than the occasional kick, we don't have that much interaction. Well, a couple months ago our little girl decided to show us a Choroid Plexus Cyst. While I still have trouble explaining what it is, it was not what we considered to be a good thing.

Over the past couple months we had the joy of being thrown into the 'high-risk' pregnancy category. While Dr. Erica told us it was nothing to worry about, we still had to go for extra visits to get ultrasounds of the baby to see what the cyst thing was doing. (on a side note... when your doctor tells you not to go to the internet, listen to her. There is just a bunch of stuff that will scare you without proper context).

Anyhow, on to the good news. On Tuesday Morning we met with our 'High-Risk' prenatal doctor, Dr. Head. After doing a quick check of our little girl she let us know the great news. She said, 'You don't need me, your baby is doing great. Have a wonderful remainder of your pregnancy'.

And with that, Allison and I both exhale.....

Our Big Boy

Today is a monumental day in the Schmitt household. John Grayson is currently napping in his big boy bed for the first time!!!!!!! Woo Hoo! Yipee! Hoorah! Three cheers for JGray!

Although it took 20 minutes of crying to get to this point (which was so much harder than sleep training as an infant because Mommy could hear "I want my Mommy!" through the door), I couldn't be prouder. This is definitely a cause for celebration after he wakes up! Mommy is thinking about a special trip to Chuck E Cheese.......

UPDATE Sunday Morning: Progressing much quicker than we thought, JGray spent last night in the big boy bed! Yes, he was awake at 5:30am, but it's still a huge accomplishment. We are very proud of our little boy.

A New Coat, the Chuck E Cheese PD, and Pocahontas

Allison headed out of town this weekend to spend some time with her college friends, so once again it was time for John Grayson and I to have a guys weekend. Allison had asked us to do only one thing over the weekend, find JGray a winter coat. After stopping by a few stores, we hit paydirt at the Old Navy.

If you think he looks unhappy in this coat you should have seen the reaction that he gave some of the other coats that I put on him.
With our mission for the weekend completed, we went over to the Chuck-E-Cheese for what seems to be turning into a tradition when Allison leaves us alone. We spent a lot of time with Bob the Builder and the School Bus... but this time we found a new machine that had Daddy just as excited (if not more) as JGray. For the price of just one token, John Grayson was made a member* of the CECPD (Chuck-E-Cheese Police Department). If you don't believe me, check out the membership card that made up for him.

*I don't know exactly what being an 'Extreme Member' of the CECPD will bring to JGray's future, although I am confident that it has to be better than just being a regular member.

On Sunday morning JGray and I decided to headed down to Pocahontas State Park for a little adventure. I figured that the trees would be pretty to look at and it would be a good opportunity for us to enjoy the outdoors.

We came to find that not many people go to Pocahontas State Park on weekends. In fact, based on the number of untouched leaves covering the paved trails, most people don't go there at all during the fall. It is really a shame because it was quite a nice park. It was a great hike for the first mile out into the woods, although when John Grayson became tired there was only one way back; on Daddy's shoulders.

If all that you read above didn't already have you thinking that this was a great weekend...there was one more thing that made it spectacular. On Sunday morning John Grayson came to me and said, 'Daddy, John Grayson needs to Poop'. Not wasting any time I took him right over to the bathroom (I will do anything, I mean anything, to avoid changing a nasty diaper). Long story short, we had success! I apologize, but I did not capture any photos of that special moment.

A Lightbulb and Three Jackets

Funny story for a Wednesday night. John Grayson was reading books with his MaMa before bed while Mommy and Daddy were at Lamaze class. Yes, we're taking a Lamaze class :-) Anyway, JGray was looking at Where the Sidewalk Ends and MaMa mentioned that there was a book jacket on the book. He got a funny look on his face and then said, "MaMa's jacket!" and ran over to grab her jacket and made her wear it. Then he said, "John Grayson's jacket!" and grabbed his coat and put it on.

So everybody--John Grayson, MaMa, and Where the Sidewalk Ends--wore their jackets.

40 lbs of Pink Ladies

Being a beautiful morning in early November, we decided to take advantage with an outdoor activity this morning. We took a quick drive out to Carter Mountain just outside of Charlottesville. They have quite a nice orchard set up on the side of a mountain overlooking the town. After having a few Apple Cider donuts (highly recommended) to build some energy, we headed down the hill to pick some apples. They have different sections of the orchard that have specific types of apples. Allison being a big fan of the Pink Ladies, chose our destination.


John Grayson took a substantial amount of time picking out the very best apples. Not those that would taste good, just the ones that seemed to be low enough for him to grab... that made for a good apple.


I don't know if this was sanctioned, but we chose to have snack while picking the apples. We didn't pay for this one, but I figure they have to have some sort of 'Buy 40 Pounds, Get 1 Apple Free' kind of deal. Remember how I said earlier there we were at the bottom of the hill, there is only one way to get back up......taking a ride on Daddy's shoulders (still eating the free apple). After buying our 40 lbs of Apples and a couple gallons of Cider, we headed into town to the Take it Away Sandwich Shop. For those of you from UVA, you will recognize this as a good sandwich shop. For those of you from William and Mary, you now know of this as a knock off of the Cheese Shop. For better or worse, the highlight of JGray's day was his sandwich... so much for the apples :)

Lots and Lots of Halloween Fun

This has been a very busy week for our family, so we've decided to combine everything into one blog entry.

On Tuesday we had our Moms Club Halloween Party, and John Grayson finally decided that it was okay to wear the pirate costume. Thank goodness! He had a great time playing with his friends and eating lots of sweets.

Arrr....I'm a pirate!

Boy, do I love all of the Halloween treats!!

On Wednesday, Daddy and JGray carved the family jack-o-lantern. Unfortunately, JGray wasn't too interested in helping since he thought it was spooky and scary. He did sit at the table with John and color while Daddy did the dirty work.

"Helping" Daddy with the pumpkin carving.

Taking a break from coloring to smile for the camera.

Daddy's masterpiece

On Friday morning, John Grayson visited a nearby retirement home and went trick or treating. He was such a sweet boy and remembered his manners (most of the time). He even gave out a hug or two while we were there.

Halloween night was so much fun for all of us! John Grayson had a fantastic time trick or treating. We went to about 5 houses in the neighborhood, which was MORE than enough candy for a 2 year old. Strangely enough, he had an even better time handing out candy to the big kids. He kept chanting "More big kids! More big kids!" He was very generous with the treats, and most big kids got a huge JGray sized handful of candy. Thank goodness Halloween is only once a year because Mommy and Daddy can't handle a crazy, hyper little boy every night!

Our bashful pirate

John Grayson and Daddy are ready to hit the streets for some treats.

I'm pretty good at this trick or treating thing.

I love Halloween!!

Halloween Blast

Sunday was the annual Halloween Blast in our neighborhood. Allison is in charge of the Recreation Committee, so she was very busy setting up the games, prizes and goodies and decorating. John Grayson and John arrived after nap time, and the boys had a great time. The highlight of the afternoon was definitely the hay ride. Actually, John Grayson had been talking about it all day!

Even though anything Halloween related is "spooky and scary" right now, JGray loved running through the tunnel. He would yell, run to the other end of the tunnel, and then immediately turn around and do it again. He's still talking about the "crawlies" (hands that were crawling along the ground).

JGray is supposed to be a pirate this year, but we're not sure if John Grayson will be wearing his costume. So far, all we've convinced him to wear is the pirate hat. Since we have several dress-up opportunities this week, hopefully he'll be ready for the big night on Friday!

Having fun on the hayride!

JGray and Mommy with our special "green" pumpkin. Maybe the
squirrels won't eat this one!!!

Fun with Friends

John Grayson and Mommy spent a wonderful (albeit chilly) morning at the Maymont Children's Farm with his friend Hannah Kate and her mom Susan. The kids had a fantastic time feeding the animals, running around, and watching the birds (especially the vultures).

Hannah Kate and John Grayson were so cute together holding hands and sharing their lunches. It's so amazing to see J Gray making friends!

Here are some pictures from our fun morning at Maymont:

Feeding the goats

Wow, that's a big cow!

Aren't they adorable?!

Good friends

The Crack of Dawn

John Grayson has always been an early riser, but today's antics were worthy of a blog posting.

Mommy heard him on the monitor at 5:30am. Yes, you read correctly, 5:30AM! That's two hours before the sun comes up. I managed to ignore him until 6:30 but heard lots of talking and singing and playing (all the usual stuff). When I walked into his room, he looked up at me, smiled and said, "Wake up Mommy! Cock a doodle doo!"

Ah, my cute little rooster......

Surviving the State Fair

On Saturday afternoon we decided to be brave and venture out to the State Fair. For those of you that have never been, the Virginia State Fair is quite the experience. I don't think you'll find a larger collection of mullets and Confederate flags in one place! And of course this year was also a mob of political stickers. I'm not sure what was worse. Nevertheless, we decided that John Grayson was old enough (and Mommy and Daddy were brave enough) to give it a shot.

The initial highlight of the trip was the wide variety of farm machinery on display. After 45 minutes of touring the entire John Deere display, we finally pulled JGray away kicking and screaming.



We walked around and saw all of the animal exhibits. Everything from sheep, cows, and horses to rabbits, chicken and geese. Mommy was very glad that she (1) remembered to bring her Purell with her and (2) the State Fair provides hand washing after each exhibit. Mommy was also very glad that J Gray takes a bath before bed every night.

Above all the greatest exhibit was the Swine (for some reason they call Pigs, Swine, at the State Fair). I initially felt bad about the sign on this cage... but then I had visions of bacon, pork chops, ham and Scrapple.




If you were to ask John Grayson about his favorite part of the fair, I think he'd say "strawberry milkshake." Yes, a milkshake. Next year, I think we'll go to Dairy Queen instead and save Mommy from stressing about all of the germs and crowds.

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

On Friday, John Grayson went to the Pumpkin Patch with his playgroup buddies--Hunter, Hannah Kate, and Molly. The kids had a fantastic time running around before the hayride (they've mastered holding hands and walking together without knocking each other down!), and John Grayson and Hunter spent quite a while hiding in the hay maze. Thank goodness they kept giggling or else we would have had a lot more trouble finding them!

This year was definitely more exciting than last year because J Gray was totally into the tractor ride and searching for the perfect pumpkin. I think that if I'd let him, J Gray would have spent his afternoon with the farmer! Here are some pictures from our fun morning at the pumpkin patch:

Walking with Hannah Kate and Molly

Throwing hay with Hunter

Searching for the perfect pumpkin

On the hayride with Mommy

J Gray is very proud of his pumpkins! Too bad the squirrels here in Richmond are already preparing for a bad winter, so one of the gourds has already fallen victim. I guess we'll have to leave our jack-o-lantern inside to protect it from the squirrels :-)

John Grayson's First Field Trip

Thursday was a big day in the Schmitt household---John Grayson's first school field trip!! We went to the Maymont Children's Farm and had a wonderful time. Who knew that a group of 12 kids under the age of 3 could be so well behaved?!

We saw lots of animals, including pigs, chickens, peacocks (although J Gray was convinced they were "cock a doodle doo's"), goats, sheep, cows, and horses. We know it was a successful day because no one lost a finger while feeding a goat :-)

I love petting the animals!

Coolest of all was the new Bald Eagle exhibit. I'm not sure if J Gray actually saw the bird but he thought it was fun nonetheless (or at least Mommy thought so).

I'm almost as big as the Bald Eagle!

We did a lot of walking, including a march up a big hill to have lunch. J Gray was one of the few kids to walk the entire time (props to Mommy for "forgetting" the stroller), and the final result was a very tired little boy who slept for 3 hours this afternoon.

Yay for Field Trips!!!!

The part of your head above your eyes

Earlier this week our son learned that he had a forehead, the hard way.

We had come back from a walk to the grocery and approached the garage to get back into the house. As I was entering in the code to open the garage door, I noticed John Grayson standing right up close to the door. Thinking nothing of it, I went along my business.

As the door started opening, I saw him staring very intently at its progress. As soon as it got above his eye level, he rushed into the garage.... not realizing that the door had to clear a few more inches to clear his entire head. He ended up knocking himself right down to the ground and fell into a state of hurt, confusion, and anger.

Allison and I had to muster all of our strength to not laugh and attend to our hard-knock child.

Boys Weekend

On Saturday morning, Allison (Mommy) headed up to NYC for the weekend to run/walk the Race for the Cure with a few of her friends (Aunt Sarah, Aunt Oli, and Aunt Courtney). That left us boys to run the place for the weekend. I (Daddy) had a bike ride to do on Saturday morning, so we started our boys weekend as of Saturday afternoon. After we purchased a doll (not as much a guys activity) we headed over to Chuck-E-Cheese. This was our first ever trip to this establishment. We ordered one of those Pizza/Tokens deals and got down to business.

Little did we know, Bob the Builder stores some of his equipment there. We proceeded to drive his equipment for quite some time.
After working for Bob became tiresome we explored the rest of the place. I glanced over to our table and our 'Pizza' had arrived. (On that note, if anyone ever goes there for the food, I would be greatly surprised) As we were finishing, we saw JGray's friend Jackson DeHaven there. They paired up to drive the Chuck-E-Cheese bus.
Both Jackson and JGray seem to be smart kids, so I am hoping that their academic pursuits will be much greater than Chuck E. Cheese school. One of my favorite rides that JGray likes was this car/movie combination thing. The best part is that it spits out one of these at the end.
The technology these kids have these days is incredible. While not as high quality as a professional portrait, it is a fine souvenir of our time. An hour and a half at the Cheese was more than enough to tire JGray (and Daddy) out for the entire evening.

On Sunday morning after a short run we headed down to the Classics on the James, a European auto show set on Brown's Island. JGray has been a big fan of race cars lately, so we figured it would be a good idea to go see some exotic vehicles. While we did good initially, JGray soon learned that Daddy was not going to let him touch other people cars that cost as much as our house.

Soon we learned that if we walked around the cars, the nice men who owned them would open the door and let them look inside. That made it much more fun.
JGray kept on telling the men who owned the cars that "Daddy Drive Car". Unfortunately, none of those folks took my son's advice and let me drive their vehicles. All in all, it was a very successful boys weekend, and boy are we glad to have Mommy home.

A Baby Girl

On Friday afternoon, Allison and I made our way to the doctor to find out what type of baby we are going to have. We didn't find out with John Grayson, but for no reasons that we can explain well, we wanted to know this time around. It was kind of odd, within 30 seconds of 'ultra-sounding' Allison, the tech told us, 'Its a little Girl'. I guess we were expecting some grand build up or something, but nonetheless very glad that it is very obvious that we know the gender of our upcoming bundle of joy. Both of us are very excited, and very nervous at the same time!

Thoughts/Feelings/Things overheard within the first 24 hours:

1. So excited that John Grayson will have a sister; he predicted correctly!

2. I will have to learn how to use something other than sports analogies to describe my child's progress. Slowly realizing that I have no frame of reference when it comes to 'girl' stuff.

3. Disturbed when told by a friend that my daugter will make a great girlfriend for their son. Now suspicious of all little boys, and frankly some of my single friends.

4. Based on number 3, considering learning some Martial Arts, or buying a gun.

5. We bought JGray a little Cabbage Patch doll to teach him how to handle a baby. He has proceeded to drag it around on the ground. That and he really wants it to poop.

First Day of School

It's hard to believe it, but John Grayson started preschool today! He is attending the Bon View School where his MaMa teaches. The day lasts 9:30 - 12:15 (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and is full of fun activities like playing in the kitchen and with all of the trucks and legos, painting, going to the playground and snack time. His teachers are wonderful and we are confident that JGray is going to have a fantastic year!!

We met his teachers on Friday, and John Grayson was eager to check out all of the new toys. He even gave his teachers hugs as he left the classroom. He spent the entire weekend talking about his school and the fun toys.

Mommy started the tradition of taking pictures on the first day of school. Okay, she tried to start the tradition, but some little person didn't get the message. Unfortunately, John Grayson decided that he didn't feel like posing this morning, so we didn't get the "happy" photos we were hoping for! Maybe on Thursday ;-)

Nope, I'm not happy about this one bit.

Still not happy...

Okay, maybe I feel better about this whole school thing now....

I think I'm ready now. School, here I come!!

Luckily the drama of the morning didn't carry forward to school. He was happy the whole way there and walked into school like a big boy (actually, he probably would have run into school if Mommy had let him). According to his teacher Mrs. Zambito, John Grayson was one of the few children who didn't cry at all during the day (go JGray)!!!! On the drive home, he talked non-stop about playing outside, music class and his new friends. When asked if he wanted to go back on Thursday, he said "yep," so that's a good sign!

We're sure that today was the first of many wonderful days at preschool!