Merry Christmas!

We are truly blessed to have the most amazing family and friends supporting us and cheering us on in the journey of life! We had such a wonderful Christmas! It is so amazing to watch Christmas miracles and surprises happen through Gavin's eyes! It is amazing to see how excited he gets to open gifts and play with toys! He was so happy to know that Santa was coming! 

Gavin 2 year checkup

2 Year Doctor Appt

 

At the 2 year old baby check up doctor appt, there are a variety of tests done to check where babies are developmentally and physically.  We are happy to report that Gavin is healthy and developing wonderfully.  His percentiles (meaning he is in the __ size percentile for boys his age):

Weight: 12%

Height: 50%

Head: 57%

He is still on the skinnier side, but growing at a steady pace.  He is gaining weight, he just gains it slower because he is so busy running around and burning off calories, lol.  Average height and head size, so he is doing great.  They told us to keep him on whole milk, so he gets extra calories (I guess normally they switch them to low fat milk to prevent obesity).  Sometimes we give him Pediasure shakes too, and he really likes them.

 

His speech and vocabulary are doing AWESOME!!! He is supposed to be able to make 2 word sentences like “big ball” and he makes up to 8 word sentences.  When the doctor was talking to him, he even told her, “I want to go over there”.  She was very impressed J  He is also doing well counting and knowing his colors.  He knows red, purple, brown, pink and green.  This morning while we were getting ready, he looked in the mirror and said, “Mama, I have brown eyes, brown!” And I said, yes, you sure do have beautiful brown eyes, good job!”. He surprises us every day with the things he knows. 

 

His favorite activities are playing with cars/choo choo trains, coloring, play dough, playing learning games on the ipad and reading books. He also loves to play “Rawr Rawr”, which means riding around on your back pretending you are a Tiger, lol. He loves playing that game with Dada!  He is doing a good job with the early stages of potty training.  He will go on the potty if we catch him before he goes in his diaper.  We just need to work on getting him to tell us before he has to go.  He is very excited to get to wear his big boy underwear soon. ;)

 

Gavin loves his daycare and has a lot of fun there.  It is a small group of five kids, and right now all five are boys! Three of the boys are older than Gavin, and he is learning so much from them.  They do fun school type activities, sing songs, play games and have FUN!

 

Overall, Gavin is doing great!!!!!  

 

Happy 2nd Birthday Gavin!!!!

At 2 years old, Gavin:

Is sweet and compassionate

Is soo curious and needs to point out every detail

Talks non-stop and we often refer to him as “motor mouth”

Loves to read books and will sit alone, quietly, turning the pages

Idolizes Spiderman, but still loves Elmo, Cookie Monster and Mickey Mouse

Enjoys running, jumping, climbing and basically just moving

Would rather play than eat and would rather drink than eat, but doesn’t mind sitting in his high chair

Definitely tells you what he wants, but is pretty understanding if he can’t have it

Loves riding in the car and pointing at everything: car, man walking, school bus, moon ball, motorcycle, etc.

Will give you a hug and a kiss, and then run away as fast as he can

Will say good night to everyone and everything (ni-night tooth brush, ni-night ipad, ni-night shoes)

Sleeps 11-12 hours a night plus a 2 hour nap…he has always been a great sleeper 

Plays mostly with cars, trucks, balls, blocks, Spiderman and the ipad.

And we love him so, so much and are so blessed to be a part of this amazing child's life!!!!!

 

David & Shauna's cruise wedding

Sept 13th was the wedding and we had a great time!!! Gavin did great on the cruise and it was nice to have a weekend away! He was a great little ring bearer!! And the wedding turned out wonderful!

Happy Halloween!!!

Gavin 21 months

Future Hockey Player...like daddy

18 months old

18 Months Old…Wow, how time sure flies! Gavin surprises us everyday! We are so very blessed to have him in our lives. We never could have imagined so much joy could come from such a little person. He is so fun loving and silly. He loves to giggle and laugh. Climbing and being held up in the air are so much fun for him. He will show you his belly button then try to take a peek at your belly button. He loves books more than I could have ever imagined. Any book and every book, but his favorite is the photo book of his own baby pictures. He loves to point out pictures of Mama and Dada and the dog of course. He knows all of the animals and mimics the sounds that they make. He loves electronics and is known to steal the TV remote, cell phone or ipad and hide while he pushes every button possible. He pretends he is talking to someone and holds the phone up to his ear, or the calculator, or his baby monitor, as long as it resembles a phone. He sits at the computer, types on the keyboard, and touches the mouse, just like the grown ups. He loves to run recklessly and has absolutely no fear of falling. Being outside, running in the grass, and stopping to smell the flowers are some of his favorite things. He is obsessed with the doggies, loves to pet them and chase them and yell at them for barking “Bad Dog”. He is declaring more independence every day. He loves taking baths and will demand bubbles in the water. Recently he insisted on taking the 4 foot tall broom on a walk with us and he swept the sidewalk all the way around the block. He is sweet, adorable, funny and perfect in every way.

Happy Easter!!!

Everything is going great!!! We are all settled in at home now. Our condo is rented and our tenants seem very good. We signed our refinance papers and our loan closed for the condo!! woohoo! We sold Grier's car and bought a more affordable car that is better on gas, and bought it with cash. So no more payments and we are completely debt free!!! Now we just need to SAVE SAVE SAVE, to buy our second house!!! Having no debt will make it easier to qualify for another house payment.
Easter was great! We went to an Easter egg hunt on Saturday at the local church and Gavin had so much fun!!! Easter Sunday we had brunch with family, another Easter egg hunt, played outside with bubbles and it was a beautiful day. Gavin got to spend some time with his Great-Grandparents, which was very nice!
School is going good and we are very hopeful that Grier will be able to get a job with "normal" hours soon!!

We are moving!!!!

Big news....yes we are moving!!! We have decided to rent out our condo and we are very lucky to make a small profit after renting it. And we are moving back home with my parents! They have been nice enough to offer to let us move in to save money, so in about 6 months, hopefully we can buy a house!!!
We have been browsing houses and decided we will prob stay in North Orange County. This is a big change for us but we are excited!!! Hopefully we get good, long term renters and everything goes smoothly!

Happy Val Day!!!! :)

Love is in the air! Congrats David and Shauna!

So excited for my younger brother, David and his new fiancé Shauna!!! They got engaged on New Year's Eve on the London Bridge at the river! So exciting!!! His favorite number is 13, so they want to get married this year on Sept. 13th, 2013. And they have decided to do a Carnival Cruise ship wedding!!!!

Grier and I can't wait to go on another cruise! And this time Gavin will get to come with us! So much fun is coming!!! So much love is in the air! My other brother, Justin got married in Oct. and now another wedding in less than a year! Woohoo!!!

Gavin has been doing great walking and running, so he will be a fabulous ring bearer! Gavin has recently started dancing and shuffling his feet. So cute! He is getting so big! Grier and I have been doing good as well! We went to knotts berry farm while I was on vacation after Christmas. Just us two...Gavin stayed with grandma :) (thanks mom!). It was a fun couples date and we had a great time!
Love the holidays...so much celebrating!!!