Park fever

Now that the weather around here is finally cooperating (sort of!), we have been spending a LOT of our time at the neighborhood park.  On a typical weekend day, Gav and I take about 3 trips to the park.  He loves the wagon ride there and back, and spends a good hour or so playing each time we go! 

His park repetoire has expanded as well.  Just a few months ago, Gavin was only interested in the swings.  Now Gavin usually starts with the swings (he samples each one for about a minute, and refers to them all as the yellow swing, even though there are also blue and pink swings!), then moves to the playground, and usually ends his park visit with a short ride on the horsies.

Below are a few pics from some of our park visits this weekend:

The obligatory happy swing pic

 Gavin has finally conquered the tunnel!  This was the one part of the playground Gavin wouldn't touch for the longest time.  Now its one of his favorite things to do!

 My little golfer...I just had to get a pic of his whole outfit :)

 Eyeing the sand with suspiscion...

 Evidence that I need a better camera with a quicker shutter speed...this is the tail end of Gavin's leap of faith into the sandbox.

 Gavin isn't always interested in other people sharing the park with him.  Here he is giving some kid the stink eye.

 Gavin likes to keep his park clean

 I don't know what he's up to, but it looks cute!

 Gav's latest park trick, climbing up the slide backwards!

 Not a park pic, but too stinking cute to leave out!

Easter and playing at the park

These pics are a few weeks old, but here's a few pics of our Easter egg dyeing and Gavin enjoying a 2 hour trip to the park one weekend!  Now that its a little warmer outside, Gavin spends literally all day playing outside at Miss Jeanne's, and yet he still wants to go for a wagon ride the second we pull into the garage! 

Gavin's first experience with dyeing Easter egss.  He seemed vaguely interested at first...

 ...and the crayons intrigued him more...

 ...but ultimately he was more interested in drawing on the newspaper than on the eggs.  But Ryan and I enjoyed dyeing the rest of Gav's eggs!

 We convinced Gav to take one cute picture that looks like he cared at all about coloring his eggs, and then we finished the job ourselves!

 Gavin has recently discovered his love of slides, although the swings are still his number one priority.

 "Catch me Mommy!"

 A very intense horsie ride.

More gymnastics fun!

Here's a video of Gavin during "circle time."  This used to be Gav's least favorite part of gymnastics class, but now he's a leader!

And here's just a really cute pic of me and the Gavvers at gymnastics:

Our Bouncing Baby Boy

Erin and I find we don't blog as much as we'd like because we lack the energy to be real creative but that shouldn't stop us from posting a few pictures or videos even if they are missing a "theme" or witty comments.

Without further ado.. Gavin bouncing at gymastics:

Random cuteness

So, we've been a little MIA lately.  It seems that as Gavin gets older, I just find it harder and harder to keep this blog current.  This is a good thing because it means Gav, Ryan and I are running around playing and having fun.  But its a bad thing because I truly would like to keep current on my blog (if for no other reason than because it basically acts as my "baby book!")

In the past month, our family has been busy!  Ryan and I went to Puerto Rico, and my parents were gracious enough to watch Gav for us while we were gone.  Gav had a great time with grandma and grandpa.  They took him to the children's museum in DuPage, Uncle Andy went along with Gav to Monkey Joes, Gav did some shopping with Grandma, and of course they watched some college hoops!

This past weekend, Grandma and Grandpa Gillespie came up for a visit, and they got to enjoy some of the lovely weather with us.  Gavin enjoyed playing outside and taking a trip to the bog with Mommy and Grandma.

Developmentally, Gavin has changed a lot over the last month as well.  His vocabulary continues to expand, and he is much more likely to repeat what an adult says these days (my days of swearing with abandon are over! :)  Just this weekend, Gavin switched from calling Larry "Pop Pop" to "Gee Pa."

Gavin is also very observant.  When I drive Gavin to daycare in the morning, the minute we turn onto Miss Jeanne's street, Gavin shouts from the back "Mih Jeene!"  And in the afternoon when I pick Gavin up, when we pull onto our street, Gav yells "Da!"  He also knows our walking route to the park and remembers which houses have doggies, because when we walk by a "doggy house" he starts panting like a dog, even if the dog isn't out.

The park is also an ever present part of our lives now that the weather is getting warmer.  I can barely get out of the car when we come home in the afternoon before Gavin is climbing into his wagon and saying "Whee!" (his word for swings!).  Gavin still loves outside, and is pleased as can be that he can now spend the majority of his days outdoors.

Well, let's get to the good part, the pictures!  As the title of the blog suggests, these pics are pretty random and span a few weeks, but they're the cutest of the bunch!

Gavin showing off his cute "big boy" haircut!

 Pictures like this demonstrate why his nickname is "Booger!"

 Mildly excited to see Gee Pa. :)

 Uncle Bren made a surprise visit, and the boys showed off their similar sense of style.

 Sunday morning cartoons snuggle time.

 Too hungry to bother with putting on some clothes!

 First grill out of the season is a success!  We've discovered that Gav loves cheeseburgers, and loves ketchup even more (Uncle Kyle and I have another partner in crime now!)

 Sometimes you just gotta rock the diaper only look.

 Gavin likes to go "shopping" for his own snacks these days.

 Looking cool and ready for a trip to the bog with Mommy and Grandma.

 Exploring with Grandma.

 Gavin's two favorite activities at the bog were: 1) throwing mini-blanky into the bog (its now been nicknamed swamp thing) and 2) running underneath all of the signs.

 Taking a break back at the car.

 Deciding its time to drive home.  Gav even tried to put the car in gear!



Videos from the Children's Museum

As promised, here are the videos of Gavin in the water works exhibit and the "car wash."  Enjoy!

Weekend fun

During what is hopefully these last few weekends of "winter" (I know "Spring" starts soon according to the calendar, but in my opinion, its not spring until I can stop wearing my boots and gloves!), we have done whatever we can to get out of the house and entertain ourselves!  Last weekend, Ryan and Uncle Kyle took Gavin to Chuck E Cheese, and Gav had a blast!  He rode on the merry go round with some lady friends, helped Daddy and Uncle Kyle collect their winning tickets from skee-ball, took some pictures with Daddy in a car, and enjoyed some pizza!  (Daddy forgot that I packed the camera, but there are a few Chuck E Cheese provided pics that we'll scan onto the website soon!).

This weekend, Daddy had to get some work done, so Gavin and I headed out to the Kohl's Children's Museum.  We've been to the museum once before, but Gav was about 10 months old at the time and couldn't walk yet, so it wasn't all that fun then.  This time, Gav thought the museum was amazing!  The museum is really just a hands on place for kids to play pretend and learn through play.  Its very open, so Gavin can run around and choose what he wants to do next.  We started our day at the museum in the car exhibit:

Learning that the steering wheel moves the wheels (and also makes a super fun squeaky noise because the axel needs some grease!)

Gav probably spent 5 minutes just turning this wheel back and forth.  This gave Mommy some time to check her email at the museum :)

Trying to be gracious about sharing the car space (hey, Gav was there first!)

Cruisin 

In the "car wash," aka a tunnel with a bunch of strobe lights and tubes that blow air every which way.  Basically a baby disco.  Gav loved  this part of the exhibit.  There's video footage of this as well!

Gav sporting his "war paint" as one museum employee called it.  We actually visited the car exhibit twice, and this was on our return visit, after doing some face painting! 

Our next stop in the museum was the "Water Works" exhibit.  I'm pretty sure a water play area is mandatory in any children's museum.  Gavin loved the water exhibit in the children's science museum we went to in North Carolina, so I knew he would like this, but I didn't know that he would discover a new level of joy and cuteness over it:

Playing with the boats, and generally just enjoying the ability to splash (Note:  I forgot to say that smocks also seem to be present at every children's museum I've ever been to.  And I really love the work smock.)

This trip to the museum taught me that either you wear short sleeves, or you bring an extra shirt (at least until Gav gets a little taller!).  Gavins was absolutely soaked when we left this exhibit, so its a good thing we stayed another 2 hours afterwards to give him time to dry out!

"This is the best Mommy!"

Pure joy :)

A better of shot of Gavin's favorite part of the whole museum.  In this part of Water Works, when you press a button, it makes a water cannon shoot water through a series of pinwheels, thus spraying unsuspecting parents within a 5 foot radius.  We'll upload the video of this exhibit as well!

After the Water Works exhibit, we headed to the music exhibit.  Here Gavin is jamming out on the drums, and learning about vibrations by watching the confetti inside the drum jump.  Gav loved this part of the museum as well, and I'm surprised this is the only pic I took here.  I guess we were just too busy jamming out.  At one point, Gav and I joined in with another family on a set of drums to "The Ants are Marching..."

Our next stop was the Dominick's exhibit (the grocery store for you non-Chicagoans).  Gavin loves to transfer objects from one place to another, so picking out fake grocery items and putting them in his own little cart was pretty sweet.  He started off in the fruits and veggies section.  Here is he, testing the ripeness of the banana by flying it like an airplane.

Enough with the healthy stuff, time for some Bell!

Learning how to pump up and down in Cooperation Station (kids have to work together to accomplish a goal).  Here, as Gavin pumps, he is blowing up one of those giant inflatable columns like you see in front of a car dealership accompanied by a sign that says "DEALS DEALS DEALS!"  It was really neat to see Gavin grasp the concept of cause and effect and be delighted by his power to change his environment.

That's it for museum pics.  We did even more than I captured on film, and Gavin ran around the museum happily playing for 3 hours! (an amazing length of time for Gav to be interested in staying in one spot!).  Hopefully we tuckered this kid out enough to cancel out some of the sleep we're going to lose because of daylight savings time!  Look for videos of our museum trip in the next post!