Makin it easy to look at my cute nephew's blog

Just wanted to let "my readers" know that if you look to the right side of the blog, I added a direct link to Bryce's blog so that you can easily toggle between your two favorite Gillespie boy's blogs!  I'm hoping Karyn's dedication to updating Bryce's blog will motivate me to keep Gav's blog more up to date!

Summer fun

As always, raising a toddler has kept us pretty busy, and the blog has gotten away from us!  Also, I find that we haven't taken nearly enough pictures of Gavin lately. We really need to remember to capture all these little moments of our big boy! 

Below are some pictures from a trip to Brookfield Zoo with Grandma and Grandpa Mayner, and an outing Gav and I took to Monkey Joes.

I couldn't resist this photo op with Gav inside the giant kangaroo's pouch!  I didn't upload the pic my mom took of me struggling to get my pregnant self out of the pouch though :)

 Gav with GeePa and MeeMa at the giraffe exhibit.  Gav really likes the giraffes, just like his Mommy!

 The littlest member of the wolf pack.

 Gavin chose to sit on the lion on the carousel.

 I just can't get over how old he looks in this picture!  He definitely looks like a big brother!

 Already embarrassed of his Mom :)

Gav and I took a trip to Monkey Joes one hot day.  We picked a great day to go because there was almost no one there!  Gavin had the "mini monkey zone" to himself the whole time we were there!

 Gavin has become an expert jumper these days, and its one of his favorite things to do.  He's working on softening up his little brother's crib mattress by jumping on it whenever he can!

 Checking out the croc slide.

 Kind of a blurry pic, but a good shot of the joy of jumping (and falling)!

St Louis 2011

Ryan and I have been making the trip south to St. Louis for Cardinals games for 10 years now, and this year was the second year that everyone in the Gillespie family made the trip!  If you're counting, that's 15 we're up to these days (including wives/fiancees and girlfriends). 

Ry and I were really looking forward to taking Gavin down to St. Louis this year.  Last year we had a lot of fun with him, and we were so excited to show him around now that he's older and understands things better.  We had been talking about baseball a lot lately, reading him "Hello Fredbird" and had his Cardinals outfits all ready to wear.  But the universe had other plans...

We were scheduled to drive down to St. Louis on Friday morning, and the entire week before, Gavin had an off and on cough, and a bit of a runny nose.  It didn't seem like anything too serious, so we didn't really sweat it.  On Thursday, Gavin was IN A MOOD, and Mommy had just about enough, so in my desperation to find an activity Gavin and I could both enjoy, I took Gav to the zoo.  Gav was fine for the ride down to the zoo, but was totally not himself at the zoo.  He didn't really care about looking at any of the animals, and never wanted to get out of his stroller (not even for a playground or monkeys, two of his favorites!).  So I cut our zoo trip short and headed home.  When we got home, Gavin felt pretty hot, so Ryan took his temperature and it was over 101 degrees.  Uh oh. 

Friday morning before our departure, we took Gavin to the doctor.  His temp was back to normal by this point, but the fever had spooked us.  The doctor tested him for strep, and it came back negative.  Which was good, but also frustrating because now all we knew was that we had a sick baby, but sick with who knows what!  So we headed to St. Louis in the hopes that Gavin was on his way to feeling better.

Let's just say, we don't know if Gavin just wasn't feeling well all weekend, if he was upset about being away from home, or it the terrible two's happened to hit this weekend, but it was not the most successful trip to St. Louis.  Gavin spent most of his time pouting in his stroller or throwing epic tantrums, which meant Ryan and I were in constant "keep Gavin calm" mode.  We had all these grand plans of taking Gavin to meet Fredbird, walking around with him in downtown St. Louis, swimming with him in the pool...and none of those things happened because the poor kid just wasn't into it.  It got to the point where we had to take turns eating because Gavin was so out of sorts that he couldn't even handle sitting still for a few minutes in a restaurant. Luckily we had Mary and Larry to help out with some of the Gavin duty, but it was still a sanity testing trip! 

Despite our bad luck on this trip, we did still manage to get Gavin to one of the Cardinals games, and took him to the St. Louis Science Center in an attempt to find some age appropriate activity for him.  So here are a few pics of the more successful parts of our trip:

Gav and Daddy at the Cards game

 Grandpa and Bryce creeping on Gavin's picture :)

 Mommy and an increasingly unhappy Gavin

 The one picture of Ry and I together on this trip

 Sleepy cousins

 The boys are not too pleased about being woken up from their baseball naps.  Check out the stink eye Bryce is giving to his Uncle Ryan!

 In-crib entertainment (and the only way to calm Gavin down for long enough to indulge in such activities as brushing your teeth or putting on your shoes!)

 Gavin spent most of his St. Louis trip in this position

 The cost to send Gavin to the moon

 The Discovery Room at the St. Louis Science Center...this is one of the few times Gavin seemed to enjoy himself, so I'm glad we found this place!

 Baby computers are so cute, I kind of wish I had a keyboard with giant multi-colored keys!

 Poor guy is all tuckered out.  Tantrums take a lot of energy!

 Probably seems like a random pic to include, but we saw this car on our drive home.  Check out the license plate...who do you think off-roads in their secret life, Larry or Greg?!

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: