10 Months Old

My sweet Gav,

You are officially 10 months old! I can't believe in just two short months you will already be a year old! In the past month, you have really "grown up" a lot. You are beginning to lose your "baby" look and starting to look more like a toddler. It is both wonderfully exciting and sad at the same time. You are such a loving, wonderful baby. Being your mommy is the best job in the world! Here are some new things about you this month:

• You are now on the move - you began crawling on New Year's Eve - when you were 9 1/2 months old and you took to it like a fish to water! You crawl all over the place now and are loving your new mobility.
• You still enjoy drinking from a straw and make the cutest faces when you do so.

• You are very intrigued by power cords and seem to crawl straight for them whenever they are in sight.
• You are great at pulling yourself up to a complete stand and do this often.
• You love the wicker baskets in our coffee table and will pull them all out and play with them for quite some time.

• You are still a picky eater and haven't yet developed a taste for any baby food other than rice cereal and oatmeal.
• You still don't have any teeth but I'm sure they will be here any day now.
• You enjoy looking out of the slider in the living room, especially when Bocephus is outside.

• We tried giving you a sippy cup this month and you seem to like it and will drink a little water from it.

• You love to dance and will shake your booty almost anytime music is present.

• You have the cutest little closed-mouth smile and will often display it when looking at me or daddy (including when we tell you "no" because you seem to think it will get you what you want - ha ha!)

I am truly enjoying every moment with you and look forward to what's to come. I love you, Gav!

Gavin's 1st Christmas

We celebrated Gavin's first Christmas this year and of course that meant LOTS of presents and time with loved ones. It has been always been my family's tradition to open gifts on Christmas Eve so this year my dad and siblings came to our house and Gavin opened his first Christmas gifts. However, he seemed much more interested in the paper and boxes than anything else!

Christmas at the Rogers'

Gavin surrounded by some of his gifts

Fascinated by the wrapping paper

Enjoying a new toy

The next day was Christmas, and in Matt's family, the tradition is to start the day with a delicious Christmas breakfast. Afterwards, Gavin and his two cousins opened gifts and had a great time!

Gavin and his cousin, Adia

9 Month Photo Shoot

I finally got to pick up Gavin's 9 month pictures from JCPenney's and, naturally, they were absolutely adorable! He wasn't in a particularly good mood that day, so it was tough to get a smile, but even with a serious look, he is just too darn cute!!

Here are a few of my favorites:

A Busy 2 weeks!

I have had the past two weeks off of work, but there certainly wasn't a whole lot of "time off" involved! I was busy creating personalized Christmas gifts, making my own Christmas cards, wrapping gifts, and helping my dad get and wrap gifts. It was a lot of work on a little time. Thank goodness my sweet boy kept me laughing with his adorable antics. I took this little video of Gavin eating and I think I may have taught him a bad habit, but it is just so stinkin' cute when he does it!

I had wanted to make my own Christmas cards this year to save a little money and envisioned using a happy, smiling photo of Gavin with Santa. I had this adorable image in my mind and was all set to get it done. Well, things don't always work out as planned...

And that was the best shot of the bunch. Poor Gav. So, I ended up using the shocked face picture from my previous post to create what I thought was quite a cute card.

I was so busy in the few days before Christmas that by the end of each day I was ready to collapse from exhaustion. Gavin shared my sentiment.

My Christmas gifts included a photo collage from Gavin to Daddy, a photo book for my dad from all of us kids that included pictures of my mom and him over their 30 years together, and cookbooks with all the recipes from my mom's recipe box for my three siblings. The cookbooks turned into quite the ordeal, too. I had begun working on them in early November and had decided to create them as digital scrapbooks (note to self: don't ever try to learn something new when you have a short deadline to get it done; being a perfectionist makes this increasingly difficult. Ugh.). I didn't even know what digital scrapbooking was when I began the cookbooks and now I could probably write a book about it. I scanned all my mom's recipe cards in her own handwriting and created a 76-page cookbook. I was very happy with the finished product, but it took several days, many tears, a few mini-meltdowns, three do-overs, three trips to the printing company, and a couple computer freeze-ups before it was done. Thank goodness Gavin was a trooper and went along with me without complaining.

My siblings were all very grateful for the gift and the books truly turned out beautiful. I made one for myself and my dad, too. I was originally going to have them made into photo books, but after talking with mom-in-law, she helped me decide on purchasing regular 12" x 12" scrapbooks and having the pages printed so that more could be added later if we recreate some of the recipes that my mom didn't have cards for. I love the finished product and I know my mom would be proud.

Since creating the cookbooks, I am now a big fan of digital scrapbooking and am planning on creating a baby book for Gavin. I love the convenience of having unlimited use of the elements and it's cheaper than traditional scrapbooking. There are so many cute freebies online, too. I found some beautiful baby boy theme kits that I am anxious to use.

Luckily, amidst all the hubbub, Matt and I got to squeeze in a trip to Medieval Times to help us unwind and temporarily forget about the holiday stress. It was so much fun!