Happy 1st Birthday Garrett!!!!!

Today is Garrett's 1st Birthday! It's hard to believe that it's been an entire year since we became parents to this sweet little bundle of joy. He's a real delight to have in our family. :-) I'll update with actual birthday party pics after Saturday but for now here are a few pictures of Garrett with his Airborne Bear and playing around. Oh, and his stats at one year are: 18 lb 4 oz, 31 inches tall. He's a stringbean--a very CUTE stringbean!

We love you Garrett Michael!

Great-Grandparent Weekend

We started off our weekend with Nana and Papa down in San Antonio. Garrett was so excited to be there that he decided not to nap! He was still a happy boy (for the most part) and we enjoyed watching him explore and get to know them all over again. If I can ever figure out how to post videos on here again, I will. We had fun relaxing, playing some games and going to Gruene to have a yummy lunch and seeing some uniquely Texan shops. It was a great visit! Lucy was the only one who was thrilled to be leaving because she remembers being left at their house before. She loved staying with Nana and Papa but wasn't ready to be left behind again. :-) Garrett, on the other hand, is ready to go back now!

Garrett with his Birthday Balloon

Chillin on Nana's chair

Not so sure about this cowboy hat

Helping Papa reset the clock

Chatting with Nana

After leaving San Antonio, we headed north to Austin to see Granny and Grandpa. We loved seeing them again, playing Chickenfoot, and meeting Aunt Chris's new dog, Genesis. Lucy was surprisingly friendly and got along really well with him. The two dogs did have a battle of the tongues when it came to Garrett, though. Lucy would run past and give him a territorial lick, then Genesis would run past and give him a lick, and so on. It was a constant lick-a-thon. :-) It's a good thing that Garrett is so used to all the licking. He also became much braver about his walking over the weekend. It won't be long before he's walking laps around the house. Oh dear. Anyway, we had a lovely visit with Granny and Grandpa and can't wait until we get back to see them again.

Opening a birthday present from Aunt Chris (So cute--thanks again!)

Getting to know Genesis

With Grandpa and Daddy

Battle of the Lickers

Relaxing with Granny, Daddy and Lucy

Thanks again to Nana, Papa, Granny and Grandpa for having us over for a visit. We love you all!!!!

Boys Will Be Boys!

We sent this to Garrett's grandparents and aunts and uncles but thought it'd be fun to post it here too. :-)

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

He's Walking!!

Yes, folks, our little man is walking. On Saturday afternoon, we were just playing in the living room and he's standing at the sliding door. He turns around and calmly takes 4 distinct steps toward me. He was so proud of himself! He's still hesitant to take more than 5 steps at a time on his own...unless no one is watching! He was in the kitchen yesterday and suddenly got very quiet. I, of course, assumed he was getting into Lucy's food or water bowl but when I peeked over I saw him quietly walking across the kitchen. As soon as he saw me watching him, he grinned and plopped himself on the floor to crawl over to me. Little stinker. Anyway, we do have a very short video clip of his "second" steps (we were too busy cheering and clapping for him when he did it the first time) but I can't figure out how to upload it here on blogger. Grrr. I tried using the old post editor and it still didn't work. If anyone else out there has an insider tip, let me know. When I figure it out, I'll post it here. :-)

I finally found it, Dad....

And you never thought it'd happen. :-)

PS: For those of you who don't understand this, don't worry. It's just a funny/embarrassing inside joke/story between my Dad, my sister and me. Ask him if you want to hear it, because I'm not sharing.

Dishwasher Fun and DTS

I could have separated this into two different blog posts, but I like to combine random events to make it more interesting.

Random Event #1: Loading the dishwasher.  Garrett is quick these days...a little too quick! Before I could say NO he was up on top of the dishwasher door. He was "helping" take things out of the top rack and put things back in the top rack. At least I only had nonbreakable things that were within his reach. :)

Random Event #2: A beautiful, 70 degree day in Dallas. Garrett and I went to DTS to sit in on today's Chapel with Russ then have lunch together. Since it was SOOO nice outside we sat on the grass for awhile too and let Garrett crawl to his little heart's content. The grass is basically that dead, yellowy color but it didn't stop him from having fun. He loves visiting his Daddy!

He's a curious little explorer already...watch out bugs...here he comes!

Final Cowboys Game and A Trip to the Lake

It was really sad for us grown-ups to watch the Cowboys lose on Sunday, but Garrett had a grand old time eating while watching them play. I snapped a couple of pics because it looks like he strategically placed some of his lunch on his cheeks to look like a football player. Only our little Nugget....

Yesterday (Monday) we headed out to White Rock Lake to go for a nice family walk. Well, I underestimated the wind factor and Lucy was pretty pitiful our whole time walking. Oh well. At least Garrett, Russ and I had a good time! On our drive back from the Lake, Garrett fell asleep and Lucy took advantage of the situation, as you'll see. She's such a sucker for a blanket. And a lap. And he offered both unknowingly.

It's a good thing she only weighs 10 lbs!! She did the same thing on our way to Petsmart today to get her nails trimmed but this time Garrett was awake and loving it. He was playing with her tags and pulling her tail and ears. Works for me--entertainment for both the "kiddos." :-)

New Tricks

Hello??

Garrett has just recently learned a few new tricks. Using his play phone, like in the picture above, is one of those tricks. I'll pull out my cell phone and say "Hello? Is Garrett there?" and he'll grab his purple phone and babble at it for a few seconds.

Then he does this. Or he throws it on the floor. Sometimes he tries to hang it up properly on his play table, but mostly he throws it on the floor.

He's been doing this for awhile...waving hello and good-bye. But it's hard to capture on camera since he's so stinking fast these days.

In this picture, you see Garrett rolling the lint off of Lucy's blanket. He found the lint roller in my desk and decided it was a fun new toy. I'm hoping his attraction to cleaning supplies is a sign of things to come--he can help me clean all he wants!

It's hard to tell what you're looking at here, so I'll explain. They're on the floor between the fireplace hearth (which has the chest full of blankets on it) and the couch (the bright thing on the right side of the picture). Garrett has claimed the crawlspace between the two as his very own fortress or tunnel. He'll sit back there and play or he'll crawl back and forth and back and forth. And sometimes his Daddy gets back there and plays with him too, which makes him giggle hysterically.

These three pictures are dedicated to Aunt Krista. She's the reason Garrett is so good at climbing up and down our short little fireplace ledge...thank you so much for teaching him how to do this using the step between your living room and kitchen. :-) He loves to climb up and down many many times a day. He pulls the library books out of the basket. Then he puts them back in. Fun game!

11 Months Old

Our little nugget is 11 months old today. He's really showing us his personality more and more--we're loving it! He's not walking (alone) or talking yet (other than babbling) but I don't mind NOT having him walk for awhile longer yet, he's quick enough just crawling. :-) He also loves to wave. He waves hello, he waves goodbye, he waves to us, he waves to the dog. Speaking of the dog, Garrett has discovered a love for Lucy's tail. And Lucy's collar. And Lucy's toys. Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. It's really sweet seeing him crawl over to Lucy and "pet" her. I say "pet" because he has a long way to go in the gentleness department.  Here are our attempts at getting him to sit still for an 11-month picture with his Airborne Bear.

Wiggle Worm

I love hanging upside-down!

Holding A.B.

A.B. and Garrett's drum set

Playing with Daddy

Swinging is fun

Batter Up!

Baseball Card pose...he's a little slugger already