Memories

The kids and I made a quick trip t Michigan a few weeks ago.  I'm so glad we did.  It was such a nice visit.  At my parents the kids were in heaven with all the toys.  And the great part was that so many of them were toys from my childhood!  It was fun to see them play with toys that I have so many memories with. 

Someone got real comfy on Grandma's lap!

My Dad got down and put puzzles together and read books with Grace and Graham.  But my favorite part?  His front two teeth are fake and he can take them in and out and he popped them out and smiled at the kids.  HA!  I wish I would have had it on video! 

We also were able to see my sister and her family.  My brother in law loves littles.  :)

All the grandkids together! 

My mom and sister are always so good about doing Easter baskets and hiding Eggs for the kids.  Even though we were early, they had a little hunt for them.  The kids loved it!

Superman stretch

When Gavin wakes up he stretches like this and I always say "Superman!" when his hands get in the air.  The kids have taken to saying it to him when he does this too.  :)

A weekend away

Shane had a conference in Ohio and so Gavin and I went with him for the weekend.  We dropped the kids off with Grandma and hit the road.  Just having the three hours in the car to talk uninterrupted was lovely. Then we went here.  This grocery store in Ohio offers FREE child care.  Did you read what I just wrote?  FREE CHILD CARE. While you grocery shop.  We stopped and asked a few questions.  It's two hours of child care, the ladies in there are CPR trained and have gone through background checks.  Each day of the week has themed activities and did I say FREE?  TWO HOURS?  and they have a coffee shop in the store.  I would go there every.single.week.  To grocery shop alone without hissing and glaring and giving the evil eye to whichever child is running/hiding/grabbing things off the shelf/begging for something.  I would move to Ohio for this store.

This time away was just what I needed. It was so nice.  I had no responsibilities other than to take care of Gav.  We went for a few long walks downtown and I loved that.  It was nice to spend time with just Gav too.  The belly laugh video from below is from that weekend.

We were able to see our friend David.  He works for Destiny Rescue and they had a booth at the conference.  Look at how Gav's checking out his Dad.  Not the last time he's gonna embarrass you bud.  Get used to it. :)

They had these huge bean bags all around. Shane got comfy in one with Gavin during worship so I could enjoy it.

This weekend was so what I needed.  I was feeling really overwhelmed with everything and it was great to just take some time off and relax and also reconnect with Shane.  I'm so thankful we had this weekend away!

Baby Laughs

This kid.  He is seriously too much cuteness. I almost cannot take it.  Watch it till the end to hear his high pitched laugh.  Seriously.

:)

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for:

My family.  I love this picture of Shane and the kids.  They are so so happy to be celebrating Daddy. I love the smile on Shane's face.  He does such a great job being excited and getting the kids excited to celebrate things like this.  They could not wait to eat Daddy's cake.  (I forgot to put eggs in it, by the way.  If you want to have a cake that pretty much falls apart at the touch, leave your eggs out.  ha!)

 And I love this little girl and am thankful that I have great memories of her.  Through some different circumstances in the past few weeks I've been thinking about her an extra amount.  It's the first day of spring and soon the peonies will be coming out.  We are going to plant a pink peony bush to remind us of Ella and three white ones in honor of our other three.  I love this idea.  I saw a pink peony candle in Bob Evans yesterday and wanted to buy it.  I didn't realize how much that flower does and will remind me of Ella.

11 Weeks

What a difference a few weeks can make!  Look at this smiley little guy who is ELEVEN weeks old!

 Here he was at two weeks, all cross eyed.  Ha!

Four weeks 

ELEVEN weeks!

At 11 weeks Gavin is:

• Sleeping ok, but not for long stretches.  He does one 4 hour one and then it's every 2-3 hours to eat.  
• Is my biggest baby and is almost out of 0-3 month clothes. He was 10lbs8oz last week
• Is in a size 1 dipe but moving to a 2! We haven't got the cloth dipes out yet because we were given so many disposables but we will use them when we are home.
• found his hands and likes to shove them in his mouth.
• is starting to laugh.  
• tolerates Gracie holding him multiple times a day.  Ha!
• likes to be swaddled to sleep and likes a blanket over his face.  All of my kids have liked to have their eyes covered to sleep.  It's a bit freaky so I uncover it as soon as he's out!

We LOVE our little man.  He's such a great completion to our family!

Graham

Graham is at a fantastic age.  He's so funny and his vocabulary increase every day.  I don't want to forget some of his funny sayings or what he's into at this age.

"bee- nana"  banana

"crock-e-dile" crocadile
"actually mom, we let's I am a superhero"
"let's pretend you are my mom"

:)  Ok buddy!

What I'm in to:

I'm in to making this little guy smile as much as possible.  His big brother is too. (thus the hand)

I'm in to watching tv!  We got dish and although it's just the very basic of packages it is more tv than we have ever had.  We get zero reception here and no antennae would be big enough to give us the main channels so dish it is.  I really find I'm too busy to have it on but the news and a little HGTV is lovely!

I'm in to school with Grace.  She's growing so fast and she's loving helping her baby brother.  She's doing great in school and although we've had some bumps in the road I can see progress.  

I am in to cooking again.  For so long at the end of my pregnancy and after Shane did the cooking.  I'm back at it and have been having the kids help me quite a bit.  It's hard in our oh so small kitchen but they are liking it.  They, on the other hand, are not liking the only healthy options that seem to be coming from said kitchen as mama works on losing her baby weight!

My valentine

My little valentine has a bit of a cough today.  He's not so happy.  Thankfully he's still eating and sleeping well.  I hate it when my littles are sick!