Sean and I had a quiet New Year’s – he was feeling sick with some sort of stomach bug and hardly ate all day. We didn’t go anywhere, we just had a light meal of shrimp and salad. We put champagne in the fridge, but we didn’t even open it. We both did stay awake until midnight though – and it’s been a few years since that last happened. We’re very exciting.

I woke up on New Year’s day feeling awful! I had apparently caught whatever stomach bug Sean had (and Gavin before him!). We had planned to go down to Sean’s grandparent’s house in Atwater on Saturday to see some of his relatives for the holidays (we missed the big family Christmas celebration because we were still sick. November and December weren’t good health months in our household!).

I felt better on Sunday though, so we packed up the baby and christmas gifts and all of the assorted baby gear needed to care for and entertain a baby away from home all day (and wow, is that a lot of stuff) and headed to Atwater. The day started poorly for Gavin, because he refused to take his morning nap. So he was awake for far, far longer than usual – and that led to him being a grumpy boy! We assumed he would sleep for the entire drive (about 2 hours), but he barely slept at all.

We got to Atwater in the early afternoon, but through some communication snafus, Sean’s grandparents weren’t entirely sure we were coming down. So Sean called his grandma while we were standing on her porch. “Hi Grandma, we’re here now!” “Here on your porch!” “Yeah, just outside!” We chatted with them for a few hours, and of course, Gavin charmed both grandparents by being his normal adorable self!

We remembered the camera, but forget the memory card that goes inside it, so these pictures were taken with Sean’s phone.

Gavin and Grandma Julie:

Grandma Julie and Gavin take a good look at each other, and like what they see!:

After being held, played with, and prompted to smile and laugh for a few hours, this little boy was all tired out:

After we left Atwater we went to Lodi to see Annie and Richard (Sean’s aunt and uncle) and Jessica and Jordan (Sean’s cousin and her son). We hung out at their house for a few hours (again, everyone loves Gavin!) and chatted for awhile. Jordan is soo cute, and we got to see how active a happy toddler boy can be! Annie made dinner for us, and we loved it – it also made us miss the day when we made meals composed of more than one or two items.

This last Saturday Gavin got to see two more grandmas! Conchita and Steve and Sean’s grandma, Biba, were camping kind of in the area for a long weekend, and came to spend a few hours with us and to see Gavin.

Biba and Gavin:

Biba and Gavin again:

Smiley baby, smiley grandma:

Steve and Gavin:

He loves this soccer ball – I think he really kept trying to somehow shove the whole thing into his mouth (with, obviously, limited success!):

Food! We’ve been starting Gavin on solid foods for the past few weeks. It’s been intermittent because he’s been sick so often since December, but now we’re finally making some good progress!

We started with avocado as his first food. We mashed it up and mixed it with formula to thin it out. It did not go well. And by “not well” I mean head shaking, lip pursing, back arching, crying unhappiness. We tried it three times, I think. He vomited two of them. (Incidentally, even if a baby likes being quickly moved side to side while you make vrrooom vrrrooom noises, it’s not a good thing to do when he’s just eaten, particularly something he doesn’t like.)

After the epic failure that was avocado, we decided to go with a more traditional first baby food: banana. And it was a huge hit! It took him a few times to get used to it, but by the third time we offered it to him he loved it. When I moved the spoon towards his mouth he would open it and move his head forward. When I would get distracted and look at Sean or talk to Sean Gavin would fuss and reach out for the bowl.

Next we tried sweet potato. We cooked it in our fancy Beaba Babycook machine, that cooks/reheats/and purees, all in one machine. Paloma got it for us as a baby shower gift (thank you, Paloma!!) and now we’re starting to use it! It worked out great. The first time I tried giving Gavin sweet potato I think he was expecting banana. He eagerly opened his mouth and moved his head foward as I moved the spoon towards him, and then grimaced and kept opening and closing his mouth after he realized it was a new flavor!

He’s gotten used to it now though, and I think he enjoys it. Sean got some pictures of me feeding Gavin yesterday.

Gavin opening wide! The only problem is that every time Sean raised the camera and the flash went off, Gavin turned to look at it:

Mmmmm…sweet potato!

Ok…now he’s done:

Yes, I have been feeding him on the couch. No, that’s not a good idea. We’ll start using the high chair soon!

Gavin loves his bouncer.

Gavin’s favorite thing about his stocking (made for him by Biba), was trying to stick the cloth hanger in his mouth:

Between them, Sean’s mom and grandmother have made all 3 of us Christmas stockings:

Our christmas tree this year is a Grand Fir (supposedly the best smelling kind of tree!) (and the picture is crooked, not the tree!). Sean liked it because it was a lot lighter than the noble fir we usually get. Since we no longer have the truck, we were lucky enough to be able to pick up our tree at the beginning of the month with Sean’s mom’s truck when she and Steve came up to see us. You’ll notice that the tree just has lights, but no decorations. This is because I’m a terrible mom, and after Sean put up the lights and said “ok, now you do the decorations” I somehow never got around to it. Oops.

What’s this?! A rubber ducky! (We later put it in the baby bath tub with him, and he wasn’t terribly interested.)

If Gavin was a bit smaller, we could have tried to stick him in his stocking for a cute picture. I guess we should have tried that back in July or August.

We love you, buddy!

Here we are, surrounded by stuff!

I realized after looking at these pictures that there are none of Sean! Oops. Next time we need to trade off on the baby and camera a bit.

On Christmas eve, we went to Davis to have dinner with Connie and Sergio and family. We got to see Imala again and a bunch of them got to meet Gavin for the first time. Both babies were super cute!

Who are you?? You look interesting! Incidentally, one of these babies is 10 months old, and the other is 6.5 months.

Imala kept wanting to touch and poke Gavin.

More baby gazing. Imala felt so light and small in my arms! Although Gavin weighs about 21 pounds to her 14, so maybe that’s why!

Monica and Gavin:

We had a great evening, and Gavin was perfect. He was smiley and happy for awhile, and then when we sat down to dinner at 7, we brought him upstairs to a portable crib that Connie had set up for him in her bedroom. We laid him down with his blankets and his seahorse toy, and he fell asleep and stayed that way until we left for home at about 10ish.

Prior to Christmas…

We have a jumper thingy for Gavin that Paloma gave us, and we’ve just started using it for the past month or so. Gavin *loves* it! The second we put him in it he starts bouncing away.

Conchita and Steve came up to visit us at the beginning of december. They brought us a tent-trailer (thanks!) and got to spend some time with Gavin.

Such a cutie.

Everything goes in the mouth:

He looks so shocked, I’m not sure why!

Sean, Gavin, and I were all sick for Thanksgiving, so we didn’t go to see Sean’s family in Atwater like usual. We stayed home and made a small Thanksgiving meal for ourselves – cornish game hens, brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes, and salad. It was quite tasty!

He always squiggles off of the mat now when we put him on it! Very cute, though.

Life has been busy lately. I am staffed on a project again for work, and my mom has returned to Texas. So it’s just Sean and me and the baby! Aka, we’re a normal family with working parents.

I’m staffed right now at Chevron in San Ramon – on the same project I was at for 2 years before I had Gavin. They’re being very flexible with my schedule, which is great! I have to go there one day a week, and the other 4 days I work from home. It makes for one very, very long day, but it seems like a fair exchange to me. As much as possible, anyway. The project is only scheduled to go through December, so we’ll see what happens after that.

Now that I am on a project and my mom is gone, we’ve started Gavin in day care. This is his second week, and he’s doing great. It was really sad for me to drop him off last week (and it still is), but what can you do. On the first day I cried and he didn’t! The teachers say that he is great and such an easy baby. Sean or I have gone every day at lunch to hang out with him for awhile. I miss him sooo much when he’s not with me, but a little part of me is glad for a bit of time to focus on something non-baby related.

Anyway, the days pass so quickly now! I’ll just post some pictures.

Gavin in the large size Swaddle Me (it has velcro tabs to easily wrap the baby up). He outgrew this one and we had to order another of a different brand (size: “megababy”) online because Gavin still startled too easily to sleep unswaddled:

My standard “prop the baby on the couch” pictures

My mom surrounded Gavin with pillows to try and prop him in a sitting position:

Gavin actually deliberately reaches for toys and grabs them now!

We bought a bumbo chair for Gavin. They’re super popular little chairs that help babies learn to sit up. Unfortunately, Gavin is very large and it’s hard to squish his thighs into the leg openings (and honestly, he doesn’t always enjoy it…), so I’m not sure we’ll get much use out of this. It’s cute though

October in a nutshell:
- Conchita and Steve make a trip up to Sacramento to see Gavin
- My mom comes for the entire month to watch the baby while I transition back to work
- Gavin grows! (he’s now wearing 12 month clothes)
- Gavin gets more shots. Still not a fan.
- Gavin is amazing!
- Gavin gets super verbal.

Why, hello, cutie (Steve and Gavin):

Are you looking at me?

Gavin and Conchita (yes, he’s huge):

I’m not sure what this face is, but it’s cute:

We bought him these super cute pumas because they match Sean’s shoes. They’re supposed to fit at 9ish months. They fit now, barely (his feet are not narrow…):

Someone looks tired!

Gavin and my cousin Wendy, apparently he’s not so interested in smiling right here:

Noooo…no more pictures!

Chilling with aunt Jenn:

Two cuties in this picture!

Can’t….keep….eyes….open:

Awwww:

Dance, baby, dance!

More cuteness:

And here you can really see how large it is in comparison to the door handle to the sliding glass door!

(Forgot to add some pictures from the winery… very pretty.)

And a view from their grounds. (Doesn’t look like the boat gets much use.)

And if you’d like more photos, then what you really should do is sign up for a Flickr account and subscribe to my photostream. That is really where we’ve been uploading all of our photos.

Jenn was able to get a pretty good reaction out of Gavin. Man is he alert! At first Jenn was very worried about holding him and even flintched once when Larry was handing him off but by the end she looked much more relaxed. Angi also had to demonstrate how to standing up, from a sitting position, while holding the little guy.

Looks like both are having a pretty good time.

And with the cooler weather, we’re definately starting to spend more time on our deck. I think we ate 5 meals in a row out there over the long weekend?

And Larry was superb at getting Gavin to respond to him. Larry was able to generate these rather realistic baby sounds which really interested him.

He’s getting bigger and bigger! I weighed him last week and he was up to 16 pounds already. Last weekend Sean and I went to a friend’s house to watch the UFC fights, and there was another little baby there. I asked the mom, “how old is he?” And she said, “4 months.” Eek! He was smaller than Gavin! Gavin is becoming more and more alert and aware of things around him. This is great because he interacts with us and his surroundings much more. The less great part is that we have to avoid overstimulating him – we can’t keep out (at softball games, people’s houses, etc) and assume that he’ll sleep. He won’t – he cries and gets unhappy. So now we have to be more firm about being at home in the evenings.

We’re less firm about bedtime still…we like to have him with us. We’re slowly transitioning though. He now takes all of his naps and night-time sleep in his crib! The bassinet is still next to the bed, but we’ll have to move it soon and figure out how to store it so that we’ll have it for our next baby.

Here are a few cute pictures from last week: