Our tiny guy has spent the first three months of his life anxiously waiting to meet his Pops, and he finally had the chance this past week when my daddy flew in from Oklahoma for a visit! He was due to get here late in the afternoon last Thursday. I dressed Porter in his "Grandpa's Little Man" outfit that morning in honor of Pops's arrival!
Unfortunately, this getup was covered in spit up shortly afterward. :(
Earlier in the day, Kaiser worked on a "Welcome to Pittsburgh, Pops!" sign. When I came in to check on him, though, it looked like he was more interested in decorating himself than the paper.
Notice the lack of stickers on the sign...
Kaiser had been talking about Pops coming to play trains and trucks with him for several days. I told him that when Daddy came home from work, he'd be bringing Pops with him, so he needed to take a nice long nap that afternoon in order to have plenty of energy to play that night!
Resting up. I love how he lays Buster across his face when he sleeps!
Ready to show off his excavator.
Reading books to pass the time.
Porter kept eyeing the door.
"This is taking way...too...long..."
At last, Daddy and Pops were home! By that time, the babe had already gone down for his evening catnap, so the four of us ate a late dinner while he slept. Porter woke up a few minutes before 7:00, and I went to fetch him and brought him downstairs to join us. So special to finally introduce my father to my son!
Pops and Grandbaby #7!
Daddy and Kaiser goofing around.
Porter's dreaming of the day he can join in on the roughhousing!
Snow fell that night and continued on into Friday, so we nixed any ideas of a big outing and decided to take it easy instead. This kind of sums up our morning:
Cuteness.
Construction trucks.
More cuteness.
Pops and I did venture out with the boys out to run a couple of errands. While we were at Target, Kaiser picked out a belated birthday gift from Pops: more tracks for his Thomas the Train set, and some new cars for Thomas to pull!
He's a happy boy!
"I've been workin' on the railroad, all the livelong day."
This kiddo supervises.
Later that evening, after Daddy got home and we ate dinner, the adults and Kaiser went back down to the basement for some more playtime.
Sending cars and trucks down the alphabet block steps.
Loves horsing around with Daddy in his doggie tent!
Ball toss with Pops.
"What's that you say? It's bathtime already??"
Saturday Pops, Kaiser, Porter, and I drove down to Oakland to go to the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning. We visited their nationality classrooms with YaYa last year, and we thought it would be fun to show them to Pops, too, while they were still decorated for the holidays. We stopped at Starbucks first to grab coffee and so that Porter could take a bottle. Brett had been at a conference that morning, but finished around 10:30 and walked down to meet us there.
Kaiser's ready to "go see the big tall building".
Porter's cool with whatever.
It was a pretty bitterly cold day, so the walk to the Cathedral was not exactly a pleasant one (at least in my opinion). We were excited to get inside the beautiful (and warm!) building.
The 27 nationality rooms are located on the first and third floors, so we started out on the bottom level and planned to work our way up.
Admiring Baby Jesus in the Irish Room.
Posing by the door of the Czechoslovak Room.
"Listen up, class!"
Kaiser spent about 30 seconds in each room before insisting, "Go see more rooms!" On a couple of occasions, there were other people in the room trying to listen to their audio tape tours, so Brett escorted our little loudmouth into the hall so Pops and I could take a closer look. While they were out there, Daddy encouraged Kaiser to use his "inside voice"...
Posing with the mosaic in the Romanian Room.
Gorgeous ceiling in the Greek Room.
Porter was losing patience with the tour by the time we reached the Swedish Room.
Playing peek-a-boo in the English Room.
Ready to say "bye-bye" to the Scottish Room.
It's naptime for this wee one!
By the time we'd made it through almost of all the rooms on the first floor, it was almost noon, so we decided to skip the third floor, since we'd seen those rooms last year. Instead, we took the elevator straight to the top floor, where Kaiser enjoyed looking out over Oakland from 36 stories up!
Hitchin' a ride with Daddy.
From there, we decided to go grab some lunch at Lulu's Noodles. Kaiser was thrilled to hear that it was eatin' time! He ate the lunch I packed for him, and also enjoyed a few bites of Mommy's pho.
Yummy Vietnamese noodle soup!
Unfortunately, Porter woke while we were at the restaurant and was clearly not happy about it. (In his defense, I had pushed him that morning and was messing with his feeding schedule.) So we had what remained of our meals packed up; meanwhile, Brett took the baby in the stroller to get the car. We went home and, after getting the boys fed and in bed, finished up our lunches.
Later that night, after putting Kaiser and Porter down for good, Brett and I were able to sneak out of the house for a movie date. Thanks, Pops! We had been looking forward to seeing this...
...and thoroughly enjoyed it! Highly recommend it if you're looking to watch a movie in the theater soon!
I don't have a whole lot to show picture-wise for our day on Sunday. We went to church and were excited to hear a message beginning a year-long study of the book of Acts. Then we had a quiet afternoon playing, reading, and watching football. Brett left for a while to go work on a big presentation he'd be doing that week, but the rest of us camped out at home. Kaiser was not much in the mood for pictures, but Porter was his usual agreeable self. :)
A little tough to get the fist in the mouth from this angle.
Beautiful blues.
Super Porter.
"Don't look now, Dad -- Mom's got the camera again."
"Seriously?"
That evening, Brett recruited Pops to move some boxes into the attic. While they were up there, I asked them to fetch the exersaucer, and later Porter had the chance to "play" in his exciting new toy for a bit.
Lots going on here.
Pops and Porter got some snuggle time before the babe was tucked in to bed.
These two made fast friends!
Monday morning while Daddy was working, Pops and I took the kidlets to My Little Outback to play. As always, Kaiser loved getting his hands on some new toys.
Logged some serious time with this cool dump truck.
Grilling up some burgers and dogs for Pops.
...aaand he's back to dumping.
Slam dunk!
He also had fun taking a couple of turns in the bounce house. Mommy climbed in with him for a bit, while Pops playfully pushed him from the outside.
Taking a breather.
Nice form!
Porter did great while we were at MLO. After drinking a bottle right when we arrived, he stayed content in our arms and then later napped in his carrier.
Watching the action from the sidelines.
Ride the pony!
Daddy was able to pop in to say hi between surgery in the morning and more presentation work in the afternoon. It was right around lunchtime, so we stopped playing to eat together.
Nibbling on caramel corn cake crumbs.
When we got home, Kaiser took a few minutes to ride his John Deere tractor in the garage before coming inside.
Can't wait to take this outside in the spring!
The rest of our day was a quiet one. We were excited to receive a package in the mail from Aunt Kir Kir and Company with the boys' Christmas gifts. She had originally sent it on December 18, and when weeks later it still hadn't arrived, we both worried that it was lost for good. The envelope was finally returned to her, marked "No Known Address" despite being addressed correctly. Ugh! Fortunately, the second time was a charm. Kaiser was excited to open his new Leap Frog Tag book, and Porter (and Mommy) marveled at the talent that went into knitting this precious blue sweater!
Too. Stinkin'. Sweet.
Kaiser and I had been looking forward to Tuesday morning for quite some time: After taking the fall session off, we were finally returning to Music Together! We were glad to have Porter join us for the first time and Pops get to experience music class with us, as well. Before we loaded up and headed out, Pops got in some playtime with Porter and reading with Kaiser.
Good morning to you!
Listening to some Thomas the Train stories.
It was wonderful seeing our awesome music teacher, Miss Karen, and getting back into the groove. You could tell it had been a while for Kaiser, who spent most of the class quietly watching everyone and saying, "Play the instruments!" His wish finally came true when Karen pulled out the tub of instruments and poured them on the rug for the kids to play during one of the last songs. With the help of Pops, who rocked his carseat periodically, Porter napped pretty soundly throughout the entire class. (I'm not sure classes will be so smooth-sailing without grandparent backup in the future!)
By the time we sang the goodbye song, Porter was past due for a feeding, so we made a pit stop at Panera Bread to feed him. Pops grabbed a few yummy pastries for us to share while we were there, too. Then we went home, and while the babe slept the rest of us went down to play in the basement. The guys did some work with Kaiser's tool bench, and he was pretty pumped about the excavator Pops made for him.
"Can we build it? Yes we can!"
Stinker later in the day, after his nap.
Wednesday was our last full day with Pops, and due to nasty winter weather we chose to spend the entire day at home. Porter had his weekly "blue chair" photo shoot early that morning, and Pops came in to join us right toward the end.
"Look who's here!"
Trying to coax a smile out of him.
Kaiser decided it was a great day to sleep in, so I finally snuck into his room a little after 8:30 to get him up.
Wake up, wake up, you sleepyhead!
As I said, it was a hang out and play in pjs kind of day, so that's just what we did. Of course, Porter did have a wardrobe change or two due to spit up incidents. :)
Catching up on the latest news with Pops.
Peek-a-boo in the puppy dog tent.
Where did my baby boy go?
Looking up to Big Brother!
Do they come any cuter?
Enjoying a nice, long, midday "swim" with Thomas and Percy...
...while this boy does some reading on the toilet.
"Can't I get in the tub, too?"
The look on his face tells me we'll be taking a daytime bath again soon!
Brett came home from work in the evening, relieved that his grand rounds presentation had gone well that morning. We went out to dinner at Chili's to celebrate that it was behind him and to say goodbye to Pops.
My babe and me.
My daddy and my hubby (who, judging from his face, is wishing his wife didn't constantly take pictures for the blog!).
Daddy likes to suck his fist, too.
This kiddo does a great job entertaining himself with his trucks!
Pops's flight was scheduled to leave at 11:45am on Thursday. Originally I had planned to take drop him off at the airport way early so that we could be back home in time for Porter's 10:00 feeding, but Brett ended up having a flexible work schedule and offered to brave the iffy roads instead. I did want to get some decent pics of Pops with the boys, and while we were at it we set up the tripod to get a shot of all of us.
Sad to say goodbye.
Proud Pops!
The whole gang.
Just the Bralys.
Pops, we're so grateful for a week of fun with you! The four of us had an absolute blast. We love you very much and can't wait to see you again in a couple of months!
