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!

9 Months Old

Gavin hanging out with his friend, Kadem, who is about 3 1/2 months younger than Gav. What a difference a few months makes!

Grandpa bought a '64 Chevelle that he brought over on Thanksgiving. Gavin enjoyed hanging out in the car.

Well, Gav, we have been super busy these past few weeks, so you are already a month older since my last post. Today you are officially 9 months old. I really don't know where the time has gone. You are such a joyful baby and you are absolutely the sunshine in our lives. You will get to celebrate your very first Christmas this year and we are so excited about that! However, I have a feeling that if we wrapped up our tupperware you would be just as excited as if we purchased new toys. You are quite easy to please. Let's just hope that continues throughout your teen years. Ha!

Here is some info about you this month:

• You are extremely vocal, you love to just jibber jabber all the time
• You like to growl and make grunting noises, too
• You are definitely all-boy and enjoy hitting everything and knocking things over
• You have recently discovered that you enjoy head-butting as well, particularly when you do it into mommy or daddy's chest
• You have finally given-in and began eating rice cereal with water

• You still despise peas and aren't too fond of baby food at all, you will really just take milk or cereal (we would be concerned, but your little ham-hocks give us reason to believe that you are not malnourished!)
• You are not crawling yet, but we think you may just skip this step altogether and move right into walking because you really enjoy "standing" (with a little help from mommy or daddy)
  
• You smile all the time and laugh constantly
• You like to hang upside down and will often laugh when doing so
• You put everything in your mouth, so we have to be very careful; you especially love to suck on your socks and are often found wearing just one because you always pull one off

• We think you must be teething but you still don't have any teeth

• You are going through a sort of clingy stage where you sometimes get upset if I am not close by
• You love to swing at the park and will smile almost the entire time you are in the swing

• You enjoy bath time, especially when you splash water everywhere!

• You are definitely an out-doorsy guy, you are happiest when you are outside, regardless of the weather
• You are stretching out of your 9-month clothing and fitting snuggly in 12-month sizes
• You find car rides very relaxing and will often fall asleep during the trips

• You love, love, love the "Gummy Bear Song" on YouTube and make hilarious facial expressions when watching it

But most of all, you continue to be the most wonderful thing to ever happen to Daddy and I and we love you more than you will ever know! You are such a sweet and happy baby and we are truly blessed to have you in our lives. We love you, Gav!!

8 Months Old

My sweet baby boy is 8 months old! Once again, time is just going way too fast. I hope that someday Gavin will want to look back at this blog and read about all the things he did and see all of his adorable pictures!

So, my sweet boy, this is what you are doing now:

• You enjoy sitting up and playing on your own.
• You are not too fond of tummy time because you can't figure out how to get your belly off the ground yet!
• You laugh all the time - especially when Daddy, you, and I are going upstairs at the same time - you find that hilarious!
• You are very talkative. You say "dadadadadada" often and will hold long conversations. (So, I carried you in my belly for 9 months, went through 16 hours of labor, have been nursing your for 8 months, and get up with you in the middle of the night and you can't say "mamamamama"?) *Sigh*
• You are very funny - you make Daddy and I laugh all the time with your noises and facial expressions.
• You love rice cereal and oatmeal and chow it down in the morning. But you only like it mixed with breast milk. Aunt Evie tried mixing it with water and she said you gagged.
• You hate peas. When I even get them close to your mouth you start gagging. (You're a bit dramatic, but I have to say, you come by it honestly!)
• You enjoy watching me or Aunt Evie do our old cheer moves from high school. You find it very entertaining.
• You are very fond of the dog. Bocephus is your buddy and will lay next to you and let you smack his face and pull his ears. He may be a big oaf of a dog, but he is very careful around you and likes to be near you.
• You enjoy bath time because you like to splash the water.
• Water bottles fascinate you. I think you like them more than any of your toys. (We could have gotten off so much cheaper if we would have known!)
• You wake up in a good mood in the morning. You will just talk to yourself until Daddy comes in to get you.
• Your favorite nursery rhyme is the "Itsy Bitsy Spider." It makes you laugh.

You did a good job eating prunes for the first time

Enjoying "Itsy Bitsy Spider" with Daddy

Looking out the window

Such a happy little guy!

You are such a good baby. We cherish every moment with you and look forward to what's to come! We love you, Gav!!

Oh A Hiking We Will Go

The day after Halloween, my friend Courtney invited me to go hiking with her up Mt. Rubidoux. I decided that I could definitely use the exercise, so I went for it. The mountain has a completely paved road all the way up to the top (so I guess "hiking" isn't really an appropriate term). But hey, to hear me describe it, you'd have thought I hiked Mt. Everest. But it was a lot of fun and we decided to try and go every weekend.

At the base of the mountain

The view from the top

I really did go all the way to the top!

We made it!

"And my dream is for world peace." ;o)

We had such a great time, that we actually did go the following weekend. But this time, I pushed my heavy little guy in his gigantic stroller all the way up! Gavin did a great job on his first hike. Ha ha!

Gavin and Mommy at the top of the mountain

After our hike we ran some errands and then we were tired!

My Happy Little Guy

I am so terribly behind on my blogging and need to play catch-up just a bit. We have been having so much fun with Gavin lately. He is just the happiest baby - he laughs at everything and almost always has a smile on his face (except when you try to feed him peas, but that's a whole other story). I absolutely love taking pictures of him because his facial expressions are just priceless.

"I wasn't doing anything..."

"You wanna knuckle sandwich??"

"My mom is so funny!"

I love having such a sweet and happy boy, he always brings a smile to my face even when I've had a rough day. And October 26 was one of those said rough days. Gavin was scheduled to have a CT scan on his skull to see if it fused together too early. His team pediatrician and plastic surgeon wanted it done. They are not too concerned about it because his skull is not misshapen or anything, but it's better just to be sure. Well, on that particular morning, Gavin decided to wake up at 2:00 a.m. wanting to eat, but he was not allowed to have anything after midnight (or so they said - we found out later he could have nursed up to about 4 a.m. - thanks a lot for letting us know after the fact). So our poor little guy decided he wanted to nurse and since I wouldn't let him, he would just stay up and not go back to sleep. We tried everything to get him to go to sleep - including cruising the streets at 3:00 a.m. on Monday morning. Nothing seemed to work. He finally went to sleep about 4:45 a.m. - 15 minutes before we needed to get up. How nice.

The process for the CT scan was awful. They had to put him under general anesthesia to keep him from moving and it was absolute torture for me when they IV'd him. We had to wait outside the room and listen to him screaming during the process. I was a sobbing mess when the finally brought him out to me. I got to hold him until he drifted off to sleep and that was also difficult because his little body just got so limp in my arms. I was very happy once the whole process was all over.

Just after drifting off to sleep

That friday it was the day before Halloween so I dressed up in my high school cheerleading uniform (yes, it still fit.....sort of....breathing is so overrated). My sis brought Gavin in wearing his monkey costume and he looked so cute!

Me and my little monkey

That night we finally carved our pumpkin (better late than never, right?). It was actually the very first time Matt and I had a pumpkin in the 8 years we have been together. Gavin wasn't overly excited about it, but watching it twinkle in the dark was pretty cool.

Our very first family jack-o'lantern (such an original design - I know!)

The next day was Halloween, so that night, we went to a friend's house for a potluck. Once again, my little monkey made an appearance and was quite a hit. I think that costume was a good buy. He looked so adorable in it!!

The monkey makes his final appearance this Halloween