Cottage 2010

So I am posting this REALLY late, but in early August we went with Joe's family to his aunt and uncle's cottage. We had a great week with great weather! We missed last year b/c Joe was gone for work, but here is Layla two summers ago when we went. She was just over 2 months old here. My how things change!



When we were driving in to the town of Onekama the annual parade had just started so we weren't able to get to the cottage since the cottage is on the main road. We therefore decided to just park and walk to the parade so that Layla could see it.


She got LOTS of candy and fun things!!

The girls...(Joe's mom, me, Layla, Joe's sister, Rachael, and Joe's brother's wife, Heidi)

Daddy and Gibs...

This was Layla's "Mickey Mouse" pancake...pretty sure she didn't eat all of that! And I'm pretty sure that this is a pretty half hazard way of making a Mickey pancake:)...

Layla and Auntie Heidi...

Here's one of the pics Layla took...looks like she was trying to get an artistic view:). She so far (not that I can really tell yet) seems to love artsy things. She notices shapes in all sorts of random things...like saying that her pretzel looks like a kitty or a dog or saying that a spilled puddle of water looks like a tree. And the things that she says actually do look like what she says they do. She also loves coloring and painting. I can feel a crafter emerging in the future:). It's probably just typical things little girls like to do though.

Gibson on the paddle boat with Grandma and Grandpa...

Gibs was not a fan of the water!

Layla on a ride with Grandpa and Grandma...

Gibson getting lunch from Grandma...

Sand time with Grandpa...

Layla looks as enthuised to be playing a game as I was:)...

Layla was excited to find some toys:)...

Gibson enjoying the frisbee on his head that we got from the parade...

Just chillin' in the shade...

One of the nights everyone except Layla, Gibs, Rachael, Mary and me went out fishing, so the rest of us went to a country concert in the park...we did not recognize a single song and I'm pretty sure they were all from the time when they called in "country and western". We were also pretty much the youngest ones there and no one around us seemed to appreciate when my kids talked so we didn't stay very long:)...

Looking at the duckies with Auntie Heidi...

Eating lunch picnic style with Grandma and Grandpa...

There was a playground at the little beach right next to their cottage, but it was almost too hot to play on it!

One morning we decided to head to a nearby beach and pretty much as soon as we got everything unloaded from the car and carried it all to the beach, the dark clouds started to roll in! So we didn't get much time there at all. And as soon as we got there Steidi (Steve and Heidi) came to visit on Tiny Tin...

Gibs missed the whole experience by sleeping...

Joe and I took a quick walk to the end of the pier. Joe's mom told us to enjoy our romantic walk and to take a pic on the pier, so here it is:)...

Layla enjoyed the water...

Layla enjoyed playing lawn darts with Grandpa and Grandma, although "playing" might not exactly be the right word as I'm quite sure she wasn't obeying the rules:)...

We had a relaxing time there and I always enjoy seeing Layla (and soon Gibs) experience traditions like this. Hopefully we can make it again next year!

9 Months!

Our little guy turned 9 months over a week ago! He is getting so big and learning so much! A little over a month ago he started army crawling and learned quickly how to get ALL around the house. I don't know if I just forgot what this stage was like, but he now gets into everything!! When he was just scooting/rolling he stayed around our living area, now he likes to venture out to every room of the house and knows exactly where the naughty things are. He's just so funny to me, I'll see him all of a sudden booking it to his room and he goes behind his door to play with the door stopper or he'll book it to the bathroom to play with Layla's potty chair or he loves going under our table and chairs in our dining room to get to Elv's food or our wine bottle rack. And when you say "Gibson, no" he just turns around and smiles at you like, "What? I'm not being naughty, am I?" :). He seems to understand "no" now, but doesn't always listen:). Him and Layla have been playing really nicely together for the most part. It probably helps that he's very laid back and doesn't care (most of the time) if she takes his toys or if he get knocked over. He's so unlike her with getting hurt--he falls SO many times a day and hardly ever cries about it. He pretty much always has about a dozen bruises on his face/head, but he just isn't scared of anything so I can't really stop him from getting hurt! That could be trouble later in life!! A few months ago I would have said that since he's been such a happy little baby that'd he'd be really relaxed with crawling around and such, but he's super adventurous and curious about everything he sees. He'll do maybe 8-10 normal crawls at a time, but normally it's only when he's going a short distance to get to something. I think that he thinks that army crawling his faster, so if he starts crawling, he switches to an army crawl to try to get there faster. That's probably for the best:).

He had his 9 month appointment last Friday and as I always had with Layla too, I hardly answered "yes" to any of the questions they asked about what he's doing:). He's not pulling up on things, he doesn't play peek-a-boo, he doesn't clap, hmm, I forget what else. I remember them asking the peek-a-boo question with Layla too and thought it was a weird question--doesn't that depend on if the parents teach the kid peek-a-boo?? Anyway, the doctor said that considering that it's more like he's 7 1/2 months, he's doing really well and is right on track with where he should be. He's healthy and that's what matters:). Here are his stats. He seems to be thinning out a bit:).

Height: 29" 75%
Weight: 18 lbs 13 oz 25%
Head: 44.8cm 25%

His schedule is still pretty much the same as last month I think, except that he has more "real" foods now and doesn't always like his bottles. He hardly spits up at all anymore! It finally has ended (I forgot to put that last month, but I think around 8 months is when we realized it had gotten a LOT better)!! He's had a couple of colds recently and then he seems to spit up a bit more, but other than that, it's not much at all.

I just wanted to document their arm difference for my sake. Gibs' is maybe thinning out a bit more as he spreads out, but it's still definitely thicker than his big sister's:).

Playing nicely...

It's so funny now to see him stand--Layla looks so tall!!

His 9 month pic...

Of course sissy had to have her pic taken too:)...

He loves to be by her. Hanging out in their jammies...Layla plays with her toys quite often up on the couch or on her little table, he can now reach things that are any bit at all close to the edge--it'll be even more trouble when he can pull up on things (he's on his knees here)! She'll need to find a new spot to keep her toys away from him!

And nice time together quickly turns bad when he starts pulling on her hair...typical little brother:)...

She thinks that she needs to dump out ALL of his baby toys out the basket to play with...she says she does it to be nice to him, but she probably just wants to play in the basket:)...

Again, in the basket after church last week...

Sometimes to get Gibson to sleep longer (he likes to get up at like 7:30/8ish--he goes to bed at 7, but putting him to bed later doesn't seem to help him sleep in any longer), he'll fall asleep in our bed. It doesn't happen much anymore, so I thought I'd better get a picture of it while I still could:)...

And then when Layla woke up, she wanted to join:)...which reminds me, that 2 nights ago Layla gave up her pipe!! We've been saying for far too long now that one of these days we need to take her pipe away, so we finally did it! I was afraid she'd stop napping, but then thought I should take it away while she still for sure needs a nap b/c I thought that if I took it away when she was close to giving up naps (she still naps 2-3 hours/day), she might give them up completely. She gave her pipe to Gibson. Although, when it was time to go to bed, she was NOT so happy about that decision and wanted one of his:). It took her awhile to fall asleep, but eventually she did. She woke up at 6 which if very unusual for her, but I went down there and she just wanted to pray and then went back to sleep. Gibson had been making noise a bit before that since he's been sick, so she may have heard him and then probably looked for her pipe but couldn't find it. She's struggled going down for naps and bed since then, but after she falls asleep, she sleeps okay, so hopefully just a few more nights and she'll be more used to it. Oh, and I was debating whether to tell her that we were "sending" her pipe to a friend's baby so that the pipe would be totally gone from the house, but she said she wanted to give it to Gibson since he has lost some pipes recently, so we thought we'd try that. I ended up just putting it away to get it out of her mind. And Gibson looks pretty silly with a pink pipe:). It's weird though now that she'll never have her pipey (as she calls it) again. Just another step towards becoming such a big girl:).

Layla, Gavin and Gibson bonding:)...(Gibs left the pic about 1 second later, he wasn't so into the bonding) :)...

Gavin came over to play the other week and Layla and him enjoyed playing with L's campers in Gibs' room...poor thing, they shut him out of his own room:(...

"Shoot, mom, I can't get in":(...he was hurrying to keep up, but wasn't fast enough:)...

Everyone hanging out together...of course they were posing nicely for the pic right BEFORE I took it:)...

Playing nicely together...