Hey Mom, what's for dinner?!

Gavin reached a new milestone today!  Four months is usually the time to start rice cereal and with Gavin's 4 month birthday fast approaching, we knew we would be starting it soon.  But since he's SO smart and advanced, we thought we start him on it early- even by just one whole day :). 

What I didn't know is that first time baby rice cereal, is pretty much like milk with just a few rice floaties in it, so he pretty much just has to slurp it off the spoon. 

Gavin donned his "My dad is cooler than your dad" bib for the occassion.   I gave Matthew this bib last year for Father's day- he just let's Gavin wear it. 

I must say, the GavMeister did a pretty good job for his first time!  Check out his very first bite from a spoon ever!   

Success!  If by success I mean that half of it came out of his mouth and onto his bib.  But that's okay.  He seemed quite intrigued by the spoon.  In fact, had the spoon been a lollipop, this kid would have been in business.  He was rocking out the spoon suck. 

Look how cute he is!  And what a polite little boy- he even wiped his mouth off when he was finished. 

He ate about half his cereal and then finally got tired of it, so we put the rest in the bottle and he chugged it down old school style.  Not bad for his first try, eh?  Then we took his bib half way off and he played "Pharoah" with his daddy for a few minutes. 

We're so proud of our little boy.  It's a fun place to be when you get this overjoyed by the little things in life. 

Mr Popularity

In honor of Valentines day, I wanted to do a post about all of Gavin's fabulous friends!  One of the richest gifts that God has given us in our lives is the gift of our friends...and now that gift carries on with our son. 

Gavin's first friend is his wonderful girlfriend Alexis.  Matthew and I have known Alexis' parents for many years.  I grew up with her daddy and I have known her mama, Laura, since college.  When all of our friends were having kids at the same time about two years ago, Laura and I kept telling each other, "it will be our turn some day." And sure enough it was- the day Laura called to tell me that she was pregnant, I told her that I was pregnant too- our due dates were only a week apart!  We even took our birthing class and nursing class with Alexis' parents.  We were pretty sure that Gavin and Alexis would hit it off- and sure enough, they have. 

Alexis was one of Gavin's first visitors on the day that he was born.  She was only 13 days old and came to see her new boyfriend.  It was love at first sight!

Me and Gavin with Alexis and her mama...

Now that they are getting older, Alexis and Gavin's relationship has grown and they are quite the pair...

Enter Jackson:  Jackson is the son of another couple in our birthing class.  We hit it off with Jackon's parents too and have enjoyed getting to know them.  I think Jackson is the friendliest baby ever born. 

At one time, there was a rumor going around that Jackson was trying to steal Alexis from Gavin, but that's all water under the bridge.  Gavin and Jackson are besties now.  Three is NOT a crowd with this bunch :).  Just look at this cute little brat pack! 

Through the wonderful birthing class that we took, we were able to meet some other really neat couples.  It's amazing how watching birthing vidoes together and laying on the floor practicing relaxation techniques can bond people!  All of our babies were born between August and October so we have kept in touch and have even started a monthly "mom/baby" group.  These kiddo's are going to be good friends!!!

Look at these cuties:  Jackson, Juliette, Alexis, Gavin, Xander and Nolan

And here they are again, a month and a half later. 

We are also unbelievably blessed by some other friends in our life.  We waited until almost all of our friends had kids before we decided to try it out for ourselves.  All Gavin had to do was show up in this world and he already had a group of instant friends.  Gavin's the youngest of this group, but not for long!!!

God has blessed us with an amazing support system of friends and family and we feel so blessed to not only have people that love us, but our little boy too. 

But what's not to love about this little guy?!

"A man that has friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother."
Prov 18:24



Where there's a will...

The past 4 days have been spent working from home while Oklahoma thaws out from a blanket of snow that appears to be evergrowing.  I have loved every minute of my 4 days home with the Gav, but after a while a project was necessary to keep from getting a bad case of cabin fever. 

Our friends got Gavin an exersaucer before he was born and we knew it would be a while before he would be able to play in it.  It's ideally suited for ages 4 months and up..but since our little man is so advanced, we decided this week that he was ready to try the exersaucer. 

Here's a picture of the exersaucer.  Doesn't it look like fun?!

The only problem was that Matthew had to work and he is officially the baby toy putter-togetherer of our house.  EVERY SINGLE baby item that has been put together in our home was put together by Matthew. So on Day #3 of our little staycation, I decided to chalk one up for Mama. 

Check out how many pieces it came in!!!

I even had to use two tools to put it together!  Granted, one of them was a pair of scissors...but it still counts. 

Eventually, piece by piece, it started to look like a toy rather than a pile of brightly colored plastic. 

Look at how much fun he's having in it!!

He's a little small for it, but if there's one thing I know, it's that he will grow into it!  Just look at my little cutey!!!

I realized that I only made one mistake- I put this ABC, 123 twirly thing on backwards so that the playee was not able to see it.  That was easily remedied however and I have full confidence that Mr. Gavin will still learn his ABC's.   

There's lots of learning and playing to be done by Gavin.  And lots of watching and picture taking to be done by mommy and daddy.
 

Month by Month

Before Gavin was born I saw an idea on a blog that I liked- to take a picture of baby on a desk calendar to show his growth throughout the year.  We decided to try it ourselves!  We only have 4 months under our belt, but it's so fun to see how much he has changed from month to month! 

October- Birth

November- 1 month

December- 2 months

January- 3 months

Even with only four months, it's amazing to see how he's changed so much.  We can see his little personality starting to show and how much he has filled out since the first two months.  I can't wait to see the whole year, but then again I love every minute of the months that we have now, so I hope that it doesn't go by too fast.