Labor Day Pics

I know I am way late, but better late than never.  Saturday was the usual hotter than the hinges of you know where but our little boy LOVES to be outside so we braved the heat.  Gavin decided he wanted to help his Daddy mow the backyard, which we had obviously let get a little out of hand.  

 

Then it was time to play on his swing set, he loves to climb and has no fear and fortunately is really good at it!

Then we finished up the day with a little yoga :-)

Sunday we spent at church and just being lazy, trying to entertain Gavin in the A/C.  Monday we gave up and it was a little bit cooler so we headed outside again with Gavin's JD tractor that actually used to be Clay's. He obviously has a while before he can pedal it himself, but that doesn't stop him from trying!

The pictures below were from that next Tuesday but I thought they were so cute!  Gavin had on Clay's T-shirt and was carrying around my phone.

16 months old.....almost

I figured I might as well go ahead and post about Gavin's 15th month since I will most likely be overwhelmed with the looming tax deadline and packing for our trip to see Aunt Jenn on the actual day.  One of my Baby Center emails said that the 15th month was the month of milestones, and I would have to agree, at least in the talking department.  Gavin will now pretty much repeat any word that we say to him.  But he has also REALLy expanded his vocabulary of words he can use in context.  I am pretty sure there will be a few more by Monday but this is the list that Clay and I came up with last night.
Block
Box
Baby
Door
Teeth
Shoes
Book
Tickle
Bite
Tractor
Blue
Purple

His skills with a regular fork are also vastly improving.  However, all of the sudden he has become concerned with not making a mess with his food.  So he frequently says this word that sort of sounds like bite but not quite when he wants me to come and help him get his food on the fork.

I have been trying to work with him on waiting.  Instead of knocking all the blocks over as soon as I put one on top of the other, I am working with him to wait until I get done and then when I count to 3 we can both knock them over.  I am also making him help me build it back and not just enjoy the knocking over part.  I am happy to say it seems to be working although Clay doesn't enjoy the same success with this as I do.  Probably because Gavin can tell how much more it bothers Clay when he knocks his creations over.  Clay is usually actually building something and I am always just putting random blocks one on top of the other.

At the beginning of the month Gavin and I went to visit my Dad in the hospital, he had a minor heart attack so he had to stay a few days after they put 4 stints in.  So me and Gavin made the trek to T-ville to provide a little comic relief.  Gavin did not disappoint and was acting just like a 15 month old, running, screaming, sticking everything in his mouth, and constantly touching things you told him not to.  My Dad thought it was hilarious, not sure about the nurses.....  Gavin had just finished almost ripping some cabinet doors off of their hinges from banging them, when my brother walked in.  David picked him up and it was an immediate change in Gavin.  I think the Lord must have instilled my brother with some sort of super human baby whispering abilities.  Gavin didn't make another peep and within a couple of minutes of him and David sitting down together, Gavin was dead asleep on his back on David's lap.  It is the darnedest thing I have ever seen!!

The next weekend we went out to some land Clay has been managing and got to ride around with him on the golf cart checking all his trail cameras.  Gavin had a big time getting to ride around out there and then pulling up plants in Clay's food plots for the deer.

Gavin's comprehension of how things work is really growing also.  One day he will get so frustrated and scream because he can't get something to work the way he wants, and then the next day poof, he will figure it out.  It is really neat, you can almost see the gears in his head turning.  Of course we think he is the cutest and smartest little boy EVER!

Next week Gavin and I are taking our first plane ride together.  I have flown hundreds of times probably, but NEVER with a super squirmy toddler who unleashes his fury whenever he is made to sit in one place for too long (5 minutes or more).  I am hoping and praying that he will exceed my SUPER low expectations for behavior in public like he usually does, but just in case please say some prayers for both of us and all of the other passengers.  Also be praying for Clay because he has never been away from Gavin this long, and I bet he will miss us both like crazy, even if he gets to hunt the whole time we are gone :-).

15 months old

Gavin turned 15 months old on the 12th! I can not believe he is already 1/3 of the way through his 2nd year of life.  It's weird because although these 15 months have passed by so quickly, it seems Gavin has been a part of our lives for ever.  Clay and I love that little boy, more than is almost imaginable!

Over the past month Gavin has gotten to ride his first tractor, gotten his first haircut, and spent some time with his Me-me and "cousin" Sampson in Thomasville.  He has also started to really be interested in books and enjoy having us read to him, which makes me so excited!  I am such a big reader, and I have been so worried that Gavin wouldn't enjoy it and reap all the benefits from reading, since up until this month he really has shown zero interest.  His favorite books right now are:
Touch and Feel the Baby Animals (the pictures of the animals have fake fur)
Goodnight Moon (my favorite when I was little)
Baby at the Farm
5 Little Ladybugs

Gavin has started using a real fork at dinner and actually is doing pretty well with it, although he opts for his fingers after a few minutes.  He had been using a baby plastic fork but those things are impossible to actually use as a fork and he kept tossing it over the side and then reaching for our forks.  It is really interesting to see how much he really wants to do exactly what me and Clay do.  So we let him try a salad fork and he started to stab his food and put the food in his mouth.  Proud Mommy moment!  I know it seems super silly to those without children but you would be so surprised at all the things that make parents proud :-).

Gavin has always been a talker, but he seems to be attempting to communicate with us more verbally, which causes frustration on both sides since we really can't understand a lot of it.  Some of the new words we can understand though and he is using appropriately are:
Deer
Amen
Aww-man (sound the same as Amen, but he says this sometimes when he drops stuff)
Doug-doug (all dogs are doug-dougs, we realized this when he kept calling my brother's dog Sampson Doug-doug)
Gavin is also repeating words that we say to him.  Which means we have to start being more careful about what we say.....or maybe I should rephrase that as I need to be more careful about what I say.

Gavin has really upped his game in the tantrum department, we had our first in store tantrum earlier this month.    It was so hard to not cave into the flailing boy on the floor screaming his head off because we wouldn't let him run rampant all over Old Navy!  We got many smiles and understanding looks from the other parent's in there.

Clay took Gavin to his 15 month checkup and he got all his shots.  His stats are
Height - 32.5 inches 90%
Weight - 27.5 lbs 90%
Head - can't remember the measurement but he was still in the 95%
So in the past three months Gavin has grown 2 inches and gained .7 pounds.  Our little boy is getting so tall and really starting to slim up.

The pictures below are at my parent's house and the dog is my brother's Doberman puppy, who LOVES Gavin and Gavin loves him.  Sampson is so tall that he could rest his head on the table, right next to Gavin's plate.

So sweet!

Gavin depositing his food on Sampson

BFF's at the dinner table

First Haircut

Gavin has needed a haircut since he was probably six months old, but I refused to get it cut until after he turned 1.  Well right after that Clay's Mom went in the hospital and the family barber went with her.  Clay's Dad was a barber way back in the day and we thought it would be special for him to give Gavin his first haircut.  So we waited until this past weekend when Clay's Dad was available.

Clay took some really cute pictures of him in the car that day that will kind of give you a good before/after comparison.  Although it is really the back of his hair that was super long.  Luckily it was curly so it didn't really look like the mullet that it actually was.

 This is really the only one that shows how long his hair was.  The other ones are just cute :-).

 This is a not so great picture but does give a good before shot.

 Getting ready in the big boy chair.  After this we decided it would probably be best for Clay to hold him.

Clay's Dad put a cape on him and everything.

Below is a video starting about half way thru.  I thought that my camera had been recording the entire time but then realized it hadn't.  It is a good thing that Clay's Dad has so much experience because Gavin moved his head SO much, he could have seriously gapped him up.

After shot with all three generations

I just can not get over how different he looks!  He looks so grown up!

I would like to ask everyone to continue to pray for Clay's Mom.  She is home for 3 weeks of intense rehab and dialysis before going back up to Emory on the 15th to be evaluated again to see if she is ready for surgery.

Our Little Explorer

Clay is reading this book called Wild Things The Art of Nurturing Boys and according to this book, boys Gavin's age are Explorers and they need to be outside exploring stuff everyday.  So we have made a more concerted effort to make sure he gets outside exploring time everyday, even if it is 150 degrees outside.

So two weekends ago, while I was at a board retreat, Clay and Gavin went and drove a tractor.  It has an enclosed cab so I wasn't worried about him falling off and apparently they had quite a big time!  Clay said Gavin was silent for an entire hour, which is unheard of.  Below are some pictures of him after they put the tractor back up.

Pretty sure this is him eating dirt that he took off the tire :-).

And it looks like he is saying "Shhh.  Don't tell Mom"

And then last weekend we decided to pack a picnic lunch and went to Langdale Park so he could explore in some real woods.  Let me tell you he had so much fun, I don't think he sat down the entire time we were there except for when he sat down in the mud right by the water.

We attempted to eat lunch first but Gavin was so distracted and slow we decided to let him just eat as he went.  He kept tripping on all of the tree roots with his peanut butter sandwich in his hand, so I am afraid he got more sand in his belly than bread or peanut butter.

After this his shorts were wet and nasty so we took them off and just let him play in his diaper.  It was such a pretty day out there and thankfully the shade of the trees made the heat much more tolerable.  If it hadn't been for the gnats, I think we could have stayed out there a lot longer.

Below is him running and trying to eat at the same time.  

 And of course the subsequent fall with his sandwich being mashed into the sand.
 

 My dirty little angel

We wanted to walk some trails but Gavin did NOT want to ride in his stroller and seemed perfectly content exploring around the picnic areas.  

This past weekend, we finally got to go to the Farm Days downtown, but I didn't get any pictures.  There really wasn't any picture opportunities and after we bought Goat Milk Soap, Peach Jelly, Homemade Salsa, and Local Honey, we decided it was probably time to go.  Gavin had a great time getting samples at all of the stands.