Oh this is bad

I blame facebook. Who blogs anymore when there is facebook to keep updated on. But I like reading everyone else's blogs and this is my little way of journaling to remember what these boys are doing. Gavin's latest thing is to try walking. He's taking a couple of steps here and there. And then he gets so excited he falls down. He does ok if he forgets what he's doing. He'll just let go, take a couple steps, and then giggle and fall. I'm only ready for him to walk because it's so nice outside and we are out a lot and it's better than crawling. I'm hoping if he's walking he won't notice all the stuff to stick in his mouth on the ground. Everything goes in his mouth. He has two little teeth on the bottom and that's it for now. But he is still teething constantly it seems. And I can't believe he is 10 months old already. Two more months and he'll be a year old. That just seems unreal. It's been almost a whole year. Time sure flies when you have kids. They grow up way to fast.

I've done a lot of work outside and I'm hoping to get our garden in today. My Dad and I put patio stones around my patio to make it bigger. My brother dug up my garden for me (although it needs it again). Tristan and I planted flowers in front of our house and we actually have little sprouts! I don't have the greenest thumb. It's more of a blackish thumb. So anything that grows is exciting.

We took a trip to El Paso for Easter to see Doug. El Paso is big, brown, just looks like it will be hot. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The little mountains are pretty. And the mountains are pretty close. We went to Ruidoso, New Mexico for the weekend and it was a very nice town. They even have snow skiing there. I've never been skiing, so maybe I'll finally get to try. I'm sure we will spend some time there. It will definitely take some time to find my way around there. I'm so not a city girl.

So much

So much has been going on lately, where to start? Well the move went ok. I was so sick the days the packers were there and for the drive up here. We had a couple of good guys, they worked long both days and decided they either needed another day or another guy. We have a LOT of stuff. But it got done. And on this end I see only one thing that got some damage. Not too bad. Of course I can't find the pegs for Gavin's bookshelf, but that's not broke, that's lost. So pretty good move. On move in day, we signed the lease, hurried to go through the house, the movers were here waiting to unload, they started unloading and it started raining. Luckily it wasn't to bad. We have a short driveway and they brought everything through the garage so it didn't get to wet. I had seen the floor plan for the house but not the dimensions, so I had no idea that it is smaller than our place at Knox. I didn't think it was possible to downsize from that. But the rooms here are smaller and awkward shapes. I didn't like it at first but now that I'm settled and a little unpacked, it's ok. I think I like it. The kitchen and living room are open to each other, so that's nice. I'm happy with the way things are set up now. And I really love that Tristan rides the bus to school and we are one house from the bus stop! Although that was some fun for a couple days. We went to his school on Thursday to finish registering him and met his teacher and class. He is the celebrity right now. They told us at the school that he is the last stop being picked up at 7:55, he gets to school at 8:05. Wow long bus ride. But on the way home he is the last stop and he wouldn't get to his stop until 3:50. School gets out at 3:00. So the secretary kind of whispered to me, the bus (and school) is K-8th grade, it's rowdy, if she was me she'd pick him up after school. So I said let's see how he likes it, if it's bad I will pick him up. I was kind of worried too about him being on the bus that long with all those big kids. So my parents and me and Doug are sitting here at 3:25 on Friday and my Dad says he thinks he hears a bus. I look out the window to the corner, no bus. Then someone is trying to open the front door (it really sticks). It's Tristan. He walks in shrugging his shoulders and says "I missed my stop, I didn't hear him call my name". No big deal, he just found his way to a new house on his first day at a new school, riding the bus for the first time. I couldn't believe it. He wasn't supposed to be home for another 25 minutes. So on Monday morning Doug asked the bus driver what time he gets to the stop in the afternoon and he said about 3:20. Well now that's not so bad. So yes he can ride the bus. Although Tristan missed his stop on Monday too, but he hasn't missed it again. Oh and big change from Kentucky that cracks me up. It was 29 degrees here one day and the kids went out for recess. It could be 40 in Kentucky and it was to cold for the kids to go out. Tristan's new school is pretty small and that might be a good thing. There is one kindergarten class with about 20 kids. And the school is K-8th grade and is smaller than his old school that was K-3rd. He seems to be adjusting well and making friends.

I didn't think it would be weird living back in Pekin, back "home", but what's weird is living here in my own house and being close to family. When I lived here, I lived at home. I never had my own place in Pekin. I never thought of that before. But it's strange to be so close to family and they can just stop by. Strange. But that was the whole reason to move here instead of Texas, so I can have my family (who I'm very close to oddly enough) here for help and support. And I can tell you not only are the kids going to be spoiled but me too. I'll miss having grandma and grandpa around for help.

Gavin is still growing up to fast. Grandma had the great idea of holding his hands and walking with him. So now that's all he wants to do. If you try to sit him down, he stays stiff, he wants to stand. He is standing at this little Pooh table we got him for Christmas and last night he cruised from that to his saucer. If there was more stuff to hold onto, I think he would be cruising. Tristan cruised around the coffee table, but I don't use a coffee table anymore. Tristan also got his first black eye on the coffee table. I still have the table, it's just a plant table usually. I don't know what it will be here. In the garage probably. But Gavin loves the new house because it has carpet and he can crawl so much better. He hunts me down here. He tries the kitchen first and then goes down the hall to the bedrooms. I love that he just crawls to a bedroom to play. It's usually Tristan's room, it has the best toys of course. And Gavin finally started saying Mom. I wake up to "Mom, ma, mommomom, mum, mom" It's just so sweet those first Mom's. It's not even close to his first word but it's his favorite to say now. His first word was hi. Then bath. Anyway Doug is coming back for Tristan's birthday (hopefully) and I figure at the rate we're going, Gavin will be taking his first steps.

Leaps and Bounds

I think Gavin has decided to grow up all at once. He just got it in his head to start doing everything. He's going to kill one of us. Either he's going to jump out of his crib or get some disease from chewing on the dogs toys, or he's going to give me a heart attack. I'll start with Friday night. I've been letting him "cry it out" finally to go to sleep. Friday night he fell asleep in my arms, so I know he was tired. I put him in his crib and of course he woke up the instant I put him down. So I let him cry. And he cried for 2 hours. I went in later to check on him and see how he fell asleep and I could hear him breathing but I couldn't see him in the crib. I freaked out, where did he go? It was dark in there so I couldn't see as well, but there was a bump in the bed. He pulled the sheet back somehow and was stuck under the sheet. His little face was down on the mattress, trying to breath. My biggest fear is that he is going to put his face down and not be able to breath, so I course I freaked out more. I got him out of there and made sure he was still breathing ok and thanked God that he was ok. So I don't let him cry for that long anymore and I always check on him to see how he's sleeping. Oddly enough though, he hasn't cried like that anymore. He cries for about 5-10 minutes and goes to sleep. Although Sunday night I went into his room when he was crying and he was on his knees holding onto his aquarium, looking over it to see out the door. And Monday morning he pulled himself to his knees on the side of the crib. So today I'm lowering the crib mattress. I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to do it until I moved, but last night he pulled himself to standing on me with no help, so to save myself some fear I'm lowering the mattress. He started crawling forward really well on the 13th, he learned to sit himself up on the 14th, and the 16th he learned to pull to a stand. He also has learned to get the finger foods in his mouth this past week. I'm expecting him to walk next week maybe.

Tristan wants to build an obstacle course out of wood all over post. He was telling me his big ideas yesterday while we were driving and one of the obstacle course things is to jump off the water tower. I said "you can't jump off the water tower, you'd get hurt and die." He said "no, with a parachute, you jump off and the parachute opens and you land." Oh that's better. I really think he would jump out of a plane or base jump if you gave him the chance. Gavin will probably follow him.

Ice, Ice, Baby

What else can I write about, but the ice storm. I even saw Louisville on Good Morning America. We got a couple inches of ice Jan 27 and boy did it do some damage. It coated the trees and brought down so many power lines. Our power here went off and on thru the night and finally went off at 5 am. Luckily, mine came back on at 5 pm that day. But some people are still without power around here. Louisville had like 180,000 people without power. What makes it so bad is the cold. It only got down to 65 in my house. I had closed the blinds and curtains to keep the heat in and put a big pot of water on the stove to boil all day just to put heat into the air. It worked. We still have ice on the ground now, it's just a sheet of ice in the yard because it'll heat up enough during the day to melt a little and freeze at night. But starting tomorrow we will be in the 50's and 60's. So we trade ice for mud. It looks like a tornado went through here though. There are just so many limbs down, it's amazing. And anyone with a fireplace could have as much firewood as they want from here. It's all piled up on every street. Here's a few of the pictures.

Thinking of Moving

This is such a different move for us this time. It's not to another Army base. It's to a place I know so well and family and friends that are close. To a house that my husband will not be living in with us. And I know roughly when my next move will be and where to. Since I got my moving dates today and made some clearing appointments, I guess it is starting to set in that we are moving again. I do like being an Army wife and I do like moving to new places, but we just moved into this house last May. I still have boxes I didn't unpack. And I always get sad, sentimental, nostalgic, etc., just thinking of all the memories we've made here. Maybe it's because my parents still live in the same house I grew up in and I can go back to that house and there's my bedroom, and the sidewalk where I learned to ride a bike. But I feel sorry for my boys. Tristan doesn't remember the first two houses he lived in. Gavin won't remember the first three. I know that this is just a house, our home travels with us. Home is where the Army sends you. But this is the house that we brought Gavin home to, where he's had so many "firsts". I thought the same thing when we left Germany. I miss those houses too. And even though this house is a little small and not enough storage space, I've finally adjusted to it. I will miss it. And I've been thinking of the other things I will miss and not miss about Fort Knox.

Things I'll miss:
1. Living across from an airfield and hearing and seeing the C130's and Apache's fly at tree top level on their approach.
2. The tanks and gunfire from the range down the street. Not as loud as in Germany but I can still hear them.
3. The bugle calls throughout the day and especially Taps played every night at 11:00pm. It's usually quiet enough in here that I hear it. And every night it's a reminder that so many of our soldiers are still at war and so many never came back. I will really miss that.
4. The friends I've made here, although most of them have moved already, I still miss them.

Things I'll not miss:
1. Going through a gate every time to get on and off post.
2. My new neighbors.
3. Some of the ridiculous Army stuff.

Anyway, it's time to start the countdown to moving day. Time to clean, organize, and purge the house. Again.

I finally went through the 370 Christmas pictures. And here's a few of the good ones.

Doug made it to Texas ok and is now in Fort Irwin, California. I'm still making plans to move to Pekin. I feel like I'm operating on half brain capacity right now though. Gavin has not slept through the night since we went to visit family for Christmas. It was enough of a schedule change, or change in bed, or location, noises, I don't know what but he has gotten used to waking up like every hour. I finally gave in to the dark side last night, I let him sleep in bed with me. It was easier to get him back to sleep that way and I finally got a little more sleep. He has started to really scoot backwards and just today got up on his knees to crawl. No forward crawling yet but he does do a little low crawl/scoot somehow. I know because twice I've found him chewing on the dog's toys and once he was chewing on the newspaper. This kid is going to keep me on my toes. Tristan was such a good kid I could leave anything laying out and he didn't bother it. I never really baby proofed with Tristan. Gavin will stick anything and everything in his mouth. He had his 6 month check up and he is 17.7lbs and 27 inches. He's my little butterball baby. My little butterball, but he is moving all over. With any luck he'll wear himself out and finally start sleeping all night again!

Fun, Interesting, and Exciting News

Or something like that. So to make a long story a little shorter....
Doug got an email on December 17, from his new battalion commander wondering where he was. Seems while Doug was in Fort Stewart for four months, orders came in here and the personnel guy put them in a file cabinet and forgot about them. So the brigade got his orders in September, we found out on Dec 17. We were supposed to be in Fort Bliss, Texas. Doug is on his way there now, he cleared and is hurrying to join them and go to Fort Irwin in a couple days. He is deploying in May-ish. Since the timing was short and horrible and in no way do I want to live in Texas, I'm staying here for now. Our big plan is that when he gets done at Fort Irwin, he will get things straightened out at Bliss and then come back here to move us. And I hopefully will not be going to Bliss. I'm moving to Pekin! He's going to be gone for a year, I don't want to go to Bliss and certainly not to live there by myself, so I'm not. I will be the wimpy Army wife and go home for a year. I'm actually kind of excited about it. And then when he comes back from overseas, we will move to Bliss. The only nice thing I know about the place is the housing seems nice. Otherwise all I've heard is that the crime rate is high and trucks get stolen often. We went to the zoo in Louisville last Saturday, and while we were in the desert house I was looking at the habit range for all the tarantulas, scorpions, snakes, yep they live in Texas. More reasons I do not want to move there. I've always said, kind of jokingly, that Kentucky is as far south as I want to go. I kind of meant it. I don't like the heat. I know I'm being a wimp, but I don't care. My parents are on the search for a rental house for me. Tristan is excited to move to Pekin too. I'm not happy about moving in the middle of the school year like this, but it's going to happen in the Army so might as well get used to it.

Anyway, we had a busy Christmas holiday as usual. And I will put pictures on next time, I haven't even put them on the computer yet. We did our family Christmas here at home, then took down the tree, packed up and went to Lockport. We definitely had a white Christmas up there. It was nice and brutally cold. I like it, but it's hard to do anything outside with the kids. I worry about them being warm enough, especially Gavin. Tristan got a cold while we were there, so he didn't get to go sledding like we planned. But we saw all the family and had a nice Christmas Eve and day there. Then we drove down to Pekin, saw some of the family, we went ice skating, and Doug and I went to a movie alone. We came home and Doug started clearing post and getting ready to leave.

And that is all the news for now. There will be big changes coming soon.

The military wife

I received this in a forward, and I thought this is one that sums it all up. It's a pretty good description of the military wife.

To all the military wives.

To all the wives who hold it together and those of us who
on occasion lose it...Thank you for being so wonderful!

They may look different and each is wonderfully unique.

But what do they have in common? They have this in common:
Lots of moving. Moving far from home.

Moving two cars, three kids and one dog----all riding with
HER of Course.

Moving sofas to basements because they won't go in THIS house.

Moving curtains that won't fit.
Moving jobs and certifications and professional development hours.
Moving away from friends, moving toward new friends.
Moving her most important luggage; her trunk full of memories.

Often waiting-
Waiting, waiting; waiting for housing; waiting for orders; waiting or deployment; waiting for reunion; waiting for phones calls; waiting for the new curtains to arrive; waiting for him to come home for dinner----AGAIN!
They call her 'military dependent', but she knows better.
She can balance a checkbook, handle the yard work, fix a noisy toilet, bury the family pet... She is intimately familiar with drywall, anchors, and toggle bolts.
She can file the taxes, sell a house, buy a car, or set up a move ---- all with ONE Power of Attorney.

She welcomes neighbors that don't welcome her.

Reinvents her career with every PCS; locates a house in the desert, the arctic, or the deep south and learns to call them all home. She MAKES them all home.
She is fiercely IN-dependent and somewhat hasty; Leaps into decorating, leadership, volunteering, career alternatives, churches and friendships.

She doesn't have 15 years to get to know people. Her roots are short but flexible. She plant annuals for themselves and perennials for those who come after them.
Military Wives quickly learn to value each other. They connect over coffee, rely on the spouse-network and accept offers of friendship and favors and record addresses in pencil.

Military Wives have a common bond. The Military Wife has a husband unlike other husbands, his commitment is unique.
He doesn't have a job, he has a 'mission' -- he can't decide to quit -- he's on-call for his country 24/7, but for the military wife, he's the most unreliable guy in town!
His language is foreign:
TDY
PCS
OPR
ACC
BDU
And so, a Military Wife is a translator for her family and his.

She is the long-distance link to keep them informed the glue that holds them together.

Military Wife has her moments ---- She wants to wring his neck, dye his uniform pink, and refuse to move to Siberia. But she pulls herself together. Give her a few days, a travel brochure, a long hot bath, a pledge to the flag, and a wedding picture. And she goes. She packs. She moves. She follows.

Why?
What for?
How come?
You may think it is because she has lost her mind. But actually it is be cause she has lost her heart. It was stolen from her by a man who puts duty first, who longs to deploy, who salutes the flag, and whose boots in the doorway remind her that as long as he is her Military husband, She will remain his Military wife.

My favorite time of year

Well, it's time to play catch up. Every time Doug comes home, he brings Tristan a present. This time it was a big gun with a scope on it. The main part was that it had a scope or a pipe as Tristan calls it. I'm not sure who's played with it more, Tristan or Doug.

We went to Pekin for Thanksgiving. Our trip was nicer this time, only two stops on the way up and one on the way back. Gavin is becoming a good traveler. He turned five months on Thanksgiving and decided to start rolling over, back to tummy. But he's forgot how to roll tummy to back, so he gets stuck. He was a pretty happy boy though, more people around to hold him and all.

Tristan's big idea of something to do was to go ice skating. It's been YEAR's since I've ice skated and I'm happy to say I didn't fall once. I almost did but I just pulled the muscles in my back doing that wiggle arm wave to keep from falling. Tristan got to push around buckets to keep from falling. He had a great time and even skated a little bit with no buckets.

Now that we're back home, it's just been busy getting ready for Christmas. I love Christmas. Decorating, cookies, shopping, Christmas music... Tristan decorated his tree and we got our tree yesterday. We have more outside decorating to do and of course lots of shopping. I'm actually having a hard time thinking of things for the kids. Tristan has everything and Gavin has all his old toys. Between the two of them we have a least a quarter of a toys r us store. No matter what, December will just go to fast and I will never get everything done that I want to. But it's still my favorite time of year.

It's Fall!

We took full advantage of the last few nice days of fall we had. It was in the 60's and 70's, sunny and just so nice to be out after school. Tristan raked some leaves into a pile to roll and jump in and throw.



I finally got the baby saucer out for Gavin. He loves it and sits really well in it. He loves to sit and he pulls himself up if he's laying back at all.

Gavin is trying to wrap Doug around his little finger. He is just smiling and talking to him now. He knows that he has trained other people (Grandma and Grandpa) this way. If he is smiley and cute, he gets picked up. It's nice that he warmed up to him pretty quick. Although for some things like eating and sleeping, only Mommy will do. And most of the time, that is ok with me. He's such a cute and cuddly baby boy.

I'm glad it's over

I didn't even watch all the political stuff last night. I knew I wouldn't be up late enough and I'd hear about it this morning. I'm just so glad it's over. I was so tired of all the political commercials with the "he did this, he voted this way", "no I said this and voted this way". Uh. I agree with my Mom, why can't they just say what they are for, what they want to do and stop with the negative ads. I guess it would be a perfect world. It would also be a perfect world if it wasn't so much about race. So there is a black man that's President now. Can't we move past race? He's still just a man. Get over his color, look past that. What's he going to do for our country? So finally the political commercials are off and now comes the Christmas rush.
October and early November is too early to be playing Christmas music in the stores. And this is coming from the biggest fan of Christmas. I love Christmas, it's my favorite holiday. But while I'm still shopping for Halloween stuff is not the time I want to be listening to Christmas music. And I never realized how many toy commercials there are until I went from watching Disney channel or PBS kids to Nick Jr. Oh my goodness. We are only watching commercial free PBS kids from now til after Christmas. Every new toy Tristan sees, he wants. Every commercial, even it's a doll or girl toy or baby toy, he wants it.
So, Doug is home again. He came home last night, dropped all his bags and stuff throughout the house and went to work this morning. He's home for a couple weeks, leaves, comes back for a while, leaves again....so it goes. But Tristan is so happy to have his Daddy back and poor Gavin doesn't know him. I feel sorry for military kids sometimes. When Tristan got up this morning, Doug wasn't back from PT yet and Tristan saw he was gone, you could see the worry and disappointment in his eyes when he asked "Where's Daddy?" I told him he would be back soon and he was relieved. I'm just happy Doug will be here for the holidays. He'll be gone all around them, but home for some the good family times. I'm lucky and thankful for that.

Four months have gone so fast

Gavin is four months old. I can't believe it's been four months. He is just getting so big. He's been eating cereal for about a week now. He is a hungry little boy, well he's not so little. He weighed 15.7 lbs and is 25.5 in at his four month check-up. He is obviously growing well and he is doing everything he is supposed to. It just makes me so proud to be able to mark all the yes boxes on the developmental chart.

So what else is new... Tristan had his last soccer game Saturday, yea! No more early and cold Saturday mornings. He was so proud of the trophy he got. He says he won "40 80 60 games". Ok.
Tristan carved his pumpkin tonight, and when I say he carved it, I mean it. He was a little scary with a knife but there were no accidents. And he did a good job. It turned out cute, or scary according to Tristan.




Halloween is his favorite holiday now. He has such big plans for decorating the house and having a Halloween party. They are good plans, they are just not going to happen. He wants a maze in the back yard and all kinds of decorations. He'll be one of those people who go all out for Halloween. We have some very cool houses in our neighborhood. I need to go take some pictures. Some people put a lot of work into their decorations and I can't help but wonder, where do they store it all? It's some big stuff and we have no storage here. They must have storage sheds somewhere but their houses are impressive. Here's mine.


Not quite as impressive.

Happy Halloween to everyone. Have a spooky night.

Fun, fun day

So in the last post, I said "It's been one of those days all week", well the week wasn't over. Early, early this morning I hear "bloop, blop, bllloooop" coming from the bathroom. So my weird mind is thinking of those stories about big snakes coming up the toilet pipes, and I'm lying in bed thinking, "well if there's a snake coming up, Dora will get it." I checked the toilet and the water wasn't rising, just air bubbles. So silly me thinks maybe if I flush it, the air will get out. Nope. Apparently not. The waters rose. I went back to bed. Later, Tristan gets up and I told him go to the bathroom in his bathroom and he yells, "there's water all over my floor." Great. Time to call maintenance. Well not only was water all over his floor but both bathtubs were full of brown chunky water. So that's what smelled so bad. The little flood went out of the bathroom and down the hall and into the hall closet where we have boxes and stuff. So my fun morning was cleaning it all up. I threw away all the bathroom stuff and went to get new things and some storage tubs. The boxes had Doug's books and memorabilia. Kind of funny that only his stuff got ruined. On the up side, I don't think my bathrooms have been cleaner.

We've been busy

It's been a while and we've been busy. My Mom came to visit at the end of September for a week. And I got spoiled having help here and Gavin got spoiled being picked up by Grandma all the time. He really had her trained. So then we all went to Pekin for a visit. My 6 hour trip took 7 1/2 hours and I'm not doing it again. At least not soon. We all had a good time, I went out with friends, took full advantage of having help around, Tristan played with a neighbor kid, and Gavin got spoiled some more. Then we went to Lockport to visit Doug's family and I showed off Gavin to everyone. Then drove back here by myself, 2 boys and a dog. Actually wasn't too bad, just not exactly fun. So now we are back... the house is a mess and it's been one of those days all week. Tristan got a cut on his eye from a piece of paper, quick trip to the clinic. He's better today thankfully. But you know when you've been away for a while, it's hard to get back to a routine. It's hard to go back to being alone and yes I'm throwing myself a pity party. I'm tired, stressed, a little overwhelmed right now, and am really ready for Doug to come back. But on the bright side, here are some recent pictures of my boys.

Oh, just more pictures of Gavin

I liked the onesie he had on and he was in a good mood so... I had to take some more pictures. And then I remembered that I have some old pictures that look a lot like this. We have entered the stick out your tongue phase. So many pictures of Tristan have his tongue sticking out. Of course I couldn't find many when I went looking but here is one.


Just so you can compare to Gavin.




Look at the belly hanging over his shorts. It's like he has a little milk belly (instead of beer belly).

I got it

I finally got a picture of Gavin smiling, sort of. He smiles all the time at me. But of course by the time I get the camera, he stops. Or as soon as I put the camera up to my face he stops because he can't see me. I put the camera down, he smiles, pick it up, he stops. See a pattern. But he was in a very happy mood this morning.

I look at this and think "I'm Popeye the sailor man." Cute little chunker cheeks.

He was 2 months...

Well at least I took pictures of Gavin at 2 months old. It was just a couple of weeks ago, that's all.
He weighs 11 lbs 8 oz, and is 23.25 in. He's grown a little. He hasn't rolled over again yet, but he is still scooting. He kicks when he's on his back and goes off his little play mat. Or he'll do a low crawl type move on his belly. And then when he's all wore out...
yeah, he's asleep!!!!

Or his other motto: sleep is for the weak. We had a few days like that. Up a couple of times at night, no naps during the day. I haven't been that tired since basic.

The big kid had his first soccer game today. It was so cute. I think he is going to have a lot of fun once he gets the hang of it. He looked a little lost on the field, running behind everyone else and sometimes the wrong way. But he did get a couple kicks so that was good. Some Mom behind me was screaming so loud at her kid it was making Gavin cry. I can see her being a parent asked to leave at a game someday in the future. She just yelled so meanly at her son. I really wanted to say lighten up they're 5 year olds. It's not a big game or anything. I would rather Tristan has a good time, have fun. I don't want to stress him out at 5 years old because he missed the ball or didn't get a goal. Lesson learned, don't sit in front of this lady again.

And tonight the big boys (Doug who's here for 4 days and Tristan) are out camping. So it's just me and Gavin. And some nice peace and quiet, until Gavin wakes up.

I could be an Olympian

I've been watching some of the Olympics, at odd hours of course. At least it's on at 3 am when Gavin is up eating. I've never really watched more than the gymnastics I guess because I'm seeing sports I don't even know what they are. But I've seen table tennis! Table tennis (come on, it's ping pong) is an Olympic sport? I could do that! I saw men's table tennis, now that was funny. Oh and badminton(?). I could play badminton. Those are the sports I want to play in the Olympics. Forget that swimming and running stuff, I'll play the hard sports.

Gavin is on his way to being an athlete. With all his rolling and scooting. He almost fell off the changing table because he scooted until his head was hanging off. I was putting away his clothes and he was crying, I looked back and there he is hanging his head off the edge. I about had a heart attack. He's rolled over two more times and boy is he fast. He gets up on one knee and kicks and bam, he flops over. It's not a nice slow roll, he just flips over. But his new playmat is silky material and he can't get any traction on it, so he can't stay on his knees to move anywhere. And I kind of think it makes him mad. He still tries though. He reaches and grabs the material and tries to get up on his knees. He's outgrown two of his cutest jammies and it's so sad. They are so cute with little teddy bear feet and puppies on them. But since he can't straighten his legs in them anymore, I've put them away. It's sad when they grow so fast and you can see it by little things like that. Just all of a sudden they're too big for jammies, then too big for the car seat, then too big to be held like a baby. They grow too fast.



And I have to brag just a little (because I can and I want to). I went to my 6 week check up and I've lost 5 extra pounds from my pregnancy weight. I've been back into pre-pregnancy clothes for a week or two now. It's like "yeah, I'm back to where I was before I got pregnant" and also "I was this fat before I got pregnant?" So hopefully with breastfeeding I can lose some more weight. Although I'm sure if I quit eating like I was still pregnant, I would loose even more. I can't help it, I'm addicted to cookies now. Gavin won't let me eat egg rolls, my spaghetti sauce, anything spicy (and I've been craving spicy foods, wierd), or drink pink lemonade. Well I can eat those things but then I'm up all night with a fussy baby. So for now I will eat plain food and drink juice and water. And then have 6 cookies for dessert:)

Batman and Super Baby

Tristan is fully obsessed with Batman now. We have moved on from Spider-Man. I don't know why though, he has never seen a Batman movie. And he won't for awhile, he's not old enough for those yet. He's barely old enough for Spider-Man but he has seen all those. Anyway, I guess it is just the "new thing". He has the lunch box and now the costume, which I told him he can be Batman for Halloween since we have the costume already.

And I guess Gavin is going to take after the super hero theme here too. On Wednesday, he rolled over. He's only 5 weeks old and he rolled tummy to back. I had put him on his tummy in the living room while I was cooking in the kitchen and Doug was finishing dinner on the grill. Well Gavin was mad, he was crying and screaming and both of us were trying to hurry and get dinner done. Doug went into the living room to get him and he was on his back. So his first time rolling over and no one saw it. He hasn't done it again though. I've put him on his tummy and now he is getting up on his knees and kicking so he actually moves forward. What happened to putting a baby down and them not moving. He moves in his bassinet too. I can put him down in the middle and he will kick until he is up in the corner. He likes to be touching his head to the side. And it makes me think of that joke, "I live in a round house and I like to sleep in the corners." I think it is a good bet that this kid is going to be a mover.

First day of school and 1 month old!

I really meant to write sooner, like last week when Gavin turned one month old. But, I'm horrible at actually sitting down and writing. Even worse at actually sending an email to someone, I just do forwards. Anyway here is my big one month old boy.

And my boys together. They look alike even in this picture.

I had sent an email out with some Gavin pictures and just for fun a Tristan baby picture to show how much they look alike. Look and compare...
Gavin
Tristan
Tristan

Gavin

They make some of the same faces too. The big difference is that Tristan was a happy baby. Happy to be held or put down, it didn't matter. Gavin is more like if I'm not eating or sleeping then I should be crying. He is not a happy baby. He is not content to just be awake and look around, unless it's between 1am and 5am. Then he'll just be awake and semi-happy. But then I'm not happy! He's just one of those fussy babies. Luckily 8 years of day care experience has taught me to just tune it out after a while. Crying really doesn't bother me to much. But Gavin gets a frantic cry that just makes you feel sorry for him. So I pick him up and rock him and then he goes to sleep. And sleeps all day, up at night! I know he'll out grow it soon. But my happy baby, Tristan, slept through the night. I was so spoiled with Tristan.

And speaking of the big boy, today was the first day of Kindergarten. I can't believe he's going to school all day.

He looked a little nervous when we dropped him off. I just hope he likes it. He didn't like Pre-K toward the end of the year when they were actually trying to do work and learn things. He would much rather play. But his room didn't seem like it had to many toys in it. And he supposedly has the strict teacher, which might be a good thing for little mister stubborn.