Whine, Whine, Whine, I need some Wine.

Well....we are back to square one. In fact, we are even back farther than that! Gavin is no longer sleeping through the night and I am about to lose my f******* mind. Not to be dramatic or anything. Seriously though, Gavin hasn't slept more than two hours in a row for nearly a week.

Between Gavin not sleeping, he also scratched my eye the other day causing ridiculous pain and eye watering all day. It didn't help that I had to drive to San Diego and back!!! I have also been having some dental issues and I have to get a root canal tomorrow, and then a crown after that! UGH, poor me....hahaha, just kidding...but seriously.  I broke my back molar in the beginning of February and our dentist is so busy it has taken this long to go from the initial exam, scheduled crown, getting in to do the crown and him realizing I need a root canal, scheduling that with a specialist....so tomorrow is my "lucky" day.

It's been a few weeks since my last post and I have lots more than "whining" to update! Two weeks ago, Ryan and I went to Las Vegas! We needed a weekend getaway, and we were so blessed that Grandma Kathy was able to fly down to watch Gavin for us!!!!! We left on a Friday and came back on Sunday. It was a quick trip, but we had lots of fun! We walked the strip, had a few drinks, gambled and saw a Cirque De Sole (spelling?) show, which was the highlight for sure!! Ryan even won about $150 on the slots! Gavin had an awesome weekend with Grandma :)

So happy to see Grandma!!

So cute in glasses!

He loves putting shoes and socks on. He is always trying to put our shoes on!

Ryan and I in Vegas.

This past weekend, our friend Kodey came to visit. We took a little day trip down to visit the USS Midway and Coronado Island/Beach. The Midway was really cool, I didn't realize how big those ships were (and that is apparently a small one compared to what they have now).

Ryan, Kodey and part of Gavin and their nerdy audio tour head phones!

Our little family pic on top of the USS Midway.

February has flown by so fast we are all wondering where it went! Ryan and I are looking forward to a nice quiet weekend, and I am just looking forward to more than three hours of sleep at a time!

New Camera!

We got a new camera today and I am so stoked!! I am still learning how to use it, it's a little intense!

Gavin is walking up a storm! He still likes to have us walk around with him, but he is gaining more and more confidence every day. We have also finally got him into a good sleeping pattern! HALLELUIAH! Now that he is sleeping better once again, he is much less temperamental and crabby. THANK THE LORD!

We now have 7 little teefers! I love his two front teeth, they are so cute! I especially love the little gap :) His bottom teeth have come up a little crooked, I am nervous about our orthodontics bill in the future. Gavin loves books more than any other 12/13 month old that I have ever seen. He will just bring us book after book after book to read. He will "read" them to himself. It is so cute! This is a trait that he definitely gets from me and not from Ryan! Ha! (Though I will say that Ryan is getting better at reading these days).

Not much is new these days...Ryan has gone back to his usual company and is slaving away each day. He works pretty long hours which has taken a little adjusting to, it had been so nice have him around for most of the day to help with Gavin! I broke a tooth the other day and have to get a crown put on to fix it, however the dentist we go to is so busy that I have to wait until the end of February to have it fixed. It's pretty lame...

Ryan and I are going to Vegas soon! We are so excited and it will be our first vacation together without Gavin since he was born! Grandma Kathy is coming down to watch Gavin for us and we are SO grateful!! I am sure Gavin will have a great time getting spoiled too!

That's all I got for now! Here are a couple more pictures I have taken with the new camera!!

A few new pictures!

Family Photos & First Steps!

A few weeks ago, we had our family photos taken, and they turned out great! We had a girl who is just starting her photography business do them, and she did a fabulous job. My only "complaint" is that we had them taken at the beach and the sun was in our eyes...so...darn? Gavin of course was too distracted to look at the camera, but regardless so got a couple good shots of him too!

The pictures were taken at the beach that we frequent here on base, Del Mar Resort.

Ryan went back to work on Monday, so it has been "a back to reality" week for us...boo hoo!!!! He took his Combat Leave, which is time set aside for them to take once they are home from a deployment. The main perk is that it is tax free vacation time, however, they have to use their own accrued vacation time for it. Ryan took ten days, and it has been ten days of bliss! We have just relaxed, lounged around, visited the beach...several times, and gone out and about. We were able to take Gavin to the zoo, which he loved (mostly for the tour buses and people...) and did a little shopping. It was perfect. Well, except for the fact that Gavin decided he doesn't want to sleep through the night anymore! ...We think it's separation anxiety and to his defense, it has been a very chaotic, change-filled couple months for him, so I will cut him a little slack for now I suppose.

We also got FIRST steps this past week!!!!!!!! Here is a link to a video I put together of the occassion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZeIuFq8tGI

We are so proud of our little guy!!

Gavin's First Birthday, and more!

As far as updating this the past month or two, all I can say is, I am sorry! I am doing my best! I wish I could have been posting a little bit more often!

Gavin's birthday was a lot of fun! My parents were visiting for the occasion, and one of my very good friends, Sarah, was here with her husband (they usually are living here at Pendleton, however he is currently deployed, and he was home on his R&R). I made Gavin's cake, and it wasn't nearly as cool as I had hoped a few months ago when I was going to go all Pinterest mom and create a masterpiece super hero ten-layer cake, but it still turned out really cute, at least I think! And Ryan's been eating on it for a few days now, so I suppose that is testimony to how it tastes... :)

We set Gavin up in his high chair, and Ryan and I brought out the cake. He was intrigued by the candle but more intrigued by the fact that we were all singing to him and all staring at him, waiting for him to eat. He wasn't really sure what to do at first, but eventually he got really into shoving the cake into his face, and even a little ended up in his hair.

On top of all of the Christmas toys, Gavin also got some fun toys for his birthday. From his Grandparents he got some iconic toys, the Little Tikes red and yellow car and a Radio Flyer wagon. He got some music makers (thanks Wuerls!) and lots of cards and well-wishes! He is a VERY loved little boy.

Every single day I am blown away by how smart Gavin is. He is 100% boy, he loves his cars and trucks and will start making his car sounds when they are mentioned, and you should hear them when he is playing....uh...CUTE! Even more than that, he LOVES books. He is constantly wanting us to read him books, preferably Daddy at this point. He will crawl over to his books, grab one, and then slide it all the way over to wherever you are sitting, and hand it to you. It is amazing. I've never seen a twelve month old do that. He is soooo close to walking. If only he had the confidence in himself to take those steps! He is walking with us holding his hands, but really he is doing it all on his own. He has a couple little cart/push toys that he walks along with, no problem. It will be any day now, really...

We are taking Gavin in for his one year check-up, and vaccinations. Wish us luck!!!

Also-as a side note. Ryan is on leave right now, so we are enjoying some quality family time at home, and also we have TERRIBLE phone reception at our house...so if we have seemed a little MIA these past couple weeks, those are our current excuses :)

I am going to do my best to get some pictures uploaded! We have some beach pictures (we have been soaking it up as much as possible!!), and birthday/birthday weekend pics!

Gavin's Birthday Invitation + More

I know it's been a little while since my last post, but as you can imagine, it's been a little bit of a whirl wind around here!

We are slowly getting settled in to our house, and getting used to be together as a family again. I can tell you one thing, Gavin LOVES his Daddy and does not want to let him out of his sight. Getting Gavin settled into his new routine has been a bit difficult, but I think most of that is because he is also going through a growth spurt as well as teething. He has been waking up SUPER early, around 5:00am, which has been a little difficult on his Mommy & Daddy.

As I mentioned earlier, we are now living on base, and so far we are loving it! We get so much more space for basically the same price we were paying in Fallbrook. Ryan has discovered that the ride to work takes about the same amount of time, maybe even a little bit less and because it has less traffic, will end up being less fuel as well which is always nice!! Geographically we are less than two miles from the beach and some of the houses in this development have an ocean view. It takes about 5-7 minutes to actually get to the beach however because the road goes in a round about way...oh darn... :) We have already gone to show Gavin the ocean.

I cannot believe that Gavin's first birthday is coming up! It is 100% UNBELIEVABLE that an entire year has gone by already! I get emotional just thinking about that day a year ago, and how much joy he has brought into our lives. Ryan and I were talking the other night about how he is everything we ever talked about in how we wanted our kids to be. We are so blessed.

Here are a few photos from the past couple days and Gavin's birthday invitation (mostly for his memory book purpose as we live so far away from our family and friends).

(pics to come...to tired to upload them at the moment.... sorry!)

He is home!!

Ryan is finally home with us!

Currently, Gavin and Daddy are playing while watching Christmas movies in our living room. Life is good.

Ryan and the rest of the Marines got into Camp Pendleton on December 20th around 10:00pm. Jay, Kathy, Chris, Amber, Gavin and I were all there to welcome him home! We had our signs held high and seeing him was one of the best feelings in the world. Ryan said seeing Gavin was quite a shock as he has changed so much and pictures and video just doesn't do it justice. Gavin wanted up to him right away and I can already tell that Gavin is not going to want to let Daddy out of his sight anytime soon.

Merry Christmas, everyone!