The Manion Times

Fall Family Pix!!

2011-11-10T12:22:00.002-06:00

Kelly is my UBER MOST BELOVED photographer EVER!!! She ALWAYS takes such good pix of us!! I will keep her for as long as she'll let me and I recommend her to ALL!!! She doesn't do this professionally, which means that she's INSANELY cheap. But her photo's always turn out so well!! I love LOVE LOVE her!! Also, she doesn't do prints for you, but she edits the photos and then gives you the whole disc. It is AMAZING!! Anyway, if anyone is looking for a well priced and fantastic photographer let me know. For now, here are some of our pix!

Halloween!!

2011-11-06T22:16:00.004-06:00

So, I'm SUPER lame!! I have a whopping ONE photo from Halloween. Which is so sad because I really thought our house looked cool and Gavin was super cute. Plus, Dan and I dressed up to take Gavin trick-or-treating. Ugh! I'm such a failure!! Boo! (Hahaha! That's kind of funny...)

Anyway, here is my one awesome photo!!

My dad almost got kicked out of the house for wearing this shirt... It got worse when he came into my home in a bright red Ute sweatshirt. Blasphemy!! ;)

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. Gavin was AWESOME!! He walked around the trick-or-treats at both Dan's and my dad's work telling everyone, "Just take one." It was adorable! Then, when we went trick-or-treating on our street (we were kind of lazy and only took him on our cul-de-sac), Gavin wanted to knock himself and would shout, "Trick or treat!" so stinkin cute!!! Lastly, after the first 2 houses he would let go of our hands when we got close to the next house and run up to the door saying, "Mine do it. Mine push the button." He wanted to ring everyone's doorbell's but he couldn't reach most of them. Eh, it was still AMAZINGLY fun! :D

Halloween is here....

2011-10-27T23:12:00.001-05:00

Photo's to come soon!!! :S

What would your kid(s) choose?

2011-10-06T18:25:00.005-05:00

At Gavin's 2 year check up the dr emphasized the need for iron in Gavin's diet. He was actually quite knowledgeable as to WHERE to find this product. "Dark greens," he said. I asked, what about peas? He did not know. But, dark greens: green beans and broccoli. Well, ok, thanks so much. Gavin loves green beans, so we should be set. I was, however, curious after that as to what peas could do for him. (I, myself, HATE peas...) So, I checked the cans in my cupboard. Huh. The peas and carrots have 4% iron and the green beans only have 2%. Interesting... I thought to myself, "I'll have to check at the store against a can of ONLY peas, maybe the carrots are affecting the numbers." So, I did just that. And, it was official: We are NOT going back to that dr. I didn't love him when we were there and there have been other things that bothered me, but this was my last straw. You can NOT recommend something to a diet if you yourself does not know where to find said recommendation. Super lame. Go peas for iron!!!

Anyway, it's now been on my mind and I check random jars, bottles, and cans. I just checked Spaghetti-o's. And, who'da thunk it, they have 10% iron! What?! This seems like it would be so much easier to feed a kid! No fight, a whole lunch.. Maybe. Anway, I thought, "We HAVE to get Gavin on Spaghetti-o's!" LOL. Yep, I really thought that, by the way. :P So, I'm wondering, what would YOUR kids choose?

I'll bet you money, right now, that I will get a screaming tantrum from trying to feed Gavin Spaghetti-o's but a giggle when I bust out the green beans....

I think my kid is broken.. ;)

Good luck in your en devours to get your needed iron!!

Ahhh... The interwebs... :D

2011-09-28T10:27:00.001-05:00

So, it's been a SUPER busy month!! We're in our new place and have taken zero pictures. I'm still working on unpacking and we're still celebrating that we've got tv and internet right now - we didn't have it for the first month. It was a LONG month. ;)

Anyway, hopefully I'll get a little more settled and start the good ol' blogging back up!

We have arrived Saratoga!! :P

Shoe Quandary...

2011-08-23T12:51:00.002-05:00

I WANT the shoes off of the movie "Because I Said So" with Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore. There is a scene in the movie where Diane Keaton and her 3 daughters are in a shoe store and Piper Perabo is holding a pair of sparkly, green, ankle wrap heels. WHERE CAN I FIND THESE SHOES?!?! I think that they are amazing and for some reason I thought of them today and I still can't find them anywhere!! Does anyone have any idea?! I would love you forever if you could help me with this silly dilemma. :)

xoxo
me :)

YAY!!!

2011-08-19T15:01:00.002-05:00

We are officially set to close on Monday at 4!!! I am SO EXCITED!!! All I want to do is load up my stuff and head on out!!! Don't get me wrong, I love my parents and they have an AMAZING set up here. But, Gavin sleeps 2 floors away from our bedroom; we tend to feel like we're raining on my parents parade; we don't have a real kitchen or anything close to a stocked kitchen (it has all of the utilities, ie dishwasher, oven/stove, and microwave, but what about flour, etc?! Nope!). Anyway, it's going to be AMAZING to get back into our own space and stop worrying about what the dogs or Gavin are doing to ruin my parents house. :)

So, fingers crossed that all goes well and by the end of next week we'll be living here:

Slacker: Excuses this way come...

2011-08-01T11:55:00.000-05:00

So... I've apparently vetoed blogging. Ha! I think I WISH that I had something to blog about! My camera is broken - I can no longer see what I'm taking a picture of. I can still take pictures, but who knows whether or not I'll actually get the frame that I want! No bueno! So, there you have excuse # 1.

Let's see.. I'm living with my parents. I'm pretty sure that one is self explanatory. ;) On the upside that shouldn't be the case for much longer. We are currently set to close on our home on August 22nd. I am SO EXCITED!!!! Living with parents = excuse # 2.

Hey, did I mention we're getting ready to close on our house? Cause I don't know if you're aware of this, but that can be semi-stressful and time consuming. Thus bringing us excuse # 3.

Well, I suppose that's all of the excuses I have.

I really wish that my camera was working. I wish that I had pictures of my adorable little man to post. I should start doing video. He's started talking quite a bit and it is AMAZING!! Dan and I might get a good laugh out of all of the words that Gavin spouts off that come out wildly inappropriate. Hehehe! Anyway, he is ADORABLE and has recently been referred to as our little G-unit. Awesome. We also recently went down to the lake and I wish I had pictures from that. It was a blast!! While Dan and I were down at the lake, Gavin went and spent 12 days with his Grandma and Papa Manion in Idaho at their cabin. They are amazing for taking him for so long and they are always so good with him. :) We sure do miss them. I'm glad that we get to see them pretty often, so far.

My bro-in-law and his adorable wife, Grant and Callie, are moving to Texas next month and I'm super sad about it. I'm really going to miss them. Callie is so cute with Gavin. They are so much fun to hang out with and they're one of Gavin's favorite babysitters. I'm sure going to miss them. :( But I am super happy that they've found a good opportunity in Grant's career. They both just graduated from BYU in April.

Well, I think that's all that's been going on around here!! I hope all is well and everyone is staying cool this summer. :)

Kerns 'R' Us: How Much am I Worth?

2011-06-21T17:46:00.000-05:00

My friend Camille is AMAZING! She keeps her blog and is always making me laugh. I love her, even if she doesn't know it. Anyway, I was doing a little Camille stalking today and was reading back through some older posts, when I came across this:

Kerns 'R' Us: How Much am I Worth?

If you are a stay at home parent, this is TOTALLY worth reading. Also, if you think that it's oh-so-easy to BE the stay at home parent, well... You're what we like to call: WRONG. Anyway, maybe you should read this, too and then you might appreciate the stay at home parents in your life.

Thanks, Camille, for this post - even if my gratitude is a little belated... I really appreciated this post and I'm super glad that I decided to stalk you today. :)

Anit-blogging? I think: YES!

2011-05-23T15:19:00.019-05:00

Wow - so this picture is OLD! But, for those of you who are not aware of the awesomeness of the crib tent: Ta-da!!! When Gavin was just 18 month

s he decided, "Hey, I'm done with this crib/sleeping business and I'm getting the heck outta here!" And, he did. Just like that. He was suddenly able to escape from the crib/pack'n'play like it was as easy as picking his nose. Oh my...! Are you kidding me?! He's not even close to TWO YEARS OLD YET!!! Sheesh. So, we ordered a crib tent and it is AWESOME!! Last month, however, he decided to figure out how to pick at the back side of the zipper and UNZIP himself! Ok, now, now just tell me it's a joke and he can NOT really do this!?! Yup, he can. Now, we must put him in his crib, zip him up, and then SAFETY PIN the string on the zipper to the END of the crib... Ugh. Seriously. B

ut, it works! And, as long as my baby is getting his sleep - his VERY MUCH NEEDED sleep - then I'll do just about whatever it takes! :D

Next... As everyone knows we moved back to Utah. It's been bittersweet, but Dan is 100% happier working at his current (new/old - he's working for the same company that he left when we moved to Texas) job. That alone would make it worth the move, but he's also got a regular job and that's a HUGE plus! :P Anyway, when we got here it was lovely. Warm, sunny weather... for two days. Then, it snowed for almost a week straight. Gavin and I got colds. It was LAME! Here he is laying in my bed watching a movie - which is a HUGE deal for Gavin, he does NOT sit still for anything! This is about when I decided that even though we would have to make a pretty long drive, we were going to Arizona with my mom the very next week.

The drive was.... Awful! Hahaha! What did I expect??? Gavin did NOT take a nap and we didn't get to my cousins home until about... 3 hours PAST his normal bedtime. Ugh. Lame. Super. Lame. Anyway, once we got there it was COMPLETELY WORTH IT!! YAY!! I'm so very glad that we went. I was able to help out a little bit while my aunt had surgery and was recovering. I'm so glad that I could help. :) Here are some pictures of Gavin hanging out in MUCH warmer weather and feeling more like himself.

Seriously, who in their RIGHT MIND thought, "Hey! Colored bubbles! That's BRILLIANT!" Because, it's not. Proof:

Ok, so my cousin, Lori, took these from him after this mess. We were all laughing but didn't necessarily want to relive the experience. ;) Ok, so I might have thrown a little bit of a fit at Lori for having those damn colored bubbles in the first place, but whatever! Anyway, when she put them away after this, she put them on the windowsill in the kitchen. Close to the backdoor, but up higher than most of the kids could reach, especially Gavin. Well, a few hours later I walked into the kitchen and saw Gavin outside reaching his hand in through the kitchen window to grab the bubbles! Oh my!! Who is this kid?!?! How does he figure this stuff out?!? He had climbed up on the tub they have out back for their pool toys and was using that to get high enough to reach into the window to steal the bubbles away.

So, have any of you ever thought that Vaseline sounded like so much fun to play in!? I never did... At least, not that I remember. ;) Gavin has, apparently, a very different mindset than I...

So, he put it all over his face and in his hair. Much the same way that I would put Vaseline on his face after a bath - the poor little man has SUCH dry skin and he gets a little rash on his cheeks if we aren't super good about this stuff (stupid Utah! where's the HUMIDITY!?!). Also, I do tend to put some goop in his hair to style it, so he was only doing what Mommy does. ;)

Anyway, if you're wondering it's Desolve-it that gets Vaseline out of hair. Here is a picture of my poor greased up baby just before we took ANOTHER bath, since he Vaselined himself shortly after getting dressed from his first bath!

Our next adventure was silly putty. (Cue doomed music: duhn-duhn duh-na!) Again, this is really my fault. First of all, like I said, I do put goo in his hair. Secondly, my mom and I were really getting lost in the good ol' JoAnns and, well... We needed something to entertain Gavin while we were otherwise occupied... :P So, here's the silly putty incident:

Tip for other mom's: Baby oil gets silly putty out of hair... Not Desolv-it... Seriously?! Why not? Whatever.

Now, the last adventure Gavin led us on was in my mom's Denali. We were unloading cabinets from a trailer that was attached to the Denali while Gavin was hanging out inside the car... Unbuckled... (Cue more devastating music...) We had left the car on and my mom had a Mickey Mouse clubhouse DVD in - which is Gavin's ABSOLUTE favorite thing EVER. We thought we were so clever! Keeping Gavin entertained while we worked. Not worrying about a thing. HA!!! Gavin was in the car working on putting all of my mom's change into the CD player. UGH!!! Luckily, I have a good friend who knows cars. He fixed my moms car free of charge. He says that it was super easy... Wouldn't have been for me and I definitely would have paid. I was so relieved to have my moms car back in working order. Phew!!!

So, on the lines of Mickey Mouse clubhouse... Here's a cute photo of our little man watching it on the computer one weekend. We didn't have a DVD player hooked up in our living room area, yet, so we used the computer. We also didn't have any computer speakers, yet... Heehee!

What a cutie!! I can't get enough of this guy!!! :D

Now, while I'm more than just a little anxious to get our own place and get settled there are some definite benefits to staying with Grandma and Grandpa. Gavin just LOVES it when my dad gets home from work. He goes running with his arms open and saying, "Papa!" It's the cutest thing EVER!! He gets this excited - which is more excited than he gets for anyone else, pretty much - because he just KNOWS that Papa will take him and play "ballball" with him. Here's the cutest picture ever of my little guy playing basketball in my dad's office at the house.

Seriously! Don't you just want to eat him up?!

Easter this year was fun for us. I got to hide Gavin's eggs, which were not actually hidden. Here's a short video of him finding them outside. He was having so much fun and LOVED carrying around his basket.

So, on one of our previous trips to Utah we took Gavin to a pizza place that's kind of like Chucky Cheese. At the end we went and got him prizes with our "tickets". It was so silly and lots of fun. Anyway, one of the prizes we got him was one of those balloons/balls that you blow up and then you hang on to the long rubberband and punch the ball. Loads of fun, right? Who doesn't remember those from when they were a kid? Well, Gavin is starting to figure it out and he has a BLAST playing with the silly thing!! Here's what he does with it:

Oh and this:

And, that about sums up our lives for the past month. My mom and I are about to take a trip down to Arizona again. We're going to stop and spend some time at the houseboat at Lake Powell - YAY!! I'm really excited. It'll be fun to spend more time with some extended family and to get to wear shorts!! Haha!! It's JUNE already and I'm still walking around in pants, long sleeves and socks and shoes. I think that something is wrong with this picture!! Hopefully, by the time I get back from Arizona at the end of next week it will have finally warmed up in Utah! :) Fingers crossed!!

Current Events

2011-04-03T11:29:00.015-05:00

Well, the move is officially kicked off. We have made it to Utah, Dan starts work on Monday and we're settling in nicely at my parents house. We're still not sure where we're going to end up and whether or not we'll rent or buy. But, thanks to my very generous parents, we have some time and flexibility with those issues and concerns. :)

Here are some pictures and notes on what's been happening with us. :)

Gavin found his pockets and he LoVeS them!! He's such a little stud!

Gavin has also found his love of reading! He just loves to sit with Mommy and read, read, read! I'm so glad that he's so eager to learn.

Gavin is also a very big fan of being outside and playing at the park. Once he finds a slide that he likes, he's just go and go and go, taking the same route to the top of the slide and then he comes right back down. He has so much fun and can just run around there forever.

Gavin was helping us with our yard sale. I think that he was a little sad to see some of his stuff go, but he did really well, anyway. :)

Gavin was a little bit excited to go on a ride. He made a huge mess in the car so we stripped his car seat and through it all in the wash. He got in it and asked us to hand him his stuff right after we reassembled it.

This is the lovely mess that my kitchen became during our packing. It was so incredibly frustrating. I'm so glad that we're done packing... I'm almost ready to unpack, but I'm still not really looking forward to it, yet.

Our last night in Texas and we got our first Bluebonnet pictures. They're protected in Texas, you're not allowed to cut them or anything. Gavin, obviously, broke that little rule... But, it's so stinking cute!

Happy Texas!

I love this little man! I wish that Dan could have been there, though.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

2011-03-09T12:56:00.003-06:00

Ok, here it is!!!

Dan got a new job!! Woohoo!!! He's been so disappointed with his responsibilities at NowAdvisors and has very much missed working with other engineers. He is going to be so much happier working at his new job. Even though his new job is with his OLD company! He will be returning to StoresOnline but to a very different position. And, a very different company in general. A lot has changed at that company since they were taken over shortly after we left.

And!! We're moving back to Utah. Yes, I am excited. Yes, I am SUPER bummed. I've made such good friends down here and they've got kids that Gavin has been friends with and gets along with so well. The other day we were eating lunch with some friends and Gavin and Austin were holding hands while they ate. So cute! Also, a huge thing because Gavin usually HATES it when other kids touch him at all. But, we get to come back to my parents and brother and lots of old friends. :)

We should be up to Utah sometime around the end of this month or in April. Wish us luck with the TONS of packing, yard sale AND the drive back to Utah!!

Coming Soon...

2011-03-01T10:19:00.002-06:00

Big changes will be coming this way soon.... Please stay tuned for some big announcements!!

My silly, perfect, little man!

2011-02-05T22:19:00.005-06:00

My mom might completely disagree with the "little" part. ;) She's just been down for a week long visit. As usual, we miss her already and she just flew home today! We have so much fun when she's here. Gavin LOVES having someone who will ALWAYS spoil him living in his OWN house! ;)

Here's some awesome photo's from the last little while. :D

So, this is what face we get when we say, "Gavin, smile!" Hahaha!! It's hysterical right now but I'm thinking that I'm going to dislike it in a couple of years when I'm trying to get a good picture...

Clearly he is NOT ready for me to pack away the bumbo... Too bad!! Time for big boy toys! ;)

Such a STUD!!

"I LOVE SUGAR!!!"

Hope everyone is having a good time with this new year!! We've been FROZEN solid for the last week or so. We had HEAVY rain on Tuesday night and then... Well, and then it FROZE. So, TONS of businesses were closed: dr's, restaurants, shopping centers, and so on. A few days later it snowed. SERIOUSLY?! SERIOUSLY?!?! Umm.. Hello, my name is Shannon and I thought that I ordered one life in Texas? Where it does NOT snow! Anyway, my mom and I were 2 of a very small number of people who went out and about on Tuesday. Haha! Mostly trucks and SUV's and me. In my little Kia Spectra. With bald tires. Ha! Good fun, though. :) Well, here's some small amount of pictures of the snow.

My little snow drift at the back door. It completely froze over and anytime we had to go out back we had to move VERY SLOWLY. Heehee. It was like iceskating... even over the grass. Weird.

Gavin LOVED the snow. He thought that it was so fun to walk around and hear it crunch under his shoes and watch it cover his shoes. Very fun.

And, lastly, trying to get the snow off of Gavin's shoes. He thought this was hysterical and went back to the door after Dan put him down and tried to do it himself. Not just smacking his shoes on the door, but he bent his knees and was trying to swing. Absolutely priceless. :)

Lions, Tigers and Bears! Oh my!

2011-02-05T21:56:00.005-06:00

Ok, so not really any lions... Or tigers.... Or bears! Sheesh! Let it go! We did enjoy the company of quite a few exotic animals the other day, though. Here's some proof. ;)

Deer!! In TEXAS!!! Woot!

What is that? Ummm... A Black Buck something-or-other... Whatever, it made my baby smile :)

Having fun in the petting area with Dad. I love these guys!!!

Ummm... Have a ZEBRA!!!

Beware! They eat cars!

And my mom! Oh my!! I felt so guilty! I'd been trying to get someone on that side of the car to feed the baby zebra and so my mom finally did and he tried to eat her!! See that nice bright pink 'V' on the palm of her hand, ya, zebra teeth. And the people in charge told us that ONLY the zebra's were safe to feed by hand. UGH! Turns out they're the ONLY ones that BITE! :P

Oh ya! A giraffe - RIGHT NEXT TO MY CAR!

And I FED HIM!!! AWESOME!!

Rhino, anyone??

And, my baby is WORN out! He had SO MUCH FUN!!! :D

This place was AWESOME! Totally worth the drive (about an hour and a half each way) and easily worth the money (only $40 for all of us and the bag of food).

Special thanks to my friend Stefanie for telling us about this place!! She told us about it at dinner on Friday (before the ice storm) and we went that Sunday. We knew that cold weather was coming so we made sure we got out there before it hit us. Yay!! We had so much fun!!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-14T13:17:00.000-06:00

Thanks for the pix, Kelly!! They are awesome. :)

Blah!

2010-11-18T19:13:00.002-06:00

So, I've kind of been feeling anti-computer lately - sorry.

Here's a bit of what's been going on:

I went to Utah and tried to do all of my Christmas shopping for everyone in Utah - FAIL. :P I just couldn't find anything! It was kind of sad. I also went to help my mom with some projects - that went a little bit better... My mom got a lot done, but I didn't feel like I was much help. I did get her scanner going and showed her how to use it, so that was a HUGE plus. Also, she volunteered us to make 500 cupcakes and we got that done, too. HUGE CHECK! ;) (By the way, who the HECK volunteers to make 500 cupcakes?!?! She's a crazy person, sometimes!)

Ok, then we all came to Texas: My mom, dad, Gavin and me. That flight was AWFUL!! It left around 8. So, an hour after Gavin's bedtime. He didn't sleep AT ALL on the flight. 2 1/2 hours of a lot of off and on screaming. Ugh! I tried to push him off on my dad up in first class but he came running back only a few seconds later. Boo. My dad did offer me his first class seat. I was hoping to get away with taking the seat and ditching Gavin... But, the stipulation was that I TAKE Gavin with me. Oh well. It was worth a shot. So, my mom and I sat together to have the most space for Gavin and we did our best.

On Saturday while the fam was here we went with all of Dan's local family to the BYU TCU game. It was sad. Weirdly, though, it wasn't nearly as embarrassing as the game I went to 2 years ago... What do you do, though, right? ;)

On Monday my dad left. He went somewhere - I don't know where - for work, for a couple of days and then flew home. My mom, however, stayed for another week or so.

I LOVE it when my mom gets to come play with us. We have so much fun. :) We mostly just played on this trip. Not too much to talk about. But, I'm ready to live near my family, again. But, what do you do? Support your husband, that's what! LOL. ;)

The day my mom left I got a call from my cousin, Heather. She and her family (hubby, baby & 2 dogs) were currently staying and her hubby's grandparents house just 20 minutes away from me. Well, their housing in LA wasn't quite ready for them so she was wondering if she could crash at my place. Heck yes!! Woohoo!! It's like a perma-play date!

So, my cousin, her son (who is 2 days older than Gavin) and her 2 dogs (that we LOVED) came to play with us. All the while her hubs was out in LA staying with a friend and trying to find them a place to live temporarily until they can get into their permanent house.

So, now that they've come and left us - we miss them, terribly! I wish that they would just come back and live with us! ;) Too bad her husband has one of those job thingies... ;) Now, however, I am on the quest to convince my husband to get us a real size dog. Lol. Gavin LOVED Heather's dogs, especially Angus who Gavin is sitting on at the top of my blog. :)

Well, that's about all for now! In the meantime enjoy some videos - they might be the last thing you get from me all year! ;)

^Kyle and Gavin co-piloting the jeep. LOL - Gavin was the one pushing the gas and Kyle was the one steering. It was HYSTERICAL!

^Gavin pretty much just always makes us laugh. :)

^Oops! Sometimes Gavin gets a little too into the rocking... :)

I'm so lazy! :P

2010-10-04T16:02:00.006-05:00

So I don't have much to say... I'm getting ready to head to Utah with Gavin. My mom and I are keeping the tradition alive! We're going to try and get our Christmas shopping done next week. Yay for shopping for Christmas in October - it drives my husband NUTS! When I fly home I get to be on the same flight with my mom and dad. Hooray for FOUR extra helping hands!! I'm so thrilled!! They're heading down to Texas for the slaughtering of BYU by TCU. It's going to be so ugly... I'm trying to figure out how to get away with wearing a purple shirt... ;) After that my dad will be leaving us. :( But, my mom will be staying with us! :) She's going to be here through Halloween and I'm so glad that we're able to have her here for these special occasions. :) Also, on Halloween my cousin and her little fam will be swinging by. I'm so darn excited!! I haven't seen them since she and I were preggers around Christmas time. So, our boys will get to meet. YAY!! That should be lots of fun!! Anyway, that's about all for now. I know that it's not much excitement but at least I didn't completely bail on blogging and I actually wrote SOMETHING! Here's some pix!

^ My final project from my cake class - I'm still in need of serious help! :P

^ Gavin cleaning up the napkins that he shredded and then threw on the floor.

^Gavin climbing the ladder to help install the curtain rods. (There was some serious issues with our curtain rods and they were unable to be hung on this night. :( They are now up, though!)

^ So proud of himself for drinking from a real cup!

^ Hanging out while Mom sews the curtains - he was COMPLETELY mesmerized by the sewing machine.

^ FINALLY drinking milk that is NOT in a bottle! WOOHOO!

^ Free trip to the zoo with Daddy. Thanks to Daddy's client for the tickets to their zoo day!

^ Gavin's balancing act on his new big boy chair.

^ Finally drinking from a REAL sippy cup instead of one with a straw!

^ Close up of my new curtains

^ The curtains in all of their horrific glory! Heehee! Dan and I failed and hung the rods to high. UGH! Also, the curtain hiding behind the recliner is about 2 inches shorter than the others. Boo! And, lastly, it was so much darker than I'm accustomed to that I cheated and used rubberbands to tie them back until I purchase my hooks and decide on my real pull backs. (Please, don't worry too much, I will be fixing the issues with my curtains shortly.) ;)

Video Time

2010-10-02T19:23:00.005-05:00

^ This is Gavin "helping" while Dan went to get a screw driver to put in my new headlight light bulb. (Oh, yes. Sorry Mom, I don't know how to edit things to cut out your comment. So, on my mom's behalf: Please forgive the laughter and the comment that was unnecessary since I was obviously already taking video. :) )

^ This is Gavin locking/unlocking the doors. Apparently it's TIME TO GO! ;)

That's all for now! :D

Pictures and Stuff :)

2010-08-25T20:02:00.012-05:00

Gavin's new game is putting his balls into his snack cup. It's funny... One time, anyway. After that it's just ruining the snack trap! Stop this!! The dogs are eating more of your fruit stuff than you are!! And that fruit stuff is really healthy but not what I consider cheap! :P

Gavin's contribution to laundry day. ;)

My poor little mans wounds. He likes to push the button to open the garage, so I held him up and he pushed the button and I put him down and went to start the car. Gavin, however, went to the garage door... And walked right into it as it was opening. Oops! So, that is what caused the scratch. Then we were at the Sears store getting vacuum bags and water filters and he went running down the store and his shoe stuck, but he caught himself... Kind of. His momentum kind of made him keep going, so his hands were on the ground but then his bum was in the air and his forehead was on the ground, too. That is what caused the red bump in the middle of his forehead. That bump lasted 2 days. Oh my goodness! And, he stopped crying really shortly after the fall. He's so tough!

"Now I have a car just like Grandpa Cutler!" It's a BMW Z4 - BRAND NEW! ;)

Gavin enjoying lunch out of his highchair at the counter (Delicious homemade mac'n'cheese and fresh strawberries and blueberries - YUMMY!)

Gavin figured out how to climb into my kitchen cabinets... Kind of... He got stuck. Well, he could get around INSIDE the cupboard but he freaked out and couldn't figure out how to get out. I laughed at him, but I did help him out. ;)

These pictures make my day. Hahaha! He figured out how to climb onto the chairs once when I left a chair out and then he tried to climb onto the table - not ok. So, I pushed all of the chairs all of the way under and thought that was the end of it... Obviously Gavin had a very different plan. :)

"Time to make cookies, Mom!"

Gavin's first SOUR candy! Hahaha!

This is one of Gavin's other favorite thing to do lately. He decides he doesn't want to move his chair closer to the couch to climb up so he stands up on his chair and gets his courage up (as he does so, his smile gets bigger and bigger) and then he goes for it. He thinks it's hysterical. :P

That's all that's going on around here lately!

Teething is AWFUL!

2010-08-24T22:07:00.003-05:00

Gavin is getting 4 molars! What?!?! He just barely popped out 2 more of his tiny little front teeth! So, I was home alone. Dan was in Las Vegas doing a trade show for work - yay for the hours of overtime, boo on him being gone and coming home smelling like a cigarette. My mom and Dad were at Lake Powell. My in-laws were out of town. And Gavin's running a low grade fever for a few days. One night he woke up about an hour after a dose of Tylenol and still has a fever. So, I'm finally at my wits end and call my husband even though I know that he's still working. "Do I take him to the dr? He shouldn't still have a fever, even if it is a low one." Anyway, Dan calmed me down and Gavin went back to sleep. That was on a Tuesday and I had a dr appointment on Friday. So, I called them on Thursday and asked them to squeeze Gavin in around the same time as me. Yep. My amazing dr's office did it! (I LOVE them!!) So, Gavin's dr checks him out and says he's doing ok and that she can feel all four of Gavin's one year molars starting to come in. UGH! Well, on the plus side at least he's not sick-sick.

So, in case you're unaware of the treats that come along with molar-teething here you go:
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Fever
Fussiness
Excess Sleep - one day Gavin took 3 naps totalling 7 1/2 hours! Oh my!!!
Lack of Sleep - Last night he did NOT sleep well! :( Ugh!

Yes, I've dealt with ALL of these symptoms and I feel so terrible!! My poor poor little baby!! And, the real kicker - he's still awesome. When he's awake he's almost always in a good mood. It's amazing. He shows you so easily when he's tired by coming up to you and hugging you and laying his head down on your shoulder. It's really sweet, but really sad because you know it means that he doesn't feel well. :(

On the up side, at the dr's they measured Gavin again and he's gained almost a pound and grown an entire inch!!! HOLY CRAP!! This kid is a giant! He is officially half my height. WHAT?! He's barely one! Sheesh!

So, now here his his info:
32" Tall
25 lbs

His height is off the charts for his age, again. He's walking around this house in slightly large 2T clothes, but at least they're not belly shirts like the 18m clothes! :P

So happy!

My poor sweet little baby trying to take his own temp. :(

This one's for you! - Addendum

2010-08-10T16:01:00.001-05:00

Did I forget to mention that it's a BLACK WIDOW?!?! Holy crap!!! Those do not belong at my house!!!! >:(

;)

Gavin's Info :)

2010-08-08T11:29:00.002-05:00

So, I should probably mention Gavin's stats from his one year check up:
Height: 31"
Weight: 25 lbs
Head: ?

He's in the 80th percentile on all 3 measurements. Such a big boy!! :D

Finally!!

2010-08-07T22:29:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I've not been feeling the blogging spirit over the last month or so - SORRY! :S I finally got the itch, though and it's all done! Feel free to skip over some of the following entries and just pick and choose which ones you actually feel like reading. :)

This one's for you!

2010-08-07T22:10:00.004-05:00

This post is for my cousin's Connie and Lori. They've recently given me some grief over my many spider/bug pictures. I'm an arachnophobe like you wouldn't believe. At the same time I have a completely absurd interest in bugs/arachnids. They're so dang weird and intriguing!! Anywho! I've had this webmaker out at my mailbox for the past little while and I just kept pulling the spider web down with some sort of stick or any junk mail I happen to have in my hand. This web is a thing of beauty, by the way. It went from the base of my mailbox to the outside edge of the curb. BIG WEB. Well, I then went out of town for 2 1/2 weeks and it NEVER got taken down so it was GROSS. All full of bugs and yuck, in my opinion. So, I again used some junk mail and tried my best to get the whole darn thing down. I don't know when the last time was any of you looked at the underside of your mailbox but it's a good inch of space under there - where the door opens. So, I found a dead spider in the web while I'm doing massive demolition and I think to myself, "That's a good size spider. I'll bet this is his home and he died because of bug spray (which I use on a regular basis around here. Anytime I see a creepy thing...)" So, I finish doing what I think is a pretty good job of removing spider and home and go on my merry way. Well, I went to put an envelope in the box today and what do you know? The web is back! Well, crap! Where's the little devil?! So, I squat down and look at the space under my mailbox. Hey! There's another dead spider that looks just like the one I got rid of yesterday, only a little smaller.... Hmmm... Who's in charge of this place, then?! And there I saw it! 3 long, slim, black legs sticking out of a gap in the mortar under the box (my box is in a brick stand thingy). Alright! I know what I've got to do: Get the Raid! I go back inside and ask Dan to come look at this craziness - he humors me, often. ;) Grab the Raid and head back outside. (By the way, I have yet to see a spider get Raided and live, for those of you who are interested. ;) ) Ok, here goes, Dan looked and saw the legs, "Yep, you'd better get him." And so I did! Woohoo me! I love Raid - I regularly have multiple cans in my home and spread them out so that they're always nearby. :P Laugh if you will, but it makes mine AND Dan's life just a little bit easier. Anyway, out comes this devil spider and I gasp! OH MY GOSH!! That's right, it's a black widow. Where I go on a daily basis, where my child plays and this DEVIL creature is just HANGING OUT like it BELONGS here! WHAT THE?!?! So, Dan tells me to take a picture. I protest saying that I've been recently mocked, but he says to do it anyway. He also then proceeds to tell me that it's the biggest black widow he's ever seen. AAAGGGHHH!!! Are you kidding me?? I've never even seen one before!! Boo!! Boy are my bug people going to get an ear full! They always laugh at me when I ask them to spray the box, but there are always spiders in there and apparently those spiders make a pretty good meal for a KILLER! (I'm laughing at myself as I type this.) Anyway, I go inside to get my camera and I see that I've missed a call from my mom. I call her back and we chat and I mention my newly killed spider and Dan says, "You just watch. You're going to go out there to take that picture and it's going to be the one spider that Raid doesn't kill and it's going to be gone." AAAAGGGHHH!!! I really think that he's trying to kill me. If you give someone a heart attack is that murder?? At this point I'm rushing to get off the phone and go outside, still with my camera, and make sure the stupid thing really is dead. On my way out the door Dan tells me, "Seriously, I'd squish that thing just to make sure he doesn't come back." Ugh! Ok, grab a stick out of the flower bed and I'm off! I take my pictures - using my stick to flip the spider and get a good shot of the red marking - and then I try to squish it with the stick. No go. My little stick breaks. CRAP! Ok, try again. Nope, broke again. Last resort: STAB the sucker! And I did. DEAD!. The end. And, here are my photos! ;)

xoxo
Shannon ;)

Time in Utah

2010-08-07T20:54:00.007-05:00

After the week at Lake Powell Dan had to come home for work and I decided to stay in Utah and play with my family. So, on Sunday Dan flew home - without seeing Gavin, unfortunately - around noon. Then, around 8 I met with Dan's family and got Gavin back. Boy was I excited! An entire week!! Holy cow!! I didn't have a break down the whole time, but I was BEYOND antsy by the time I got to my baby!! He, however, couldn't have cared less. Hahahaha!! We met at a gas station and I took him in my arms and he didn't even smile at me and he stuck out his arm and grunted at the big red rumbling truck behind me. Ugh! :P I keep trying to tell myself how happy I should be that he's so well adjusted... Couldn't he have missed me just a little though?! ;)

Anyway, we had a BLAST in Utah over the next week and a half. The first week I helped my mom to get as much done around the house as possible. Summers are so busy for my parents that they're hardly home and this summer was worse than normal with the reunion and Gavin's birthday. So, I tried to be as helpful as I could. I never feel VERY helpful anymore, though, because I come with this tiny, adorable, little distraction. Hehe... Anyway, we actually got quite a bit done. Everything from our original to do list and most of our additions got crossed off. WOOHOO!!! Even my dad was impressed. Yay!! We were productive!! Even though my kid was a little rotten because he was TEETHING!! Ugh! He always has the worst timing! ;)

While we were there, we did get in quite a bit of play time, though. Gavin especially. Remember how I mentioned that my dad loves his grandbaby? Well, he LOVES his grandbaby, especially now that he's getting big enough to PLAY! ;) So, here's Gavin's first big-boy-Utah-adventure:

My mom couldn't stop laughing. I was LOVING my dad trying to get Gavin to steer - like Gavin has ANY idea what my dad is talking about! And a great big THANK YOU to my good friend, Kevin, for making the truck work in the first place and for helping Gavin steer and not get dead! ;) I had to stop doing video before I got sick, by the way. Gavin can only go in circles and only likes to go in one direction. We did finally get to the point where he could just go in that circle without help, thank goodness! The toy is meant for kids ages 2-6. Eh, oh well, right? ;) Gavin didn't figure out almost the whole time that it was his little fat foot that made the truck go. He was awesome on this thing and he LOVED it!! He would always drag people to the garage door to try and get them to take him out on the truck. :)

Next, Gavin had his first play time with a hose. It was AWESOME!!! He'd started the morning out by sitting down, in his pj's, in a little mud puddle and splashing around and eating rocks. (I obviously stopped him from actually EATING the rocks.) Because of this little escapade my mom turned on the hose and we took his shirt off to clean him up, but he just wasn't done playing!

There is a video of him spraying himself in the face, but I guess it's too long to upload because I've tried a couple of times and blogger keeps failing, sorry. :(

So, the hose fun was before we went to church. My parents church starts at one in the afternoon and sacrament meeting is last - LAME. By the time sacrament meeting rolled around Gavin was DONE. So, my mom comes in to the chapel with him, after playing in the foyer for a while and asks me if I'm leaving after sacrament. Umm... Ya, church is over after this, hello? Hehehe... She was kicking me and my son our of church. She wanted us to leave as soon as they were finished PASSING the sacrament. So, they passed and we left. Hehehe... What a little monster he can be sometimes! Gavin looked like a little stud while were were there though!!

Ok, Gavin also had his first ride in my mom's HUGE open top jeep. He loved the jeep!!

And, lastly, Gavin got to go on the four-wheelers. Woohoo! This was right after church and he didn't get a real nap because his nap time was during church, so he's not super thrilled in the picture(s). Also, this was not his first time around, so maybe he's already bored? ;)

(Don't you just LOVE how green and beautiful my parent's yard is? Wow. I really miss that about Utah.)

Later Sunday night one of my aunt's, her daughter and her kids all got to my parents house from Arizona. We got to spend Monday and part of Tuesday with them and I loved it. They're so much fun! I'm glad we got to squeeze in some time with them, even though it was pretty short lived! It was so good to see them!!!

Gavin and I flew out on Tuesday afternoon and it was SOOO GOOD to be back home and with Dan, again!! Yay for being in your own space and living according to your own routine. Gavin is sleeping better, despite his teething. Thank goodness for his own bed! :) We had lots and lots of fun with everyone but we're ready to be home for a little while, now!

Lake Powell

2010-08-07T20:43:00.003-05:00

Yay for Lake Powell!! I was so darn excited to go this year, since we weren't able to go last year. Which was ok, cause Gavin is awesome and totally worth the sacrifice. (Also, yes, for those of you who don't know this about me: It was a REAL sacrifice.)

Anyway, here's how things went this year. We did NOT want to take Gavin to the lake. Talk about no fun for ANYONE. So, Dan, Gavin and I flew to Utah on a Saturday. At my parents house we met up with Dan's parents (a little backwards, I know. My parents had left for the lake and Dan's parents were in town from Idaho - where their cabin is - for a homecoming at church). Dan's parents then took control of Gavin and Dan and I left. We drove down with two friends to the lake and met my parents. We were then at the lake from Saturday night to Saturday afternoon. It was AWESOME!!! We had so much fun. We went... "fishing". It was a joke and we were cracking up at ourselves! We had no fishing gear so Dan was throwing a shovel off the side of the houseboat at the fish that would come after my friend and I had bated them near with crumb donuts. Yum. Don't worry, the donuts were stale. ;) We also abused our bodies behind the boat an absurd amount and it was WONDERFUL! ;) I love the lake!!!! Here are some pictures. :)

Dustin getting some decent air on the wakeboard - he actually attempted and got about 2/3rds of the way on a flip. It looked painful - AWESOME, but painful. :)

Dan catching some air, as he usually does, on the wakeboard

Dan and I wakeboarding together.

All of the funny tubing pictures are not on my camera. So, maybe one day I'll get my hands on some and I can post them for you. :)

The Zoo

2010-08-07T20:38:00.002-05:00

We went to the zoo - Gavin, Marshall, my mom, and myself. It was actually pretty fun. If the animals were moving around at all Gavin would notice them and not just be excited about the weird fence I was sitting him on. ;) Anyway, here's a few pictures:

Looking at the monkeys at the very beginning of the zoo.

Looking at the animals at the petting zoo. They were standing far enough away that no kids could actually touch them. Boo. Also, yes, we took off Gavin's shirt because it was SO HOT!

That's all and YAY for Gavin's FIRST trip to the zoo!

Happy Birthday, Gavin!!!

2010-08-07T20:22:00.006-05:00

How on earth did this happen?!?! I can NOT believe that it's already been a whole year with my amazing little man!! SHEESH!! Time goes WAY TOO FAST!

Anyway, his birthday was July 5th. My parents, amazing grandparents, drove down with Marshall to be here just for the first birthday bash. It was great!!! My dad said he was so glad he came because it was like a Gavin-fest every day. ;) He LOVES his grandbaby. :)

On Gavin's birthday we had a pretty slow morning. Waking up, hanging out and then a nap. We went to McDonald's, where we met up with Dan's parents and sister Becky (YAY!) for lunch - Gavin LOVES their nuggets and play place. We then went swimming at one of Gavin's favorite pools - it's zero depth entry, so he can walk right in without stairs, thus avoiding drowning. ;) Afterward we went home, Gavin napped and then we ate dinner and then Gavin opened presents. Presents for a one year old.... He got WAY too many and yes, I know, it was mostly my fault. Whatever! How do you NOT spoil your first baby?? :P Anyway, he was pretty cranky getting through present opening so we went as quickly as possible. After that, we stripped him down and gave him the most unhealthy cake in the world (but it was ADORABLE!). He DOVE in!! He absolutely loved it. After just a minute or two we sliced off the front half of the cake to make sure that all of the grown-ups could have some, too! We eventually took the cake away from Gavin, most of which was not eaten but WAS stripped of frosting! We then took him to the pool stripped his diaper and he got a public bath. ;) Hehehe! Yay for embarrassing moments as a baby! Afterward, I took Gavin in and put him to bed. Phew! Thank goodness that's over! ;)

Leaving the pool to go home. :)

Oh my gosh!! How many presents does one kid need?!?

"Thanks Grandma & Grandpa, for the balls and the baskets! I love them all!"

Yay cake!! ;)

Oh, yuck... Can you see his sippy cup down there? Ewww...

Pre-diaper strip. Also, that frosting left a film on top of the water... That can't be good for any person to eat... :P

Lastly, Gavin is hysterical! On this day he learned to put his arms up in the air (as you'll note in the gross cake picture) whenever we'd laugh. Then we'd all cheer for him and he'd start cracking up. After this day he would do it all the time and Dan had him putting his arms up in the air with Dan and Dan would say, "Touchdown!" We've been preparing for football season for a while... ;)

My dad also got in some good relaxation time...

Indiana... From way back when...

2010-08-07T20:04:00.003-05:00

Ok, so I'm WAY behind on my updates. I know. But, oh well! I just haven't been in the mood for blogging. I have in the last day or two, however, been itching to write in a journal. Since the only one I have right now is 100% about Gavin and his... milestones, I only have my blog. Lucky you guys! ;)

Anyway, at the end of June we, Gavin and myself, went to Indiana for a family reunion on my mom's mom's side of the family. Lots of fun!! Gavin slept horribly every night. He wouldn't take naps and when he finally did they were never long enough. It was a bit of a rough trip for me and it was only 3 days long. Woohoo!! When Gavin was awake he wasn't always fussy, though, so I was able to have some pretty good times.

I got to Indiana on a Thursday and was so excited to see my mom waiting for me just outside my gate! This meant that I didn't have to call my parents and hunt them down all over the giant airport in Chicago. We fly into Chicago because it's just as close to our destination in Indiana as the Indianapolis airport and I was able to get cheaper airfare. Anyway, so we headed out and met up with some family and went to the hotel and that was pretty much that night.

Friday we went with my cousin's and their families and picked blueberries. It was actually pretty fun. Gavin didn't do much picking, obviously, but he REALLY likes blueberries. So, he would sit on the ground with the bucket between his legs and eat the berries. While his mouth was full he would still pick up a couple of berries and squash them and then laugh at himself. Afterward we went to lunch and then took Gavin to take a nap. HA! Moving right along we went to my mom's cousin's house and had a weenie roast. Gavin just grabbed his hotdog and walked around the farm. He was a very happy camper. He loves Loves LOVES to be outside. He also LOVES to eat. Perfect combo!

Saturday was the actual reunion event. We went to a building and they had some games and skits and entertainment as well as food. Good fun! I got out of a silly dancing game because Gavin had fallen asleep in my arms. (Woohoo!) We had loads of fun, though!! My dad took Gavin back to the hotel for me and put him to bed so that I was able to spend some actual time with our extended family. I'm super grateful and had such a good time with everyone. :) Thanks, Dad!!

Saturday was pack up and head home! My parents were very gracious and took me to the airport 2 hours before their flight. (Technically that's only 1 hour early, just fyi.) I'm very appreciative of all of the sacrifices they made for me so that I was able to go on this trip. They paid for the rental car and they checked a car seat. I gatechecked a stroller that I ONLY used at the airport and my dad teased me about it, but it was worth it. My mom also sent a ton of stuff with my grandma - aka my lifesaver! My grandma had driven up to Utah for a visit and my mom sent home with her a pack & play, diapers, wipes, formula, etc. It was amazing!! Then, as my grandma always has and always will, she drove it from Arizona to Indiana for me. I've never been so grateful to so many family members all at the same time. Thanks to Lori and Connie for helping out so much, too!! You guys are all amazing!!

Here are some pics from the trip:

Fun picking blueberries

Stuffed and ENTIRE large marshmallow in his mouth and then looked at me like, "Don't come over here! I won't give it back anyway!" ;)

Playing on the farm :)

Thanks to all of my family who put the reunion together, too. It was super fun and you did an amazing job. (Also, woohoo to my mom and Aunt Cindy who embroidered shirts for EVERYONE who went. Amazing work!)

A Glimpse of Indiana

2010-07-01T21:31:00.002-05:00

Well, we went to our family reunion - on my mom's mom's side :). It went really well and I'm SO SO glad that I was able to go and see everyone! When I got home, however, my husband was doing surgery on ALL of our computers!! I no longer have access to ANY of my previously downloaded photos and I can't get to my camera software to download the new photo's. UGH! My cousin - THANKS CONNIE!! - sent me just a couple and I'm so excited to have them that here they are, all FOUR of them! ;)

So, I know that it's not much, but that little man is pretty dang cute!! And such a studly outfit (thanks Gr. & Gr. Cutler!). =)
Anyway, I'm hoping that I can steal some pix from my parents and that Dan has my computers and software up and running soon!!

Just a Rant...

2010-06-15T16:44:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I'm getting in my car today and there's a lady getting out of the car right next to mine. Now, when I say right next to mine I mean RIGHT next to mine! As in I could barely fit to get into my car, let alone put Gavin in his car seat! So, I go to the other side of the car and put my drink in the car and the diaper bag and my purse. Then I go back to the drivers side of the car and do my best to not squash Gavin and not ding this STUPID lady's car. Oh, that's right, because she's RIGHT there!!! She's still getting out of her car and watching my struggles to get into mine. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Fix your stupid parking job!! What the heck?!?! So, I get Gavin in. Phew! A bit of a work out. Then, I have to try and squeeze myself into the drivers seat. I am NOT a big person. If you have parked so close to my car that it is difficult to squeeze my body into the drivers seat you have parked TOO CLOSE!!! I finally maneuver myself into my seat. I get all started up and buckled/locked in and put my car into reverse. Oh, crap! Now, I have to try to back out and turn so that I can actually drive away without hitting her stupid ugly car. Only, in my opinion, she kind of has it coming... I just don't want to pay for the damage to my car, so I was very careful and left without any issues. I was, however, FUMING!! It was a small car!! The spaces were nicely sized - I managed just fine. Grrrrrr!!! LEARN HOW TO DRIVE/PARK!! >:(

A monumental event!!

2010-06-12T21:11:00.008-05:00

On Tuesday, while my mom was still here and when Gavin was kind of feeling better, we went and....

CUT HIS HAIR!!

Oh my goodness!! It was the saddest thing ever!! I am missing his ADORABLE little curls!! :( But! He was getting THE WORST mullet, so it was necessary and good. :) We took him to a place called Cool Cuts 4 Kids. They were amazing!! They have a little TV with a DVD player at each station. They had video games and a giant play area with trains and leggo's for while you're waiting. Plus, for small kids like Gavin, they have little truck seats and stuff. So cute! Our stylist put in the Wiggles and we got Gavin all set up.

Clearly, he's not too upset by the situation... ;) Here is the first snip:

He was very entertained by the steering wheel throughout most of his haircut. He did look around to see everything a couple of times though and the stylist was really good about his hair cut and about being patient with him. :)

And the debut of his new do:

Yes, he's riding the Dumbo ride at Wal-mart and he stood for the entire thing. What a goof ball. :) The hair salon saved his first hair clippings and put them in a little baggy for us and also gave us a little scrap book page with the date, his name and age, the name of our stylist and what city we were in and a big space to place a picture. Awesome. :)

He also had his first climbing experience. He snuck away from us and into our bedroom and then he started crying... Uh oh! We're in trouble! Dan goes in to get him and starts laughing. I grab the camera and go running. He was so upset because he couldn't figure out how to get down because the space he was on was so small and he couldn't really turn around. LOL. TOO CUTE!! He did get very excited when he saw me and my camera, though. ;) (He's not really a ham, he wants so badly to play with my camera every time he sees it.)

Quite obviously, this picture was taken BEFORE his haircut. Now do you see why he needed one so badly? ;)

For those of you who dare to continue reading my blog, I apologize now for the very lengthy post that follows the shoe post - for some reason blogger decided that's where my post should go... It's titled "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Good luck!! :)

Inspired by Lindsey

2010-06-11T08:21:00.007-05:00

Thank you Lindsey for you most recent blog - you inspired me :)

I bought these shoes - not for a great deal, but with a great deal of love! :P

And it is with a sad heart that I will be returning them. :( They are not a shoe that I will wear right now... Yes, I knew that when I bought them, but I hoped I could convince myself otherwise. It was just not meant to be. So, I will be returning them and replacing them with these two other shoes (for the same price as the ONE pair I'm returning... Ya, not such a good deal. :P)

These shoes are far more practical for park going and chubby-monkey carrying! ;) Without being unattractive, though! Yay! I do miss my heel wearing days, though. :( One day, I shall return to my gorgeous, flattering heels! I'm determined. ;)

*An actual update will follow - hopefully soon! :P

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

2010-06-09T21:27:00.006-05:00

Recently there's been a TON going on around here!!

On Saturday evening our friends, recently married, Dave and Kimmie came up from Killeen, TX to spend the holiday weekend with us. So much fun!! We love those guys and would like to say, again, congrats on your nuptials! We're so happy for you guys and you're PERFECT together! :)

My mom came down for a short visit... Ok, well short for her - but it was from Sun to Fri, so it was a pretty darn good visit! We had lots on our agenda and we had a blast! On Monday we went over to my in-laws for swimming and a BBQ. Gavin had a blast - he LOVES the water!! :D We did, of course, fail and forgot to take a camera... Lame. :P We got to spend this BBQ and other fun with Dave and Kimmie, too. :) They did drive home that night, though.

Tuesday morning my mom and I started a project that we had to make up as we went along! We went fabric shopping so that we could make our own crib rail covers - SO CUTE! They're not quite finished yet, but I'll post pix as soon as they are. :) We also went to a park for a few minutes - it's HOT down here! :P Tuesday night we went and saw Wicked - so amazing - with my mother-in-law and Dan's sister-in-law. I would highly recommend this musical to any who enjoy musicals but have not seen it. I am so glad we got to go!! It was a terrific Mother's Day gift to both my mom and Dan's. :) Thanks to my AWESOME sis-in-law, Carrie, for the idea!!

Wednesday we taped up and painted our guest bedroom/my mom's room. Woohoo!! It went REALLY well!! We got it taped up and painted all while Gavin took a rockin long nap!
We also started cutting and sewing the crib rail covers. Yay! Dan and I went on a date for our 4th anniversary. It was nice not to have to worry about getting back soon enough to pick up Gavin and get him home in time for bed. We also didn't have to worry that our sitter needed to go anywhere. Sweet. So, dinner in one direction and a movie in the other direction. AWESOME!! Dan also got me these AMAZING flowers:

Dan did his research and found out that this was the anniversary of fruit and flowers. So, I got 4 dozen roses, one for each year. So pretty! My mom put one vase on my nightstand and left the other vase in the kitchen. YUMMY! The yellow ones in the bedroom opened and stayed in good condition for quite a while since it's cooler in there. I loved them!! :D
This night went poorly, though... My little man did NOT sleep and that is VERY VERY unusual for him. Honestly, before this night I don't even remember the last time he didn't sleep through the night when we were at home in our own beds. Ugh!

Thursday my mom let me take a morning nap since I hadn't slept that night - she is SUCH a blessing, my mom!! :D We tried to keep working on our sewing project, but Gavin was being really demanding so we made very little progress. He then woke up from his afternoon nap with a temp of 101.2. I was pretty concerned, but we didn't call the dr right away. We gave him a cool bath, some cold juice, some frozen yogurt bites, took off his clothes and turned on the fan. We did everything to lower his temp and then we put him down for another nap. It was a short one, but when we put him down he was already feeling a little better and was even better when he woke up the next time. He wasn't eating, though. That night he still didn't sleep and was still running a mild fever.

Friday morning I called the dr as soon as they opened and got him in asap. They looked at his ears, because he'd been pulling at them. We thought he'd gotten ear infections, which was concerning since he'd already had one this year... We were hoping against tubes.. :( Anyway, his ears were in perfect condition! WHAT?!?! Then what is wrong? His throat. Let's test him for strep. I almost ran out of the room. If he had strep I didn't want to hang out with him. But, being his mommy I almost cried feeling so bad for him. (I've had strep SO MANY times it's ridiculous! The most recent time was about 3 years ago. Dan wouldn't even sleep in the same bed with me!) The dr came back and said that it wasn't strep but some other sort of bacterial infection. She gave us a rx and sent us on our way. This afternoon my mom talked to my dad and they decided that she would change her flight and she would stay with us longer to help out while Gavin was sick.

Our weekend was not terribly productive... We were able to do some minimal work on the sewing project and a little bit of work on Dan's Father's Day gift. :) We also finally go the second coat of paint done on my mom's room. Yay!

A close up of the new paint and border :)

Monday we put her room back together and took Gavin back to the dr. He'd still not been sleeping or eating and was still running a mild fever off and on. So, off we went!! The dr said that she was so sorry that we'd had a terrible weekend but the good news was he was on the mend. He was getting a cough and a runny nose and she told us not to worry, this just meant the infection was working it's way out. Oh, goody. :P

The next few days took forever and went by too quickly, all at the same time! Gavin was so miserable and we felt so helpless and bad for him and it was exhausting trying to keep him from screaming! When he screamed he would start coughing and when he would start coughing he would cough so hard he would choke and we kept thinking that he was going to throw up. It was terrible. The days went too quickly, though, because we needed so much more time to work on our projects! :( I was so very grateful to have my mom around for all of this, though. I think without her I would have run out of patience with Gavin and with myself in about 2 days. Ugh. The last 2 nights she was here she got up with him and let me sleep so that when she left I would have a little more energy to keep up with him alone. So very generous of her. Also, she's super amazing and made up the patterns to the crib rail covers as we went - I couldn't have done them without her. :D She's also helping me make curtains for my living room!! Woohoo!!! Anyway.... ;)

My mom left on Wednesday evening. We got her to the airport and then Gavin slept through the TERRIBLE rush hour/construction traffic on the way home. This night Gavin slept most of the night, waking up only once and then woke up at about 6 the next morning. Not too bad - he normally wakes up anywhere between 6 and 7, so I'm used to that part. He also started eating just a little bit FINALLY. He couldn't have his medicine without food and there had been a couple of missed doses because he hadn't eaten enough. We were now eating enough and regularly enough that there was no more concern about whether or not he could have his medicine. Yay!

Gavin has gotten progressively better and it's been amazing to see how much happier he's been over the last couple of days. I'm so grateful that he's feeling better now!! So scary and sad when your baby is sick!! I have NEVER felt so helpless in my life. >:(

During all of this good fun Dan did some yard work. He's been working on getting the grass edged because he just got an edger for Christmas and our grass is a little bit overgrown... ;) Anyway, while he was out working a truck pulled up and offered to edge our trees and flower beds with gorgeous rock and mortar for an AMAZING price! So, we said YAY! They got started on Friday and on Saturday they finished it up. The next part of this little project was moving some of our shrubs out of the flower beds they were in... Not so fun. We hit a wire when we were digging up one of the new holes... UGH!!! Stupid Verizon!! They hadn't buried their wire! It was BARELY under the grass in some places. So frustrating! A little frustrated we put the project on pause and waited a couple of days to get back to it. We did finally get everything all done and I think it looks so good now!! The flowers need to grow in, but they're already looking better than they do in the pix. :D Hooray!!

Gavin taking a sip of Dr. Pepper (it's empty) after all of the hard yard work! ;)

Don't worry Mom, I got you!

2010-05-28T15:51:00.000-05:00

Piggy back ride anyone?

Happy Memorial Day weekend! Enjoy! :)

Ooops!!

2010-05-26T07:22:00.002-05:00

So,I'm kind of dumb and I accidentally deleted my whole blog list. If you have a blog will you please post your web address for me so that I can recreate my list? Thanks!! :D

New Fun

2010-05-17T16:36:00.006-05:00

I have a couple of videos of Gavin, but I'm a tard-o and I don't know how to turn them. So, if everyone will please just turn your moniters 90 degrees to the right then we can proceed! ;)

Gavin LOVES to play outside. We spend quite a bit of our time at parks and it's a blast. He loves to be outdoors and to watch everything that's going on and sometimes to actually play. ;)

Here he is both enjoying the swing and watching people. :) (If you can, turn up your volume and you can hear his ADORABLE squeaky little laugh!) :D

Here he is enjoying a slide.

Sorry, again, that they're all sideways! :P

On a completely different note, I've been reading a couple of different blogs lately and it's been really nice. I've been getting a different point of view and I've really appreciated it. It made me think, "I want to do this for other people. I want to help people feel better about their day to day lives." The only issue is: I have NOTHING to write about. So, a semi-apology for the fairly boring and immensely predictable blog. :) It's just about all that I've got to share, though!! Gavin consumes me! ;)

Speaking of being consumed by Gavin.. Has anyone ever realized that the only real downside to the job of being a parent (or just the mother, as the case is in my house) is that you don't get weekends. No TGIF. No sleeping in on Saturday or Sunday. In fact, there's not really ANY difference in ANY day of the week! Maybe that's just me, though... Maybe it's because Dan mostly works at home. But, the point of the matter is that every day I wake up at about the same time to go get Gavin and do breakfast. Then, it's the same for the rest of the day. Just me and Gavin. :) Errands, cleaning, playing, eating, play dates, etc. It's fun. I love it and I love him. But, I do wish he would catch onto the whole weekend thing and sleep in a little bit! ;) I was gifted with sleeping in on Mother's Day - it was everything I remembered it being!! (It did, however, take me a few hours to realize why Dan, who had been up until the wee hours of the morning, had done me this courtesy. :P)

On the up side, you just can't say no to this guy!!!!

Lastly, it was my first Mother's Day this year. Nope, we did not count last year when I was prego. Which was just as well, because I don't think I was really all that pleasant at almost 8 months prego... ;) Anyway, I've really REALLY been wanting a carpet steam cleaner and I found one on sale and so Dan said I could have it if it was going to be one of my gifts. (One of my gifts as in, Mother's Day, anniversary or birthday which are all this summer.) So, it was my Mother's Day gift. WOOHOO!! I'm totally stoked!! Now, if I could just get the motivation to sweep and mop and vacuum so that I can then USE my steamer it would be even BETTER! ;) Gavin is, however, quite enjoying my new toy. As is evidenced here:

Well, I hope you enjoyed my silly little blog! I know I do! ;)

A Note...

2010-05-05T08:50:00.002-05:00

A note to all my friends who are new mom's or who are expecting....

When your child starts feeding him/herself solid foods the food will not only make a mess on their face. The food will, undoubtedly, end up all over their laps, bums and, especially, their arms. When I say arms, I don't just mean their hands and wrists, but clear up to the elbow. When you get your child out of the highchair you will need to clean them off thoroughly. You will most likely pick up on this all on your own and rather quickly. Your husbands, however, may not. I've recently come to find some still sticky fingers and arms after Dad has "cleaned" Gavin up and let him down. Hmmm... I have no real solution to this issue. I felt, though, that a warning to others would be nice. I had a lovely blueberry poptart DISASTER this morning and it occurred to me that Gavin practically needed a bath before I would be willing to let him out of that chair. I do not accept having blueberry poptart goo being smeared across my entire house. Uck. So, when getting your children down from eating, remember to check all surface areas for hidden food! ;)

The Happening

2010-04-26T20:06:00.005-05:00

We've had a few new experiences around here lately and I thought I would share some. :)

"Look what I can do!"

"Your dishes are no longer safe! Hahaha!"

"I love cookies!" (They were VERY small cookies) ;)

"Give me more cookies!!"

Meeko is learning how to walk. ;) I throw these pictures in every now and again to let everyone know that our dogs are not totally neglected now that Gavin is here. :)

Lastly, Gavin has decided to start telling us just how much he loves food! ;) (Forgive any odd noises you hear in the background. Dan hears Gavin from his office and makes noises back at Gavin.) :)

Of other events, we recently attended Dan's little brother's wedding. It's the last of the Manion kids to get married. The weather started out a bit freezing and windy, but otherwise the day was lovely and the whole day went really well. We're so happy for Grant and Callie! Unfortunately the trip to Utah for the wedding was VERY short so we barely got to see my immediate family and didn't get to see anyone else at all. :( We are glad to be home and have Gavin back on his own routine, though. :)

I'm getting ready to move Gavin upstairs. I'll be taking down the nursery and setting up just his Winnie the Pooh crib and changing table upstairs. We're also going to get him a toddler bed soon - just to have ahead of time. (Plus it will come in handy when family visits.) His new room will be done in sports. I'm hoping to do some fun painting, but our walls are very heavily textured and I'm going to have to do some testing to see if anything will work out. Fingers crossed!! I also get to repaint the bedroom downstairs. It will now be red instead of light green. I'm actually SUPER excited about that. I LOVE LOVE LOVE decorating with reds!!!:) Anyway, that's about all that's going on around here. Gavin's doing great at walking and I need to take some more video soon. Keep an eye out for it. ;)

Shopping Fun

2010-04-18T22:04:00.002-05:00

Gavin has been big enough to sit in the shopping cart for months now. He, however, gets very bored and has figured out how to creep out from under the buckle and tries to climb out of the cart. So, now he gets to CRUISE!!

And, as you might guess, he quite enjoys it!!

April

2010-04-14T19:36:00.011-05:00

Ok, this one is going to have more pix than are probably necessary - but I just can't help myself! ;) I just think my little man is too darn cute!!

First, we went in for Gavin's 9 month appointment and here are his stats:

Height - 30 inches/90th percentile
Weight - 22 1/2 lbs/92nd percentile
Head - 18 1/2 inches/90th percentile

All else is good and even better: he didn't have to get any shots at this appointment!! WOOHOO!! That means that we even LEFT happy!!

Ok, here goes the overdose of pictures and some video...

I bought more bottles for Gavin and had to buy the nipples for older kids, so there were bottle parts and nipples all over the place and Gavin got a hold of some... Hehehe

I had to try on his shirt for his Easter pix... Then, apparently, I got distracted doing chores and Gavin came to help, of course!

Testing out the new life vest for swimming at Grandma and Grandpa Manions!!

Goooo mighty Cougars!!! C-O-U-G-A-R-S!!!

Learned how to open the drawers!! Wahoo! ;)

Gavin ran away from me when I was trying to put on his pj's and he was SOO excited!!

Gavin did this on his own and he was having so much fun pulling his clothes out of the next basket and eating them while messing up all of my folded clothes that he was standing on! :P Can't help but smile at him, though - those darn dimples will get you every time!

Gavin's AWESOME hair after his bath!! I am LOVING his curls - I actually wish that his hair would finally all curl instead of being a silly mix of stick straight and curly! :)

Gavin loves, LoVeS, LOVES, playing ball with Magnum!!! Ya, I know - EWWWW!! But, I'm getting used to it and just keep telling myself he's building a REALLY good immune system!

On a totally unrelated note: Ick on allergies this year! They are soooo TERRIBLE!! In fact, here's a few LOVELY pictures of the pools of pollen on my back porch! ICK!!

There was pollen all over our house!! We weren't even sure what it was at first. It was all over the driveway and the cars and the back porch. Ick. I might die. :P

That's all for now!! Hope you enjoyed at least some of the pictures!! ;)

WALKING?!

2010-04-01T16:42:00.002-05:00

So, it's just barely walking, but still exciting for us!

Also, I think that Gavin has about the CUTEST little laugh in the world, so here's a silly video of that, too. :) Enjoy.

Update with Pictures

2010-03-16T17:57:00.003-05:00

^Playing in the fireplace - one of Gavin's favorite things to do!

^Our newly organized garage - woohoo!

^Helping Mom unload the dishwasher :D

^My pretty new tulips!!!

^Playing with Meeko

^Playing with Magnum - Gavin has his ball and Magnum is trying to get it away from him

^Splish-splash I was taking a bath!!

^Who needs new toys when you have a sealed bag of cough drops and a chip clip?!

^Playing in Dad's office - woohoo!

Good times...

2010-03-11T09:00:00.005-06:00

**Sorry this is such a long one - I had to catch up on about a month... You can skip to the pix and video at the end if you want. That's the sweet stuff anyway. ;)**

My mom was recently here at my home and she was AWESOME! We got so much stuff done. Finally put my Christmas stuff up in the storage unit. We cleaned up my garage and got Dan's tool chest all set up (he got it for his birthday and hadn't quite gotten around to finishing putting everything in it). We set up my sewing machine and did ALL of my mending - FANTASTIC! We also sewed together a couple of curtain panels to make 2 LARGE panels. YAY! They used to hang so weird and drove me bonkers, they look soooo much better, now! I'm so excited to have my sewing machine up and going and to start on projects - I have a GOB of patterns. Unfortunately, I'm a little cheap, so when I finally buy some fabric.... Well, one day soon! We did a ton of clean up in my flowerbeds, weeding and cleaning out all of the old mulch - ick! We filled about 9 GIANT black garbage bags. We were so tired by the end of the day and I was sore the next morning. (Ya, I know, I REALLY need to start working out!) We also did a bunch of looking around and got flowers for my flowerbeds out front. Yay! We finally made some decisions and got a whole bunch! Lots of flowering ground cover, some lilies, hyacinth, tulips and shasta daisies. I'm so excited! The hyacinth, daisies and ground cover are the only ones flowering already and I can't wait to see how pretty it looks in a couple of months!! YAY!! I love flowers!!! :D

Here's the new fun for Gavin:

THREE teeth!!! Not so fun for family members tending him, but exciting news, nonetheless. :) He's got his two front bottom teeth and his top right tooth.

Stairs! He loves, loves, loves crawling up the stairs. The first time he did it he laughed the whole way up. Hehehe... He tries to sneak away and climb the stairs, but we've got gates up. So, every now and then, when the gates are down, I let him think he's escaping. Then I go after him and he starts cracking up and tries to hurry away from me. When he tries to hurry up the stairs though, he usually ends up not moving at all. He's great fun!

The washing machine! He loves to hang out and watch the wash go. He also likes to crouch down and eat the washer. Hahaha! He stood in the laundry room hanging out with the washer for about 20 minutes on Monday. Ah, the simple pleasures. :)

OUTDOORS! He's had loads of fun trying to crawl into my flower beds. He also really likes to try and escape down the driveway in his walker. His other favorite thing to do is eat the grass. Good times. :) He's also got some new studly sunglasses! ;)

WALKING?!?! What the heck?! This kid has way too much motivation! He recently started walking with the assistance of his little walker toy. His first night he was more running with the toy because he didn't have any control and it would get away from him. The very next morning, though, he was pretty much in control and soon would figure out how to back up and turn so he wouldn't get stuck.

Here's the photos and one short silly video of our past few days. :) Enjoy.

Private

2010-03-08T22:00:00.000-06:00

So sorry for the inconvenience of going private. I was actually pretty determined to NOT go private. Then I got a couple of comments from people in other countries, that were also adds for their businesses - that I could handle, press the delete button and move on - after that I got some followers from other countries... Why why why would you want to follow a blog about a little baby in some other very far away land? Kind of creeps me out. So, I know that it's annoying to have to log in, especially on a shared computer, but thank you for sticking with me. :) Hopefully I'll be posting some new pix soon. I just have to upload them... ;) One day...

Going Private

2010-03-01T09:35:00.001-06:00

I'm going to go private with my blog send me an email or post your email address if you'd like to be invited. :)

Random Pix

2010-01-31T09:33:00.009-06:00

Gavin learned to crawl just last week. He will crawl anywhere and the wood floor and tile don't even slow him down anymore. His real favorite thing to do, however, is not crawling but standing up! Here are some pix of him crawling UNDER things, on the tile and of course of him standing up. :)

Going under the tv tray and over that bar is HARD work!

Stuck between a rock and a hard spot... ;)

Checking out the back yard

Standing!!

Just a note - we just barely moved Gavin's crib down for the first time ever, but we had to move it ALL THE WAY DOWN because he always pulls himself to stand and he's SO DANG TALL!

We moved most of Gavin's toys upstairs to the loft and out of the living room - YAY! My house no longer looks like a play yard or like a tornado just came through. Anyway, here's a pic of Gavin his first time playing upstairs.

No he can't fit through the bars - we made sure. But it was a little scary when I first looked up and saw him halfway through! :P He had fun until he couldn't figure out how to get OUT!

Lastly, I got new couches!! WOOHOO!! I'm SO very excited!! So, here's a picture of Gavin - the first one to enjoy our new couches.

Finally!

2010-01-29T19:13:00.002-06:00

We went to dr. today to get a check up for Gavin's ear infection. We are all clear!! WOOHOO!! Finally! He's a little stuffy still, but other than that he is NOT sick anymore! YAY!! They did take his measurements again, though... He is NOT a little dude! He weighs 20 pounds!! And, he's 30 inches long! What the heck?! He's almost HALF my height! That's just not right! ;) I am so glad that he's back to good health and growing well, though. I love this little man!! :D

This week...

2010-01-22T09:43:00.007-06:00

Gavin's been pretty busy over the past 7 days... Saturday he figured out how to sit himself up. Yay! Then, on Tuesday he started to crawl - for real! ;) So, here are some photo's of what he's been doing and a video of his new crawling skillz.

Here he is helping me fold laundry:

Here, he crawled down the hallway and pulled himself up on the stairs (he sooo loves standing up):

Also, I have to say, that this is THE CUTEST KID!! I LOVE that picture of him!!! :D

Here he is playing in his new jumperoo - which I got from Kid to Kid for less than half the new price and it is in GREAT condition, I go super lucky with this find:

So, now that Gavin is crawling he LOVES to crawl UNDER everything. His jumperoo, the exersaucer (sp?), the coffee table - which he bumps his head on EVERY SINGLE time! - TV trays, ANYTHING. so, without further ado, here his is in all of this crawling glory: ;)

New Skillz... ;)

2010-01-17T15:40:00.005-06:00

Here's Gavin playing the piano:

Here he is climbing into his bouncy chair:

Last, but not least and Dan's favorite, helping open the mail:

Pix and Pink Eye

2010-01-11T22:56:00.007-06:00

^ Swimming in a sea of toys - such a spoiled little man ;)

^ He gets so frustrated that he can't get a hold of the bottom of the toy tub

^ Working on his "crawling" and playing "in" his toy :)

^ Chomping down on a toy AND 3 fingers!!

^ The infamous "crawl"

^ And lastly, the pink eye. He's mostly still a happy little camper though!! We're so dang lucky and so in love with this little guy!! :D

6 Months

2010-01-09T22:16:00.002-06:00

I can't believe that it's already been 6 months!! Holy cow!! My boy is getting so darn big! We went to his 6 mo. check up on Friday and got his new stats:

Weight - 19 1/2 lbs: 75th percentile
Height - 28 in: 100th percentile

Gavin got a stomach virus right before we left Utah and is just barely getting his appetite back, plus he flops about in a crawling fashion so he's working off those extra pounds. ;) I'm actually hoping he gains some weight over the next little while.

Gavin loves to laugh and play games and is getting SUPER close to crawling. He pushes himself up on all fours and then scoots his legs and sways a bit and then lets his arms go. (He kind of looks like a fish out of water, flopping about.) He can certainly get around though!! I'll post some pix soon and hopefully a video for you to watch his awesome moves. :)

Hope all is well with everyone after the holidays! We're FINALLY starting to get back into the swing of things! :)

Holidays and Celebrations

2010-01-07T11:18:00.007-06:00

We're finally back! It's been a long couple of weeks traveling and partying but we made it! We started on the 19th of Dec. We got to Utah around 4 and went straight to family pix with my dad's whole family. It was kind of fun, mostly just because it's been so long since I got to see the whole Cutler clan. :) The next day we had a little shin-dig with some of our old friends. Good food has and a few inappropriate jokes were made. ;) Fun was had by all. On Monday we packed up and left for Idaho. It was about a 6 hour drive and Gavin did pretty well. Dan, however, started getting a brutal cold. We made it safely and got unloaded and went to sleep! By the next day Dan was completely taken out by his cold and Gavin was getting sick, too. Dan's whole family made it to the brand new cabin by Christmas morning and most of us came sick. Dan's sister, Carrie, has twin 1 year olds, a 2 year old and a 5 year old. One of the twins had an ear infection and pink eye. On top of that they weren't able to travel until Christmas Eve. They had so many delays and issues that they didn't get to the cabin until 2 am Christmas morning. Once everyone got there it was a blast! The kids had an awesome Christmas. Gavin got a present or two. He opened his stocking. It was terribly exciting: new pj's, a spoon, a jar of food, a bottle, a cheerios snack holder and a pair of Christmas socks.

We also took Gavin in the snow for the first time. CLEARLY he thoroughly enjoyed it! ;)

He was, however, completely exhausted from this experience.

On Dec. 27th we made the trip back down to Utah - in only 4 1/2 hours! Woohoo! by this point Dan is crazy sick and not getting any sleep. Gavin is crazy sick and not getting any sleep and I'm over exhausted from trying to take care of both of them and not getting any sleep. Good fun! ;) Dec. 28th was my dad's 50th birthday. I woke up and went skiing with my family. Gavin stayed with my aunt and Dan finally got some time to recuperate. I started getting the cold this day, though. Blah. That night after skiing my mom and I finished preparing all of the food - mostly my mom - and my dad's whole family came over. It was good fun. :) There was guitar hero and good times and good food. :) Happy birthday, Dad!!

Dec. 29th Dan's sister, Becky, got married. YAY for Becky and Burton/BJ! I'm so happy for them. Gavin stayed home with Grandma and Grandpa C during the temple session and luncheon. He did make it to part of the reception, though. We got family pix in our wedding garb and then Grandma and Grandpa C picked him up when they came to the reception and took him home and put him to bed. It was a beautiful, snowy, cold, long day. It was perfect. :)

On New Years Eve we didn't do much of anything. Hahaha! The life of the new and sick parents. ;) I went to bed at 10. It counted. It was midnight on the East coast. ;) New Years Day we were supposed to get up and go skiing/boarding with my family. We woke up and my mom and I were loading up to go drop Gavin off for the day and I got SICK! Yuck. So, I decided not to go... Until a few minutes later. I felt better now! I could go skiing! Until we made the drive up the mountain. Bleh. I felt AWFUL! So, I sat in the lodge all day and waited for someone to be done so that we could drive home. Halfway through the day my mom was done and Dustin joined us. We had to wait a while longer for my dad to be done and then we headed home. The following 2 days I pretty much stayed on the couch in my pj's and my AMAZING mom took care of Gavin for me. Dan had some late nights playing games with his friends. I was unable to get together with most of my friends since I was sick. :( By Monday the 4th I was feeling better, I didn't get tired until around 4 in the afternoon which was HUGE progress for me! We made it home on Tuesday and had our own little Christmas on Wednesday. My house is a DISASTER. Between the regular baby toys, gifts, unpacking AND laundry it's UGLY. Oh, and I had to go MAJOR grocery shopping. On top of all of this I still don't have my regular energy back so it's all SLOWLY getting done.

Last, but not least the house while we were gone... The dogs peed on my carpet - big time, but all in the same space, fortunately. Unfortunately, my steam cleaner is broken. Wish me luck on fixing that mess. Oh, ya and they ate a pen on my carpet. BAH! What was I thinking, leaving them on the carpet, you might ask. I did NOT do any such thing! They broke free! Grrr! Those were the only true issues, though. Good doggies! No poop and no chewed furniture... Unless you count the dog beds... ;) Luckily we had duplicates so they still sleep in utter comfort. My bathroom... Yuck. We had a SMALL ant problem before we left and the quarterly bug sprayer did extra stuff to fix the problem. Now, though, my bathroom is covered in a fine layer of dead ants. Yummy! Eck. I might gag. So, I've been TRYING to keep my energy up and clean and clean and clean since we got home. I'm only kind of succeeding. It HAS to get done by Wednesday at the latest, because I have people coming over. Good times. :) Hope everyone had good holidays and are enjoying the new year!

I think I can! I think I can!

2009-12-10T13:53:00.004-06:00

Texas Snow

2009-12-10T09:01:00.003-06:00

It snowed! I'm a little slow in posting this, but better late than never. It snowed about a week ago. It was beautiful! It only stuck to the rooftops and the grass. Yay!

The snow was also gone by about 10 or 11. Dan didn't even see it, because he slept in that day.

I love PUPPIES!!

2009-11-30T08:26:00.003-06:00

Lately, the dogs have made Gavin a VERY happy boy! He can just look at them and starts cracking up. I LOVE IT! He's so darn cute! :)

This is a picture of him last night right before he finally went to bed. Such a happy, smiley, good kid!!!

The First Cold

2009-11-22T12:03:00.003-06:00

Gavin's had a cold and he passed it on to Dan and myself. So, we've been a real pleasant bunch this last week. ;) Ok so Gavin HAS stayed in good spirits despite his icky-ness. Dan and I might have struggled a little bit more - but we made up for it with naps. :)

Always such a happy boy! :)

4 Month Check Up

2009-11-10T15:17:00.007-06:00

We went for Gavin's 4 month check up on Monday 11/9. Oh my goodness!!! I knew that he was a big boy, but I had no idea just how BIG! Here are his current stats:

Length: 27"
Weight: 19 lbs

He is off the charts for length, weight and head circumference for his age. He's wearing 6-9 month clothes. Sheesh!! Also, he's been spitting up quite a bit in the past few weeks, so we asked the doctor about it. Turns out he's trying to get so many calories when he eats that he gets too much liquid in his stomach and it makes him spit up. For this reason Gavin is now officially on solids with his milk. We are also pretty sure that he's getting his first tooth. He's rolling over back to tummy and tummy to back without much of an issue. He loves to sit up and he loves to have us help him stand up. He's even started trying to walk around while we hold him up. So far, it hasn't gone so well. ;) (Our arms get tired holding that lug up!) ;)

Here are some pix of the past few days:

^Busy times for Gavin. Squirming off the play-mat, pulling his toy off the hook, kicking off his sock, and turning on the play-mat. And rewarding himself by eating the toy he pulled down. :)

^Gavin's first mohawk. Hahaha! He FINALLY has enough hair and it's coming in more and more every day. You know it's a lot when you actually notice it even though you see him every day! :)

^Gavin's first time with solid food - yummy rice cereal. He seems to enjoy it.

^Grandpa Cutler got to participate in Gavin's first food. :)

^Gavin loves the swing again! We sat the seat upright and now he has a hay-day eating the toys.

My mom is still hanging out at our house and we're getting tons done. She's helped me get most of my Christmas shopping done and then my dad took a suitcase of stuff home for me - he doesn't have to pay because he a "super-flyer". So, that's a HUGE weight off our shoulders since we're going to be in Idaho for Christmas. We've also been doing a little bit of decorating at my house as well as catching up on my scrapbooking. YAY! I'm always so grateful when my mom comes to visit!

That's all for now!! We're going to my sister-in-law's bridal shower tonight - I'm so darn excited for her!! It's going to be awesome and she deserves all the happiness in the world!! :D

Here's what's been happening in our neck of the woods:

2009-11-03T19:50:00.005-06:00

Here's what's been happening in our neck of the woods:

^ Dan built Gavin a seat on the couch and gave him his taggy. Gavin couldn't have been happier. :)

^ True-blue BYU fan (This is Halloween night. Gavin has on his festive PJ's!)

^ I gave Gavin a ride out of our bedroom in the bassinet. He had fun - anytime he gets to sit up he's a happy camper. We finally wrapped the bassinet up for storage, since Gavin has been too big to use it for months now! :P

^ And, no one needs to worry: Even though we have Gavin, Dan is still picking on the dogs. ;)

We took Gavin to the ward trunk-or-treat and he hung out with us to hand out candy. It was lot's of fun. We didn't take him trick-or-treating though, since we decided it was cheating given how little he still is! ;) He wore his costume to the trunk-or-treat, all thanks to his Great-Grandma Hansen. Since he'd grown too long for the costume she un-hemmed the bottom and re-sewed it so that his legs poked out. :) It was a little silly, but worked well and we were VERY grateful!

Photo's for 3 Months

2009-10-10T16:06:00.004-05:00

So, we're a few days late, but we got photo's done for Gavin's 3 month birthday :)

And, here's our new family photo (and the debut of my new haircut):

Happy Little Man

2009-10-08T21:21:00.002-05:00

Gavin loves it when Dan holds him up high and plays "Superman". Unfortunately, it's a bit hard to get a great picture during this game, but here's my efforts:

So Big, So Fast

2009-10-01T12:17:00.004-05:00

I know it's a blurry picture, but it shows how well Gavin is holding his head up these days. :)

Diving for toys. :)

He can almost touch the ground in this walker, now. So CRAZY!! It seems like just last week he was drowning in this thing! He did have a couple of 11 hour nights... Not to mention a couple of long naps. Can we say "Growth spurt"? ;)

Go Cougs!

2009-09-27T12:45:00.002-05:00

"Grrrrr!!!!"
Such a tough guy!! Go Cougs!!!

BYU won their game, by the way. =)

Gavin = SUPER AWESOME SLEEPER!

2009-09-25T11:53:00.004-05:00

So, my AMAZING baby boy has been sleeping SOOOOO WELL!!! YAY!! 2 nights ago he went for 9 1/2 hours, the next night 10 hours and last night 9 hours. AWESOME!!! And he was in SUCH a good mood all day yesterday! We went and hung out at Dan's parent's house and it was so good to see them, again! They've been out of town for almost a month.

(Please forgive me for the mess on the coffee table - it was lunch time.) :)

POLL: Haircut

2009-09-22T17:50:00.006-05:00

Should I cut my hair? Maybe I should start out by letting everyone know that I'm not at all hair savvy. I do straight and that's about it. Anyway, I've been growing my hair out for a while now and it's somewhere around my shoulders. Here's a photo:

Boring! Also, more often than not, it's in a ponytail. Gavin grabs onto it and I'm not a fan of burping him into my hair. So, back it goes! So.... SHOULD I CUT MY HAIR?!?!

Here's an idea of what I would like to do to my hair, only not quite as short, but just about the exact same style:

Con: Dan wants me to keep my hair long and it seems like a bit of a waste to have grown it out the past year and a half!

Here's one that similar to my hair now, I could just go and talk to my stylist and get my hair super thinned out and ask for lots of styling pointers and hope for the best:

What's your vote? Long hair or short hair?!

Pix

2009-09-22T14:30:00.003-05:00

^He has found his thumb - I'm not thrilled, but it keeps him sleeping a little while longer :)

^He can finally reach the toys on his bouncer

^The toys, however, cannot reach his mouth. I think he gets a little frustrated and that's when he gives up and just shoves his fist in his mouth instead

^Happy times

Woohoo for SLEEP!

2009-09-18T09:32:00.003-05:00

Today is the first day that I can remember where I woke up without the baby crying! He's been doing so GREAT at nights that I'm finally starting to just wake up! Woohoo! I actually feel rested and not completely exhausted! YAY for Gavin!! :) I'm such a proud mommy! ;)

I'm DONE Sleeping!!

2009-09-16T11:59:00.006-05:00

First, I should warn you: We're bad parents and we put Gavin to sleep on his tummy instead of his back. Sue us, he sleeps soooo much better this way! Anyway, when I go in to get Gavin out of his crib, this is what he normally looks like:

He's usually in there kind of grunting and holding his head up and drooling like a mad man all over the place. =) When I went this morning to get him, however, this is what he looked like:

Hahahaha! Anyone who knows how I slept when I was a kid will LOVE this! He's a crazy creeper!! Cracks me up! :)

2 Month Check Up

2009-09-13T11:58:00.003-05:00

We went to the doctor and got all of Gavin's stats:

September 10th, 2009:
Weight: 13lbs
Length: 24"
Head Circ.: 16"

All of his stats are in the 90th percentile for his age. He got a shot that was a combo for 3 different vaccinations and it hit him pretty hard. He got a slight fever and was fussy and SUPER tired for the next couple of days. He's completely over it now, though and is just as happy as can be!! =)

We're missing all of my family being around and can't wait for the next time we get to see them!! We aren't going to make it up to Utah for Thanksgiving, but we'll be up over Christmas - we've already booked our tickets. YAY! =) Now we just have to make sure that we have WARM clothes for Gavin... Shopping here we come. ;)

BYU/Baby Blessing

2009-09-07T19:40:00.007-05:00

So, we went to the BYU/OU football game at the new Cowboys stadium in Arlington, TX on Saturday. SO MUCH FUN!! I can NOT believe we took Gavin, but he did SO GOOD!! We had him dressed for the occasion and got lucky and sat next to people who had a 5 month old and another baby in the group as well. So, they totally understood what we were thinking! They also gave us some earplugs for Gavin - he looked AWESOME in them!! Here's some photo's of the event:

^Arriving at the stadium =)

^ Inside the stadium. This stadium has a capacity to hold 80,000 people sitting, and they opened up standing room for this game. They counted more than 75,000 people in attendance that night. The screen is the worlds largest HD television, it goes from the 20 yard line to the 20 yard line and cost about $40 million.

^Grandma Manion, Gavin, Aunt Carrie and Uncle Wyatt with the BEST final score in the background. =)

^The best part of Gavin's BYU apparel ;)

^Gavin aka Frankenstein hanging out with Grandpa Cutler at the game
That was our Saturday night. We got home and Gavin FINALLY got to bed around 11 - we completely messed his schedule up with this event. Fortunately he slept from 11 until 7:30 the next morning - WOOHOO!!! This means that we all got some sleep
before waking up and getting ready for his blessing at church at 9 am!

^Grandpa Cutler and Gavin getting ready to leave

^Everyone on both sides of the family that could make it down/up for the blessing

^Grandpa and Grandma Manion with our family

^Uncle Marshall, Grandma and Grandpa Cutler and our family

Over all it was an AWESOME but exhausting weekend. We're so glad we got to spend so much time with family and that everything worked out so well. =) We're pretty excited to get back to our scheduled naps and bedtimes, though! =)

He smiles!

2009-09-02T19:22:00.004-05:00

I finally caught some smiles on camera. Hehehe!! I LOVE him and cute, adorable stinkin face!!! =D LOVE IT!!

Gavin's first interaction on the play mat

2009-08-27T16:33:00.004-05:00

Not too terribly exciting, but he's a cutie, nonetheless. =)

So, as you can tell, he really likes the music that the green stuffed thing makes. Also, what the heck is that squawking sound he makes?!? =D Makes his mommy smile, regardless of how weird it sounds.

Week 7

2009-08-24T18:36:00.004-05:00

^Gavin's first day at church. It was stake conf. and he made it through most of the 2 hours very well. =) YAY!

^Gavin smiling - he has an amazing ability: He turns off his fun loving smiling face as soon as we get the camera out, so it's amazing when we get even part of a smile caught on camera. =)

By the way - it looks like my baby has old man hair: bald on top with the horseshoe around the back. I promise it's growing on his whole head, it's just so light that you have to have him in the PERFECT light to be able to see it.... And he did used to have old man hair and it only just recently started growing in... ;)

Just Pix

2009-08-12T11:05:00.005-05:00

^Looks a little like his cousin Mason - IMO (I think that it's the eyes...)

^Almost too big for the bassinett

^Happy camper in his carseat

^"Give me that camera, Mom!"

^"Shhh! I'm trying to sleep here!"

^Out cold - he LOVES to swing on full blast.

THANK YOU Connie for the swing -it's a life saver!

One Month Dr. Appointment

2009-08-11T19:59:00.003-05:00

Here's my baby's most recent info:

Weight: 12 lbs
Length: 23 1/2"
Head: 17"

He's a chunky little thing! The doctor says he looks bigger than just one month! Sheesh! What a little porker! ;) I'll try and take some more photo's this week - as per Grandpa Cutler's request. :)

I hate bugs!

2009-08-08T14:06:00.003-05:00

Last night I'm standing in my living room rocking Gavin to sleep and I feel this prick of pain in the crook of my right arm. I readjusted and didn't think much of it, due to my rash causing this pricking pain on occasion. Not a minute later I felt the pain again. Ok, that's not normal - even for me. So, I look down and there's a stupid ant running around on Gavin's blanket. I reached over and pinched him to little pieces. Then I got rid of the blanket, just to be safe, and saw the true damage. I called for Dan to come and make sure there weren't any more ants so that there would be no more bites. This morning here is a picture of my poor baby's first red ant bites. =(

I now have a can of Raid sitting out on my kitchen counter ready to kill any and all creepy crawly creatures that make it past the bug spray and into my home. And, I use it without hesitation! :P

Update at 4 Weeks

2009-08-02T16:40:00.006-05:00

So, in the last week and a half I have had the most HORRIBLE skin rash. I went to the doctor when my mom was still here and they gave me some cream and told me which allergy medicine would be the most effective against the rash and told me not to worry: it was an allergic reaction and for that reason not contagious. Yay for not being contagious. Boo for not being able to do much about the rash. Here's a BEAUTIFUL picture of my legs.... Ick... (Sorry for the disturbing picture. I'm not fancy enough, nor do I have the time to figure out how to enter a link to the photo so you can look only if you want to.)

Fortunately, the rash is retreating... It spread to my whole self first, but my legs are starting to look like normal - yay! I never thought that I'd be so happy to be back to my pasty self again! ;)

When we were at the doctors office for my rash appointment we got to sneak in a weighing for Gavin. He's gained 2 pounds - what a porker!! It had only been about 2weeks since they last weighed him at his own check up. Sheesh! So, no, I'm not too worried about whether or not he's getting enough to eat! Here are a bunch of random photo's of my chubby baby. =)

^Meeko loves to watch over Gavin. When we first got home from the hospital and Gavin would cry, Meeko would cry, too if he couldn't see Gavin. =) And we were worried.

^Gavin chillaxin with Daddy. =D

^Just chillin =)

^This hat was cracking us up. It was all gangsta style because it didn't really fit him... But, too cute and it matched his cute little socks. (The socks were probably on their last run, too. He's to dang long!! Long fingers, toes and just long in general!)

^Here is my "All American HUNK" hanging out with his fat cheeks on his 4 week birthday. =) I just can't get enough of this little bugger!

Family Fun

2009-07-27T12:21:00.005-05:00

Last week Gavin got to meet the rest of the Cutler family. Both Grandpa and Uncle Marshall were able to come down for a visit. =) I'm so glad, too!! It was so good to see them and so exciting for them to get to meet Gavin. =)

Here he is hanging out with Grandma Cutler and all of the puppies =)

Gavin also showed everyone how relaxed he can be during bath time. =)

And, here's our first day without Grandma Cutler to help us. (Don't be fooled, this was a rare moment on this day as Gavin is going through a growth spurt and has been constantly fussy for the past 2 days - I'm typing one handed because he gets so upset when we put him down and he wants to eat about every hour.) :P

He's Alive!!!!

2009-07-14T17:11:00.003-05:00

The other day my dad was wondering if all Gavin did was sleep. The answer is: Mostly. I did, however, finally grab a few pix of him awake and kicking. So, here's our baby and his beautiful blue eyes. =)

Gavin Glenn Manion 7/5/09

2009-07-10T22:17:00.002-05:00

So, Sunday night at about a quarter to 8 Mom and I were sitting in my living room just about to decide what to do this week when I heard a very odd popping noise. Apparently I made a funny face and then I got up to walk into the kitchen and my water broke. So, Dan called the doctor and he and mom scrambled around trying to get all of our stuff for the hospital while I sat in the bathtub. We finally got everything ready and me into real clothes and we headed off. We got to the hospital and it had been a busy baby night - we were about the 9th group to come in ready to have a baby. We almost got priority, though, because my water had broken - we were only behind one other woman whose water had also broken. They finally got us into a room and started to check me. I was 70% effaced and only 1 cm dilated. However, they were concerned about what they were feeling when they were checking me. So, I got checked again, and again and then they finally brought in the sonogram. Good ol' Gavin had flipped and was breech. Now, we took first priority. They started calling everyone and scheduled me for a c-section. So, Dan got set up in some spiffy scrubs and they took us away. Dan had to wait for me while they prepped me for surgery and while they were getting me ready they found that Gavin might have had a bowel movement and might need to go to the NICU. Dan finally got to join me and, thanks to the power of drugs, I was a happy camper. I told him about the possible NICU issue and we just waited to find out what would happen. They pulled up the curtain and Dan and I just sat there waiting for a baby. A short while later at 10:38 we heard him cry. And it was a good long cry. =) YAY! Dan got to go see Gavin and watch while they took all of his measurements. He weighed 7 lbs 14 oz (whoa, not a tiny little thing!) and he was 21 " long. They finally brought him back over to me and then whisked him away again. They got me cleaned up and sent us on our way. We went into one room while they monitored me for about an hour and family and friends could come see me and the baby. I couldn't hardly hold Gavin because I was freezing and shaking so badly. They took us later to the room where we would finish out our stay at the hospital. Gavin did not end up having to go to the NICU, thank goodness. On Wednesday they took out my staples - which was kind of intimidating, but ended up being completely painless. We were at the hospital until Wednesday around 1 when we were finally discharged. We are all home now and doing well. I'm still recovering from the c-section, but for the most part I think that I'm doing pretty well. Gavin is eating like a champ and sleeping... Well, not too badly, but not quite like a champ. =) Dan and I are so happy to have Gavin here and, of course, think that he's the most perfect little thing in the world. =)

Here's our baby =)

Spider FYI

2009-07-03T08:23:00.002-05:00

Just so everyone knows:

I had to put the spiders in the freezer - they were surviving in a jar that was duct taped shut for 3 or 4 days. They weren't dying! I knew that the freezer would do the trick, because Dan put last years spider in the freezer to see if they could come back from being frozen: They can not. Also, the jar of spiders goes out in the BIG freezer not the one with most of my food in the kitchen.

Just thought that I should explain my actions that might have seemed odd... ;)

"Do Not Bend"

2009-07-01T16:18:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, Dan went out to get the mail and brought in a handful of envelopes and he was laughing at it. I was wondering what was going on and he was ready with an explanation. He told me that I had to take a picture of this, because how stupid can some people get?

This is how he pulled everything out of the box. Wrapped in this lovely envelope which is clearly stamped, "Do Not Bend". AWESOME! We'd like to extend a special thanks to our super attentive postal workers, without whom we'd never know how to appreciate the little things in life. ;)

Remember Me? I'm the one who HATES spiders...

2009-07-01T16:03:00.005-05:00

So, last year I posted photo's of a spider that I thought to be quite large. In case you don't remember, here's a reminder:

Well, this year, I've caught another spider that I thought to be quite large. When I first saw him and went to get the jar (unofficially labeled the "Spider Jar") I thought he had to have the fattest back end I'd ever seen on a spider. So, I snatched him up in the jar and took him inside. We very quickly realized that he wasn't a fatty - he was a mommy with a gazillion baby spiders living on her back end. EEEWWWW! So, I showed Dan and he immediately started shaking the jar to get the babies to fall off. We then ended up with this:

Unfortunately, you really can't see through the jar very clearly. So, we did what any normal, sane people would do: We froze them to kill them all. ;-) Now, they're all dead and here's a photo of them:

And a shot of the gazillions of babies:

Also, in case anyone is wondering, the adult spider would be bigger than a nickel if it's legs weren't curled up in death. To make this story just a little bit better, this little family showed up at my back door exactly 2 weeks after we'd gotten our house sprayed for bugs. When our bug people come, they're supposed to spray SPECIFICALLY for spiders. Why you ask? Because: I HATE SPIDERS! They're creepy! :P Anyway, I called the bug people first thing the morning after the catch and they came back out one day after that. They put down two special treatments around my house to help with this issue; they also identified this spider as a wolf spider. They also did this for free - because they shouldn't have had to come back in the first place! :P All is well, now. Or, at least I hope so....

For Amanda

2009-06-23T20:01:00.002-05:00

My super-awesome-cool cousin, Amanda, has been amazing ever since we told her that we were expecting a baby. She's been really supportive and was a TON of help at our baby shower in Utah. =D Most recently she put together this Precious Moments Boy for me and sent him to me. I LOVE and collect Precious Moments, so I was crazy excited to get this in the mail. He now has a permanent home in the nursery and I wanted to show everyone! =)

I just got him attached to the basket today. =) I think he adds character. =) Thanks, again, for EVERYTHING, Amanda! =) I miss you TONS!!

38 Weeks

2009-06-23T13:22:00.004-05:00

So, I had another doctor's appointment yesterday. I have absolutely NO NEWS WHATSOEVER. Nothing is happening. The doctor was trying to be positive and tell me that I could still go into labor at any moment, so I should still be prepared. She said that we would talk about my options if the baby goes to 40 weeks, but until then we are just glad that the baby is healthy. He's right on as far as size goes, so that's a bonus. So far, no huge baby... I'm still nervous, though... ;) Anyway, here's the most recent photo of the belly:

so, it's a little funny looking - not quite round, because the baby was kind of stretching out during our photo shoot. :P He's a little turd with all of his dang stretching! My belly has no more room for him to keep up these aerobics!

2 Years Later - For My Lindsey

2009-06-23T13:19:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to show Lindsey how darn well the bamboo plant is doing! I've had it for 2 years now and it is officially the ONLY plant I seem to be able to keep alive down here in good ol' Texas! So, here's the beauty this year:

And here's the photo from last year:

Thanks, Lindsey! I still love it! =)

Doctor Appointment - RE: Asthma

2009-06-18T14:58:00.004-05:00

So, I went to my regular doctor today about my asthma. My OBGYN just wanted to be sure that we were doing everything possible to keep my asthma under control and make sure that the baby is getting enough oxygen. So, off I went this morning! Well, he didn't want to change any of my current meds due to my pregnancy. He did have me take a breathing test and now he thinks I might not have asthma at all. We can't due any real testing until after the pregnancy, though. So, I'm to continue doing what I've been doing so far and then we'll go back after the baby is born and find out if I have asthma anymore. That would be a big fat HOORAY if we find out that I don't have asthma anymore. Other than that he said that everything should be just fine for the baby and good luck with my last weeks for pregnancy! Woohoo! =)

The Unveiling of Aunt Cindy's Blanket!

2009-06-18T14:53:00.002-05:00

For my shower my Aunt Cindy made me this blanket. It was tons of fun to sit around with my cousin's, Aunt, Grandma and Mom and work on this together. =) The colors are amazing and I love all of the different fabrics! She did a terrific job! What we worked on while I was in Arizona are the hand colored pix. She printed them off onto special fabric and then we were each assigned a block to color. She then put them into the quilt just like the regular fabric blocks. The blocks that we colored are the white background blocks, obviously. ;) I think that the blanket turned out AMAZING and I'm so grateful for this gift! I love the blanket and thanks so much Aunt Cindy! =)

New Crib Bedding

2009-06-18T14:43:00.002-05:00

So, I get Disney Dollars when I use my CC and then I get to go be my usual Disney obsessive self - it's great. I recently used my reward points to get an entire crib bedding set for only the cost of shipping & handling - woohoo! I'll pay $9 bucks any day for a comforter, bumper pad, mattress sheet, and dust ruffle - AWESOME! (Dan and I also bought a crib mattress for only $40 last night, rather than spending the $90 that we were anticipating. YAY!) Anyway, here's photo's of the new bedding - on the mattress. :D

37 Weeks

2009-06-15T11:29:00.001-05:00

Okee doke! We've made it to the home stretch! I went to the doctor today and the baby hasn't grown a ton - THANK GOODNESS! He's head down - YAY! His heartbeat is good. We have ZERO signs of going early at this point. :( But, like I say, I'd rather go late than worry about health issues. The longer the baby is in the cooker, the healthier he'll be. :D They did have to put me/the baby on a monitor for about 10 minutes, though. I've been having a pretty hard time with my asthma and I've also noticed that the baby isn't moving as much. So, just to be safe, they strapped up my belly and kept on eye on the baby for a little while. Thankfully, he's doing just dandy! They are, however, sending me to another doctor to make sure that there's nothing else I can be doing to help keep my asthma under control. Oh goody! More doctors appointments! :P Well, that's all that I've got for now! Dan says we need to take another picture of me with my giant belly, so maybe that will happen soon...

35 Week Appointment

2009-06-02T11:42:00.003-05:00

So, I went to the doctor yesterday for my regular checkup. I've been anticipating the Strep-B test but wasn't sure if they were going to do it at this appointment. Here's why: I was actually supposed to go in for my appointment a week ago, but that was Memorial Day. The office I go to my doctor is only there on Mondays, since I've had a perfectly normal pregnancy they just bumped my appointment a week. However, while at my last appointment my doctor planned for me to come in at 34 weeks and then again at 36. When I came in at 36 she was going to do the Strep-B and bump me up to once a week appointments. Like I said, Memorial Day messed up all of those plans. So, I went in unsure of what to expect and the nurse told me that since I was technically only 34 weeks and 6 days they wouldn't do the test. They don't do the test until you're 35 weeks - majorly LAME. Whatever. So, now, I'm OFFICIALLY 35 weeks and still waiting 2 weeks for my next appointment and I still have NO IDEA where the baby's head is or what to expect at all. LAME! Other than that, all is well. I've gained a few more pounds :P, the baby is getting bigger :)/:(, and everything looks fine. The baby moves a TON both day and night and that made the doctor really happy. I have mixed feelings, based on the fact that it's MY bones getting kicked and punched, but it's good news that he's moving and doing ok in there and that makes me happy! So, that's the baby update for now! =) Hope all is well with everyone else!! =)

Ta-Da!

2009-05-16T22:43:00.003-05:00

Finally! Here I am at 32 1/2 weeks: (Please don't judge my appearance - we'd been doing yard work this day and I was mostly just ready to get in bed by the time we finally took the photo's.)

Obviously, depending on what I'm wearing I look more or less prego. :P Dan thinks that dress is hilarious!

I have to tell you that I love my husband. He gets so excited about the baby moving and he loves telling his family about it. It really makes me happy to see him so excited. He even told them today that he's ready for the baby to just get here so we can move on to the next stage - WE'RE done being pregnant. =) I love him so much - and I couldn't agree more! =)

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You....

2009-05-15T15:40:00.001-05:00

Updated belly pix. Estimated arrival 5/16/09. Here's hoping! ;)

Dogsitting

2009-05-06T09:51:00.001-05:00

My mom left her dog with us when she left Texas last week. She and my dad are going to be away from the house quite a bit in the next month and would need to find someone to watch Puka while they were gone anyway and my mom will be back in like 5 weeks so, no big deal. =) Here's some pix that I thought were cute and funny - I know that my baby will interest more people, but for now, I only have the dogs. =)

End Results from Baby Showering in April...

2009-05-03T11:28:00.005-05:00

Ok, so I'm waiting to get photo's from my cousin for the Arizona baby shower and my mom to send me the photo's from the Texas baby shower. BUT! Here's all the work that my mom and I did after the baby showers - I think that it's AMAZING!

^ Ok, this one has lots to explain: Some of my handmade blankets laid out on the crib - thanks, again, everyone! The Winnie the Pooh Crib that my cousin found me! (YAY!) The photomosaic puzzle that I about burned when I was frustrated with it! The clock, which is explained in detail later. The wall clings that my mom and I put up - we almost just burned those, too! ;) All of the AWESOME baby gear on the floor on BOTH sides of the crib - thanks to so many people! And, of course, yay for the diaper pail! :P

^ Here's the clock. My mom and aunt Cindy made it. They bought the clock and then pulled it apart and added the stickers. How amazing!?! =) Thanks so much! I LOVE it!

^ More wall clings and some quite small Winnie the Pooh wall art on the left hand wall. All surrounding the bed where I hope to spend as little time as possible! ;)

^ Yay for this one, too! The changing table pad unfortunately covers the back piece of the table, which is Winnie the Pooh - the changing table was FREE with the purchase of my crib. Again, thanks so much Connie and YAY! =D The diaper stacker is from my Aunt Ginger, Uncle Dale, their daughter Meghan and her husband Ray - thanks SO MUCH! So cute! All of the MANY items stacked on the changing table are thanks to many gifts. It's all VERY organized - between my mom and I, it's pretty much meticulous and will NEVER look the same, so enjoy it while it's still "pretty". =)

^ This lampshade has a little bit of a story. I was supposed to get this one:

But, when I went to pick it up they had packed it in a box that wasn't as tall as the shade itself, so it was totally wrecked. So, in my frustration I went to Michael's and bought a whole bunch of stickers and then to Target to get a plain shade and made one myself. Ta-da! I'm a little bit proud. =)

^This is my highchair - I LOVE IT!!! It's super short looking here, because it's not set up all the way. It's got adjustable height, one handed reclining, removable dishwasher safe tray and is collapsible. So nice! Now it doesn't always have to dominate my dining room! YAY! =) Also, on a totally NOT important note - how cute!

^Here's my stoller/carseat system that is living in my front room for now - in all of it's assembled glory! BEAUTIFUL! It's easily collapsed and really lightweight. So AWESOME! Thanks, again, to Rachel and Cole!!

Mom's Birthday =)

2009-05-03T11:21:00.007-05:00

^ Here's my mom with her pile of wonders ;)

^ The poster that my dad made himself (VERY impressive!), it has $50 of 50 cent pieces that he had to go to multiple banks to find. =) He's amazing.

^ For those of you who really know my family you know just how appropriate this gift from my aunt and her family is. My mom is a popcorn FANATIC! =)

^ Cake time - these are DELICIOUS bundlet cakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes - so yummy and fun! www.nothingbundtcakes.com

^ My brother, Marshall, and my dad having fun before the night is over. =)

I just want to say how much I love my mom and that I hope she had an AMAZING birthday!! =)

Utah Baby Shower

2009-05-03T10:45:00.010-05:00

Here are some photo's from my baby shower in Utah:

< Playing games

< Revealing the game answers with my helper, Cadence

My cousin, Amanda, dressed up for a VERY silly game =) ^

^ The 5 AMAZING handmade blankets I received at my Utah baby shower =D - THANK YOU to everyone who went to so much effort to make these blankets, they're all so GORGEOUS! (1st blanket: Drakes - my aunt and cousins; 2nd blanket: Kim - my friend for almost 20 years!; 3rd blanket: Debi - my moms close friend; 4th blanket: Christy - my dad's fantastic admin; 5th blanket: my mom.)

^ The rewards :) - The ADORABLE diaper bag from Diane and Amanda - THANKS so much! The stroller from Rachel and Cole - a HUGE thanks! The "pile 'o gifts" :).

Thanks again to so many people - real thank you notes are a work in progress. It was sooooo good to see everyone and I can't express my gratitude enough!! I love you all!! =)

Baby Showering

2009-04-16T10:25:00.002-05:00

I can't post pictures yet, not until we get back to Texas on the 21st. I did, however, want to tell everyone who's been spending so much time and effort helping me out THANKS!!!!

I can't tell you how good it was to get to see everyone over the past week or so!! Friends, family, EVERYONE!! I've missed you all so much and it was such a blessing to have a reason to get together and spend time with you!!!

I know that I didn't get to spend enough time with my family in Utah at the baby shower, but I am looking forward to spending lots of time with you all on this Saturday for the annual Cutler family birthday party.

Also, to my friends - it was so good to get to see you!! Kim, I can't believe how long it's been - thanks so much for coming AND for the AMAZING blanket you made!!! I was so excited to see everyone that I met and became such good friends with at Storesonline. I miss you all, all the time!

I love you all and I can't tell you thanks enough for making the effort to come and celebrate with me! I'm so grateful for all of the amazing people I have in my life.

I'll post pictures as soon as I can. =)