Shopping and a Blue Bath...

I am determined to have all our Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving, including our Christmas card. At the very least, I want everything that needs to be purchased in a store done because I don't want to deal with the crowds with Gavin unless we just want to go to the mall to get out of the house. Gavin and I made a trip to Toys R Us last week to pick up his presents and take advantage of all kinds of awesome sales and free items. I had prepared a list of what we needed at the mall and Target, compiled sale information and coupons and was ready for an afternoon of shopping yesterday, including a stop at the grocery store on our way home. Gavin had other ideas.

We were all packed up and headed down to the garage, like we always do. He was in a good mood, so I was hopeful that he would survive the couple of hours it would take between our mall trip, the grocery store and driving. As I was loading coats, my purse and his diaper wet/dry bag into the car, Gavin was exploring the garage. He often likes to check out the snow blower and generator because what little boy wouldn't love those. This time, he decided to find the tub of used motor oil that was sitting by the generator that Scott had not gotten a chance to get rid of yet. I turned around to his hand, elbow deep, in said tub. I yelled, "NOOOOOO", which was the worst thing I could do because that caused Gavin to freak out. His hand flew out of the oil and he tried to grab me to pick him up. This caused the freak out to deteriorate to meltdown levels quickly as I wouldn't pick him up because I didn't want to be covered in oil too!

Thankfully, there was a roll of paper towels close by, so I quickly grabbed those to try to minimize any additional damage. Gavin had a long sleeved shirt on, so that was soaked up past his elbow, his hand had dripped on other parts of his shirt, all over his pants and shoes and all over the floor and the generator box. It was such a mess.

I managed to get him wiped off enough I could strip him down without smearing much oil all over the rest of him and cleaned up the floor enough there were not giant drips of oil all over. We went back upstairs and I got him in the tub and grabbed the dawn dish soap. Yup, Gavin took a bath with dish soap! Nothing else was going to clean up the oil from his skin better than a soap intended to cut grease. I am so glad that we had plain, original dawn. I had picked it up because it has been recommended for stripping diapers (which you do periodically to ensure they are super clean and absorbing properly) because I prefer a different dawn when I wash dishes by hand. I think this was the only time Gavin was not happy about being in the bathtub.


It is hard to tell that the water is blue in the picture, but the it was quite blue and there were A LOT of bubbles. I probably could have used less dawn, but I wasn't taking any chances!

After he was out of the tub, I attempted to save his clothes. I soaked them in the sink with dawn and periodically drained the water , rinsed and wrung out before refilling with soap and water. This morning I put them in the washer with Tide and Oxy Clean to see if I could get rid of the oil smell and to also see if they would survive the oil incident. They seem to be ok, other than being a bit smelly still. I am hoping another run through or two with Oxy Clean will fix that. At least there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage in terms of stains.

There was no way we were going to do all our shopping but since we really needed to go to the grocery store, we made a quick trip there for what we needed yesterday and I planned to try again today. It seemed as though we were on track to make it to the mall for the afternoon, until Gavin decided he would take a nap after lunch! He had taken a late morning nap so I figured he would be good and would either nap on our way home or take one when we got home. I was quite wrong. He was ready for a nap, so I let him sleep and hoped it would be a short one. Wrong again. As it got later I figured I should start dinner so we could maybe still make it to the mall and only have to finish putting dinner together when we got home. When he finally woke up, it was pretty late but I was determined to at least do some of the errands because there were some things we actually needed from Target that I had been putting off picking up until I made a trip there. So, I loaded all our stuff up and off we went.

We managed to get the things we needed, pick up a few more Christmas presents and get home in time to quickly finish dinner up. Scott managed to get home before us, so that was a huge help in me getting dinner on the table because by the time we got home, Gavin was running around like a crazy person from being cooped up in the car, cart and then the car again for the last two hours or so. It was totally worth it though! We are one step closer to being done with our Christmas shopping!

Happy Halloween!

A day late, but better late than never, right? I have a good excuse given we didn't have power for close to 2 days and once we got it back I was running around doing a little bit of cleaning, laundry and making dinner. Then we had to take care of trick or treaters and by the time I got Gavin in bed, I was exhausted and didn't feel well enough to do (or finish) anything. So I went to be a little earlier than usual.

Halloween weekend started off with some fun and relaxation time. Gavin and I spent Friday afternoon at the museum and came home to make dinner. The rest of the night was fairly typical, dinner, playtime, bath and bed (for Gavin) and then Scott and I hung out before I headed to bed. With the forecast of snow for Saturday (and all kinds of crazy predictions on how much, when and what damage it could do), Gavin and I got ready and out of the house first thing in the morning to see if we could find him some boots, mittens and a hat. I had browsed a little in stores and online and hadn't really found anything yet but I figured I still had some time before we would need them. Based on the forecast, I was wrong. Thankfully we already had found his snowsuit and winter coat and that arrived a few weeks ago. So, Gavin and I set off for the mall to see what we could find.

We went to several stores and spent a lot longer there than I thought we would since Target and the department stores were the only stores open before 10 (since when does the mall not open until 10)! We managed to find a really cute Lightening McQueen hat, some waterproof mittens (harder to find than I thought... what good are knit mittens in the snow, they just result in soaking wet and cold hands) that are a little big, but better than nothing and some cute boots. All of which coordinate fairly well with his snowsuit. So we headed home with a quick stop at the grocery store for milk, potatoes and bananas (woah, total chaos there... glad we have plenty on hand at all times that we don't need to be a part of the panicked filling their carts with food and essentials).

When we got home, Gavin took a nap while I got lunch ready and we sat back and waited for the supposed snow to start. Before Gavin woke up, we saw the first flakes. I was shocked, I was half hoping for snow, half hoping they were wrong and trying not to get my hopes up for the half hoping for snow so I wouldn't be disappointed if there was none.

Well, it certainly started to look like they weren't going to be wrong with their huge predictions of snow. It started coming down heavy and fast and everything was white. It was beautiful but it certainly didn't feel like October. It made it feel like December or January as we sat and watched the snow. After Gavin woke up and ate his lunch we hung out, played and watched the snow until there was enough to go out and play in. We got all suited up (Scott complained about how long it took, but getting myself and Gavin ready while finding Scott's hat, gloves and boots too takes more than 5 minutes... then trying to get Gavin to stop squirming so I can get him dressed... it was quite the undertaking) and headed outside.



Gavin wasn't quite as thrilled as he was with the little bit of snow we had a couple of days before. He didn't seem to know what to make of it when the snow was covering the ground and still coming down. It didn't help that he was having trouble walking in his new boots. He had finally gotten pretty good at walking in his snowsuit the other day but throwing the new boots at him made his life pretty difficult. He wasn't interested in walking after that, he just wanted to be carried around.

Despite not wanting to be down in the snow, he was really happy to be outside. He was laughing at Scott and I throwing snowballs, he liked the snowman we made and he liked watching and trying to catch the snow coming down (and being shaken from trees). We walked around trying to knock some of the snow off of the trees because it was such a wet heavy snow and not all the trees had dropped all their leaves, some were really sagging and if too much snow piled up it could destroy them. The only actual tree loss we had was a large branch that came down from the Magnolia. It tried to take me out with it. I was doing some finish work on our snowman and it came down right next to me. It came down so fast that I barely had time to move away and see what was going on. I am very grateful that it missed me! Scott learned after the storm was over that it was a really good thing it missed because we didn't really know how big and heavy it was. Scott wasn't able to move it right away because it was so heavy!


After we had been outside for a while, it was time to head in and get warmed up and dry. Gavin and I played and made dinner (quickly because although we were hopeful about not losing power, we weren't sure what would happen) while Scott went out again to knock snow down from trees because it was still snowing hard and building up fast. We had a few flickers so we made sure that our flashlights were handy and ready with batteries. We stuck to our normal nightly routine with Gavin. We had dinner, played and he took a bath before bed. After he was in bed I ran around a bit trying to take advantage of us still having power. I wanted to get some things taken care of, just in case we didn't have power much longer. Scott went out and knocked snow off trees one more time and then we hung out in bed with phone and computer chargers so that everything could remain at full power for as long as possible.

I went to sleep and woke up around 11:30 when the house went silent. I got up for a minute to check on Gavin since his white noise was obviously gone now and then went back to sleep. So much for making it through without losing power. At least we were lucky enough to have kept it long enough we could warm up the house more than we normally would and cook and eat dinner.

Since we had warmed up the house to the low 70's, it had only dropped to about 64 by the time we got up in the morning. Although that is typically where I keep the house during the day, it felt a bit colder than it normally would but not too bad. I just made sure that Gavin was warm enough by putting him in socks and some flannel pajamas. He didn't even notice much difference. He just pulled out toys as usual and he ate some waffle for breakfast that had been defrosted (I always freeze the extra pancakes and waffles so that I can pull one out for a quick easy breakfast for us). The only difference Gavin probably noticed was that the phone no longer made noise when he played with it and light switches were now boring because nothing happened when he pressed them. Other than that, he went about his day like he always does.

Scott took care of clearing off the driveway and checked out to see if we had any other damage. Other than the branch that came down while we were outside, nothing had been damaged. We were amazed. Scott took a measurement of 9 inches of snow. A lot of snow considering we don't typically see much until at least December and very often January.

We decided after Gavin had napped and we had all had some lunch that we would get out of the house and go for a drive. We were also hoping that we might find a place where we had cell service since we had nothing at home. We moved Gavin's car seat to Scott's truck because we didn't want to open the garage door to back the family truckster out and lose all that heat. We were hoping we would get power back soon but we didn't want to count on that and lose the little "warmth" we still had in the house.

We drove around the neighborhood first, to see what things looked like, and it was very interesting. There were quite a few trees down and people out working on things and checking out damage from the storm. We found the spot that a tree came down to finally take our power out. Then we headed over to my parents house. Since we didn't have cell service, we couldn't call them to see if they had power or if they were home. We figured it was worth it to just drive over and get out of the house for a bit, even if they weren't there.

On our drive over, we saw much worse than was in our neighborhood. It was incredible to see how much damage the storm had done and how much more snow there was only a short distance from us. When we got to my parents house, they were not there, but on our way over we had been able to find cell service and Scott was able to reach his dad. What a huge lifesaver that ended up being. Scott had been wanting to get a generator and just hadn't done it yet. He had already done the research and decided what to get, it was just a matter of getting it. Since getting it locally was out of the question (not much available and not the one Scott had picked out), his dad offered to pick it up by him, if it was available and would meet Scott half way. We were able to get through to a local store in Washington, PA and they had it in stock.

So, we went home and Scott got ready to drive to Carlisle, PA to meet his dad. I decided that I would rather stay home with Gavin because it would be easier to let him play and try to get him to bed as close to his normal time as possible instead of having him strapped in his car seat for 8 hours. So, Gavin and I played (while I tried to keep him layered and warm) and Scott hit the road. It turned out to be a good thing Gavin and I stayed home. My parents stopped by after church to see if we were home and whether or not we had power. They had lost their power Saturday afternoon and decided to see if the church had power and went over early.

Gavin and I played until we needed flashlights and then we ended up putting on cars on my laptop and hanging out in the bedroom until about 7 when I finally decided it was time to just get Gavin to bed. He was getting restless and frustrated by the darkness so it wasn't worth trying to keep busy until 7:30. He went right out and I just hung out and stared out the window. It was interesting because everything was dark, until you saw the next street over because they still had power. They are only a few houses away! Crazy how that can work out.

I went to bed early too and drifted in and out waiting to hear Scott come home. He got home sometime after 1 (I don't remember exactly) and was working on getting the generator box opened. I got up to bring him a flashlight and to see what I could do to help. I pulled out the tools it listed while he got some other things ready and we waited for a friend to come by and help. What a huge help that was too, there is no way that I could have helped lift this thing, it is heavy, 200+ pounds! After I got all the tools out and did what little else I could, I went back to check on Gavin and be closer so I could hear him if he woke up. I listened to Scott and Andy work and before long, they were opening the garage door to take out the assembled, oiled and gassed generator outside to get it started. It was amazing how fast they got that done and had it wired to the boiler to get the heat up and running. Scott had planned to back feed into the main panel, but he didn't have everything he needed to be able to do that and was getting some strange readings on his meter, so he decided to just get the heat working and would deal with the rest in the morning.

I got back up and Scott and I chatted while we waited for the heat to warm up the house to a normal temperature (it was down to about 53 by the time Scott got home) so Scott could shut off the generator and go to sleep. I went back to bed before the house was fully warmed but it felt instantly warmer and we were very grateful!

It was nice to wake up to a house that was a bit warmer than it had been, even though it still lost some of the heat. Scott got up and warmed the house up again and we just relaxed. Scott took a shower so that he could get the oil changed in the generator and decide what else he wanted to do with it that day. My mom stopped by (there was no school for their district) and hung out in the warmth with us. After I showered, Scott checked the power (he still had the main breaker off) and saw that we had gotten power back. What a nice surprise! We had figured it would be a lot longer than that before we got power back. It was about noon, so I heated up some lunch for all of us. It was nice to have some warm food to eat!

We were so grateful to have our power back. I know so many people had it much worse. Locally, many didn't get power back until Tuesday and Wednesday night and in Massachusetts and Connecticut many waited until the following weekend before their power was restored. Although we are now prepared for any future power outages, we are very grateful this one wasn't more than the almost 2 days it was.

We hung out and relaxed for most of the day. Scott had a few items to take care of to prepare for the trick or treaters, like getting the light bulbs replaced in the lights outside and I made dinner, started some laungry and got Gavin in his monkey costume. We were going to go to the mall and go "trick or treating" with Gavin, but with everything that happened we decided to just stay home and hand out candy. Gavin had a good time playing with the bucket we had the candy in and was dancing around with us to the fun Halloween music we had playing.



Gavin also loved the trick or treaters. He had fun checking out all the costumes and especially loved the little boy dressed as Lightening McQueen. Before long it was time for his bath and bed. Gavin's second Halloween was a definite success despite the crazy snowstorm. I am sure next year will be even more fun and maybe we will actually make it out for some trick or treating!

Shopping!

We had quite the day of shopping a few weekends ago! With the weather cooling off, Gavin was in need of some fall and winter appropriate clothes. The few things he had didn't really fit that well and washing them every day or every other day was getting old. So, we decided to spend the weekend together and head to the mall on Saturday.

I had made a list ahead of time to be sure we covered our bases with what we needed and I knew what stores I would prefer to check out. I was really glad to not have to go alone because trying to entertain and contain Gavin while also checking out what clothes would be good, figure out what size will fit best and last the longest would have been even more exhausting and I have no doubt it would have turned into 4 or 5 trips to try to accomplish even half of what was on my list.

Scott was a trooper, despite the fact that I know he hates shopping, he was a good sport about giving input on the things I picked out, letting Gavin roam and keeping him out of trouble and safe. We were able to pick up most of what we needed at reasonable prices and even were given a few extra deals while we were out. I consider it a complete success! We were even able to find a costume for Gavin for Halloween!

Gavin enjoyed exploring. He loved going through and under the racks of clothes. He is such a curious little boy. He has to check everything out! Scott took a few pictures of Gavin's handy work while we were in Old Navy.

After we were done shopping, we headed to a friends house for a deck warming party. They had just had a new deck built and we wanted to check it out and say hi for a little bit. It was fun and even though Gavin was clearly exhausted (and refused to nap in the car), he had fun and loved the other kids there.

Sunday was a quite day at home. It was nice to have another day together and Gavin loves those days! It is hard when we have long weekends and vacations because he gets used to seeing Scott all the time and then Scott goes back to work and Gavin has a bit of a meltdown being left behind. It doesn't matter how much fun he and I have during the day, he would always rather have Scott around!

Yet another weekend passed, but it was filled with fun!

What is this?!?!

SNOW! It was a rainy, wet, crappy day, so Gavin and I spent the afternoon at the museum. We came home to finish getting dinner ready and not long after we got home it started to snow! I think Gavin thought I was crazy because I was jumping up and down telling him it was snowing. I grabbed his snowsuit, shoes and my coat and we went downstairs to bundle up and check it out.


He was not immediately impressed. In addition to thinking I was crazy, I am sure he thought I was a total lunatic for bundling him up like this. In my defense, it was cold (mid 30's) and other than when he tried on his snowsuit to be sure it fit, he hadn't worn it yet and I was excited that he had a reason to. So it may have been overkill but that's ok, at least he was warm and looks absolutely adorable too!

He did shortly decide that snow was indeed awesome and worthy of running around trying to grab it. He also decided that jumping into puddles was awesome and proceeded to do that as well. I am certainly not ready for winter yet, but this was a fun little peak at the fun we will have when we have a real snowstorm (and he has boots, mittens and a hat under his hood)!

Museum Explorer!

We loved the Children's Museum so much, we decided we would become members so that Gavin and I could spend as much time there as we wanted. So, we have been back several times since his birthday. Gavin loves it! We get a chance to see other kids around his age and older. He loves watching the other kids and often wants to share toys which is a lot of fun to watch! He has a few favorite places he always checks out like the fire truck, the tree house and when we go upstairs, the slides. He loves the slides. He giggles like crazy as he comes down and he goes right back around to go down again.

We will be spending a lot of time there in the next year! All the museum pictures are on my phone and I can't get them off at the moment, so instead, a cute picture of Gavin exploring Scott's antenna outside.

Hmmm... interesting, I wonder what I can do with this?

It's the Great Pumpkin, Gavin!

Party day! We may not have had a big party, but with all the cleaning frenzy I was on and the decorations I made and all the normal activities of life, I am exhausted! I am sure if we had a bigger party it would have driven me to a point of no sleep and complete and utter insanity.

Scott was a huge help. He and his dad (Henry) kept Gavin busy yesterday and today so that I could work on getting food ready, finish my final cleanup, get the table set (I put up the decorations last night) and finish Gavin's dessert. A lot of work but much easier not having to keep Gavin happy and entertained the entire time too. That meant that Gavin was able to get into all kinds of things that he wouldn't normally get (namely, electronic items)...


The theme for Gavin's party was The Great Pumpkin! I came across the idea and thought it was perfect because of the time of year. Unfortunately, the party supplies are very limited (in that I found all of 4 things that worked and were actually linked to the Peanuts) so I had to create a banner, some signs, his invitations (Scott was a huge help here), place cards and how to decorate his dessert. I am certainly not creative (or crafty) but I was very proud of what little I was able to put together.








Before dinner, Gavin opened his present from my parents (sorry Mom, apparently I don't have any pictures of that). They got him some cool cars/trucks that go with a ramp that talks as the cars fall down it. Gavin loves it! He loves all the little cars but he loves that it talks when they go down (and pressing the button to make it talk). He had fun playing with that with Grandma and Grandpa while I worked on the last few things for dinner and waited for Scott to finish grilling.

For food we had artichoke dip for an appetizer and for dinner we had kabobs (barbeque chicken and beef, vidalia and red onions, mushrooms, and red and green peppers), zucchini, pasta salad and baked seasoned potato fries. For dessert we had gobs (per Scott's request) and they had orange filling and were decorated as pumpkins. The food was awesome (thanks to Scott grilling!) and Gavin even ate a ton of all kinds of things, including some of the kabobs. I don't see him eat that much and ask for more often, it was awesome!



Gavin had a personalized giant (pumpkin) gob that said Happy 1st Birthday! We sang to him while he stared down the candle. He knows how to blow (he blows on warm food with me when he eats) but he didn't quite make the connection with blowing out the candle. Maybe next year!



He wasn't quite sure what to do with it at first. I gave him a little help by feeding him a little of his ice cream and gob with a spoon.


He caught on and ate quite a bit of it and loved it! He made the huge mess that he needed to for it to be a success!

After he was cleaned up, we opened Gavin's present from the Fergusons. They got him this cool "gumball" machine. It has three ways to get the balls to the bottom opening (a key that you turn, a lever that you push and a knob that you pull) and then you can put them back in on top to do it over again. Gavin loves the balls and he loves to put them in the top and throw them all over the house. It is funny to watch them roll around on the floors (that are clearly not level since there are places the ball will roll back to you) and see where they end up. Gavin loves walking around holding them too.




Gavin's two new toys are awesome and a huge hit. He loves them both!

After all the excitement of the day and the party, it was time for a bath and bed. Good thing too! I was able to finish picking up and cleaning after he was down and then I was finally able to sit down and relax for a little bit. It was a lot of work but absolutely worth it! I am so glad we decided to keep it small and just have the grandparents here. It was the perfect size for us, our house and Gavin! We had a great time together!

Busy Bee!

I have been so busy getting ready for Gavin's party that I haven't taken as many pictures (and the ones I have taken are on my phone and I haven't been able to get them to offload, darn apple products!) so I only have two that I can share today. Gavin loves to knock things over, especially toys that have been stacked. Like his new wooden blocks. I stack them up in various ways and he loves to come over and knock them over. Sometimes he will pick a few up one at a time before he knocks the rest down, but the end result is the same. He loves destruction and to prove that gravity is certainly still around working!



That is all for now. Gavin's party is tomorrow, so I still have lots to do to prepare. I will post as many pictures as possible and lots of details!