Mother's day

Allie had a Mother's Day Tea on Friday. Her class sang songs for us and then each child told why they were thankful. They were all really sweet....video is below.




We spent the weekend with the grandparents. Zach, my nephew, was there too while Katie and Jason were in NYC. He and Garrett are two peas in a pod; there weren't many quiet moments to be had. Katie and Jason flew in Saturday night, so we were able to visit with them too.

Sunday after church.
Grandparent pic! Someone was moving in every FRAME! I took probably 6 pictures. With the help of photoshop, Allie is not looking up at Zach like she was in all the rest of the pictures! Abby was the only one missing. We missed her by a day, but she had to go home to visit her other grandparents.

We had a birthday celebration for Garrett! Why stop with Mother's day? He took one bite of cake and said, "MMMMMMMM". That's about all he can say! He loved it!

Napkins, plates, invitations...check

G baby is turning one next week! We will be celebrating with the hub's parents on Saturday, and for the purposes of his baby book, I felt like I needed an invitation. One can't have a party without an invitation, right??? I bought napkins and plates at Target, and then scanned them into the computer. This is what I came up with...my first photoshop project.



Mamma Lion...I spent an hour trying to crop the circle in the middle. I never figured it out! Any suggestions???

Ten Months!

Garrett turns ten months tomorrow, but I'm going to be on the road!!! I took these pics behind our house a few days ago while it was still warm and sunny. Garrett is definitely making things interesting around here. He helps me clean the toilet, (found him chewing on the toilet brush..BLAHHHHH), feed the dog (places the dog food in the water bowl for Hannibal), unload the dishwasher, and other various "helpful" chores. Anything he chooses to do is LOUD...and the louder the better. He is an accomplished drummer already too! How did I forget this stage already??? Oh wait, Mary didn't go through this stage..of course! He's cruising around furniture, but not standing on his own yet. He's perfectly happy crawling and scooting all over the house. Mary says "chase me little bro!" She won't be saying that for long.

This morning I took G the Giant to his 9 month check up. He was 31 1/2 inches (100%) tall and only 1.5 inches away from what Allie was at 2!!! He weighed 22 pounds (75%). I won't even mention his head...but my sweet boy has a larger than avg head. I walked him over to my neighbor's house yesterday to take a few pics. Oh and Jason the hula hooper won the funniest home video poll. He was a good sport...actually I never heard from him, so that could go either way.

Happy Valen-nine!

Garrett turned 9 months old yesterday. This week has been the week of the chocolate everything! I'll be putting it all away very shortly. The kids have had fun with their Valentine parties at school, so here are a few pics....or alot actually.

As far as G is concerned....he had a great time at Emmy's last week. I wish I had pics of him, but I haven't had time to pester them about pictures. They said they had a great time. Just in that week he started pulling up on everything and even moving along furniture. He's still scooching, but if you take his shirt off he'll crawl because he doesn't like his belly on the floor. I need to film him with his shirt off because it is quite funny! He's gotten 2 more teeth, but I don't know how much he's grown...seems like alot to me.



I gave him cheerios yesterday! For some reason we always start cheerios at 9 months. He was a big fan!
NOT a big fan of the sheep yesterday...bad sheep.

Just a good tooth pic, but you can't see the top ones yet.

Standing tall.

Heart from head to toe.

M and Mary....This little one is so funny. She was trying so hard to get Mary to pose. She even told her to put her hand down.

These are all mixed up...lazy posting syndrome. Allie and her friend M from school going through their loot.

Always a poser.

One of the boys.

"Camel" made Mary moo a heart and gave it to her. We got a hug and a smile out of that one. She told me this morning he was her "Balentine"
Big smile:)

8 months

Well the #8 Serta Sheep was very appropriate for this month's picture. Garrett outgrew #8 much sooner than I expected. I don't know how big he is, but people that hold him say he's "solid". Sweet boy! It has taken 8 months for me to start getting him out more; we finally hung up a swing for him, and Mary requested yesterday that we "take a walk" (even though she insisted on riding). I don't know why it has taken me 8 months to get him outside more often, but he likes it! It's actually been cold here the last few days! When I took him to the grocery store this morning, it was in the lower 30's, and if he had top teeth, they would have been chattering. It took me back to my Rochester days. Every time I took Allie out in the winter, it was FREEZING and blowing snow and WAY colder than lower 30's! I can't believe that was NORMAL for us! Sheww...I miss my friends every day...but not the weather!


Mom, I'm really bored. Can we go faster next time around?

I like it outside even if it's cold!

Wheee..higher Allie!

Mom, don't sneak up on me like that!
Garrett is pulling up to the knee position but thankfully nothing more. He's not up on all fours crawling yet, but is all over the house in a GI Joe fashion. When he crawls, he can get into a sitting position by himself. I just forgot how fast they change, and life is going so much faster with the third!

Where's the Teeth?

We've yet to capture Garrett's teeth on "film"....until today.



not there...

nope, not there either...

The tongue is normally the problem, and who would have thought he was tongue tied at birth?

After a few tears, he produced. See them...just barely!

Thanks for the new duds we got for Christmas Nanna. We wore them to church today:)

7 Months

Baby Garrett is not looking so babyish any more. Today he turns 7 months, and it will be the busiest he's probably had yet. It will be a month filled with craziness, but what I'm excited about is COUSINS! It will be fun to see Garrett with his cousins on the hub's side (3 in 8 months born including G), and on my side (3 in 3 months born including G). His "big" cousins will be waiting to get their hands on all of the babies. It's so hard to find the time to get together now, so we are looking forward to catching up.

Garrett is just moving right along...literally. He's not up on all 4's and crawling, but he does rock back and fourth and can scooch pretty fast now wherever he wants to go with his characteristic grunting of course. He's eating several different baby foods, and we see 2 teeth now. His trademark that sets him apart from the other 2 is DEFINITELY his smile. He LOVES to smile which makes all of us smile! Don't forget to check out the video of Garrett..with Allie stealing the show.

Here's to Halfway!

Garrett has hit the halfway mark for his first year! This has been the fastest and slowest 6 months of my life! I don't know if you can tell in pictures, but he is no small fry weighing in at 21 pounds (95%) and measuring 29 inches (off the charts) in length. In the past few weeks, he's started eating in a high chair, sitting unassisted (if you can get him to be still), scooching on the floor to get toys, and holding his bottle on his own. He's QUITE the extreme opposite in every way of Mary but alot similar to the way Allie was in his determination to get what he wants! I may be in big trouble soon. His favorite thing right now is jumping in his bouncer, and that's pretty much where he spends most of his time. He loves to watch the girls and pretty much laughs at everything they do. Check out the video below of his developing commando crawl.

Say Baaaa!

Always a poser.

Look I'm sitting!

Handsfree...for me that is. Yeah for helping me get out the door by 730 on school days!

Peas please!

Give me FIVE!

5 MONTHS! Yeah. Now that we've got Mary locked in her room, we are all sleeping great again. (don't worry after a couple of nights, she quit trying and is sleeping until 7...for the first time in MONTHS!) I don't know how much he weighs, but he's quite the steam roller. He can hold himself in a sitting position for just a couple of seconds, but he's not too far from doing it alone...especially if he could be still. He is constantly moving as most boys do, but Allie was the exact same way. He laughs ALL THE TIME. He thinks everything is funny and is quite ticklish. We've tried cereal a few times, but who has time for cereal? We may just wait until he's ready for waffles and pizza...sounds like a better plan to me. He's catching up with his lamb!

If you haven't figured it out, he looks just like Allie.

Peek-a-boo!

It won't be long until he's tackling the girls.

I remember seeing a picture of my nephew Zach a few months ago just like this. I thought, we are so far from Garrett doing that in the swing. NOW we are already here. He can't grow out of it this fast! We are too attached.

The Honeymoon Period

This morning I did not have to do carpool, therefore I let Garrett sleep rather than waking him up like usual. He slept until 730...aahhh...what I call the honeymoon period has arrived. He slept 12 hours without a peep last night, and those nights are becoming the norm rather than the exception. Why is it the honeymoon??? He's reached a stage where he just smiles at everything we do, he sleeps all night, and he is not under our feet all day. It will pass so quickly but for now I will enjoy it. He will turn on me just like the rest of them have:) Every stage brings a new set of challenges I realize, but this is DEFINITELY the sweetest one.