Blair, Lisa & Gavin: Gavin Update

This sweet boy is 2 1/2 this month! He is so full of life and personality, we just adore him! This will be long, it's been way too long since we've updated so get ready for an overload.

I quit working back in August because of how bad the nausea had been with baby girl, I had plans to go back but with Blair's school and work schedule we just couldn't work it out. I am so very grateful that it didn't. I have loved being home with Gavin! He changes every day. He learns something new every day. I have absolutely loved watching it all happen!

He is so unbelievably smart. His vocabulary just exploded in the last few months and it is so fun to listen to him talk! Most of his sentences are still filled with jibber jabber except for the last couple of words, you just have to wait until the end of his "sentence" to know what he needs. It is so cute! He tries so hard to talk like me and Blair, and it's to the point where we have to be very, very careful about what we say. Little stinker repeats everything he can, for example..

"Hi mommy. Nice bum."

Yes, we're learning to be very careful.

Gavin is obsessed with letters and numbers! We bought him a set of foam letters for the bath back in October and all the way home from the store he chanted "new ABC's for Gavin!" He loves them and often goes straight into the bathroom in the morning to sit in the tub and play with them.He will spend as much time as possible in the bath now, it's quite nice!

His favorite past times/games include playing with his letters and numbers, walking around and finding each number on the apartment buildings, running back and forth showing us his letters and numbers, finding the number of aisle we'll need at the store, and drawing each letter in the dirt while we're at the playground. Yes, I'd say obsessed. Just today, Blair was doing math homework and getting frustrated, he kind of said out loud, "I just need to find 'y'!" Gavin ran into the bathroom and found the Y for him. Isn't he helpful?

He also really loves the slides at the playground. He runs almost everywhere he goes and he loves playing his own version of hide and seek in the house. It's basically us hiding and surprising him when he finds us, it's so cute! One of his newest favorite past times is coloring! He loves checking the mail and helping daddy take out the garbage. He's always proud when he can find a way to help us! He always brings us our shoes when it's time to go, and he will almost always take dishes to the sink when we ask. He is actually helpful now, it's so great! He loves to find rocks and throw them into any nearby water. He loves going on walks and saying Hi to every person he sees. He's very social these days! It's a little embarrassing because regardless of age every person is either a grandma or a grandpa :-) He LOVES all his Grandparents and talks about them each individually all the time! He also needs daily updates on the whereabouts of each uncle, aunt and cousin. He asks where each one is going, by name, multiple times a day. He boggles my mind, his memory amazes us! Our conversations are usually:

"Where's Uncle Ryan and Aunt Crystal going?"

"Where's Mike, Megan, Emily going?"

"We don't hit Mike."

"Where's Aunt Jen and Uncle Kevin going?"

"Where's Nathan going?"

" We don't hit Nathan."

And so on and so forth through every single person in my family and Blair's. He's silly and sometimes it takes some self control to not get irritated, but I really do love it. He's so curious and is always asking questions. It's just his personality!

Halloween was so fun this year. It's the first time we've dressed him up and taken him out. Our ward did a trunk or treat and it was perfect! He was SO adorable in his Superman outfit! Just look at the cuteness -

It took just a few times of getting candy to get into the spirit and he really did love it! About halfway through though he started crying and we could not get him to stop. It wasn't hysterical crying, just nervous maybe, so we kept on going around to the cars. Everyone was so sweet to him, several people told him to "cheer up Superman!" and then would proceed to give him more candy in order to help him stop. It was so sweet of everyone! He did stop eventually and all in all he did enjoy it. He's been talking about the "people who give the treats in the bucket" ever since, super cute!

We've been watching a lot of Andy Griffith episodes lately and Gavin now asks to watch "Andy and Barney and Dopie and Aunt Bee." It makes me laugh every time that he calls Opie, "Dopie!" He loves "The Letter Factory" show and now knows all the sounds the letters make. His imagination has been going a lot lately and I absolutely love it. Blair and I both had extremely active imaginations when we were little and I've always hoped our kids would too. Gavin has been talking with his teddy bear and his trucks a lot and it is so so so adorable. Gavin also cries a lot. It's almost always his super fake cry which turns into just whining. Whining is the worst. Nothing gets on my nerves more than whining. His is the blood curdling scream that you hear immediately after the "Amen" is said to the closing prayer in Sacrament meeting because he knows it's time for nursery. What a stinker! He's always telling us afterwards how much fun he had coloring and blowing bubbles and eating snacks. I don't understand! Oh well.

His eating is still kind of miserable. We feed him almost everything while he reads or draws and it's frustrating. We need to make some changes, especially with a new baby coming. It's still hard for me to think that Gavin is not my baby anymore, he is my little boy. He grows and changes so much and it's hard for me to see sometimes. Maybe that's why I'm so hesitant to change.

All in all the supposed terrible two's really haven't been so terrible. He definitely has bad days, but this stage has been so much fun. I love it!

Helping mommy make frosting. With every lick he would say

"mmmm good!"