Hanging out in Sandy, Utah!

Gavin and I enjoyed our first afternoon and evening with Andrew and Andrea. Andrew was there waiting for us when Matthew brought us from the airport. He gave us a tour of their awesome (huge) new house! It really is a beautiful house and they have done so much with it to make it even better! Then Gavin and I settled in our room, Joseph was nice enough to let us invade his room while we were there. We got out some of Gavin's toys and just hung out for a bit. A little later in the afternoon, Joseph arrived! It was so nice to see him and Gavin was so excited to have a playmate that is closer to his age and size than Andrew and I are. Joseph was so great with Gavin and pulled out all kinds of his own toys to let Gavin play with. Gavin loved every second of the attention from Joseph and followed him all over the place!

(Gavin is missing a shirt because he had completely soaked the one he had been wearing and didn't seem interested in having another one put on once the dirty one was off.)





Meanwhile, Andrew was working on dinner. Although he kept insisting it was no big deal and not a lot of work, it certainly looked like a huge undertaking. It smelled and looked wonderful and tasted even better. He roasted a chicken (with bacon on it!) and we had mashed potatoes, spinach and gravy with it. I know that when you cook and bake all the time, especially doing more complicated recipes it isn't as big of a deal as it may seem to others, but that doesn't mean it isn't still a lot of work. I really appreciated all the hard work that went into it and fully enjoyed eating it! Before long it was time to get Gavin in bed. He had done so well with sleeping on the planes that we were able to stretch out his bedtime to his normal time, but on Utah time. It took a bit longer than usual to be able to lay him down in the pack and play (and I ended up falling asleep for a bit too), but I finally got him settled and then headed back out because there was dessert that Andrew had shown me earlier and I was eager to try that out! It was a lemon almond tart and it was definitely worth getting back up for! After that Andrew, Andrea and I just visited for a bit before we all headed to bed.

Thursday was a nice and relaxing day. Gavin hadn't slept all that well (not being home, off his normal schedule and teething caused quite the sleeping mess while we were away!) and was up very early but Andrew was up early as well so we had company! We just hung out and by the time Andrea was getting up and heading out to work, Gavin was ready for a nap. Unfortunately, it was quite a short nap but he woke up in a relatively good mood and so we played some more. Andrew was even nice enough to keep Gavin occupied so I could take a quick shower! Andrew went through the toys they have from when Joseph was little and pulled out some really fun new things for Gavin to play with, he really loved the stacking cups (he loved to knock them over) and the crazy ball with a mind of its own and also the little robot guy!

Rhonda and Troy stopped by for a visit while their kids were in school. It was great to see them and for them to meet Gavin before we were all together for the weekend and it was chaos. We had a great visit with them (and Gavin took another very short nap... ugh) and then Andrew and I just hung out waiting for Mom and Dad to get back. They had borrowed Andrew's car to drive up to Idaho with Daniel to visit Becky and Matt and their family. Andrew started dinner while we waited and I attempted to get Gavin to take another nap (yup, another short one, not a good sign). (Another awesome dinner, prosciutto and pea risotto, lamb chops and steamed broccoli!) Gavin was happy to see Grandma and Grandpa when they arrived and started showing off some of his new tricks. By this point he was really getting the hang of walking and getting a lot more brave, attempting to cross rooms.

We hung out and enjoyed another delicious dinner before I got Gavin in the bath and into bed. Despite being so tired, he went down much easier than the previous night so I was able to escape for dessert! Andrew had made orange panna cotta. Absolutely delicious! We even had a little more of the lemon almond tart because Mom and Dad had not had that yet. At this rate, I was going to gain at least 10 pounds while we were visiting! Totally worth it though. Then we visited for a while before it was time to head in for bed (my signal was the first of what would be many wake ups from Gavin, poor kid).

Friday was a bit busier. Friday morning Gavin and I were up very early again, thankfully so was Andrew and Mom and Dad were not too far behind that. We hung out and kept Gavin occupied until he was ready for a nap (I am not sure why I kept bothering considering how short they always were). After his nap I squeezed in a shower while Grandma entertained Gavin and Andrew and Andrea prepared their shopping lists for the reunion. When they got home, Andrew brought Daniel with him, so it was great to visit with him as well! Gavin was loving all the attention from everyone and doing really well even though he was definitely overtired. I really enjoyed visiting with everyone as well! Andrew, Daniel and Mom set to work on getting the lasagna (for dinner Friday night) all made up and ready to bake later that day). It smelled and looked so yummy!

Before long, other family started arriving and our reunion was starting! A weekend full of family, fun, good food and entertainment!

Utah Here We Come!

The time had finally arrived, Gavin and I were heading to Utah for a week! After a lot of preparing and packing (and very little sleep on my part), we were heading to the airport at 4 am. A completely ridiculous hour but much better than the alternative, 4 pm, which I was sure would be an absolutely awful idea and guarantee I was the person everyone hated with the child that screamed the entire flight. So we were on our way to the airport at 4 am for a 6 am flight. Gavin had just woken up when I went in to get him from his crib, so he was awake the whole ride there. I figured that couldn't be a good start to the day.

We unloaded and got checked in fairly quickly (the nice thing about that hour is that there are very few people at the airport) and headed toward security. I had done a little bit of reading to see what was allowed when traveling with a child and to prepare myself for what we might encounter. I had packed two bottles (just in case Gavin wouldn't nurse during take off and landing), Tylenol and Advil as well as snacks for Gavin and per the rules, they are all allowed, in excess of the 3 ounce limits and you don't even have to deal with the ziploc bags! As we approached the security line (which was thankfully very short), we were waved through and they opened the other side for us to pass through without having to deal with everyone else. It was SO nice! Even though the regular line wasn't long, it was nice to not have people in front of or behind us waiting for me to get situated on either end. It was also nice because the extra security/TSA people even helped me to get out the bins for stuff and get everything loaded into the bins. I am not sure if it was because it was really early, a tiny airport or just a really nice group of people, but I was really grateful for their help. On our way to the gate, we picked up a water and bagel to share while we waited. I let Gavin get down and walk around and hopefully burn any energy he might have before we were confined to a plane for about an hour and a half (probably more like 2 hours between boarding and deplaning).

Before too long, they were starting to board the plane and we were one of the first people to get on (because I took full advantage of the extra time they allow you when traveling with kids, I wanted time to get our bags stowed and get comfortable before we are stuck in our seat). Gavin seemed to enjoy taking in all the new sights and happily explored both our gate and the airplane. Once everyone was boarded, there was a wonderful surprise, even though it was supposed to be a full flight, there were several people that did not show, so there were extra seats. Even though the person that was to sit next to us was very nice and I am sure would have been great company during our flight, I was grateful when she wanted to move elsewhere so we had the two seats to ourselves! As we were taxiing and getting ready to take off, I got Gavin settled and before long he had passed out! What a relief! I was sure that even him being tired, he was going to flight sleeping and everyone would hate me and my screaming child! He slept the whole way to Detroit, he woke up as the plane stopped at the next gate. That meant that I even was able to relax and get a few minutes of sleep as well.

I have been to quite a few airports but Detroit is one I have never visited before. It is a very nice airport however the mode of transportation from one terminal to the next is very lacking. We had to walk all the way from the end of C to the other end of A (it was like walking a giant C). Between the backpack of Gavin's toys, the diaper bag of medicine, bottles, blankets, diapers, etc, the camera bag with the video and digital cameras and Gavin, I had to be carrying 40-50 pounds of stuff. Even with rushing and using all the moving walkways, it still took us at least 20 minutes to make it there. We also had to stop at a bathroom when we got closer to our gate because I needed to change Gavin and I didn't want to have to do that on the plane. We were in luck and found a family bathroom which made changing him so much easier!

We made it to our gate just in time to sit for a minute before they started boarding. We quickly got up and while I stowed our bags on the plane, Gavin explored the plane. I was hopeful that we would end up with a little extra space again, but that hope was quickly squashed. A completely full flight. Oh well. At least everyone around us was very nice and understanding. Gavin was a huge hit. Everyone around us was loving all his smiling and talking (good thing!) and were encouraging it! There was even a family in front of us that had a sweet little girl that was sharing her toys with Gavin. It ended up being a good thing that I brought bottles with us. Gavin didn't want to wait for take off to nurse (we had to wait in line for a bit before it was our turn) and so he wasn't interested when we were actually taking off. So I convinced him to take a bottle until we were in the air to hopefully prevent any ear popping issues. Once we were in the air, Gavin was awake for maybe another 20 minutes before he nursed and passed out again. He was asleep until we had landed in Denver! Awesome. I was so thankful he had been so good and then slept again!

Our gate in Denver was only a few down from where we had gotten off, so we walked around to find a bathroom (hoping for another family bathroom, no such luck) so I could change him and then set up camp at the gate. We had a lot longer here because we didn't have such a long walk to eat up all our time. So Gavin had a lot of time to walk around and explore. He made several friends and was entertaining everyone waiting at the gate. No one seemed to mind him walking up to them and using their luggage to cruise around. For a kid that was terrified of strangers not too long ago, he was being awfully friendly! Gavin even worked on his independent walking and managed to walk a few feet a couple of times. Before too long we boarded our last plane for the day (thank goodness!) and we off to Salt Lake City. Gavin did really well on this flight as well. He wanted to nurse before take off again, so he ended up using his other bottle (I am so glad I packed two) but we weren't in the air too long before he wanted to nurse and passed out again. He slept until we were on the ground and was a trooper as we got off our last plane and headed for the baggage claim.

Our suitcase came out fairly quickly and we headed out to meet Matthew who had just called and said he was there to pick us up. He was nice enough to come get us and deliver us to Andrew and Andrea's house where we would be staying the first few days of our trip. Despite having slept most of the morning/day and being confined quite a bit, Gavin even did well in the car. By the time we arrived, he had had enough but lucky for him, he wouldn't see another car seat (or plane) for a while!

I couldn't believe how well Gavin did during our flights out. I was worried that having two layovers would be terrible but if I wanted to fly out of Stewart we didn't have a choice, at least one direction we were going to have two layovers. Lucky for us, it ended up being a great thing and allowed Gavin to have enough awake time in between flights that he could sleep on the plane. A much more relaxing trip than I had prepared myself for (especially considering the way I packed toys in the backpack in preparation for needing lots of distractions). We were safely in Utah, enjoying family and looking forward to more arriving for the reunion!

And We Have a Walker!

After months of trying, Gavin is walking everywhere! It is so amazing to watch how quickly he has gone from a step here and there to walking across rooms!

He took a couple of steps while we were in Hilton Head, but nothing that we really thought should count as his first steps. What we like to consider his first steps happened the weekend after we came home. Sunday afternoon while we were hanging out watching the crazy thunderstorms pass over (during which I HEARD lightening for the first time, yes, HEARD - it was insane!) and deciding the best approach on the shelves we had picked up at Ikea the day before and Gavin took a step without falling/lunging after something and remained upright! It was awesome! He then took a few more! It was so much fun to encourage him, especially since we have been able to enjoy so many of these milestones together as a family!

It quickly progressed from there. Over the next few days, the few steps became more reliable and frequent. By Wednesday, Gavin was attempting to walk even farther. While we were in the Denver airport waiting for our last plane to Utah (yet another item I need to blog about... I am still so behind!), he went several feet before falling! While we were in Utah for my family reunion, he quickly started attempting to cross rooms.

By the time we returned home the following week, he was a pro, showing off to Scott how much improvement he had made! In the week since we have returned home, he has improved even more. He even has mastered walking in and out of the kitchen and bathrooms, which is impressive because there is a fairly large height difference (and edge in the case of the kitchen) between the tile and the hardwood floors.

He still sometimes gets ahead of himself and has had quite a few bumps, but I am sure that even once he has fully mastered walking (and running) that he will have bumps. That is just part of being a kid!

I am still in disbelief as I watch him walk around the house. I can't believe that he is almost a toddler already! I knew he would walk before he was officially considered a toddler, he has been wanting to for months. It makes him look so much more grown up. Although he is more capable of getting into trouble now, he also usually follows me from room to room if I picking up/cleaning, which is nice, right?

Oh well, since I haven't gotten around to figuring out uploading video yet, instead I will just share a random picture of Gavin (because it would be mean to not upload at least one picture of him!) eating baked potato... yum!

2 Years Already?

I need to take a break in trying to catch up on how behind with what we have been up to tonight. It is for a good reason though!

It is hard to believe that it has been two years since Scott and I got married! Although I had a great time planning our wedding and our wedding day was perfect, I am glad to be beyond that and enjoying our life together. It has certainly been an amazing two years! We have had a lot of fun together and with our families on vacations, at the holidays, preparing for Gavin to arrive, tackling house renovations and enjoying our life as a new little family!

We had a fun, low key weekend and day today. We spent a lot of time hanging out together, working on getting the shelves up in the dining room and even watched a few movies. Saturday morning I made blueberry muffins for breakfast (and gingerbread muffins later in the day) and we had chicken and vegetable kabobs for dinner (one of our favorite items off the grill)! Sunday I made German pancakes for breakfast and then Scott requested hamburgers for dinner, so he grilled again Sunday night and I just made potato and sweet potato fries to go with it. I decided that I wanted to make cinnamon rolls for our anniversary breakfast and creme brulee for dessert so I had to do some prep work Sunday night after Gavin was in bed. I made the dough for cinnamon rolls (because Grandma's recipe is the best one and needs to be made the night before) and I made the creme part of the creme brulee so it could chill overnight.

Scott managed to finish getting the shelves mounted in the dining room (I helped a little, but he definitely did most of the work). I am excited to start getting more put together on it and have it all be organized again! I will post some pictures of that later.

This morning when Gavin was up for the day we made the cinnamon rolls and then got Scott up to come hang out with us and have breakfast. I even shared a little cinnamon roll with Gavin since he had already eaten his breakfast (a banana, some grapes and a carrot) while I made the cinnamon rolls earlier.


Clearly he loves them as much as the rest of the family!

We hung out and watched a movie and had lots of fun playing as a family in between Gavin's naps. Then Gavin and I worked on getting dinner ready. I decided to keep it somewhat simple because I didn't want to need to spend all day in the kitchen. So I decided to make paninis and twice baked potatoes. The paninis had chicken, roasted red pepper (roasted it myself - its the best way to have them), caramelized onions and mushrooms with mozzarella cheese to keep it all together. I made Gavin just a grilled cheese sandwich to have with his potato and he had some grapes (one of his new favorite things to feed himself). It was all really good!






After Gavin was in bed, I picked up all his toys and got the creme brulee ready. No pictures because I was more concerned with eating it than taking pictures. It was fantastic. Maybe I will remember to slow down and take a picture when we have more tomorrow night!

It is sad to see our weekend come to a close, but it was definitely a great weekend together as a family! I am so lucky to have such an amazing husband and son! I love them more every day and I look forward to all the wonderful things in our future!

Roadtrip to Ikea!

After returning from Hilton Head despite having a long list of things to do around the house we decided to do something fun on Saturday. We had been wanting to make a trip to Ikea for quite some time (it is a bit of a commitment since the closest, easiest one to get to is in NJ about an hour and a half away) for light bulbs for our under the cabinet lights in the kitchen and to look at shelves and various other items to see if we could find anything that would suit our needs so we decided Saturday would be a good day!

So we did a little browsing online to get an idea of what items we wanted to make sure to look at and think about what other pieces we want to look at while walking through their "showrooms". We were looking forward to the trip all week! Saturday morning we did a few quick things around the house while Scott cut the grass. After Gavin's morning nap and lunch, we moved Gavin's car seat to the truck, packed up some toys, snacks and drinks and hit the road! The drive down was pretty good. Not much traffic and Gavin was relatively happy and having a good time. When we arrived at Ikea, we headed to the top floor and the beginning of their showrooms.

For those that may not have visited Ikea before, they have everything set up in sections based on the type of room (living room, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, children's room, etc). In each section they have multiple examples of how their furniture can be set up to give you ideas for design and function. It is fun to check out the pieces they put together, even though we were not looking for bathroom and kitchen furniture, it is still fun to walk through and check them out.

After walking through, we were able to decide on what shelves we wanted for the dining room to replace what we had before. We browsed other items, but ultimately decided if we want to pick out any furniture for other rooms we want to make a separate trip. We did however find a cute rug for Gavin's room.


He hasn't quite got the hang of rolling cars on the road and track yet, but he will and we think he will enjoy it a lot, especially now that he is starting to acquire smaller cars.

We stopped to have an early dinner at the restaurant at the end of the showrooms upstairs. We shared some swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. It was really good, even Gavin enjoyed it all!


Then we headed downstairs to finish looking through all the accessories and lighting and such. While going through the lighting section to find the lightbulbs we needed, Scott came across this activity center for kids. Gavin had so much fun spinning the cylinders. We felt bad when we had to move on so we could pick up the last few things we needed and head home.


We made it through, picked up the boxes for the shelves we decided on and headed for the checkout. Unfortunately, the lines are always a bit ridiculous, but we even survived that. While Scott loaded the truck, I got Gavin ready for the long trip home. Despite trying to hurry a bit to get out of there in enough time to get home for Gavin's bedtime, we were put behind by the long checkout time and also Gavin fighting being changed, fed and strapped back into his car seat. So the drive back felt much longer than the drive down since he was very unhappy, but he finally caved and passed out at about his normal bedtime and stayed asleep when I transferred him to his crib when we got home.

It was a really fun and successful family trip to Ikea. Gavin even enjoyed it (when he was confined to his car seat). We look forward to making a trip back for more shelves for Scott's radio room and some other things we have our eye on!

Bananas!

The first time I tried to give Gavin a banana, he was not interested. I mashed it up to see if I could get him to eat it and he still wasn't impressed. I ended up mixing in apples and oatmeal to convince him to eat it. After we returned from Hilton Head, since he has been doing better with feeding himself, I decided to try handing him a banana again. Success!

Eating bananas is serious business... leave me alone!


Mmmm... banana!


He loved it and ate about two-thirds of a medium sized banana with his breakfast! Now he eats part or most of a banana most days. It is nice to be able to hand him food and he feeds and entertains himself so I can get things done and eat as well!

Ahhhh... the BEACH... Part 2!

Thursday was quite similar and relaxing. We had given up on bike rides given Gavin's response earlier in the week so we didn't bother trying that again. We opted for hanging out in the pool instead. Gavin loved splashing around both in his boat and while we were holding him. He also loved hanging out in the hot tub while the jets were on so he could chase around the "fountains" on the ledge.

Thursday night we headed to Mike and Terri's house for dinner and family pictures. It was fun to all be together to get some nice pictures of all the kids, all of us together and then individual family groups. I haven't seen any yet, but I am sure there are at least a couple that have us all smiling and looking at the camera. Hopefully we will get to see them soon and I will be sure to share them when we do.

Friday we decided to go to Panera to have lunch. It was really good and Gavin enjoyed having a new area to explore. It was a nice change of pace from the rest of the week. After lunch we went to Mike and Terri's to hang out and swim there. By the time we were suited up and ready to get in the pool the Ferguson's had arrived as well. The pool was even more fun because they had started a water fight. Gavin loved watching and helping me shoot everyone else.

That night we had to start getting things packed up because our week was almost over. Even though our house rental is from Saturday to Saturday, Mike and Terri's house is Sunday to Sunday, so we had been invited to stay the extra day with them so we could spend more time together. So, although we had to move out of our house, we only needed to get things packed up enough that we could get it all over to their house. So we ordered pizza for an easy dinner and clean up and we all worked on getting things together and ready to move out Saturday morning.

Saturday morning the Ferguson's left really early so it was just us finishing up with our packing and making sure we had everything. Then we went to drop off the keys and headed to Mike and Terri's house for the day. It was another beautiful day, so we were glad to have another day at the pool. We went out to grab lunch but other than that, we hung out around the pool. It was a lot of fun. Scott took some fun pictures of Gavin with his tool box, throwing the blocks and chasing after them. We felt bad, but he didn't seem to mind the concrete. Although he wasn't really crawling around on his knees, he was using his hands and feet mostly. It was cute.



Saturday night we picked up food so that we could pack things up and get to bed as early as possible. We were originally planning to do the trip back in two days. We were going to stop and spend Sunday night at Mike and Terri's house in Virgina because that was a little more than half way and a convenient stopping point. However, as we got to the end of the week, we decided we would rather try to make it back Sunday. We knew it would be hard, but we were hoping that the payoff of having Monday at home to relax together would be worth it. So we headed to bed as early as possible, after loading everything we didn't need and preparing everything we were using and would need in the morning so that we could head out early the next morning.

Sadly, our week at the beach was over. We have lots of great memories of our time there and are so glad we were able to be there. Now we have next years vacation to look forward to!