Gavin has finally learned the final step of his walking/standing. He started standing about 4 months ago and on his own about 2 months and walking for about 6 weeks. All of that time though he never once tried to get up to stand all on his own. He would always crawl to the nearest object and pull himself up. Lately we have begun to encourage him to try to get up on his own but he would have none of it. Today -out of the blue- he just did it and kept doing it the rest of the day like he has been doing it all along. It is just so crazy to see him doing something like a pro that yesterday he wouldn't even attempt.

He does the cutest thing when he eats, if there is any food not quite into his mouth he will use his hand to put it back in. The cute thing is that he doesn't use the front of his hand like you would expect. He uses the back of his chubby little hand to push it in and for some reason it just looks adorable. It's also messy because instead of using his fingers to neatly push it in he smears it all around with the back but its just cute. He has also learned spitting which is not so cute. He will be walking along and just decided that it is a good time to spit. I'm hoping it is a phase that will pass quickly.

These pictures are of him right before bed. He was playing in the first two and then he started to dance. He LOVES dancing- hence the big smiles, and it was hard to get him centered because he was moving so much. In the last one he saw me making the bed and came running over to jump into the pile of blankets. I'm pretty sure he was trying to look cute for the camera.

ZOO

We went to the zoo yesterday and we had a great time. I was wondering how Gavin would react, I knew he would love being out but I wasn't sure if he would notice or care about the animals and to my surprise he really was interested. When he saw an animal he would hold his little hand out toward it and make little happy noises. His favorite animal seemed to be a large turtle that had a face that looked like a mole. It swam right up to the glass when Gavin was by it and he got so excited. When we first got there it was cloudy and not too hot but within fifteen minutes the sun was shining brightly and it got pretty warm. Gavin handled it well but it did wear him out. Toward the end he had lost interest and just played with his froggy that his daddy had bought him and that of course was when I took pictures, not when he was smiling and happy. I didn't realize that till we got home, oh well. It was our first outing as a family of three though and it was a really nice day. We definitely will go again sometime.

Bugs and Heat

I like warmness but I don't like massive heat and humidity and I don't like bugs at all!! Those are the two things we have been dealing with this past weekend. First of all the heat, did it become July and I just didn't notice? This Sat. it was 88 and humid, we had to turn the air on... in MARCH!! At night we don't have it on because it gets cooler and I literally obsess over Gavin, wondering if I put a tee shirt and pants on him will he be too hot through the night or if it cools off will he wake up too cold? I don't know how to keep him comfortable in this in between weather and it seriously keeps me up. We are going to the zoo tomorrow and when we first planned this last week the forecast was calling for 73 and now it is supposed to be 80 again, just a little too warm for spending the day out side.

The bugs have also been and issue. Friday morning I heard a weird noise in the bathroom and when I looked around to see what it could be I looked at the vent above my head and saw big black legs sticking through the slats in it. I FREAKED out and ran out of the bathroom screaming "BUGS" and woke Jacob up (he'd only been sleeping a few hours at that point) I literally almost puked I got so grossed out and upset. I didn't know what kind of bugs it could be and my imagination was on overdrive. Luckily we get a pest control discount because Ellie works for a company so we get our place sprayed once a month and they come back any time you have a problem during the month, so I called Ellie and she called James (our regular guy) right away and he happened to only be ten minutes away so he came right over. In the end it turned out to be wasps, which is what I did guess it might be after I calmed down from the initial freak out. I don't like wasps but they probably just got in through the vent system and weren't some creepy crawlies that are all over in our house. The wasps are beginning to be a real problem though. They are giant here and they are everywhere!!! I think it might be a bad year for them-yippee-. Ellie said they are getting a lot of calls for them at her work because they are acting aggressive -another yippee- and attacking people. I worry for Gavin because they are half as big as him and might try to carry him away. You may laugh but it could happen, or they might sting him which of course is more realistic. This morning I was changing his diaper and there was one right in his room on the inside of his window. How it got inside I can not figure out because I have not opened his window since last week when I opened it and a wasp flew in after it was only open for 30 seconds! We have also seen a lot of spiders in the last week and I am irrationally afraid of them. When I was little I watched the movie Arachnophobia at my cousin Jackie's house and have been scared to death of them ever since. The bugs here are bigger than the ones I grew up with in Illinois and that does not help matters. I don't want every one to get the wrong idea that I go through the day worrying were a bug may pop out but I do admit that I am a girly girl and will run away screaming on occasion. The one good thing is that I have found that when it comes to protecting Gavin I will face my fear and kill them myself- spiders, wasps and any other thing I would normally make Jacob do.


Today we went to spend an afternoon with my Aunt Judy and we had a tire blow right down the rode from her house. I guess at some time we must have run over a nail and eventually it leaked to much and blew. It was really lucky that it happened so close to her house and not on the interstate but still it really sucked. We had just taken Jacob's car to the shop Friday and had the brakes fixed and a new tire wasn't really on the agenda. Jacob's afternoon was pretty much shot after that because he and my Uncle Dwayne had to go get a new tire and fix it but Gavin and I still had a nice time. From the moment we walked in to Judy's house Gavin just walked around exploring, he loved it. It was the first time we have spent any time in some one else's house since Gavin learned to walk though and I hadn't really realized how great the difference is between a baby proofed house and a normal house. I was worried that he would hurt himself or break something of theirs. It makes me a little worried for April when we go to Illinois for 5 days. I just can't imagine trying to keep to keep him out of trouble for that long. It will not be fun.

To end I would just like to say happy birthday to Jacob's mom, Karen. It is her b day today. Happy Birthday!

GAVIN

Gavin is turning one next month and some people have asked me what he needs. It's pretty simple- anything for a 12 month old is good. He doesn't have any summer clothes in his size -which could be 12 or 18 months- and he doesn't really have that many toys for 12 mon. either. A lot of his toys are more baby toys and though he still will carry them around he gets bored easily and they don't help his mind develop. He also loves interactive books. Right now his favorite book is called Who Do You Love. It allows him to feel bear fur and he will "read" it over and over to himself or make someone read it over and over to him. His other favorite book has pictures of babies in it and he loves looking at babies.




Gavin got this from his Abels Grandparents for Easter

Is there anything more fun than digging around your kids mouth to see what weird thing he has put into his mouth this time? I have taken wood, rock, plastic and some stuff I didn't even know what it was, out of Gavin's mouth lately. I don't even know were he is finding half of it. Part of the problem is that with the moving things are still messy around here but some of it is just weird. Like the wood, he got that from an old book shelf. How he found a little part that was falling apart I do not know.



Even though we are not fully unpacked we are actually pretty close which is amazing considering Jacob and Ellie are not here that much and I have to put everything away with a baby at my feet. Things here are still going good and Gavin seems to love it more every day. We have a couple of young boys next door, maybe 4 ish, and Gavin adores them. He spends his time looking out the window at them running around. They are nice to him and wave "to the baby" He even had a young girl hold him, she was not even twice his size so it was funny to see, but he seemed happy with the attention. A few little kids even came to the door and asked if my baby could come out to play but that night it was too late. How funny is it though that he is not even 1 yet and he is getting asked outside?



Here are a few pictures and I would like to explain his hair. I don't know the reason it is always sticking up, I just know that it always is. His hair has been my obsession from before his birth. It was one of the things I was really hoping that he got from my side of the family. Jacob hates his hair and always complains about it and when he was a baby he was bald. He didn't even get his first haircut till he was almost one (Gavin has had about 5 so far). Anyway I was happy to see the black hair sticking up all over the place when Gavin was born. As he has gotten older his hair has turned almost blond, although it continues to stick up. The blond isn't too unusual, my dad, my sister and quite a few others in my family are blond, but I was still surprised when it started to get lighter. His hair grows SO fast though. I hate cutting it and I don't do the best job, but if I don't it gets extremely shaggy (as it is now). The point of this whole paragraph is that his hair is untameable and crazy, no matter what the color. Ellie tried to wet it down to look normal the other day before we went out and that lasted maybe 5 minutes before going right back up.
The first two pictures show Gavin's hair at its worst but if you notice in the others his hair is also a little funky, except for the hat picture which is just showing how much he has grown because it doesn't even fit a little bit anymore.

Spring

Spring is here!! I am so happy, those six weeks we had of winter were horrible! (Ha Ha Illinoisans) Next month Gavin turns one and I can hardly believe it. This last year has flown by SO fast. He has really improved his walking since we have been here in the new place. The other day Jacob was taking boxes out and his hands were full so the door was left open. I saw Gavin head for it and I thought I would be able to catch up to him in time but he is really fast now and he ran out the door, tripping over the door step and went face first onto the sidewalk. He scraped up the front of his face, his nose got the worst of it (I called him Rudolph the rest of the night) but luckily it didn't hurt his teeth any. He learned to clap a couple of weeks ago. I had been trying to get him to do it for awhile but he would only ever smack his hands on his tummy, never together. It is so cute to see him put his chubby little hands together. Also he will not kiss you but if wants a kiss he leans in and puts his forehead against yours and waits till you give him one. It is one of the sweetest things and hopefully I will get a picture of him doing it sometime.


We decided Gavin was old enough to start working so we got him a job at Target. Here he is on his first day....

New Place

Our new place is GREAT!! There is so much room and so much storage area that I don't know why we ever lived at the other place. Gavin is adjusting well. He loves it, especially all the area for him to just walk all around, but he is having a little problem just with the newness of it all. He is very clingy and needs to be around me all of the time. Even with that he is accepting everything better than I thought he would, especially since he finally started sleeping through the night. I love that. It only took 3 nights in his own room which makes me believe that the problem was sharing a room with us that kept him up at night. I love not having to tip toe around my bedroom and being able to turn the light on if I want to. I am a bit paranoid though thinking a million what-ifs that could go wrong with Gavin all alone in his room. I'm sure I will get better as more time goes by but the first night Gavin slept in his own room was the first night in his life he had not slept close to me and it was strange.


Now the big moving story. Imagine being all packed up sitting in your apartment waiting for the movers and waiting and waiting and they never show!! It was a nightmare. I had found this add for movers at our local post office - We Care Movers- and I had called them and everything went great and we set the time and day, 10 a.m. Feb. 28. This was mid January. The guy told me then that he would call me the night before to set the final plans. So come the 27 I am waiting for his call and it doesn't come so I call him. According to him everything is a go and he would see me the next day. So Wed morning my Aunt Judy came over before nine so we could go sign the lease for the new place. By 10 we are all ready to go and sitting in the living room. 10:05, they are late but no big deal. 10:15 I am getting a little worried. 10:30 I decide to call. I call, get the voice mail, but then it won't let me leave a message. So we think maybe they just got the time mixed up and they will come at 11, by 11:15 we realize we were on our own. My aunt tried to call and rent a Uhaul but the guy who answered the phone said he was busy and he would call her back and to my knowledge he never did. We were having a BAD day. So we just start loading up our cars with boxes and just began by ourselves. My Aunt has a big SUV vehicle so there was a lot of room for some of the bigger stuff in her car but we were worried about the washer and dryer. How would we get those moved? And did I mention that my Aunt had just had a root canal the day before? She was just supposed to keep an eye on Gavin for the day but she ended up having to help with the move, I felt horrible. Ellie called two friends who said they would help so they came about 1 and that helped a lot. Then Ellie's friend from work said that she had a truck and when she got off work at 5 she would come over and help. That was very good news because we now had a way to move the washer and dryer. Doing it ourselves literally took all day, it was after 7 by the time we were all done and everyone was exhausted. It was just not supposed to work out that way and to this day I still don't know what happened to the movers. They never answered the phone when I called and believe me I called a lot. I never paid them any money so it makes absolutely no sense at all why they would say they would be there and then never show. NO SENSE!! In the end everything worked out and we got all moved in but we were all sore the next day (especially Jacob-who being the only guy had to do the most heavy lifting) and I still have bruises all over me. We love this place so everything was worth it but I will never get over them not showing.

Gavin's first bedroom

We still have a lot of unpacking to do but I thought I would put a couple pictures of Gavin's room up. His room is the closest to being done, even though it still needs work. He loves his new room and is sleeping like an angel in it. Last night for the very first time in his whole life he slept through the night. When I have more time I will update on the complete DISASTER that was our moving day, until then though here is a little idea of what Gav's room looks like. The book case is empty because the books are still in boxes but soon it will be full (until Gavin takes them all off that is). The window has a built in desk under it and it makes a perfect changing table.