Swimming with Daddy

Yesterday afternoon Gavin got to go swimming with his daddy! Normally it's me who goes with him, so it was fun for both of them! It took daddy a while to convince Gavin to get in without his Thomas train...*sigh*

My two cuties!





Zoom in a circle!

16 Weeks

Here I am at about 16 weeks in green now and about 15 weeks in red with Gavin. Definitely a difference the second time around!

Thomas obsessed

For his birthday, Gavin got an accessory to a Thomas train set. We had no tracks or train, so got him a set so he could use the present. Ironically, he's not ready for the accessory (he doesn't get the levers and stuff, but I'm sure he'll love it when he's older) but he loved the train and tracks.



It didn't take him long to discover his name train works perfectly on the tracks as well.









Gavin is so obsessed that he tried to pick up the whole track to go to grandma's house last Sunday. The track and Thomas are now beginning to be a source of tantrums if he can't take it with him, so not so sure I'm loving the Thomas...although he seems to enjoy the train just as much without the track and doesn't get as frustrated (because the train sometimes comes off the track if he's manually pushing it.)

Mr. Cool Bear

After Gavin's nap the other day, he wanted to put his sunglasses on Mr. Bear. I helped him out and he was very satisfied!









Apparently Gavin thinks Mr. Bear should do what he does. He wanted Mr. Bear to wear his new backpack, so I found him the empty one for Mr. Bear to wear and he wore the big one.

Mr. Cool Dude

I put Gavin's sunglasses on him on the way home from the grocery store this morning and he actually kept them on! He kept them on so well, in fact that he wore them while he was playing outside for about half an hour, during lunch, and even into his crib at nap time. We'll see if he's still wearing them when he wakes up...

In the garden

Here is a picture of how my strawberry plants are doing. One is almost dead, I think that Marilyn, the chicken, at least in part killed it. She hops the chicken wire and then digs in the plants. I found the one that is dying buried in dirt. I'm sure that the plant didn't like that!



Here is my first ripe strawberry! It has a bug bite, but we ate it anyway. I shared it with Gavin, even though it was little. We both love strawberries.





A couple of my tomatoes that are growing outside the wire.



I have blossoms galore on my tomato plants!



They are still growing wildly!



Gavin, digging in the dirt as boys love to do.





He moved the shovelful of dirt all of like two feet and dumped it.



The kitty, ever watchful and wanting to be close, (you can see the planter wall of my garden to the left of the slide) but pretending that he could care less what we are doing.





Fudge says, "Oh, please just leave me alone!!!"

I think I'm going to die!!!

Not really, but I am going to be very busy because I am taking a three week online course starting one week from today. I need it to renew/clear my teaching credential. The class is a special education course and I still have a technology level II class I need to take sometime before January 2011. I checked the schedule yesterday and if I want to only do school work during the week, each day I need to read about a chapter, do a 60 minute online lecture, and quiz. There is a written assignment due at the end of each 1 week unit, plus a 2-3 hour observation in a special ed class written up at the end of the class. I bought the $125 book yesterday to get a head start on my reading; with the shrink wrap off of my brand new book, I'm definitely committed now because I can't return it. So far I'm on page 12, not even half way through the first chapter. I need to just sit down and do some serious reading. I've kind of been reading on the fly.

Well, wish me luck! I will survive!!! Blog entries may be scarce during that time.

Gavin's Birthday

Gavin enjoyed sitting with the grown ups eating one of his favorite foods--carrots! That is mostly what he ate for dinner; he ate carrots and chips with a side of milk. Oh well!













Aunt Staci was oh-so-thrilled to be photographed.



A couple of the cousins playing in the two room fort complete with a skylight and a door adjoining the two rooms. Jessica's kids made it. It's pretty cool!





Thanks to Uncle Jon for barbecuing the burgers for us. They were delicious, as always!



The younger cousins having fun. The older cousins didn't stay very close, so sorry, I don't have any pictures...





Gavin's birthday cake. He recently became enamored with Thomas the Train.





He still doesn't get blowing out the candles. Oh well, maybe next year.



He loved all of his presents! Thanks everyone!



















Another present from our friends Eric and Gail. Gail drew this for us! It looks awesome! Check out her blog! (Which has better pictures of this piece artwork and more!)



Thanks to all of you who came and brought food (it was all delicious!), to Aunt Jessica and Uncle Jon for letting us use the grill and use the backyard, and thanks to Grandma and Grandpa in Sacramento who couldn't make it but sent a couple of cute outfits (the swim outfit from the sprinkler trampoline and the second outfit pictured on Jessica Lake's blog.) We think it was a great 2nd birthday and hope there are many more to come!