Firsts: Cereal Time!

The dr cleared Gavin to try cereal today, and we were all for it. I have had a feeling that he is HUNGRY for a few weeks now. He stares at anyone eating and drinking and you see him start smacking his lips sometimes too!

Cereal was a success, Gavin loved it, and did such a great job keeping most of it in his mouth!

"Im ready folks!"

FOOD

You can't shovel this stuff in fast enough

"Dad I need to use my hand to help shove this stuff in!"

Yummy Yummy Cereal!

Fort Cobb Lake Weekend!

This past weekend, we planned to have a very relaxing girls (plus Gavin) weekend at Fort Cobb Lake with Mom. We ALMOST achieved that, except for the very first thing that happened was Hailey tumbled down the stairs as Cindy and I were unloading the car. We thought it was a pretty serious injury but she ended up being just fine. Cindy spent the weekend showing her the scrape and bruise while they waited for it to turn purple (Hailey's fav color).

Other than H's injury, we had a great time doing almost NOTHING! We laid around, played with the kids, made some good food, worked puzzles and spent a great afternoon on the porch playing UNO. We couldn't have asked for better weather or better company!

"Shower-filled" Weekend

This weekend we celebrated with 2 very special girls! First, on Saturday was Leslie Castro's baby shower for her little girl Madyn. She will be here at the end of May! Sunday was another shower for Lyndsie's wedding. Her wedding is coming up very soon, mid April!

Aunt Lyndsie and Baby G

Leslie and Madyn
Happy Shower!
By far, Lyndsie's fave wedding present
The amazing cookie cake from Lyndsie's shower
Some of the girls at the shower: Steph, Kas and Kristin

Happy Birthday Dad

Saturday night we got together to celebrate Dad's birthday. We cooked some really great steaks and enjoyed the nice weather! We even made a homemade birthday cake, white cake / white icing, which is Dad's favorite!!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Baby Playdates

Baby playdates go a little something like this...



Lay the babies on the floor and watch them do absolutely nothing! :)

Kyler Ann

Sweet face
Gavin is working on sharing his toys
"I'll race you to the toys!"

But today was a special day b/c not only did Gavin perform his rolling over tricks for Megan, but Kyler decided to join the party and rolled over for the first time! :)

Lexi tries so hard to be involved

"See Mom, I can roll over too!" We love playdates!

Going back to Cali...

When it's cold and windy in Oklahoma, the best place to go is warm and sunny California!! Although it wasn't quite as warm as we had hoped, we were happy to be on vacation! Dad, Amy, Ryan, Eric and I all went to Cali for the annual Maytag meeting. Dad and Amy are the only employees, the rest of us are just along for the ride, but it's always a good time!

We flew into San Diego for one day, on Wednesday and did a marathon sight-seeing tour of San Diego, La Jolla, Coronado island, and Pacific Beach. We stayed at Hotel Indigo in the Gaslamp district of downtown San Diego, which is a really fun area. There are tons of hotels, restaurants, and bars. If we would've had the energy, we might've partied all night long. Instead, by the time we were finished with dinner, we were spent!

La Jolla beach

Lunch at George's on the Roof

Hotel del Coronado on Coronado island
Drinks outside at the PB Ale House

Thursday morning, we got up and went to my ALL-TIME FAVORITE PLACE IN THE WORLD.....H&M!!! I definitely bought up the store, and so did Amy. We had a great time trying on all our clothes and debating what we like and whatever. However, the guys were SOOO OVER that store by the time we were checking out. They were following us around saying "We need to get on the road!" "Aren't you guys done yet?" After we FINALLY checked out, we headed into Palm Springs and went to the "Welcome Night" at Stir Lounge in our hotel. The resort was beautiful, the food was great!

Fred Maytag Awards Night

Me, Rita, and Amy

Saturday morning, Ryan, Eric and I all played golf at the Celebrity course on Indian Wells golf course. It was an absolutely beautiful course and we all played great! The tournament was a 4 man scramble, and our team consisted of the three of us and another really great guy who reminded us so much of Chris Farley! He was a blast to play with, and we actually ended up winning the tournament!

I should also add that Eric won "Longest Drive" and Ryan won "Closest to Pin" and "Longest Putt!" We pretty much cleaned house and everyone hated us! :)

Us three amigos with our 4th player, Jeff Hunt, and the US Capital rep Kirk Stone!We had such a great time and can't wait to go back to the next Maytag meeting!

Baby Monitor Woes...

Oh.....monitor...

Moving Gavin from our room to his has really been an experience. I spend so much time lying awake at night listening to him breathe on the monitor, and if I can't hear him breathe, I immediately think the worst and have to go check on him to make sure everything's ok. Good thing I have a monitor to keep me informed with what's going on in there...or so I thought.

We started out registering for a video monitor, and received it thanks to Ray and Jess. But when we hooked it up, we immediately had some interference and the screen would go static-y a lot. So we thought we just got a bad one, and returned it and got the same monitor again. Turns out, these very expensive monitors are not worth the money bc they just dont work. So I returned it again, and got an Angelcare monitor that has a sensor in the bed to detect movement. Now this whole "movement" thing is 2-fold.

First, it serves to make sure that your baby is "moving" (aka breathing). Its supposed to detect and detur (sp?) SIDS from happening. I can't do very many more (), so if you dont know what SIDS is, LOOK IT UP!

Second, it also notifies you if your baby is removed from the bed without the monitor being turned off. So basically if a kidnapper wanted to steal your baby, but didn't turn off the monitor, it would go off. Or if your baby decided to jump ship at 3 am, you would know!

The way you are notified of either of these is by a BEEP that goes off if there is no "movement" detected for 15 seconds. Then you get a BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP after like 10 more seconds that could rival our house alarm!

So you can imagine my enthusiasm and appreciation for this sensor, since I am only satisfied when I know absolutely everything that's going on while Gavin is sleeping. Well, turns out this sensor thing has really put me at risk for developing anxiety and high blood pressure. Imagine being RIPPED from your sleep several times a night b/c this stupid BEEPing is going off. This has not happened once, not twice, or even 3 times, but more like 8 times!! I race across the house as fast as I can, only to find Gavin sleeping soundly in his bed and breathing normally. One night in particular, we had changed the sheets on Gavins bed, and I guess something had moved with the sensor. It was going off literally every 20 minutes, but dont worry, it waited to start doing this until about 2 am.

It went off, I ran across the house, everything's fine...go back to bed.

Went off again, once again I sprint back in his room, only to find him sound asleep.

Before I EVEN GET BACK TO BED, it goes off again! So now Im pissed...and Im adjusting this "sensitivity" knob on the back of his monitor in the dark. In my head Im thinking, it makes sense that if I want it to quit going off so much, I want it to be LESS SENSITIVE right? So I turn it from 3 to 2. Walk back to my room, lay down, shut my eyes....IT GOES OFF AGAIN!! Imagine the panic b/c now I think Im either crazy, or Gavin has developed sleep apnea all of a sudden. Isn't that where they stop breathing in their sleep???

Once again, I turn the sensitivity thing down, to 1. Of course it starts going off again (how is G still sleeping at this point??) and Im like, "Ok screw it!" and turn if off. I go into the office, dig in my storage container of instruction manuals, and find the monitor manual. Turns out...if you want it to be less sensitive, you want it to be more sensitive!! So I turn this stupid knob up to 5, and go back to bed again.

Moral of the story: Just let your kid sleep in your room forever! j/k...