December 2009

Better late than never, I suppose. Things have been insane here in the Compton household. Brad's birthday, my birthday, then we left for a 2 week trip to Missouri and Colorado. Brad had to work, we had a ton of snow, froze our butts off, came home to record low temperatures in South Florida, went back into the school-work-life routine full force, and are just now getting a chance to come up for air.

So, our December in pictures:

City of Homestead Christmas Tree Lighting: 12/10/09
Gotta love the kids wearing summer clothes. Garrett talked Santa's ear off, he loved it!

Opening Christmas presents at home: 12/12/09

Garrett and I went to a Christmas play later that night:



We did a Christmas Candy Workshop at Wendy's Chocolates with the kids school: 12/14/09

SUGAR. OVERLOAD.

5 days, 3000 miles later, we arrive in Kansas City. We drove through the night with 2 kids and 2 dogs. It was, ah-hem, interesting to say the least. All in all, everyone did as well as could be expected. Except Aspen. He howled every time we slowed down. Silly puppy!!
12/20/09 - We went to find and cut down a Christmas tree--this was so cool, I'd never done this before and Garrett LOVED it.
His personal choice:

Fun with snow. Had we only known what crazy coldness we were in for . . .

Drinking hot cocoa post tree hunt.


The winning tree:
Drinking hot cocoa with Aunt Stephie (they were watching Frosty)
Decorating the tree:

12/22/09 - we headed out of KC after just one day to go visit my dad for a few days.

My not so little brother . . .
Swettsville Zoo = cool stuff, especially when you are 3.5.

"Look Mom, its SNOOPY!!"

My Daddy and I with the kids. Advantage of losing 40lbs is you can put your 14 month old baby in your winter jacket :-)

12/23-The bottom dropped out and the snow started falling. Garrett had been asking since we started seeing snow on the ground when we would get snow on our car, so we had to take this for him. This was at 5am in the morning . . .



Garrett got to go sledding for the first time. He really had fun, but really didn't like the cold!

My "little" brother and I--I can't believe he's graduating from HS this year OR that he is so much taller than me!!!!

12/24--no pictures, but our drive from CO to MO was insane. The weather was terrible and we passed at least half a dozen overturned semis on the way. Brad is such a steady driver, he did a great job. We debated staying until the weather cleared, but had we done that, I think we would have gotten stuck in Colorado for a few days and wouldn't have been able to make it to Missouri anyway due to the horrible weather there (they got a foot plus, it was the first White Christmas in a long time for Kansas City!!! Once we arrived though, Garrett had a blast getting cookies ready for Santa.


12/25/09 - Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Compton's house!



Who cares if its Christmas, Summie was much more interested in her breakfast.
Garrett showing off his cool M&Ms fan to Sissy.

Open this, Grandma!!
It warms my heart when he shares with her!!
Riding the Grandpa Horsie . . . Grandpa is nuts. :-)
The rest of these pictures are from Aunt Stephie's Camera--the kids played with their grandparents a lot, the days were COLD and involved copious amounts of snow. I will never ever in a million years be able to move back to where it is that cold for that long. It was miserable being inside all the time!!

Summer playing with snow. She wanted nothing to do with it outside so we brought it in for her.

Garrett spent a lot of time in the garage with his Grandpa, working on his "Little 4 wheeler"


Her hair was looking a little ridiculous, so I decided to finally cut it. She's had her bangs trimmed, but nothing else . . . .


It was a ridiculous quantity of hair, and I cried after because it just means she's growing up.

We left on New Years Day, made fabulous time, and were shocked to find ourselves in Tampa and see that the thermometer had yet to break 40. But that is a story for another post. :-)

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a really nice weekend, we hung out with the Shumans on Thanksgiving day (yummy food and great company!) and then spent Friday putting up the tree. Garrett is very much into Christmas now-he LOVES the decorations!

No, I haven't forgotten. . .

I haven't forgotten to update my blog. I simply haven't had TIME since school started. Case in point, as soon as I sat down to write this post, Garrett woke up from his nap and is ready to go play outside.

We've been busy since last I wrote. Summer turned 1, although she still isn't walking unassisted yet. School has been busy, work has been busier. Nothing monumental, just life as usual. Garrett is getting bigger and bigger, he can identify numbers 1-3, can count to 14 without a problem, and is getting very good at coloring inside the lines, tracing, and doing lots of other "big boy" things.

I'm going to TRY to post some pics soon--in the meantime, be sure to check out FACEBOOK, that's the only thing I manage to do these days!!!

First Day of School -9/9/09

As usual, I am hopelessly behind on blogging. September was a whirlwind month indeed. The kids started school at the Butterfly Cooperative Preschool. I wouldn't have Summer there if she didn't need to be for Garrett to be enrolled. They both seem to really enjoy it. It is a LOT of work, but Garrett is loving it. Here are some pictures from the first day of school.

Summer is 11 months old

Can you believe Summer will be a year old in a month? She has gotten SO big over this past month, pulling up on everything and really acting like she is ready to GO. She had her first hair cut today (the first pic is post-haircut)--nothing drastic. I hate bangs, but couldn't take her hair hanging in her eyes anymore. Garrett, of course, wanted to be in on the picture too.

Silly Summer standing on brother's couch.

Uh oh, busted!

Another photo session from last week, at Garrett's request. Everyone was still in PJs.
She loves him so!

Garrett is so funny with Summer. They argue all the time, which you wouldn't even think is possible since Summer can not actually talk. Garrett makes up her end of the conversation: "No, Summer, you can not have my cereal, because you are a baby!" He gets upset because she never says his name. She will look at him and say "Dadadadada" And he will argue, "No, dadadada is at work, I am GARRETT, not Dadada!!" Silly, silly boy. Sorry posts have been few and far between-work has been terribly busy! But just to let everyone know, Aspen had his cardio workup and it came back good--he has a grade 2 heart murmur, but otherwise his heart looks good. No meds required--definately good news! Other than that, all is the same at the Compton household. Crazy as ever!

Garrett is growing up so fast . . .

I can't get over how big and grown up Garrett has gotten--what I said about having a toddler again, I meant . . . Garrett has been in the {preschool} category for a while now. He is doing WONDERFULLY in swimming lessons--yesterday he floated with NO help from his instructor, and then turned on to his stomach and swam to him when asked to. He loves swimming, I told him it was almost over and that we would take a break in the fall, and he said "But I like swimming lessons! Please, can I keep doing them!?" LOL.

He has a thing for puzzles. He's getting pretty good at them, and can usually get the major characters assembled with little help. Here he is finishing off one today--so proud of his work. He always wants to "show it to daddy".

Double D'oh.

It would seem that nice, quite time of NOT having a budding toddler is over. Summer finally discovered she can sit up on her own, and then stand up on her own . . . and apparently climb stairs on her own. Time to break out the baby gate for the stairs!

Sea World Weekend

We kicked off August with a trip to Sea World this past weekend. Garrett had been asking to go and we found a hotel for ridiculously cheap. It was SO HOT. We went with some great friends that I met at boot camp, the Quinones family, and had a wonderful time.

Hiding from the heat in an A/C theater to watch Elmo

Summer was LOVING Elmo, especially since she had a cracker to eat :-)

Last time we went, Garrett was too short to ride the roller coaster.
This time he was tall enough and LOVED it!
(He's in the middle)

Chillin' in the sling

Luau--Quinones on the left, Comptons on the right (G was passed out in the stroller)

Cool octopus

Garrett and Ayanna

Ayanna, Garrett and Rhea checking out the flamingos on their walk

Daddy and Summer

One last ride before we left
Wilene and Ayanna are in the front, Garrett is behind them with Rhea.

Good times!!