fearfully and wonderfully made...: pittsburgh…

Over the Memorial Day weekend, we traveled to Pittsburgh for Uncle Bob’s 70th b-day shindig and to also visit with Grandma (the boys’ great-grandma) since she hasn’t met Josiah yet.

It was a great little get-away to visit with family. We really enjoyed being able to do a small family trip for a few days. Thanks Mom, for making this possible! (We are very much looking forward to our Williamsburg trip at the end of June with Bill’s family.)

Ok, so we did bring a camera, but left it in the car (or hotel room) for pretty much the whole time. I know… we’re so lame. So we have some random pics we took w/Bill’s cell phone and then our visit with Grandma…

Josiah was in hog-heaven here in Uncle Bob and Aunt Joyce’s backyard. He got to climb stairs, pull grass, pick up sticks, play with dirt, and find rocks. Man, they had it all! Josiah certainly was in his element, much to his Momma’s dismay, who was fighting a losing battle to keep him clean.

It’s hard to see, but it’s Uncle Bob and Aunt Joyce in the middle of the pic.

Ok, back to Josiah… ;)

My big boy wanted to hang out with the much older boys and kept asking why he had to stay w/Momma. Not ready to let him go yet…

Josiah totally konked out on the way back to the hotel. He even stayed asleep when we got into our room. Unfortunately, we had to wake him to get him into his pjs, and then it was an ordeal trying to get him to go back to sleep. He has never been that zonked, so we felt really bad having to wake him up. =(

Actually, the boys did really well during the day, but Josiah had an especially difficult time going to bed. And rightfully so, since he wasn’t getting his naps and was going to bed really late. Plus, it didn’t help that we were all in one room together. We couldn’t expect him to go to sleep on his own with the rest of us just sitting there. So it was back to the bouncing and trying to put him down asleep. It was pretty much a 45-minute process every night, trying to get Josiah down… a lot of bouncing until he fell asleep and then him waking up as soon as we put him down.

And sure enough, our monkey (Josiah) was faithful to wake up around 5:30 in the morning. Thankfully, Bill brought him into the huge king-sized bed he was sleeping in and Josiah laid quietly for the most part until around 7 or 7:30, which is normally their wake-up time. (William and I slept on a sofa couch since William is too big to sleep comfortably in a pack-n-play now. We haven’t transitioned him into a “big boy bed” yet, so we just thought it would be better if one of us slept with him.) So the nights were a little rough, but well worth the time away. =)

Our visit with Grandma…

Love this pic!

The boys did great with their great-grandma. They loved climbing all over her and playing with her.

This is a classic Josiah pose. Before he got attached to his paci, Josiah would lift the top of his shirt to suck on. He still does that now even though he has a paci in his mouth. Sometimes he’ll walk around this way while he sucks away on his paci.

Love this pic, too!

Crashing at Grandma’s for a quick little snooze… Josiah kept rubbing his eyes and fussing a bit, so I tried to see if we could put him down for a little bit. Surprisingly, he actually did fall asleep. I didn’t want to put Josiah on the bed since we didn’t know when he’d wake up or if he’d fall off the bed. So I put him on the floor and stayed with him b/c I didn’t want him waking up in an unfamiliar room or waking up and going through his great-grandma’s stuff. Bill eventually came to get me after I had fallen asleep and said not to worry… that we should be able to hear him when he wakes up. Sure enough, little man just casually came walking out the door when he was done with his little nap. It was hilarious to watch him just quietly (and without fussing) open the door and calmly come out.

Josiah especially loved being with Great-grandma. He constantly wanted her to hold him and was very clingy with her, making it a bit difficult to leave. He kept running to her, which made it hard for her to say good-bye.