Love

Love is not something you say, it's something you do.
You can fake that you care but you can't fake being there.
To send a message of love to your children you must show up.
Love is not a spectator sport.
Our kids need to have love expressed to them daily.
With the little ones its pretty simple.
We need to hug them often.
We need to get down on the floor with them and play with toys.
We need to sit down and read with them on a regular basis.
We need to go in and lie down with them occasionally at naptime.
We must not allow ourselves to be too busy to spend time with them-lots of it.

I need to live by this more often...

Fall

Okay, well one day of Fall!

Brian was gone at a class on Saturday and Sunday so it was just Garrett and I all day. I loved having some one-on-one time with my little guy. We went to the What Women Want Expo on Saturday morning with some good friends. The girls looked at vendors and got free goodies. The boys hung out in the strollers and checked out the scenery. One of the vendors had alpacas and a huge "sheep" dog. The boys sure did like that. In the afternoon I had to run into work so Garrett got to come with me.

This morning Garrett was driving me up a wall and into everything (imagine breaking my hairspray, pulling all of the parchment paper out of the box, taking off with the end of the toilet paper through the bathroom...) Brian's mom sent me a quote saying "s two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have the top for it." That was our morning, So I loaded him in the car and we went in search of amusement.
Here are the pictures of our day:

Trains at Barnes and Noble. I am guessing a set will be in out future.

After Barnes and Noble we went to the toy store to find a gift. I made a totally rookie parenting move and left Garrett out of the stroller to play with all the interactive displays. He went bananas, pulling toys off the shelf and going "what's that?!?!?!" and "ohhhh!!!". Needless to say I had to pull him out of the toy store screaming and put him back in the stroller. We did make it back in to actually purchase a gift, but he cried off and on through the whole thing. I partly blame that it was lunch time and he was hungry...right??

Playing at the park on the way to get the mail after lunch and nap.


Brian came home early so we had a yummy dinner and then decided to do pumpkins:

Getting started on pumpkins

Scooping out the pumpkins with Dad

Helping Mom with the drill

And Dad with the knife! (Obviously, we are very safe and responsible parents. We let our kid that close to a big knife AND use the drill in one night! What you don't see is right before this when Garrett tried to crawl in Brian's lap while Brian held onto the 6 inch blade...)

And, the ongoing battle of trying to get a toddler to sit and look at the camera for a picture. Oh, and our pretty pumpkins!

Garrett is such a fun and frustrating toddler. He can point out most of the basic body parts and knows some animal sounds. He is ALWAYS asking "what's that" and saying a lot of things that I don't understand (which is frustrating for him.) He understand enough to know what we are asking him to do but rarely obeys without follow through (frustrating for us!) He has taken to yelling "NOOO!!" back at you when you ask him not to do something (and sometimes running away.) We are enjoying his new communication skills but trying to navigate what to write off as the "stage" and not give attention to, and what things to not let slide. I feel like it is a fine line between teaching manners/acceptable behavior and overreacting/micro-managing...I guess only time will tell!

Home Sick

I am home with a sweet sick baby. He woke up at 8:00, had a banana and glass of juice on the couch, watched some sesame street, snuggled up with me and passed back out at 9:15. He is still asleep on the couch. Poor kid.

Brian is coming home at 12:30 to switch with me. Why do I do this? Of course all I want to do is stay home and take care of Garrett. Why couldn't I just tell work that he was sick and I would be gone all day? I guess I feel bad making others cover for me all day.

Ring Around the Rosie

Please don't make fun of my annoying voice, or my fingers flying in front of the camera!

I love watching those little feet turn in circles! I do not think that the fall at the end was on purpose, we are still working on that part.

He makes my heart go pitter-patter!

There Are No Words

to describe the state of my house, so I will show you pictures. Because who wouldn't want to see pictures of a house that has exploded from me working 50 hours last week and us taking off on a camping trip, and coming home so exhausted I don't even care!




As you might notice the dishes are done. Brian, he is amazing.





Notice the can of tomatoes on the coffee table? Garrett always gets into the lazy susan. It had snacks in it which was a mess when he was in there, so we switched the cans and the snacks. I don't have raisins and crackers dumped all over the floor but now I have cans of tomatoes in the livingroom...

Walking!

Garrett has been so close to walking for so long. Tonight I was holding on to the back of his shirt while he was walking toward Brian to give dad0 a rock. I let go of his shirt and he took about 20 steps right to Brian without even blinking or stumbling and falling. I cried! I was so proud of him for actually doing it and sad that we just passed a major milestone and can never go back. I was also relieved, of course in the back of my mind I was afraid something was wrong with him! We continued to play the same "game" and he walked every time. Like he had been doing it forever!