Books and song

Garrett is starting to enjoy "reading" by himself and also singing. He has certain books he loves to "read", and will not let me help. Right now he is reading his favorite Clifford book, going "Follow School bus, Clifford; Follow school bus clifford!" He also has this book about the story of Jesus, and he will flip through the pages singing "Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, this I know!" Its hilarious!

Imaginative Play

Garrett's imagination is definately in full swing these days. So far today, we have had the following fun imaginary things going on (keeping in mind it is 8:30am!)

-"Puppet's turn, throw ball"-the hand puppet needed to have a turn throwing the basketball.
-"Bear diaper!"-his bear "needed" to put a diaper on, to which I responded that I thought bear was potty trained. "Yes, potty trained!" Says Garrett. "Bear, pee pee." we took bear to the potty, he peed, and Garrett said "Good bear! Pee pee potty!" Garrett then proceeded to flush the toilet.
-While playing with his little people dinosaur . . . "Dinosaur, eat blanket. Eat it, eat it. Yummy!!"

-While this did not happen today, it was very funny and worth sharing. We were in the car and he was going through his night time routine with blue puppy, INCLUDING the part where we take blue puppy away if he doesn't stay in bed :-)

Who knows what the rest of the day will bring.

FINALLY!!!

We got a new car today!!! It's a 2003 Ford Focus 4 door Sedan, and I LOVE it. I think Brad does too. It's white, which wasn't our first choice, but it has under 40,000 miles on it, which is a lot less than anything else we were looking at. I am so excited to have my car back!! Of course, gas is so expensive it will just sit in the garage, but it will make the logistics of life SO much easier right now.

Brad and I are still sick. Garrett is officially in the terrible 2s, I think. He's been a real pill the past 4 days or so.

3rd Trimester

Well, here we are at week 28, the "official" beginning of the third trimester, and we are a house full of sick people. Garrett is feeling better, but Brad and I are both feeling like we got hit by a train. Combine that with a heavy workload this weekend both in the lab and on the computer, and it looks like the weekend is ALREADY a bust. But oh well. We are hoping to do some major car shopping this weekend . . . here's hoping!

Pictures from Sunday

. . .better late than never. Its been a crazy couple of days since Sunday, Garrett has been sick and is Mr. Clingy man. No one can do anything for him but me, and he is insisting on sleeping with us. Its been raining like crazy here. I suppose its better to be rainy when you are sickies than to have a beautiful day and be stuck inside. We're hoping he'll feel better soon.

My two favorite guys ever. :-) Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

27 weeks (!!)

Garrett refusing to touch the belly OR take his hat off.
That's right folks, he wore the hat to church. (That hat was a part of a baby gift from my Uncle Saeid, and it is age 6-12 months!! It's not only the favorite hat, its the ONLY hat he wears.)

Pregnancy musings: I am going to be entering my third trimester at the end of the week. How did THAT happen so fast?? I don't see Laura until the end of the month, but then we go to seeing her every 2 weeks. We're in the home stretch, and I am nowhere near ready.

Crazy Garrett things: Today Garrett CLIMBED INTO THE CRIB. Not sure HOW he managed, but he did. Our poor baby is never going to be safe from his big brother. The other silly thing he did today was get the net for the fish tank out. When I caught him, he had gotten his stool, and was in the process of opening the aquarium. Who knows what he would have done if he caught them. Despite being sick and coughing like crazy, he continues to be a potty trained kiddo. He keeps falling asleep in our bed with undies on, and I have NIGHTMARES of dealing with an accident from that, but he's been so great. He hates getting a diaper on at night and for naps . . .I will probably drop the nap diaper soon, I just don't want to deal with the mess.

Happy Father's Day!!

Happy Father's Day to all the great men and fathers in our lives, and to all of our great friends!! Garrett and Brad had an awesome evening together Saturday night, just doing the fun thing. Garrett even refused to go outside and play (really off the wall for him) because he was having such a great time with Daddy. Of course, poor Brad may need to recover. Garrett decided to give poor Aspen a break and ride Brad instead. And jump on Daddy's back. And his spleen . . . the list goes on and on. He sure had a good time though.

Garrett's pretty lucky to have such a nice long list of great men in his life, beginning with his daddy, his grandpas and great grandpas, and ending with a long list of extended family members and good friends he loves. You guys all know who you are, and I hope a great father's day was had by all.

Riding the Daddy express:

Note the "Tough Stuff" triceratops hand puppet he made in VBS
(he was asking for Vacation Bible School and Puppets all day today!!)

Some shots playing with the train table Saturday evening:

The ever-elusive Haylee (she will hardly ever hold still long enough for a decent picture!)

Our plans for Sunday are nothing big, a little surprise for Daddy, church, and then whatever Brad would like to do in the afternoon. Hope everyone has an excellent Father's Day!

Another Picture Dump from the Camera Phone

The only bad thing about the camera phone is that it is such a pain to download the pictures, I end up waiting way too long to do it. So pardon another bulk picture dump.

Going to the airport to pick up Grandma C for her visit last month:

Riding the, er "horsie" again. Poor Aspen, he is so abused by his brother!!

Napping in the shades Grandma C brought. I am happy to report they are still in one piece.

Random shot at the pool.

Funniest blue puppy picture yet . . . Garrett insisted I buckle him in when we were in the car.

Blue puppy is now the ultimate pretend play pal. He eats, goes to the potty, and takes "turns" with everything Garrett is doing. Garrett will actually narrate "Puppy's turn, Garrett's turn!" He is his best friend ever. We have 2 others that are identical, but newer, and if handed one of them, Garrett will say "New blue puppy (sad, confused tone). My puppy, where is it!??" So if the original should meet a bad fate, we are in big trouble!! Oh, and I almost forgot . . . Garrett reminds me that blue puppy needs a "bath" in the washing machine every few days now. That is because he insists on wiping his mouth with poor Blue Puppy's ears!!

Vacation Bible School

We just finished an absolutely crazy week, consisting of vacation bible school at church from 5:30 - 9 and me going to work twice this week. Brad has been all over the place for his job as well. I decided to help out with the music classes for VBS, and made the plunge enrolling Garrett into the 2-3 year old class. Yeah, keep in mind he was 2 by a whopping 10 days or something ridiculous like that. He actually did better than I expected--I was ready for the teachers to ask me NOT to bring him back!! He loved the puppet shows they did and playing with all his friends. Every day we took "monies" (in this case, pennies) for their penny drive benefiting Manna Worldwide. We had over $500 dollars collected in pennies this week, which was pretty cool! Garrett would actually say "needy children" when you asked him who the pennies were for. He also walked around all week saying "Vacation bible school! Puppets!!!" He really loved it!! The downside was he didn't get to bed before 10pm any night this week. On Thursday, I didn't even SEE him until 9 when VBS was over because I went straight from work to VBS. He and I BOTH slept in late Friday, just because we could.

Apparently he is finally grasping the difference between "me" and "you" . . . for weeks it has been "help you" when he wants me to help him. He told his teacher at VBS tonight "Help me, I need truck!" He would also sing many of the VBS songs, and do the motions, but in a way that they would be unrecognizable to someone who didn't know better. But the week was DEFINITELY a great growing experience.

Potty training=rocking my world. Can I just say how nice it is NOT to have to deal with poopy diapers anymore? Garrett has mastered #2 this week, and we've been accident free other than 2 minor "leaking" incidents late this week from a combination of being tired and his poor over-wroght VBS teachers (3 ladies, 13 2 and 3 year olds, you get the picture!!) not being able to get him to the bathroom nearly fast enough. I retired the little potties this week, because I was sick of cleaning them. He'll use the potty seat on the big potty now without a problem, and will usually go without a potty seat if needed. It's awesome! Diaper duty is limited to wake-up times (sometimes he naps in his undies, if he sleeps in the car), and all I have to do the rest of the time is wipe an occasional tush and flush. Yippee!! (I will revel in this for the next three months, until we have to start ALL over again!!)

A minor side note to the whole potty training thing. I was thinking today about how much money we have saved compared to a lot of families. Cloth diapers for around 18 months +breastfeeding for 15 months+ potty trained at 2 . . . Brad should really give me a raise :-) And it absolutely warms my heart to know that my diaper expenses for this next baby will be Zero because we already HAVE all the cloth ready to go!! Anyway, I digress. . .

Garrett got to spend 2 days with the Criders while I worked on Wednesday and Thursday. He really enjoyed that (of course!), and it was a nice time away for me (Another sad comment on life when going to the office is considered "me" time). Brad also got his raise at work, which means once our stimulus check comes we will FINALLY return to being a TWO VEHICLE HOUSEHOLD. Woot!!

We saw our midwife on Monday, everything is awesome on that front. I can't believe I am 26 weeks already . . .

(ETA: I posted the only picture that wasn't terrible--Garrett in his TOO BIG VBS shirt, looking like he has ants in his pants during music class!)

Fun Weekend in Orlando

We went to Orlando this past weekend. We went to Sea World and also their new waterpark, Aquatica. Our wonderful friends, April and Casey, invited us to come stay with them and their two little girls. We had an absolute BLAST over the weekend.

Lolly, their youngest, is just 3 weeks older than Garrett. They had way too much fun together. We arrived really late Friday night, and Garrett remained passed out until after 8, which is unheard of for him.

Lolly was OBSESSED with Garrett's couch, which we brought for him to sleep on (he used it about 75% of the time . . . ). Lolly and Garrett found better uses for it :-)

Hug!

We asked them to give each other kisses, and missed the first two (chaste little pecks). The third was a doozie!! Lolly's daddy will probably never invite us back, lol!!

I didn't take that many pictures at Sea World, just because we were so busy having a good time. Garrett LOVED feeding/touching the stingrays, and Brad got this picture of us feeding the dolphins.

Garrett watching the Sea Lions while the daddys and Kirsten rode Kracken.

Lolly and her big sister Kirsten at the splash park. Garrett decided "Sissy" was easier to say than Kirsten (that's what Lolly calls her), so now he has an honorary sibling.

This is the closest I could get to getting the little ones together at the Splash Park (it was crazy busy!). Lolly is spinning in circles in the foreground, and Garrett is taking a short break from dumping cup fulls of water on people).

While not the best picture, this was too cool not to mention. We went through the arctic exhibit, and the Walrus was basically swimming laps. He would do a backflip right against the glass in front of the kids. It was pretty cool!!

By the time we got back to April and Casey's house and had dinner, we were all exhausted!! Garrett slept pretty late again on Sunday, and everyone had to wake up early to go to the waterpark.


The waterpark (Aquatica), was a big disappointment to all of us. It wasn't very kid friendly, as any child under 42 inches had to wear life jackets to even get in the wave pool. They wouldn't let Garrett use his water wings, which was also silly. They did have a great toddler area, which both of the little ones loved, but other than that, it was just a bust. I took some pictures with a disposable underwater camera, which I will post once I use up the film.

Garrett did really great with using the potty on the entire trip . . . the only downside was the drive took half again as long because we had to stop every hour. He did such a good job, though, I am so proud of him.

Even though Aquatica wasn't that great, the kids still had a blast, and Brad and I really enjoyed visiting with the entire family. Thanks, Casey and April, for a great weekend. Garrett is already missing Lolly and Kirsten!!!

Visit with Baby Ava

Last week we visited our friend Leanne and her little girl Ava, who just turned 10 weeks. It was nice to visit with them, as we haven't seen Leanne since before Ava was born. She and Brad used to work together. Garrett had great fun visiting with another baby! Thanks Leanne for the picture, and for the great company!

25 Weeks

I was 25 weeks on Friday . . . these pictures are from Sunday morning. Its starting to become a pre-church tradition to take a belly picture. Garrett was wondering what we were up to and came to investigate.



I feel HUGE. I think I look as pregnant now as I did in March of '06 when we went to St. John when I was pregnant with Garrett. I have gained weight this month (finally) . . . 5lbs in 4 weeks, which I am not thrilled about. But I guess I had to start gaining sometime. We'll see what Laura has to say, I see her again on Friday. As soon as our appointment is done, we are headed to Sea World for a weekend of fun with some friends. We're excited to try out Sea World's new water park, Aquatica. I know Garrett will have a blast, since he is so in to animals now.

Lazy Aspen

Aspen decided to use the pillow while he was napping, and Daddy thought it would be fun to cover him up. He's such a silly, good grey beast. Garrett has taken to trying to ride him like a horse, and Aspen just gets up and walks away. We couldn't ask for a better pup. Haylee is wonderful, but Garrett drives her nuts. She doesn't mind kids, but she isn't too keen on toddlers. Of course, Garrett DOES chase her all the time, poor little girl.