Sledding and Snow Man Building!

January 31, 2013

  Today we woke up to lovely snow and I knew we needed to play in it!  I bundled Ellie all up

 and left Gavin home napping with my dad.  

We went over to Windsor Park(where I used to go sledding when I was younger) and had the hill all to ourselves.  It was so much fun and I was definitely tired faster than Ellie was.  I never realized how hard it is to go up and down the hill when I was younger.  Or maybe its that I never had to carry a child up the hill before:)  

I taught Ellie how to make a snow ball.  I love the picture of her throwing it since you can see the snowball too!  She has an awesome arm.

We decided to make a snow man while at the park.  Ellie did a great job helping to build our snowman and especially loved filling in all the holes and smoothing him out. 

We had to take off all her snow gear to get in her car seat.  We didn't want it to get all wet.  I love beanie hair!!

After Patrick got home from work, we decided to throw snowballs at him and then make a snowman for our house.  Isn't he creative with his flower pot hat!?!

I'm so glad we were able to go play in the snow today!

Crazy Sleepers, Faces and Poses

I'm pretty sure all kids are just so stinking funny when it comes to sleeping positions.  They always seem to find 'comfy' ways to sleep.  It cracks us up and each night Patrick or I usually summon the other one to come and look at the new position.  I love it!
January 14, 2013 I love how he is holding on to the lions tail!

January 25, 2013

January 27, 2013 She likes to cross her legs now.

My legs would fall asleep with them scrunched up so close to my belly.

January 28, 2013

January 31, 2013 Figured out how to roll to belly for sleeping.

January 31, 2013  This is Ellie's signature pose for pictures.  She does this when she wants the picture to end quickly.  It's pretty funny.

January Happenings

We had a fun relaxing month.  It was nice to just hang out and spend some time doing fun things together.  Here are some of the happenings from January 2013.

Sumo Wrestling-Patrick is so good at rough housing with the kids.  Ellie and him have always wrestled and tackled etc etc.  They have discovered something new, Sumo Wrestling.  Ellie had so much fun and I'm pretty sure Patrick did too! January 5, 2013

Since it's January, we have been inside a little more.  We decided to have a picnic inside in Ellie and Gavin's bedroom.  It was a huge hit and we will definitely need to have many more of these!  January 17, 2013

Shaving cream and food coloring painting-I did this in a class in college and thought Ellie would love it.  It was a hit and she especially loved dropping on the color and mixing it around with a toothpick.  We ending with painting with different textures, cotton balls, brushes and a potato.  January 21, 2013

Laughing during dinner.  Patrick always has the kids laughing during dinner.  Gavin is super smiley with him and it is so fun to watch as they play together.  January 23, 2013

 Playing with dolls.  Ellie got Doc McStuffins for Christmas and loves to play with her.  She goes everywhere right now with us.  January 28, 2013

Snuggling with me.  I love holding and rocking my kids in there rocking chair at night.  I have always loved doing this and it is so nice to just snuggle.  Here is a very sleepy Gavin, annoyed with the flash.  January 29, 2013

We also tried a couple of new recipes.  First was a Blueberry Cheesecake Pops.  They were good, but I don't think I would make them again.  They were not popsicle enough for me.  Too much like just frozen whipped topping.

Then we make some yummy crusty bread.  It was really fun to try and we didn't think it would actually work.  We just made a plain bread and I think it would taste better if you put in different spices to try.  I think we will try it again with something else in it.

We had a great month!

Gavin-5 Months

Gavin is 5 months old!  Time is once again flying by!  Here are some things he is up to these days.

•  He loves to be rough housed.  He likes to go up and down in the air and be tickled like crazy.  Patrick also loves this and they have tons of fun playing.

• This is Gavin's new favorite spot to sit.  He likes to be up, but can't sit up on his own.  He fits so perfectly.  January 5, 2013

• Very observant.  He will turn and reach to get whatever he is looking at.  He loves to grab Ellie's and my hair.  Jan 21 Ellie was running by him and quick as can be he reached up and grabbed a hold of her hair.  It stopped her in her tracks and, luckily, she laughed.  She is so good and will play along with him.

• Ellie loves him so much and he lights up when she comes into the room.  He always stares at her and whatever she is doing and smiles like crazy.  She also is a great little comforter.  When Gavin cries she will come and softly say, 'its alright Gavi' or 'whats wrong Gavi'  I love that she calls him Gavi or boy or baby brother.

• Ellie can also get him laughing like crazy and not being able to breath because he's laughing so hard.

• Gavin has been spitting up so much less the last few weeks and it is awesome!  He still does every now and then, but not near as much.  It used to be every time he ate and multiple times in between.  I have even stopped having him wear a bib all the time.  Now we can see his cute little outfits:)
• He loves to chew on everything, especially his binky.  He thinks it's hilarious to shove as much of his binky in his mouth as possible.  January 17, 2013.

• Gavin and Ellie have both been sick for a couple weeks in Jan and it was miserable.  We took both into the Dr and nothing but a bad cold, but they are both so congested and coughing and fevers.  Gavin hasn't been sleeping well at all and up crying a lot.  He has been super fussy and hard to deal with, but also just a smiley little guy.  January 28, 2013
  
  

• 1st time letting Gavin cry himself to sleep and it took about 15 min before he zonked.  I didn't want to do it this early, but he wouldn't stop crying even being held.  I know that it will get better, but it is always hard to do!

• He tried his first real food.  He had rice cereal on Jan 1 and loved it.  This boy is going to be an eater!  Gavin tried peas on the 20th and carrots on the 23rd.  He was not a huge fan of peas, but really liked carrots.

Ellie really likes to feed his too.  January 21, 2013

• Gavin has started sucking on his tongue and making a clicking noise.  He is fascinated with little new things and I love watching him learn.  He likes to hear himself make noise and will grunt a lot too.  On Jan 27th he found his scream.  He will scream when he gets really mad and believe me, he has a little temper.

• He is rolling over and I found him on Jan 3rd rolled over in the middle of the night.  He didn't  quite know how to roll back over so he woke up screaming at 2:30am.  It always freaks me out when babies are on there tummy in the night.  By the end of January he is rolling like a pro.  He will even roll multiple times to get to a toy across the room.
  
  
  January 31, 2013
  
   January 28, 2013
  
   I am so glad that Gavin is part of our family.  He is so fun and even though he's been a bit more ornery due to having a cold this month, he still brings so much joy and smiles to our family!

Happy 7 Years

Today is our 7th Anniversary!  Wahooooo!!!  It has been a great 7 years full of so many ups and a few downs.  I am so happy and grateful to be married to the love of my life and am excited for everything to come.  We celebrated by taking a few hours and going to Tepanyaki for dinner.  I have been wanting to go for years and it was really yummy!  Happy Anniversary!

Gavin-4 Months

Our little man is 4 months old already!  He is so happy and we just adore him.  We had his 4 month check up on December 31, 2012.  Weighed in at 16 lb 12 oz, 83rd percentile, 26 and 3/4 inches long, 95th percentile and head circumference of 43.7, 84th percentile!  He is doing great, but does have lots of rashy spots.  When I took him in a few days earlier, they said he has eczema and that I need to put cortizone 10 and lotion on it each morning and night.  I also switched to using Dreft laundry detergent and no dryer sheets.  He has some seriously sensitive skin.  The rash did go away but they said it would probably be there during winters for awhile.  Here is a 4 month picture of Gavin.  He seems to have his arms up like this a lot right now.

Here are some things Gavin has been doing this month.

• Gavin LOVES Ellie.  He has always loved her and she is so good with him.  He is now following Ellie around with his eyes and will laugh and laugh for her.  He always smiles when he sees her too.  I hope there relationship stays good as they get older.  It is so cute.  I love this picture because they were both content for quite awhile just hanging out with each other watching cartoons.  December 4, 2012

• Gavin still hates tummy time.  He usually cries for most of the time he is on his tummy.  December 4, 2012

• He is sometimes okay on his tummy and when he is, he does really well at holding his head up.  December 7, 2012

• Gavin drools like crazy.  I blame Patrick because he always wondered why kids drool so much.  Everyone always thinks he is getting teeth and makes sure to tell us that.  He still has no teeth and no red bumps....etc.  But I usually have a bib on him because if not his shirts are drenched.  December 7, 2012

• He has started to find his voice more and more and loves to jabber, especially in the car.  It is so cute to hear his little voice.  This sounds dumb, but he already sounds like a little boy.  I never really thought of Ellie's voice sounding like a girl when she was a baby, but now I realize it did so much.  Gavin just sounds like a boy:)
• Gavin loves to be on his side.  He sleeps on his side and will roll to his side whenever we put him down.  On December 21, 2012 he rolled from his back to his tummy.  He also can amazingly move around.  We find him in the bottom of the crib all the time.  This picture is from the 29th,

• He loves being held up in the air above you.  He will laugh and smile like crazy.  Over Christmas Patrick had him laughing so hard one night.  He woke up and didn't want to sleep and was just super giggly. 
• I had to include this picture because of love his hair.  Gavin still has very red hair and I think it is going to stay like that.  It may bleach a bit in summer.  It is so handsome and we get so many comments from people everywhere we go on how pretty his hair color is.  This is after a bath and he looks like Einstein:)  December 27, 2012

• We have a jumparoo and tried it out with Gavin.  He wasn't so sure about it but I think will end up loving it.  He likes to be up and looking around.  Ellie sure thought it was fun to have him in there and wanted to swing him all over...December 29, 2012

I am just smitten by this little man and am so glad he is in our family.  He is such a cutie and brings so much joy to us.  Can't wait to see his little personality keep coming.

Homeade Ice Cream out of Snow!

I saw a really cool pin on Pinterest about making snow into ice cream.  So...I of course had to give it a try.  How fun for little kids to make there own ice cream out of something that they all love!  Ellie was very excited to help mix and make her ice cream!

 While we had a lot of fun making the ice cream, I was a bit disappointed in the taste. Elle ate a bit, but after a few bites it really isn't that great:(  But, it was super fun to make, and we will probably try it again next year!

Christmas Card 2012

Merry Christmas!  Hope everyone had a great day!