Category: Photos

It seems to us like we’ve raised the same baby four times! 🙂

Can you put the name with each picture?

At least one of them should be easy if you have read my blog recently and saw the pic of Grady. Try to resist scrolling down to the next post.

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Adding space so you can’t see the pic of Grady below.
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Some more space so you don’t cheat.
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Also, if Aubrey adds her answers in a comment, don’t cheat by looking at those.

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And some more.
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Good luck.
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For her 30th birthday, I took Aubrey out to dinner last Saturday night to Crazy Fire Mongolian Grill, and 36 of our friends just happened to be there, singing “happy birthday” as we walked in! It was very cool, and she was totally surprised.

Wesley also had his 3rd birthday last week. He had a great time opening his Star Wars presents and blowing out his candles. He can hold up his three fingers and say “I’m free!”

Our other kids are having a great fall too, especially when it finally rained after a long, dry summery drought:

And Grady is getting to be so big and cute. He is starting to smile a lot more!

What a cutie:

I posted a few more pictures to the gallery, starting here.

This post shows lots of new pics, but you can see all the new ones that I added starting here.

On Monday, I took the afternoon off on the spur of the moment, and we surprised our boys by pulling them out of school early to take them to the NC State Fair in Raleigh. It was a fun day!

The boys had a blast going on rides, including the big slide, merry-go-round, Ferris wheel, roller coasters. They also did a quick fishing game that won them some fuzzy dice!

And, of course, we ate and ate and ate:

• cotton candy
• funnel cake
• deep-fried Twinkie
• frozen cheesecake on a stick dipped in chocolate
• corn on the cob
• bloomin’ onion
• pure honey sticks
• hot dog (x1), corn dog (x2)
• Philly cheese steak
• lamb gyro (best ever)
• snow cones (x3)
• Deep-fried 3 Musketeers

Needless to say, by about 7:30 pm we were like juiced-up zombies wandering around the midway. It was a great day spent together as a family!

Collin was just tall enough to go on a fairly intense mini-roller coaster. As we were flying down the first initial drop after the long ride up, he yelled out “Why did I do this?!!”

We also saw the state’s largest ever pumpkin — 1178 lbs! To put it in perspective, last year’s champion was 664 lbs.

I posted a bunch of photos from that day in my gallery.

Wesley also said something very funny. He has had a bit of a cold since our camping trip last weekend, and Aubrey told him that his voice sounded funny. He said, “I sound like Darf Vay-her.” Ha ha!

Grady has also been a bit sick lately, but he’s still doing really well with his sleeping. He’s growing up quickly!

Owen and Collin have also been playing soccer every Saturday and Wednesday. Collin is on a really great team where they all play really tough. It’s a lot of fun to watch them really moving the ball around. He’s a little guy, but he’s learning to get in there and be scrappy. Owen is in his first year and still takes things at a different pace. At his age, the players form a comet shape as they chase the ball around, and Owen is content to be the tail end. He also loves to hold his arms like a robot when he walks around on the field. It’s fun to watch him. He has a lot of fun out there!

The rest of the new pics that I posted start here.

Aub also got her hair cut. It’s so cute:

Oh, and Wesley fell asleep standing up with his diaper off!

Grady Isaac Packham was born on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 at 5:28 pm in Cary, North Carolina. He weighed 7 lb 2oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. He is very healthy and beautiful, of course!

I’ll have to let Aubrey tell the whole birth story over the phone or on her own blog, but I’ll just say that it happened very fast. The picture of her standing outside the hospital was taken at 4:39 pm, and the baby was born less than one hour later! It was quite exciting and very intense for Aubrey, but we were all glad that it went fast.

More pictures:
I posted a bunch of pictures in our Packhams.com photo album, starting here.

Video:
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=HeK-FvEwPaY[/youtube]

Collin is now playing t-ball and having a great time. I added some pics to the photo gallery, starting here.

Here’s one of my favorite shots of him:

Also, Aubrey has been doing a little nesting, to get ready for our baby. She cleaned out Wesley’s closet of all its junk and added it to the other junk that had been progressively piling up in our bedroom. It’s nice to now have that extra space where the baby boy/girl clothes will go.

So, last Saturday Aubrey did a huge cleanup of our bedroom, but apparently our kids had noticed the condition of our room prior to the cleanup. Owen was playing with a friend when he came in and saw the room. Then we overheard him tell his friend:

“My mom and dad’s room was a total mess, but now it’s clean.”

Thank goodness for honest kids. It’s like they expect us to do the same stuff we tell them to do :-).

Some fun tidbits:

• Owen cut his thumb on my razor. A Spiderman band-aid did the trick.
• I was stung by a bee on my arm, and I screamed like a little girl. I was embarrassed that my kids had to hear that, but I think they’re young enough to forget about it.
• Wesley insists on doing most things by himself. He’ll scream and cry for minutes trying to put his shirt on, and still refuse help.
• Collin started t-ball, and I bought him a tee, a bat, and a bucket-o-tballs after watching him at his first practice.

Some new videos:

• Christmas 2006 (4.5 MB, .wmv, 1:56)
• The boys jumping on the trampoline (8.4 MB, .wmv, 3:26)

More new pics:

A bunch of new pics added. Start here to see them all.

Some highlights:

Boys on a tramp:

Easter:

Aubrey at 25 weeks:

Aubrey flew to California today to visit a girlfriend from our days in Gilroy. After 8 years of marriage, this is her first trip anywhere by herself. She deserves the break!

Of course, that leaves me at home with the boys, which is also lots of fun. Wesley started things off this morning by falling of his barstool and landing face first on the hardwood floor. He was out of it for a few minutes and I was trying to figure out where he was hurt, then a huge goose-egg swolled up on his forehead. At least Aubrey doesn’t have to see it.

My key for this weekend is patience, pizza, Twinkies, doughnuts, and lots of driving around from place to place. Keep them happy, keep them tired.

Of course Aubrey expected me to clean every night, but I have just found other things to do, like catch up on several months of photo publishing. So, check out the photos I’ve added, with new ones from 2006 starting here and our new 2007 album.

Here are some highlights:

Christmas:

Cute shots (yes, that is the day after Christmas):

Snow (yes, we do get occasional snow, and yes, we used it all for this snowman):

Fun at the park (beautiful, too):