Announcing the Arival of Keaton Taylor Gray

Keaton was born this morning at 8:10 a.m. Arizona time. He weighed 7 lbs. 8 oz. and 19 1/4 inches long. He and Kathryn are both doing great and are perfectly healthy. He has blond hair and (of course) blue eyes.

We are thanking God for a safe delivery and a healthy baby. He shows no signs of Down's syndrome (he had a finding on the prenatal ultrasound in his heart that slightly increased that risk) and they did an echocardiogram (ultrasound of his heart) that was perfect.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. More pictures will follow when we get to a point where we can download on a high-speed connection.

Lots of Stuff All at Once

Hudson Playing at Grandma and Papa's Motor Home

Playing in the Backyard Sandbox

All is well in AZ - we've also gone from snow to 76 degrees (hurray). We do have a lot going on all at once. To give you an idea:

This week: Landon's birthday and birthday party, delivery of a new bunkbed, changing Landon to a big boy bed, acclamating Hudson to a little brother roommate, get-together with our home fellowship group, meeting with our pool designer for the new house, meeting with cabinet makers, and interviewing our third candidate for a real estate agent. (Whew!)

Then we only have one more week before Keaton arrives (yep, we've settled on that name). Kathryn's c-section is scheduled for February 27th. Pray for her endurance in the final weeks of pregnancy with all these things going on. Increasing her stress is that the first real estate agent recommended we put our house on the market March 1st. We've already vetoed that, by the way, but nonetheless there is a lot happening around our house.

The boys are doing well. Hudson is staying in the motor home for Sunday and Monday nights while we get his room overhauled. The car bed is going in the garage for now and the bunkbed is coming in.

We hope you are all doing well!!

Funny Hudson quote of the week:

As we were getting ready to drive away from church on Sunday, Kathryn realized she didn't have her sunglasses with her. She asked Rick if he had them or had seen them, at which point Hudson asked if she had lost them at church. Kathryn said that she may have, to which he said:

"Well you know they were your responsibility!"

Snow in Scottsdale?

Look carefully (or click to enlargy) and you can see snow falling in this picture.


Yep, it snowed here. We had about a week-long cold snap that culminated last Sunday with (gulp) snow in Scottsdale. I assure you that we didn't need any snowplows or shovels but there was enough to dust the ground for a while.

We're doing well. They've dug the foundation at our new house lot last week and plan to get the foundation done this week. They are predicting completion in October or November (so that probably means November or December).

Kathryn is doing well. She's to that uncomfortable point in the preganancy at which she's ready for it to be over. She's been a trooper, though; she's still going to the gym 3 times per week. She's had several women approach her there over that last couple of weeks to tell her that she's inspired them to stay active during their pregnancies.

Hudson is spending a couple of nights with Papa and Grandma at the motor home this week. Landon was pretty upset that his brother left; despite his brother bossing him around all the time, he apparently really likes to be around him.

Funny Hudson Quote of the Week:

When Rick told Hudson, "Instead of going to the motorhome with Papa and Grandma, why don't you stay here? I'd like to spend time with you this week."

Hudson: "Well, Daddy, you have to learn that you don't get everything you want in life."

Smart Hudson Quote of the Week:

Hudson asked why a motorcycle was called a motorcycle and Rick explained the "motor" part and the "cycle" part of the word. Then he asked why a car is called a car. Lacking an etymological knowledge of that word, Rick strayed into defining "automobile." To which Hudson replied:

"Then a motorcycle is also an automobile since it is self-moving also."

Guess what our boys like to eat????

Hi everyone. We're doing well. The biggest item here lately, for those that of you that don't know, has been Hudson's teeth. We found out a couple of months ago that he had some teeth come in without the enamel formed adequately. Because of that, they had worn down. He needed a root canal and two caps. As you might expect in a four-year-old, it had to be done with him sedated. He did really well and everything went fine. Kathryn things he would be a mean drunk though by the way he talked when he got home ("I don't like that hat on you; it looks bad.").

The funny thing around here has been that Hudson and Landon LOVE croakins (I'm not sure I know how to spell that). For those that aren't a part of the Gray family of origin, croakins are a tradition in our family. They are really a Swedish dish that are really called something like Cruk-Crockers. They are potato dumpling around a core of salt pork that is boiled and later can be sliced and fried. They are something of a legend in the Gray family because new members (who marry or are born in) get introduced and seem to either love them or hate them (and more seem to hate them). One prospective son-in-law even threw them up.

Well, our boys are not big eaters regardless and they neither like pork nor potatoes very much. So the last thing we expected was for them to love coakins but they do. Hudson has "forced" Grandma to make two more batches of them after the original because he likes and keeps asking for them. Below is a picture of Hudson with his plate full of croakins.



Funny Hudson Quote of the Week:

"Nothing that you'd be into."

His response to Rick asking him after church, "What did you learn in your Sunday School class today?"

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you! We're so sorry that all of you couldn't be here to share a wonderful Christmas with us. We were thankful to have Kathryn's sister, Kerry, with us as well and Grandma and Papa Gray. We had a wonderful celebration.

We spent Christmas Eve together going to Church, having dinner, and swapping stories. The boys actually went right to sleep. Christmas morning started about 7:15 a.m. (not bad!). Hudson and Landon got to see their two unwrapped presents (a battery-powered Mustang for Hudson and a Cadillac Escalade scooter for Landon) and play with them for a few minutes and then we all ate breakfast. Then we opened gifts. Hudson was of course really into it. He ripped apart the paper and couldn't wait to see what was inside. Landon was pretty overwhelmed. He didn't get into ripping wrapping paper and just wanted to play with the first toy and didn't really care about checking out anything else for quite a while. Overall, they had a ball and so did we.

The best part of the day, though, was the afternoon of Hudson driving the new Mustang in the cul-de-sac. Landon decided he'd try being his passenger and ended up loving it. Hudson taught him how to shift for him. He then discovered that at one end of the cul-de-sac if he turned quickly and hit the brakes, he could get the Mustang to skid sideways. The sight of the two of them cruising in that little car together was priceless.

In case you aren't aware, you can "click" on the photos above to view an enlarged version of the image. We love you all.

Christmas is Coming

Hello everyone. Merry Christmas to you all. The Arizona Grays are doing well.

Grandma and Papa (Gray) arrived in Arizona two weeks ago. We have enjoyed having them over as have the boys. They also traded in their old car for a Honda CR-V and Hudson went with them to the dealership to make the final deal. He was really helpful.

We're excited for Christmas. Rick will have the whole week off (sort of) and we're looking forward to spending a lot of time as a family. Kathryn's birthday is next Thursday, too.

We had a recent "snow day" in our neighborhood park. They hauled in a truckload of snow and the boys and other neighborhood kids had a blast.

We love you all and wish the blessings of CHRISTmas for you all.

Funny Hudson Quote of the Week

Hudson likes to have the whole family pretend we're other people or things. When we're the Oppers, Hudson consistently wants to be Callie. We've also been praying a lot lately for Aunt Bonnie's herniated disk and Uncle Steve's kidney stone. Hudson suggested that the family pretend to be the Oppers, and Kathryn (to tease him) said, "OK, I'll be Callie and you be Uncle Steve." To which Hudson said:

"Hey!! I don't want to have a kidney stone!!"

We're slacking on the blog!

We have really been slacking on blog updates - I can't believe it's been almost a month since we've posted here. Sorry to those who check regularly! We really do have the goal of updating the blog once per week so don't give up on us!

We're doing well. Kathryn's belly continues to grow but she's feeling well. Rick is in the middle of interview season for the new surgical residents at Mayo Clinic. It's a fun but busy time. Hudson is doing well. He is still a stickler for rules and order, as any good firstborn would be. He's become pretty sweet to his little brother instead of just trying to annoy him most of the time. Landon continues to be our little ham. He never hesitates to put food on his head or do anything that will draw the attention of the crowd.

We've been doing a lot of decision-making with our house we've contracted to build (probably part of the reason we've been lax in keeping up the blog). We've now finished the planning of all the appliances, the lighting, the flooring and counters, the cabinetry, the color schemes, and the wiring. It took us seven 2-3.5 hour appointments to get all that done, so we're happy to take a break for a while. It's been fun, excrutiating, exciting, and frustrating all at once. We're happy how the plans are coming along.

Grandma and Papa arrived in Arizona last Sunday. The boys (and us) have been really excited to have them here. They've been able to spend a few afternoons with us and we've had a great time.

We're excited for Christmas. We love you all very much and wish God's blessing for all of you in this season.

Trip to Michigan

We had a great trip to Michigan. We loved connecting with family, especially seeing Hudson and Landon with their cousins. We also had a great time connecting with old college friends of Rick's. We built a lot of great memories, and these pictures do it just partial justice:

With some Opper cousins in a leaf pile


Papa with Hudson


Papa comforting Landon

Trip to Michigan

Caleb, Callie, Hudson


Papa reading "Rainbow" to Hudson


Caleb and Landon

Caleb and Callie reading to Hudson


Grandma Hunting Squirrels


Arizonans trying our hand at snowballs


Hudson four-wheeling with Grandma

New Baby Photos

Hi everyone - well there he or she is. We had an ultrasound on Friday 10/6/06. Everything looked good. We decided to not have them show/tell us the baby's sex during the ultrasound. Everything looked good overall. I'll explain the above pictures:

The first photo is with the head at the left, facing up with the body going to the right curling up with his/her rump curling to the top right and legs coming back toward the left.


The second photo is a shot of both feet.

The third photo shows a profile with the head/face at the left and the chest on the right. The dark areas in the chest are the heart and stomach and the white sections toward the bottom are the vertebrae.

The final photo is a close-up profile of his/her face.

We are blessed an thankful that everything looked good with the baby. The only finding of note was an intracardiac echogenic focus (click to follow link to more information). This is a "white spot" on the ultrasound in the heart. In the absence of other ultrasound findings in a woman over 35 (as is our case) what it means is that the risk of the baby having Down's syndrome is 0.5-1% instead of 0.25-0.5% without this finding. It's actually a not terribly unusual finding on an ultrasound in the second trimester. We are simply praising God and trusting Him in every way for this baby.

Thank you all for your prayers. We love you.

Expensive Baby

Hi everyone. We're doing well. Well, the big news is that this third baby on the way is already the most expensive one by far - because we're moving. Yep, we've decided to get a place with more bedrooms. Actually there are several reasons for us to move but this baby is certainly a prominent one. Kathryn is doing well. We go in for an ultrasound tomorrow.

We're going to be building so we won't be moving for about 15 months. We're just moving about 8 miles north. We're pretty excited. We have a lot of items to pick out and decide on in the next couple of months.

We're flying to Michigan on October 23rd. The whole family is excited about that, too.

Hope you like the new pictures.

Happy Birthday Hudson

Well, we have a four year-old in the house. We had a fun day of celebration. Hudson had really been looking forward to it. Showing remarkable confidence in her son's restraint, Kathryn stored the wrapped gifts sent via mail as well as the gifts from us at floor level in Hudson's room for several days leading up to the 16th.

We let him choose two gifts to open on his birthday morning (before the planned party at dinner time.) He played all day with those two gifts. Sometimes I think two gifts are enough for any child, but it didn't stop there.

We had a party at Peter Piper Pizza. D.D. and Ducky, Aunt Kerry and the three of us all got together for Pizza, Games, Cake, and presents. It was a blast. Hudson loved all of his gifts as you can see in the pictures. Although his parents bought him a musical instrument set: a drum, drumsticks, a tambourine, maroccas, and a harmonica, no one else is allowed to give him noisy gifts in the future! :)

We wish you all could have been here and so does Hudson.

Monsoons are here

Hi everyone. We're doing well. It's monsoon season here - for those that don't know about the Sonoran desert, summer is when we get some humidity and we get some rain. We've had a lot of good rains this summer so that's great for the AZ water supply.

We had a recent bout of brief sickness in our house (again). Landon developed a fever for a couple of days without much else for symptoms (except feeling punky). A few days later, it hit Hudson, but for him it was only about 36 hours and then it hit Rick and Kathryn, each also for about 36 hours. We are grateful to be done with it and that it was brief. Kathryn is otherwise doing pretty well with the pregnancy.

We wish you all could see how the boys are growing and changing. Hudson is still all boy - into cars and trucks and wants to be a garbageman when he grows up. Despite that, he still likes to play a game during which we all pretend to be other people. He almost invariable chooses to be one of his female cousins or a female character of some type. Understandably this practice over time began to concern Rick who finally asked Hudson, "Why do you usually want to be a girl?" To which Hudson replied, "Because I like girls." (Still not much help).

"Why do you like girls?"

"Because I'm a boy and boys like girls." [whew! We think:)]

Landon is our version of a "strong-willed child." Not in the usual sense: He is consistently obedient and compliant. But the child wants to do things himself and usually refuses help. Having trouble getting a bite of food on the fork? If we help him stab it with the fork, he will take the bite off the fork and start over - by himself, thank you very much!

Hudson continues to have a very sensitive spirit. When we picked him up at his Sunday School class a couple of weeks ago, they had a stack of what we thought were CD's. They were labeled with an ad for an upcoming animated movie about the donkey (colt) Christ rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Thinking it was an audio CD, we took one and told him we'd listen to the songs, but it turned out to be a DVD. With all the build-up, Rick decided to show him the DVD which at this point he believed to be a short trailer for the movie. But when he put it in, it turned out to be a 15 minute movie! And we started at bed-time. Hudson was fascinated and it seemed to be a cute story so Rick left him watching it while Rick went to change Landon into his pajamas. While changing Landon, Rick heard Hudson walk into the room and turned to see him with a face soaked with tears saying, "No one is helping him. They threw him down the well and no one is helping him."

Rick ran back with him to the movie. It turns out the story of the Colt loosely follows Joseph's life at first: mean brothers who tease him and eventually throw him into a water well to get rid of him. What a boo-boo to leave him alone watching his very first DVD movie - even if it was tacitly endorsed by the church! Rick sat and watched the rest: the rescue from the well, the disciples coming to choose him, and the triumphal entry. But boy was Hudson ripped up for a while while that little donkey was in the well singing his sad song! Lesson learned.

Funny Hudson Quote:

During the Saturday breakfast ritual of going through the car ads in the newspaper, Kathryn was asking Hudson what cars were shown. Upon turning one page, though, several Motorhomes were being advertised. Kathryn asked him if he knew what kind of Motorhomes they were.

"No, I don't know many kinds of motorhomes...except that Papa and Grandma's is a Residency."

Impressed that he could remember their Motorhome model, Kathryn tried to jog him memory for another by asking, "What kind of motorhome does Mr. Mike and Miss Sally [friends of Papa and Grandma] have?"

To which she was quickly corrected, "No, they don't have a motorhome; it's a park model."

Sniffles in the Summer?

Photo above was taken when Landon stole Kathryn's sports bra out of the laudry basket, put it around his neck and started running around the house giggling.

Hello all. We are doing well, but we had a spat of colds last week. Landon started it off with a cold and some diarrhea. Hudson got it next with a cold and a tiny amount of diarrhea. Then Rick got the cold and just a little upset stomach. Only Kathryn was strong enough to avoid it! Everyone is back to full health now.

Kathryn is doing well. She still is feeling tired and has a nagging nausea when she hasn't eaten but otherwise is doing fine. Rick brought home a doppler from work so we were able to hear the baby's heartbeat last week. It was pretty exciting.

Rick is also doing well. He has next week off work to hang out with the family. The boys are still a lot of fun. Last night during our home fellowship, they went into the playroom together, played nicely together, and stayed out of trouble for an hour without our help! Hudson was quite the big brother, coaxing Landon into staying in the playroom and making sure he played safely.

Funny Hudson Quote of the Week

"See that long one that looks like a snake? That one came out really fast!"

Said while he was sick after getting off the toilet.

What's New

Hi all. All is well with us here. We've had a good couple of weeks. Rick has a four day weekend this week so we're all hanging out together. We spent the morning with friends with a bunch of kids playing at a pool together.

Kathryn is doing well. She's understandably fatigued but overall doing well. The boys are doing great, except Landon has developed a little bit of sniffles. They're a laugh a minute.

Funny Hudson Quote of the week:

"No, it was Landon's."

After Hudson's nap, I took Landon into the bathroom to put him on the potty chair when I saw one of the nice towels with the boys name's embroidered on them on the floor with something purple on it. It looked like marker or something to me. I walked to Hudson and said, "I need you to come to your bathroom and explain something to me."

He knew to what I was referring immediately and said, "Well, after I went to the bathroom you forgot to wash my hands so I went in to wash them, but the soap dispensor was out of soap. So I went to get some baby wash from the tub but I couldn't reach it. So I got some bubble bath [which is purple] but I spilled some in the tub. So I got a towel to clean up my mess."

"So you used your good towel to clean it up?"

"No, it was Landon's."

And it was.

It's August!

Hi everyone. Well by now you know that our big news is that Kathryn is pregant with our number 3! She's about 10 weeks along, so the baby will be due in late February/early March. We're very thankful. Kathryn's been feeling pretty good - some nausea but not a lot. She's also feeling a little tired but all in all it could be worse.

You can all be praying for us as we try to decide what to do about our housing with a third on the way. Our house has two bedrooms for the children that share a bathroom. We're trying to decide if that will work well long-term. We're looking around at least and praying about it. There is one new community being built that offers a 4-bedroom home that we really like. But believe it or not, the demand for homes here is so strong that the developers start 3 new homes per month and you have to enter into a lottery to get the opportunity to buy one of them!! We put our name in for now but we're one of 45 in the drawing! What a crazy city we live in.

Hudson and Landon are doing great. Lately they've been wanting to play on the swingset a lot. Landon can climb the steps up to the 5-foot tall platform now and Hudson slides down before him and catches him. It's pretty cute to watch.

Funny Hudson Quote of the Week:

"C'mon Landon you've gotta work with me here!"
Overheard as Hudson was trying to help Landon get up into his chair.

Back from Vacation

Sorry it's been so long since our last post, but our vacation was also a vacation from the blog. We spent the last week in San Diego. We had planned this week to be in Michigan but since we have to go in October, we decided to make that the only trip so we headed out to San Diego for a break from the heat. We had a terrific time and had perfect weather; here's the run-down:

Saturday: Drove 6 hours to Solana Beach, a northern suburb of San Diego. We rented a condo on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. The boys did great on the long trip. We don't think Hudson stopped chatting for any of the 6 hours. Aunt Kerry met us there.

Sunday: Spent the morning on the beach at our condo. In the afternoon we had our friends who had moved to San Diego, Luke and Cindy Johnson, over to catch up. That night, Aunt Kerry babysat while Rick and Kathryn went out on a dinner date.

Monday: Spent the day at Balboa Park. We explored the science center, arboretum, carousel, automotive museum. It was fun for everyone and Aunt Kerry headed back to Arizona that night.

Tuesday: Went to Legoland. It's a great park for 3-10 year-olds and we had a blast. We rode rides like a jeep safari, a mini-train, a water park, an oval track car race (with no tracks for the cars, just free rein for 3-5 year olds!), a race of fire trucks to put out a fake fire, and a mini-USA of U.S. cities built out of Legos. Hudson also rode his first real rollercoaster: Coastersaurus and he loved it. It was pretty big, too - it made an 8-10 year old boy in front of us cry. Legoland was a big hit. Landon was too little to do much, but he enjoyed the water park.

Wednesday: We spent the day on Coronado Island on the beach near the Hotel Coronado. It was a beautiful beach and nice facilities available to us courtesy of the Johnsons. We had fun splashing in the ocean and digging in the sand.

Thursday: Our slow-down day. We slept in lazily, read and played in the condo, and walked along the beach and bluffs.

Friday: We had a lazy morning and then split up for the afternoon. Hudson and Rick went back to Legoland to take advantage of our second day of the two-day passes we had purchased while Landon and Kathryn went to the beach at our Condo. Kathryn and Landon had fun playing in (and occasional eating) the sand. At Legoland Hudson started out building racecars out of legos and racing them against other children's cars. Then he and Rick rode several other rides, but when we got back to the Coastersaurus, he said the same thing at the end of every ride: "Let's do it again!!!!" Only the park closing stopped us at seven rides on it in a row.

Saturday: Drove back home. Again, the boys did great.

We are feeling refreshed and very blessed and thankful for our time away. We were definitely ready to get home, though. We love you all!