Gavin Turns 3!

Gavin celebrated his 3rd birthday on July 18. He chose Dora and Diego as the theme of his party...

Layla and Gavin enjoying their Italian dinner...

Gibson enjoyed the party...

Layla even got a couple of belated birthday gifts! Here is Gina giving the kids their gifts from her and Laura (who couldn't make it)...

Checking it out with Gigi...

Opening her other gift from Christina and Kassia (and Eric and Tate who weren't there)...

Thanking Christina and Kassia...

Gavin opening our gifts...

Gavin thanking Layla for his gift...

Helping open Gavin's gift from Grampy and Gigi...

Excited! :)

Layla and Gigi...

Gavin posing with Diego and his cake:)...

Yummy cake!

Big bite for the birthday boy:)...

Checking out the new water table...

Daddy and Gibson...

Our family with Gibson (minus Elv of course)...

Birthday boy and his fam...

Gibs trying to take of Gigi's glasses:)...

Gavin seemed to enjoy his party and all his gifts! Hard to believe that Gavin is three years old already! It's been so great to see him and Layla grow up together (well, for 2 out of those 3 years:D ) and I'm excited to watch their little friendship grow over the coming years. Gavin is such a sweet little guy and although him and Layla have their fair share of fights, at the end of the day they are the best of buds! Happy Birthday little buddy!!

Lots -O-Pics

I feel like most of my posts recently start with me saying that I'm behind on blogging, so here are some recent pics, but I'll say it again anyway:). Here are recent random pics...

Gibson definitely likes fruits more than veggies (opposite of what Layla was like at that age), but he rarely makes any bad faces. If he doesn't like it, he'll just move his head away from the the spoon and close his mouth. I tried to get a bad reaction from the broccoli he wasn't diggin' the other week, but this was all I got:)...

Layla thinks it's fun to wear Gibs' clothes (not sure why a 9 month outfit isn't even all that short on her when she's a very average height??)...

So I know Gibs' shirt is a little weird, but I had gotten this dress for Layla at my dad and Joyce's neighbor's garage sale and then stopped in quickly the other week at Bumblebee's 99 cent sale, when everything was buy one get one free, to see if they had anything worth buying and saw this matching Gymboree shirt for Gibson. I couldn't resist. For 50 cents, you can't go wrong, right? :) Not a great picture, but you get the point:). The other 50 cents (well, actually 49) was the outfit above of Gibson's that Layla is wearing. He spits up on so many outfits that it's handy to have lots of easy onesies and rompers to put on him at home.

I just had to take a pic of Layla's new (to her) Berenstain Bears. I had these same ones when I was little from McDonald's and so did Joe, so I figured that somebody else out there reading this probably had them too. Who doesn't like a good blast from the past? :) Layla has been loving the books and tv show so I found these dolls on Ebay and she has been loving them too. She loves to play pretend and has been playing with them in her Little People's house.

Gibs and Maddy...

I took a picture of her toes since she loves having her nails done. A girl after my own heart:). She doesn't like it if her nail polish comes off and the other day before leaving for the mall, had to have me quick paint her nails before she could go out:). She has definitely gotten bossier lately and has had more meltdowns. It seems like some weeks are just worse than others. A typical two year old I guess, but too many long days and I may need to find a job:).

Gibs not so sure about the swing...

With Grandma and Grandpa on Steidi's golf cart...

Gibs chillin' with Uncle Steve...I love how on most pics Gibson always has a burp cloth nearby:). Hopefully this spitting up stage ends at some point soon!

Feeding the fishies with Grandpa...

Gibs doesn't mind that she's taking over his toy...I got this toy awhile back for Gibson and of course now Layla find it interesting again.

"Me do it" is a very familiar phrase of Layla's:)...

Don't mind that Layla's shorts are about falling off, but I wanted to take a pic of her and Gavin at the play area at the mall since they both LOVE the slide. After we're done shopping, our trips typically end at the play area. She got tackled a few times when we were there a few weeks ago by a random little boy (Saturday nights are crazy busy), but that didn't stop her from wanting to go down the slide some more!

Apprarently the mall tired out all three kiddos:)...

7 Months!

My baby boy is 7 months already!! He is becoming so fun and we're really seeing his fun laid back little personality come out more and more. He is growing like crazy and definitely hasn't lost his cheeks yet:). Him and Layla have fun laughing at each other and "talking", but I've also started to see some signs of fighting already. Most the time he doesn't care if she takes a toy away from him, but I've also seen her take a toy from him and he starts crying...until he gets it back! He loves eating and so far has eaten all his baby food, but peas seem to be his least favorite...well, except for tonight when I pureed our leftover broccoli and he would only take a few bites:). But I must say that I gagged a bit myself while pureeing it so I really can't blame him:). His schedule is to now wake up at 7/7:30 and sleep with me until like 8/8:30:) and then eat a bottle (8oz) and some cereal for breakfast, nap from like 10-11 and eat lunch of a bottle and fruit or veggie, nap from like 1-3/3:30 and then have a "snack" bottle at about 3, then sometimes he still naps from like 5-6 (if he's behind on sleep or didn't nap long enough for one of his other naps) but I've been trying just recently to eliminate that nap, then he eats supper around 5:30/6ish and goes to bed at 7 (unless his last nap is late, then he goes to bed a little after 7). A little after 6 months he started to really babble. I hear lots of "dadada's" and "bababa's" but not many "mamama's"--not sure how that's fair:). It's funny though b/c I'm pretty sure that Layla said "mamama's" before "dadada's". He's just recently started to move around a lot more. He's been able to roll for a few months, but when he was sleeping he'd often roll to his belly and then wake up and think he was stuck even though we knew he was capable of rolling back over! Thankfully though he seems to be past that issue now though. He can scoot backwards just a little bit and can spin around now when he's on his belly. He can't, however, sit up on his own yet. I think he's too top heavy:). He'll sit if you lean him forward to support himself on his hands, but not for all that long. He has also taken more of an interest recently to standing--otherwise, he's never wanted to. But he'll now stand up against something for a short time. Sorry if it's boring reading so much about what he's doing, but I realized now that I missed some of that stuff with Layla and now have no idea so I'm trying to be better about writing his down.

Layla took over my camera the other day (she loves "picture time") and this was one cute one she took of Gibs. I love that he's looking right at her and appears to be having fun playing "picture time" with her:). Throughout future blogs I'm sure more of Layla's pics will turn up as she took like 250 the other day:). I deleted most of them, but kept some that turned out.

I flipped these the right direction before posting them, but for some reason they turned and I don't feel like figuring out why:)...here are his 7 month nudie pics...

Camping in July

A few weeks ago we went to Hungry Horse with Heukers and Coppesses. We had a great time just enjoying being outdoors and watching the kids play.



It was just Lindsey and me and the four kids there during the day on Friday. The babies did pretty well, so that was nice:-).
Jonathan and Layla love to make each other laugh. Here they are just banging on the tool bench...lots of fun apparently:).



Layla wanted to feed J his water bottle and he didn't object:)...

This was too funny...they were yelling for Jesus in this tree and then up to the sky. Lindsey got it on video, it was so funny. They were super excited talking about Jesus apparently:)...

Gibs just chillin'...

L wearing J's glasses and J wearing her hat:)...

It was SO buggy, so it worked greaet to put our screened tent up for the kids. The babies slept like, well, babies :P...

Apparently Elv was really hot...he dug himself this little hole in the dirt to lay in which isn't like him...

They have a few different playgrounds, but the one that would have been good for little kids was in the sun. This one was alright, but really high and therefore dangerous for toddlers therefore, here is Lindsey playing up by Jonathan...

Lindsey and Madison enjoying the playground...

Layla enjoyed jumping with some little boys she met...

Elv rode back in the stroller with the kids which I was surprised he did--he must have been really hot and tired! Sorry, Gibs, that Layla is blocking your face with her water bottle:).

Ella and her parents came to visit Saturday night. It worked well that there was a sandbox right next to our site (pretty much on our site--right behind our trailer)...

Jill, Lindsey, Darrell, Brad, Joe and Drew...

Ella taking a close look at Gibson--preparing for her new bro/sis!

Me, Lindsey and Jill...

Again at the playground....Kali, Mason, Jonathan, Layla and some girl:)...

Swingin'!

Kali, Layla, Mason and Jonathn in the screen tent playing with Play-dough...

Darrell and Joe relaxing...

No idea why these ended up sideways, but we put Gibs and Maddy in the same pack n' play to let them play together for a bit--haha:)...

Lovin' those hands!

Their eyes sort of have the same shape here:)...

Saturday afternoon Lindsey and I went to the pool without kids!! It was great!! We had been gone for a couple of hours so we figured we should head back, but then Jane said that she had just been back to the campsite to get something and that all the kids were sleeping and so was Joe and that Darrell was reading. So then we didn't feel bad about leaving the kids with the guys for so long so we stayed a bit longer. We just sat in the kiddie pool--it was great, there were hardly any kids in it since it was nap time. All it was missing was someone to come and bring us drinks:). Then after nap time we took the older kids back to the kiddie pool with us.

J was a bit hesitant about the pool at first, but then warmed up...

Layla loved the water and even got her hair wet! Normally she hates getting water on her head--she loves baths, but washing her hair is always a challenge!

We saw a couple of kids wipe out on the entrance to the kiddie pool and then Layla did the same thing--it was super slippery and you can tell a toddler to slow down a million times, but all it takes is one time of going a little to quick to slip! I think they need to put some sort of grip on that part of the pool or something.

Good thing our kids don't sleep with us or we'd be a bit crowded in the trailer bed:)...

We had a great time camping and are excited for our next couple of camping trips yet this year! We're definitely glad we got the trailer--it's gotten lots of use already! Sorry, Jane, that you didn't get on any of the pics--next time:).