the beckham family

Here's the latest in Graydonisms:

1) I now have to wake Graydon up from his naps; otherwise he sleeps for 4 hours and stays awake until 11:00 pm. When I wake him up, he's all disgruntled and lays in bed for awhile. The other day I was laying in bed with him trying to promote a happy disposition. I asked him if he had a dream and here is how the conversation went: Mom: Did you have a dream? Graydon (in a grumpy voice): Yep. Mom: Do you remember it? Graydon: Yep. Mom: What was it about? Graydon (with a huge smile on his face): Bananas! Mom: Oh, were you eating bananas? Graydon: No. They were eating. Mom: What were they eating? Graydon (with another huge smile): Chicken Nuggets! Awesome...he had a dream about bananas eating chicken nuggets.

2) The other day we were telling Graydon about our day's plans. We were on the way home to put the boys down for a nap before going to church. In explaining this to him, he cries in a pitiful voice, "that's not part of the plan!"

3) Case has sustained his first intentional owie from his big brother. Graydon threw a frisbee at him and it landed right below his eye, resulting in a mini-black eye. When I asked him if he threw it at Case on purpose, he said "yes." Then he said, "but it didn't watch where it was going!" Seriously? The frisbee wasn't watching where it was going?

4) I am sitting at the kitchen table crying (it was a hard day with Case) and Graydon is sitting on the table right in front of my face (no more dignified, quiet crying by yourself in this house) when he says, "Mom, you need to stop crying because it's making your eyebrows all wrinkly."

5) This is a recent conversation:
G: Um, Mom, I need you to get me some new toys.
E: Um, Graydon, you already have too many toys.
G: No, Mom, I need toys for my kids. I've got kids back in New Zealand and they all need toys. I have five kids.
E: Oh, really? What are their names?
G: Ethan, Laundry Boy, Nose-y Nose-y, Doobey Doobey, and Puss in Boots.

These are Graydon's favorites:

• Car-shaped Macaroni-n-Cheese. This has even been eaten for breakfast



• Doritos, or "spicy chips"



• He loves playing "band" and creating a drum set out of toys. He loves flutes and pretends to be the drum major with a marching stick and all.



• He is obsessed with costumes and role playing. He has official costumes as a fire-fighter, policeman (with muscles), ninja, garden gnome, Spiderman, "Darf" Vader, a pirate, astronaut and a guard. But he also uses his creativity to dress up as a farmer, construction worker, chef, Puss in Boots, Eugene from "Tangled," and any other character from his favorite shows. I thought it would be a great idea for him to start playing dress-up to foster his creativity, but after the tenth costume change in 2 hours, I started to think differently. He also requires our full attention in role playing with him...it's fun.

He loves running and has to do a Mommy-Graydon run at the end of all of my runs. He ran his first official race on Dec 3rd., the Allen's Reindeer Run, where he ran one-mile with only stopping twice. We're proud of him! My friend, Rainie, who saw him running, said it was the cutest thing because he was running with as much gusto as possible in a 3 year old body!
His feet aren't on the ground!

Playing cricket in the backyard

With his Christmas Elf, Thomas.
GRAYDON IS AWESOME AND WE'RE KEEPING HIM!

As most of you know, Case has recently been diagnosed with Neuroblastoma Cancer. Please check this blog for his updates:

http://casebeckham.blogspot.com

Please include him in your prayers.

I know this is not the optimal method of blogging, but after a long time of silence there are 8 new posts below. So go grab some popcorn to munch on and grab your reading glasses... there is some serious cuteness below!

Case will be 5 months old in a week and a half. How did that happen? How did my baby get so big? Two of my friends have brand new newborns and they are tiny miniscule little things compared to my baby. How could 4 months have changed so much in him?

He is now a talker, singer, and screamer! Sometimes he will just yell - not mad - just yell and scream for fun. Graydon will turn to me during this time with a concerned look on his face and ask "what is he doing?" He also coos a lot. It's such a sweet sing-songy voice and he has a little half-smile on his face when he does it. So heart-melting.

His cheeks are big, chubby, and oh-so-kissable. I can't resist kissing him all the time. I think the first two months were a little rough, but now that we have him on Zantac and he doesn't suffer from acid reflux as much, he really is a charming little baby. Just content to be where he is.

I love his cute smiles. It pushes his big old chubby cheeks up.

He started cereal last week and he is taking to it like a champ. He even finishes a whole bowl and is lapping it up from the spoon. We are still only doing 1-2 cereal feedings a day, but he seems to like it. He did, however, decide at 2 months old that he won't take a bottle. He prefers the real deal. I don't blame him. So we're glued together at the hip...we're friends.




He is a big boy too! At his 4 month check-up he weighed 15 lbs 4 ounces (60th percentile), and was 25.25 inches long (also 60th percentile). I continue to call him the "big little brother," as he will most definitely catch up to his 10th percentile big brother. His eye color is still a little undecided. His eyes are kind of a dark hunter green - not quite his dad's brilliant green and not his mom's dark dark brown. Only time will tell.

We love out little Casers and are so happy he has made our family what it is today!

My boys love being brothers!
Graydon loves Case (sometimes a bit too much). I was thinking the other day how Graydon never wants Case to go away. He's always asking where he is and if they can play. I love that.

Sometimes playing involves getting a shoe to the head. But Case is a good sport. Graydon means well. He just gets so wiggly next to Case (I think he's trying to snuggle).



Graydon loves to share his blanket (a.k.a Blue Blank) with Case and get all snuggly. It's really sweet (even if Case inadvertently ends up in tears).

...Or getting his face mutilated. This was Graydon trying to make Case smile for the camera. So sad and so cute at the same time.

Case is at the point where he always has his eyes locked on Graydon when they are in the same room together.

I'm glad my boys love each other. Graydon calls him and Case "twins." I hope the "twins" continue to love each other... and I hope I can survive the "love!"

Although I said in a post below that I am addicted to running, I am now sick of running. I signed up to do this half marathon back in March. That was before we decided to put our house on the market and get super busy. So I didn't have time to train, and I was just stressed out the whole time knowing I had a race that I wasn't preparing for.

But I ran it yesterday anyway. I am still hurting sitting here typing about it. I pushed myself way too hard and wanted to die the last two miles. But I achieved the insane goal I set for myself, which was finishing in under 2 hours...barely. My time was 1:58:57. That's what my Garmin said anyway (and I love that thing...it never lies). The official race records will show 2:00:45, but that was after running 13.3 miles, not 13.1 miles. That's so mean. I feel like many race start and finish lines aren't completely accurate. The Cowtown has always been like that too.


And let me tell you, I hated every nano second of those extra 0.2 miles. I have been limping on my old lady hip all day today and I whimpering in pain every time something touches my two second toenails!

I have always wanted to just get covered head to toe in mud... And this past April I was able to achieve that goal at the Warrior Dash 2011! Thanks to our lovely friends, Don and Heidi Spangler, we joined their work team last minute and had a blast!



And the lovely Spanglers mentioned above, dressed as Super Man and Super Girl. We love this family so much!

It's a 3 mile trail course with obstacles all throughout. It started with wading through a river, so then we got to run the whole course with wet, muddy shoes...yum. However, I have a crazy husband who decided to run BAREFOOT! The Warrior Dash on its own wasn't crazy enough for this guy. I love the photo of him below doing a heel click over the flames (as I try to wave the gas fumes away from my face).
Throughout the whole course we would hear whispers of, "Oh my gosh. Look at that guy. He doesn't have shoes on!"

This is me after belly-crawling through mud and under barbed wire...which I got my shirt caught on.


I think the hardest obstacle was trying to run on the slippery, pitted path after being completely covered in mud.
They actually collect all of these nasty muddy shoes and somehow clean them up enough to donate them to charity. Good for them...
The true highlight for me (and this is going to sound strange) was the hose-down afterwards. Imagine a semi-truck trailer with two guys standing on top, each manning a fire house. Then imagine about 30 brown, slimy strangers all huddled together in a little clump getting slammed with the water. For some reason, this was HILARIOUS to me. The guys with the hoses were so serious and specifically zero-ing people out with the blast. It was not pleasant at all, but I could not stop laughing hysterically. And that only made the water guy zero me out even more with his hose. Don't think I have laughed so hard since a middle school sleep over. If for nothing else, thank you, Warrior Dash, for the good laugh!

Apparently I missed running while I was pregnant...


We all know that addictions aren't good, but at least I'm not addicted to drugs, alcohol, pornography, or smoking. However, I am addicted to running. After having Case I couldn't wait to get back. So 65 days after I had Case, I plunged into insanity and ran a half marathon. (I really couldn't resist the fact that there was a half on a Saturday and less than 3 miles from my house...that never happens!).

So yes, I'm insane, but strangely enough, it went well. X was going to run it with me, but I let him run at his own pace (which means faster than me) as long as he would run back and join me when he was finished.

I messed up my stop watch timing (I always do that for races) and I thought I would be finishing a little after 2.5 hours. I was fine with that because I had JUST had a baby. But to my delight, as I neared the finish line, I saw that my watch was wrong and I finished in 2:11. Holy Smokes! I was shocked. I must have been powered by adrenaline.
I love that Graydon is our biggest fan!

X gets out of the shower and walks into the closet with a towel wrapped around his waist. More mumbling to himself than anything else, he says, "Mmmm...what should I wear today?" Graydon unexpectedly answers with "Um, Dad, probably some underwear!?"

I dropped the boys off at my mom's house for a bit. Apparently as I was driving away my mom and Graydon were trying to get my attention. My mom was yelling, "Emily! Emily!" Graydon echoed her back, "Emily...Emily!" Then as I continued to drive away (I couldn't hear them), Graydon turns to my mom with a scrunched up little nose and shrugs his shoulders, "Why your daughter not hear you, Nana?" My mom replies with, "I don't know. She's been doing that her whole life."

When Case was about 2 months old we were all sitting on the bed. I was burping Case and he let out a big, old burp. Graydon turned to me and with the most excited face (eyebrows up into his hairline) he said so exuberantly, "You burped him, Mommy?! You AMAZING!" Thanks buddy, I try.

He likes to paint with his water colors and he is in his "worm mood." He paints worms all the time...straight one, hook ones, curly ones. Always worms.

A friend gave him a magnifying glass and he loves that thing. It rained all day last week and he kept asking to go outside to look at Rolly Pully bugs with his "mag-lee-fire glass."

Setting: Sitting on the front porch bench, each with a popsicle in hand, enjoying the *PERFECT* weather and watching the sun set.

G: Mommy, let's be nicknames.
Me: Okay, what's my nickname?
G: The Opener. And I'm the Licker!
Me: The Opener? Why am I the Opener?
G: Because you open the popsicles and I lick them!

We ate three of them between the two of us. Welcome Summer! We're glad you're back!