These are the pictures I was referring to from Saturday

Gavin enjoying some of the girl's toys.

 

Gavin and new friend Anna Beth

Gavin and his ladies

Ashlyn explaining how it is done

Everyone bathed and in their jammies!!

The weekend

Gavin had a pretty packed weekend.  Saturday we went to the Valdosta Symphony Guild's Tunes for Tots at the suggestion of Aunt E.  I was worried that he would be too young to have the slightest idea or care what was going on.  Of course I was wrong, he really seemed to enjoy it.  It was a really cool experience, they brought out each of the instruments and played a little music and explained the instruments purpose to the kids. then they had a performance by the South GA String Project which is a group of children as young as 9, I think.  They were really good, some of them were so tiny and had tiny little instruments, it was adorable.   After that the adult musicians broke up into groups, strings, percussion, woodwinds,etc. and let the kids come and touch and play with them.  Some of those instruments I know cost an arm and a leg, I couldn't believe they let them play with them!!  We took Gavin to play with the percussion pieces and he had quite a wonderful time banging away.  The people from VSU were so attentive and patient with all of the kids, it was really neat.  I would highly recommend taking your children next year.  The suggested age is from 3 yrs to 4th grade but Gavin had a wonderful time and I will definitely take him back next year.  Clay got some cute pictures of Gavin banging away on his phone which of course I don't have so only the pictures that Aunt E took will get posted.

Later that afternoon we went over to some friends house for dinner and to let the kids play.  There were four little girls and Gavin he was the youngest by a year but that sure didn't stop him any.  He is no stranger to being the center of attention and he absolutely loved getting it from all those pretty little girls.  He was such a sweet boy all night long and behaved so well.  The funniest part of the evening came when we decided to bathe them all together since it was getting so late.  One of the little girls didn't want to get into the "big" tub so all four of them squeezed into a shower/tub combo.  It was so stinking cute!  I can't believe that I forgot my camera again, but I did.  Hopefully Aunt C and Aunt B will email me some of the pictures they took and I can post later.  Gavin thought he was the coolest kid ever, he kept smiling, and smiling. Not sure if it was due to having all those friends in the tub with him or because he knew he was in the tub with a bunch of girls.  Of course all the Daddy's had to threaten him to keep his hands of their daughters :-)  It didn't seem to phase him one little bit though, he pretended like he didn't hear a word and just kept playing with all their toys and having the best time.  We had a wonderful time and really enjoyed spending time with friends and catching up.

8 months

I can not believe that Gavin has completed 2/3rds of his first year!  In some ways it seems like he has been a part of our lives forever and in some ways it seems like just yesterday I was in the hospital.  This has been a busy month and he has also been sick and at home a lot also.  In fact he was home from school two weeks of the last month which was hard on Mom and Dad!  But we also really enjoyed being able to spend so much time with him.  When he finally got released by the Dr. to go back to school I was a little concerned with how he would react but he was just fine, didn't miss a beat.  So either he was tired of being with us or he just really loves his teachers.  I am going with the latter :-).  Gavin also got to celebrate his first Christmas, New Years, and both his Mom and Dad's birthday!  Right before he turned 8 months he got to take his first trip out of town which I will fill you in on in the next post.  He has been changing every single day and I know I am not remembering a lot of the new things he has done but some of the ones I can remember are:
Milestones:
Clapping hands, first noticed on 12/22
Pulling himself up (started when he was playing in box on 12/22), this one has been hard for me to let him practice because we have no soft landing surface in our house.  And him wearing socks because it is so cold outside doesn't help at all with traction.  Clay has been better at letting him practice and I just have to bite my tongue and not snatch Gavin away sometimes.  I know he is going to fall and he has to learn but gracious I am just not ready for it!!
Picking up food with thumb and forefinger, he mastered this one quickly.  He mastered this one quickly, I think because he was highly motivated with the Blueberry flavored puffs.
Started eating puffs and other finger foods
Started eating meat
Started taking baths in the big tub and absolutely loving it

He is on the exact same eating schedule as he was last month and still taking at least 2 naps a day.  He gets more naps when he is at home because I am pretty good about putting him down 2 hrs after he gets up.  Plus there is not as much (if any at all) excitement at home to distract him from being sleepy.

Since his 8 month birthday coincided with my 31st birthday we got to take pictures together which meant that I got to hold the calendar page so it wouldn't get all messed up :-).  I promised him he only had to do this 4 more times, that I wouldn't subject him to the calendar page pictures after he turned 1 yr.  I can't believe it is getting so close!

 Below are some cute pictures of him that I don't think I have included in other posts.

I absolutely adore this picture, it is my favorite right now


My two favorite boys.  Gavin is wearing his "I hunt for hugs" hat his Nanny-Ma bought him


He is finally starting to smile for the camera.

Family Vacation pt 2

Per the Weather Channel the snow was supposed to start around 9 Sunday night but when we went to bed around 10:30 or so it still hadn't started.  Of course I woke up several times that night hoping to catch a glimpse of the snow through the doors that lead from our bedroom onto the big porch.  I woke up about 5 or so because Gavin had screeched like he was waking up so I rushed into the kitchen to warm his bottle and get the coffee going.  Little bugger was faking us out but by that time, Clay and I had noticed that not only had it started snowing but you couldn't see my car anymore!  Those little black strips you see are my wind guards on top of my windows.  

This is the front porch.  Sorry for all the little lines in the picture I was taking it through the window :-)

So after Gavin got up we stuffed him into his snow suit and took him outside to see what he thought.  I couldn't believe the snow came up to his waist!

After we tried the porch we moved on to try out the deeper snow in the yard.  All in all I think we got about 9 inches between Sunday and Monday night.  It was crazy and needless to say we were snowed in for several days!

Clay had found some inner tubes downstairs and the driveway was super steep so we decided to try and tube down the drive way.  It sounded MUCH easier than it actually was.  I don't know why exactly but the soft snow was really hard to get going in.

 Below is a video of Clay and Gavin tubing down the drive way

So this is what we did for the next 2.5 days!  I also got a lot of reading done on my new Kindle that Clay had  given me for my birthday!  Highly recommend if you like to read!!

Clay finally chipped us out on Wednesday and we ventured into town hoping to see some other human beings.  We were partially successful although the majority of shopping places had not reopened yet.  Thankfully Ingles had so we could restock on formula and diapers.

We ended up staying until Saturday morning and had the most wonderful relaxing time ever!  The perfect thing right before tax season.

Family Vacation pt 1

Clay and I have always taken a vacation the week before tax season starts which almost always also coincides with my birthday.  For one reason or another we hadn't actually left town for the past two years so I was super pumped to be going back to the mountains this year.  The only problem was that the Leadership Lowndes retreat was that weekend we planned on leaving and I am on the board so I was supposed to attend and it is in Jekyll Island the completely opposite direction from the mountains.  So we compromised by going to Jekyll Friday night and leaving from there on Saturday to head to Blue Ridge.  It added about 2 extra hours to our trip on Saturday which concerned me because Gavin is not known for his patience in the car.  We decided to stop off in Senoia to see some friends who had just had a baby which gave us a nice break before heading up the mtn.  Clay had been checking the weather religiously for two weeks prior to us leaving and the best forecast for snow we got was like .25 inches.  He stopped checking about two days before we left which is why we had no idea about the snow storm that was heading straight for us until our friends in Senoia asked about it.

Anyway our trip over to Jekyll on Friday went fairly well although we had left Valdosta and were on our way to Lakeland before we realized we had left the pack n play at home, which was an absolute necessity if we didn't want to share our bed with a wiggly almost 8 month old.  Other than that everything went fine and thankfully Gavin slept most of the way.  Clay and Gavin hung out in the hotel room while I was at my board meeting and then we shared a romantic dinner of Chick fil A by the bath tub while Gavin splashed in the water :-).  The retreat is always held at the Jekyll Island Club which is super nice if you have never been.  Thankfully we were put in one of the cottages which meant we didn't have to lug all our crap up too many flights of stairs.



The problem with were we stayed is that 1. there was no "other" room to put Gavin in so we had to be SUPER quiet once we put him to bed.   2. You can make the tiniest sound and it reverberates down the hall, so every time Gavin coughed, I am pretty sure that everyone in every other room in the cottage heard it.  We finally got him up around 4 and tried to put him back in the bed with us hoping he would fall back asleep and so could we.  Did not happen, he thought it was great fun to be in the bed with  us and took full advantage of having us right there to play with.  Eventually he did fall back asleep but I was so worried I would roll over on him or something I don't think I ever did get back to sleep. Oh well we left early Saturday a.m. before anyone walked out of their rooms to glare at us for all the racket we had made.

Next stop Senoia!  we had hoped to get there right around lunch but we hit a few traffic snags along the way so we didn't get there until after 1. So we were all VERY ready to be out of the car for a little while.  I drove most of the way so that if Gavin needed feeding or entertaining Clay could handle it since I get REALLY car sick, REALLY easy.

Me and Griffin, I can hardly believe Gavin was ever this tiny.  It amazed me how quickly I had forgotten how to handle a baby that size.  I kept worrying I would break him when I tried to burp him :-)


Anna holding Gavin and big brother to Griffin, Jackson


Once Anna had filled us in on the inclement weather we were facing we decided we better get packed back up and on our way since we now needed to stop at Walmart and pick up lots of supplies just in we were stuck in the house for a few days.  We stopped in East Elijay at their Wal-mart to stock up and also see if we could find Gavin a snow suit or at least a heavier jacket.  We lucked out because they had both and they were only $10 and $15 dollars!!  There were millions of people there buying everything you could possibly need.  I should have taken a picture of the bread isle.  There were literally maybe 20 loaves left on the entire isle.  After we left there we headed to the cabin where we arrived safe and sound.  We stay in the same place every time which is a beautiful cabin on the side of a mountain with access to the river.  I am hoping to go up there again this year but during the summer so we can enjoy the water and all the outdoor activities.

We woke up Sunday to freezing temperatures but no snow yet so we got packed up in the car to head to town and pick up a few more supplies.



You can kind of see the river in this picture