my kind of winter

Dear February,

Thanks for giving us a beautiful 70 degree day today.  We thoroughly enjoyed taking advantage of the weather.  A long barefoot walk on the beach was exactly what I needed.  We got to introduce Gunnar to the ocean and the sand.  He also got to see a giant pelican, a handful of loons (momma's favorite), 4 giant jellyfish, and about 30 dolphins.  Oh and about a billion seashells while Mom & Dad were looking for shark teeth.  We had fun and hope against all hope that the weather stays like this for the remainder of "winter".

Mom found the first shark tooth of the season... and it's a Gunny-sized one!

PS:  He loved his first time walking around in the moby facing forward.  He spent the whole time kicking his legs like a maniac.  That was until he started to get sleepy and I turned him around.  Warm sunshine, cool breeze, waves crashing, and snuggled up on Momma... recipe for a perfect nap.

5 months

It's been a while since my last Little Guns update... you know with Dad getting home around the 4 month mark and everything.  So I hope you're ready to be overwhelmed with baby information!  Just kidding. Sort of...

Our (not so) little Gunnar Douglas is 5 months old now, and how appropriate that it falls on Valentine's Day since he came in and completely stole my whole heart.  At this point, I can only imagine how long/heavy he is.  We've got another month before any official measurements are taken, but we may try and do our own at some point this week(ish).  But he changes so much everyday that with black and white stats staring me in the face I just might cry at all of those changes.  Just the other day I put him in a 6-12 month onesie and it fit way too well.  Cue:  teary eyed momma.  I digress...

He absolutely loves his jumperoo, and his walker.  Being upright is pretty much his favorite thing.  We think he will skip crawling altogether and go right to walking running.  Especially since we got him the walker.  He doesn't like to go back to his all-too-familiar horizontal state, making crawling pretty much out of the question.  We still try tummy time every day, but he is so over it.  He is already jumping with both feet (at the same time) in his jumper.  It is by far the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

We also recently got him a high chair because he has started eating real food!  Well not real food, but baby food.  He started out on rice cereal and moved on to peaches.  He loved them.  Now we are on our week of bananas.  And since we unpacked our blender, I have been making the food myself, and I hope it is a habit I stick with.  I like knowing exactly what goes into his tummy, and plus it is nice that we can essentially share our food with him.  He really likes sitting in his high chair, and he loves eating (just like Dad).  Although it might be more that he is teething and really loves to chew on the spoon... but that's ok!  He still digests it all... and it's cute when he tries to feed himself.

He has got to be teething at this point.  The poor boy chews on any and everything he can put in his mouth.  And as if I thought he was drooling a lot before, he upped it ten fold.  It is insane how much saliva comes out of his mouth.  He also has been waking up around 1 in the morning just crying in pain. It breaks my heart, so I run upstairs and scoop him and and bring him in bed with us.  We get lots of cuddle time, which I love.

His new favorite things to play with are his feet.  When he lays on his back (which rarely happens anymore) he goes right for them and just giggles.  He is also becoming more and more ticklish.  Cutest. thing. ever.  Especially because his laugh is right in between baby and real person.  It's the best combination.  He laughs a lot these days, especially when you give him crazy kisses.  And when you stop he grabs your face and kisses back.  Ok, so it might be more like he's trying to eat your face, but I like to think of it as kissing.

So, happy 5 months of heart warming love, to me from my Guns, and Happy Valentine's Day to you from me and my little love bug!

first steps

So we got Guns a walker.  I know there is some discrepancy on whether or not they are safe and whatnot, but we feel that the reason they are "unsafe" is mostly due to user error.  AKA a lack of supervision.  And we don't have to worry about that, well, because Guns is so darn cute in it we simply can't look away.  Plus, it stays on our first floor and that way there are no stairs for him to fly down.

Anyways, we decided that Guns was just tired of being limited to laying on his back and having "tummy time" as his special treat.  Well it wasn't so much us that decided as it was Gunnar.  He would fuss until we stood him up, and if you tried to sit him down he would refuse to relax his legs, making it impossible.  We got him the jumperoo for Christmas (but you know about that) which he loves.  But he had the "walking motion" down so well that to satisfy our own curiosity of "do you think he can" we just had to buy one.  And guess what... he can!

coming home

Finally!  Patrick is home!  And I am posting it!  It was a great day, filled with lots of ups and downs...  Most people probably don't realize this about the military, but we really have no idea when they are coming home.  When he left, I had no clue when I'd see him again.  Your best guess was as good as mine. 

Eventually you will receive a flight window, which will give you something to countdown to.  A few days before arrival you will get word of the actually day and an estimate on the time.  Now, anything minor can change that in a major way.  When Patrick was coming home from Iraq he was delayed a full 24 hours.  

This time it was a total rollercoaster.  Instead of one big delay it was up, down, and all over the place.  He was supposed to be back around 6 pm.  About a day before they pushed it back to 8 pm.  Then the day of we got word it was back up to 6!  Not even 5 minutes after reading that message from the battalion commander I got a phone call from Pat saying that they hit major delays and the phone went dead.  Awesome.

We came to find out that they hit bad weather somewhere along their route (who knows where they really go).  Snow and fog I think?  Anyways... 7 hour delay meant a late night arrival, sometime around 1 am.  That's what we all prepared for and I didn't even go out and get my nails done until around 6 pm (his original arrival time).  While I was there I heard that they were running early and it was looking like 11 pm!  And the time just kept moving up from there.  So I rushed home and started to get ready, and off we went!  I even managed to remember everything I needed.

By the time we got to base, got visitor passes for family, we arrived at the battalion just about the same time the guys were getting to base!  They had to go to the armory and turn in their weapons (which they did in record time... 200 guys in about 20 minutes) and then they were finally in our arms!  All in all we only waited about an hour outside for the marines to arrive.  Most of which Gunnar slept in my arms for.  Then with all the cheering from the loved ones also there to greet their heroes, he awoke with a start and was screaming his head off...  But when things calmed down, so did he, and he loved loving on his Dad for the very first time.  

We couldn't be more happy to have our hero home.  We are thoroughly enjoying settling into our life as a family of three (or five if you count the dogs, like I do).  And we are looking forward to a good, long time of having Patrick home with us.  Enjoy the pictures that my sister Kelly took (can't thank you enough, Kel!)

 

is this thing on?

So remember when I told you to check back for homecoming photos?  Like a month ago?  Well, I know I already posted pictures of Patrick since he's been home, but I haven't posted about his actual homecoming.  We have been all over the place these past few weeks.

Aside from 2 trips to the emergency room (1 for Guns and 1 for me - again), we have been attempting to move in to our new house (still) with only one car.  Pat's truck  broke down, and the Tahoe's brakes were acting up so they both ended up in the shop on the same day.  The Tahoe is still there, they don't know what's wrong, but we are down to just the truck.  With the 3 of us in the standard cab, it makes for interesting rides.  Needless to say, we haven't gone anywhere.

Then I had dental emergencies and had 3 appointments in a week.  Thank God for laughing gas, that's all I have to say about that.  Then the dishwasher broke, and one of the bathrooms in the house is having issues so we need to get a plumber in.  We had Jack to the vet twice, and Winston in once.  Did I mention the vet is an hour away?  "Busy" might be an understatement...

But seriously, I am getting around to posting about son meeting father.  You will have something cute to look at soon!