It's Been A Long Time

Well, it has been a long time since I have updated this so I will try to summarize the last 2 months. Anyway, this year started out much like last year. I got laid off and then I got sick. Sounds bad, I know, but it's not. Unlike last year, this time I have someone to occupy my time; however, he still doesn't speak English.

Since the middle of January, I have been pretty busy hanging out with the lil' man. Not a whole lot has happened, but we have had some fun. My parent's came up the last weekend of January. Unfortunately, they were only able to spend a night, but it was still wonderful to see them. Preston, of course, gave them a show, and they enjoyed every minute of it.

February started off slow, but that didn't last long. Preston and I started going to the singing group we went to in the summer. Roman is going to try to join us when he can. Last weekend we went up to Long Island for our nephew's Christening. We left Friday and stayed until late afternoon Sunday. We had a great time, and it was wonderful to see Daniel again. He is in the process of leaving the infant phase and moving on to the cute baby phase. He was cooing and smiling up a storm. It was also amazing to see how Preston and Daniel interact. Preston constantly wants to touch, or should I say take toys from, Daniel, and Daniel just watches Preston. I remember Preston at that age, and he was so interested in other babies/toddlers/kids. Anyway, Friday night we had a nice dinner with Lesha, Lyon, Lesha's parents and Roman's parents. On Saturday we hung out at the house most of the day. Roman's parents, Roman, Preston, and I took a late afternoon stroll on the boardwalk and then meet Lesha's parents, Lesha, Lyon and Daniel for dinner Saturday night. Sunday was the Christening, and then we headed home.

All in all, we have had a good couple of months. Now if the weather would just warm up.

It Was A Wiinderful Christmas

I guess now that the Holidays are officially over, I should update this site. This Christmas was a wonderful Christmas. It was the first time in a long time that I was extremely excited for Christmas day. Even though Preston has absolutely no idea what Christmas is all about, it was still so exciting knowing that this was our first Christmas with a little boy. And, that every Christmas after this is going to be more and more amazing.
We spent this Christmas with my family in Virginia Beach. We came down a week early because I had a baby shower for one of my girlfriends from High School. The same night of the shower my brother, sister-in-law, and their 2 boys, Jordan and Lee, came from Wilmington, NC so that we could celebrate Christmas with them. Monday night, the 22nd, was the Fentress Family Wiinderful Christmas Celebration. My sister and her family, my Grandfather, my Uncle Jimmy, and my Aunt Sally and her family all came over for the crazy celebration. Now, when I was a child, we had to wait until the adults had eaten dinner before we opened presents. Then we had to wait until everyone had their dessert before we opened presents. Then we had to wait until the adults had their coffee and talked about meaningless stuff before we opened presents. Honestly, by the time we opened presents, I was so exhausted from the anticipation and from the constant nagging that it was almost hard to tear through the boxes like a complete animal. However, that is not the case anymore. My mother let my 4 nephews and Roman and I open our gifts from them before we even sat down for dinner. My parents had bought all of us Wii's, Wii Fitness and the Snowboarding game. Then my dad surprised my mother by giving her an early Christmas present, which just happened to be a Wii. Needless to say, everyone was very excited. My nephews were so excited that they didn't even eat dinner that night. The 4 of them monopolized the game until late in the evening. When I woke up the next morning, they were still playing. A boy's attention span for a video game truly amazes me.
Christmas Eve night my parents, Uncle Jimmy, Granddaddy George, me, Roman, Preston and Paddington all went over to my sister's for dinner and presents. My sister and her husband made an amazing dinner. After dinner Gunner and Tyler, my sister's boys, opened the rest of their gifts from my parent's. We all hung around the house for a little while longer and then called it a night.
Roman and I woke up Christmas morning to Preston babbling in his crib. Even though we knew he would have no idea what was going on, Roman and I were still excited to know that our first child was about to celebrate his first Christmas. The Christmas morning tradition in my parent's house is that you have to wait upstairs until my parents are downstairs in the den with their cameras out and ready before you can come down. This year Roman got to go downstairs with my parents so that he could take the first picture of Preston on Christmas morning. I'll have to say, Preston was more excited in Christmas than I thought he would be. My parent's gave him a dump truck that he can ride, push and pull, and that gift was a totally hit. He spent a decent amount of Christmas morning riding around on it. Between that and a musical tool bench that Santa gave him, Preston kept himself pretty busy until nap time.
We did not do much Christmas day. Preston ended up taking almost a 3 hour nap so we hung around the house and relaxed. When Preston woke up, Roman, my mom, Paddington and I took Preston for his first trip to the park. The weather was beautifully almost the entire time we were in Virginia Beach, and Christmas was no exception. Preston didn't seem too interested in the slide, but he did enjoy the swing. That night after we put Preston down, Roman, my dad, my mom and I had a Wii bowling tournament. It was girls vs guys, and it was a tight race. The guys ended up winning, but my mom gave a heck of an effort for the girl's team. On top of that, I learned where all of the Fentress bad sportsmanship comes from... my mom. She was rubbing her score in my dad's face the entire game. I just hope the two of them can play nicely once everyone is out of the house.
We left my parent's house Friday afternoon, and headed back to Baltimore. Roman's friend, Billy, and his family were in town that night so we decided to meet up with them. So... when we got to Baltimore, we quickly unpacked, ate, feed Preston, showered, repacked and then hopped back in the van so we could drop Preston off with Roman's parents and then head out to meet up with everyone. The next day, Roman's brother, his wife and their new baby, Daniel, came down to Bethesda for the Hardgrave Christmas Celebration. Daniel had grown so much since the last time we saw him. And, once again, Preston was very interested in this little baby. Roman even said that he sensed that Preston was a little jealous when one of us was holding Daniel. That night the Sibleys came over for another crazy Holiday Party. This visit was not AS crazy as the Thanksgiving visit, but it still had it's moments.
The next day we exchanged our presents with Roman's side of the family. Preston once again made out like a bandit, but that wasn't the best part of the day. Preston clapped for the first time while opening gifts. Everyone was clapping for him, and he just got super excited and started clapping with us. Seeing a 9 month old smiling and clapping was the best way to end Christmas. This year has been an amazing year, and I am sad to see it come to an end.

MawMaw, PopPop & Santa 12-13-08

My parents came from Virginia Beach to visit this past weekend. They had never seen our house decorated for Christmas so we were excited to get the house ready for them. Also, this was Preston's first experience with a Christmas tree. I'll have to say that Preston is great at undecorating the tree, and not so good at leaving it alone.
Mom and Dad got to Baltimore Friday afternoon, and that evening Roman, Mom, Preston and I went to WalMart to buy toys for Toys for Tots. Luckily we were able to get in and out of WalMart pretty quickly while still getting a ton of great toys. That evening we had a wonderful ham casserole for dinner that my parents brought up, and then we sat around and watched Preston play in his room. The next morning Roman made a delicious pancake breakfast for everyone, and even Preston got to join in on the breakfast fun. After breakfast, we all piled in the car and headed to Ellicott City to go to the train museum and to see Santa. Betka met us there.
When we got to Ellicott City, we ate lunch and then headed into the museum. The first thing we did at the museum was see Santa. Preston was luke warm to Santa. The museum had Santa sitting in the back of a historical train car which was set up in it's original state. When it was our turn to see Santa, Roman sat Preston next to him, and Preston stared up at him as if to say "Who do you think you are?". That lasted for about a minute, and then Santa picked him up and put him on his lap. That was when the tears started. I guess this is the beginning of "stranger anxiety". After Santa, we all walked around the museum and looked at the different train exhibits. Preston was definitely impressed with all of the trains. Both of his grandmothers took turns holding him and showing him around. We stayed in Ellicott City until about 5 and then headed home.
My parent's left around noon on Sunday. They did not want to leave, but it helped knowing that we were going to be down in Virginia Beach in a week to celebrate Christmas. We had a really nice weekend. I am sure our visit with Santa is going to be very different next year.

Turkey Time

We spent this year's Thanksgiving with Roman's family and family friends, the Sibleys. And, what a Thanksgiving it was. Betka, Roman's mom, made enough delicious food to feed an army, and the Sibleys brought the majority of the tasty desserts. Every Thanksgiving with the Sibleys includes 4 traditions... 1. drinking a little more than we should 2. waking up Friday morning with a sore stomach from laughing so hard 3. Paddington sneaking food when we aren't paying attention 4. Roman trying to sneak peaks at the Cowboys game. This year was slightly different because there was a crawling 7.5 month old and a sleeping 6 week old. This was Preston's and Devin Conor's, Grainne and Brian's new 6 week old son, first Thanksgiving and Hardgrave/ Sibley Holiday Celebration. All in all, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.
Unfortunately, the newest addition to the Hardgrave family was unable to attend the Thanksgiving Celebrations. Daniel Christian Hardgrave was born 11/10/08 to Lyon and Lesha, Roman's brother and his wife, and due to his extremely young age, they were unable to join us for Thanksgiving. Soooo, Friday morning, Betka, Terry, Roman, Preston and myself hopped in the Hardgrave van and traveled up to Long Island to spend the weekend with the new addition.
Roman and I were so excited to meet our new nephew. I'll have to say that it was very weird to be around a baby that little again. It's only been 7.5 months, but I don't remember Preston being so little. My memory truly stumps me sometimes. I can remember random details like what I wore the first day of high school, but I can't remember a lot of things about Preston when he was several weeks old. I guess that isn't so much my memory's fault as it is the cause of no sleep. Anyway, Daniel is so cute and such a good baby. Preston seemed to be very interested in his new cousin and even more interested in pulling his binky out of his mouth. I assume that is Preston's way of showing Daniel who's boss.
Everything about this Thanksgiving was wonderful, except for the Sunday traffic. I know this is going to sound corny, but we have so much to be thankful for. It's just hard to believe that one of these Thanksgivings all of these little babies are going to be grown up. I hope that day is far, far away.

Trying to play catch up - 11/17/08

This is the first entry on the Hardgrave Family Blog. I will have to apologize that I am just now writing an entry... this whole blogging thing is new to me. Also, I am not a fan of writing so I have been kind of putting it off. Anyway, Roman and I decided to set this up so that our friends and family could keep up with what is going on in our house, or to be exact what is going on with Preston.
As most of you know, Preston Sidney was born April 12th of this year. It is hard to believe that he is now 7 months old. He has changed tremendously in the last 3 months. When he was first born, everyone kept saying, "Oh, they grow up so fast." But, when you are getting 4 hours of sleep and all you are doing is feeding and changing a baby, you start to think that they aren't really growing up fast enough. That all changed around 4 months when his personality really started to show.
Preston is definitely a mover. He started showing signs that he was going to start crawling around 6 months. Then the week of November 3rd he started taking his first "crawl steps" forward. Now he is pretty much cruising around. He still loses his balance every once in awhile, but he gets to where he needs to go.
Yesterday morning, when Preston got up, Roman went downstairs to make him a bottle. While Roman was downstairs, I went in Preston's room to entertain him. When I walked in, he had pulled himself up and was standing in the corner of his crib. THANK GOD we had just lowered his crib.

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