Quick

I have just been reading posts from recent blogs. And for some reason, I just began thinking how incredibly happy I am. Most of the time I feel overwhelmed over various things such as church callings, things I need to get done at home and others. As I have been preparing for the Ward Choir Program over the past weeks, I have done A LOT of crying and stressing feeling like I have no idea what I am doing. I feel like so much is expected of me, in this new ward, but of course Zac reassures me that I am the one who expects so much. Thanks, dear.

I feel like I do not always express that, in the midst of it all, I am TRULY so very HAPPY. I have a wonderful husband who supports me and loves me even when I am crazy. A little boy who brings so much joy into my life and family each day. I just wanted to quickly tell you all that even though I might seem crazy sometimes, I LOVE my family, and I feel so blessed for what I have been given.

Barrus Family Pictures

Thanksgiving and MUCH More

Well, I should start out with the week before Thanksgiving. Amanda, Zac's sister, was able to come and spend a week with us. I meant to get pictures taken while she was here, but didn't get a chance. I think I kept her pretty busy most of the time, but hopefully she was able to have some time to relax, after all it was her vacation. Most of all, I am sure she enjoyed one whole week with Gavin. He took a little bit to warm up to her, but would not nap for the first two days because all he wanted was to play with Aunt Amanda. We were SO happy to have her here with us, and look forward to any other visitors that might want to come spend some time with us in Denver! :)

The day before Thanksgiving we made the trip up to Idaho with Amanda. We chose which can be frustrating for a 10 1/2 hour drive each way but we were hoping to save some money. We left Denver with no snow and 50 degree weather. Entered Wyoming where it was very windy and cold and eventually arrived in Idaho with TONS of snow, horrible driving conditions, and 3 degree weather. We were certainly missing Denver weather wise, but we made it safely to Zac's parents house. Gavin LOVED all of the attention from Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncle, and tons of other family. He chased Bo, the family dog, around the house just about every day and Bo HATED it. I am sure he was glad to see Gavin leave, but he was probably the only one. We were able to see G&G Barrus and Uncle Lee and most of his family for Thanksgiving and it was great to see everyone.

On Friday we were lucky enough to have Amanda take Gavin's 1 year photos and our family pictures, and later that night we took Barrus Family pictures. Amanda did an amazing job and they turned out great! I am so happy to finally have some professional family pictures of the three of us. We enjoyed our time relaxing for a week with family, and miss you all already. Luckily we will see some of you in February. :) We even celebrated Gavin's birthday again, he received a Basketball hoop from Grandma and Grandpa Barrus and a super cute beanie from his Aunts. I even made a red velvet cake that looked like Elmo. He still didn't eat tons of it, but he sure LOVED looking at that cake. :)

On Tuesday morning we headed back home to Denver. We made it about 2 1/2 hours and our car broke down just outside Montpelier, Idaho. If you haven't been there, you are not missing much, but it is consider a fairly big town as it is close to the border or Idaho and Wyoming. we ended calling a police car to take us in to town to find help. We had our car towed in and our suspicions confirmer that it was the fuel filter. Sadly they had to order one and we were stuck until Wednesday. The promised us it would be ready by 10am so that we could get back on the road. So we got a hotel room and Gavin enjoyed running back and forth across the room for quite some time. (He has been walking for a month now and he is great at it, and goes wherever he wants). Luckily the car done the next morning and we were on the road by 10:30 and made it home and 6:30. The roads were great on the way home and Gavin was actually pretty good in the car. We are so happy to be home and get ready for the Holidays. I am a little (okay, a LOT) stressed about the ward choir program in a week but after that is over we can just enjoy the Holidays. My family is coming to stay with us and I can't wait to see them.

TONS of pictures, sorry.

I hope everyone is able to take time to serve others and remember our Savior as we have this month of December to remember His birth.

Lindsey Ann Photography

I know this is last minute. But for those of you in Denver, hurry on over to Oopsey Daisy and enter this giveaway. A free photoshoot with L. Ann Photography. I would LOVE so badly to win, but hey, that would be great if one of you won too!

Our BIG 1 Year Old!

I LOVE birthdays! I love that I get to spend one whole day showing a person how much I love them. If I could, I would turn it into a birthday week so that I could celebrate longer, but I don't think that Zac would go for that. Who knows, maybe over the years I can convince him . :) Part of me has really been looking forward to Gavin's birthday, but the other part of me is very sad that he is growing up. But, I must say that I am so proud of the little boy that he is becoming. He is such a loving and happy baby and he brings so much joy into our home. I truly cannot imagine our lives without him.

Gavin is 32 inches tall and weighs 23lbs 10oz. Yeah that is big, but he is actually declining on his growth curve because he doesn't get enough calories. For the first time I have been told that I need to feed him more. Of course I know this, I can see how skinny he is getting, and try so hard to feed him, but this boy just wants to breastfeed all day long. I am pretty sure that my milk is losing its nutritional value which is why he isn't getting enough calories. (sorry, TMI). We have tried 1% milk a few times and he does not like it. We tried whole milk tonight and he did okay so hopefully we can start fattening him up again. :)

He loves to scream and talk all day long, not real words but, he is getting better at mimicking the words we say. He does not sit still through church and Zac only makes it to about 5 minutes of Elder's Quorum each week. He is doing great in the car though. We give him his book and he just sits there staring at the pages while we drive. It really is the cutest thing. He likes to point at everything, especially when he wants to go somewhere. He also likes to bring us things that he wants, like if he wants to watch a certain movie he will bring us the DVD case which means we should turn it on.

Gavin has been walking for almost two weeks now and gets better at it everyday! He is going everywhere and it is so fun, and he is so proud of himself too. He still has just seven teeth, but he always seems like he is teething so who knows. He does take medicine very well now instead of fighting us the whole time, which helps with the teething. He is getting much better at helping when we get him dressed each day and he loves bath time and getting ready for bed. I definitely think that the favorite part of his day is when daddy comes home. These two love to play together and I truly admire what a great dad Zac is, I feel so blessed that I will get to watch him as we raise our children together.

For Gavin's birthday we let him open one of his presents in the morning, well actually Zac opened it, but Gavin enjoyed it once it was open. I also made him a birthday shirt that he LOVES! It has doggies on it and he grabs the shirt whenever he sees it. Then we went to Wendy's for lunch because he loves chicken nuggets and then went to play group where I brought cookies for his birthday. Zac brought home Little Caesars for dinner because Gavin also loves pizza and then we skyped Zac's parents while Gavin opened his presents. I don't think that he understood what was going on, but he definitely enjoyed having so many toys to play with. I think that his birthday turned out great. I really wanted to do a birthday party for him, but I felt like no one would come on Wednesday night and decided that it wasn't worth the stress. The only presents he didn't get are some quiet books that I am working on and hoping to finish before our 10 hour car ride to Idaho in two weeks.

All of his presents before opening them. You can see the shirt that I made in the left corner. I found a fabric at Joann's and then cut out a 1 and then five of the dogs on the fabric and lined them up along the bottom and he loved it!

Daddy helped open his presents this one is from Grandma and Grandpa Barrus. Two great bedtime books. He LOVES them and we read them each night. Thank You!

We also gave him a whole bunch of clothes, more out of need than as gifts, but we picked out this church suit as his gift from Great Grandma and Grandpa Barrus. Thank you!

Grandma and Grandpa Jones gave him this ride-on. He doesn't ride it yet but he is loving pushing it all around the house. He just needs to figure out how to go in reverse when he runs into the wall or corners. Thank You!

Bags with tissue paper seem to work a little better for him to open by himself. This is a play set of kitchen items.

And because he has been in to Elmo so much lately we found a stuffed Elmo. We didn't want to get a Tickle Me Elmo because we wanted him to take it to bed with him. He actually found Elmo on Tuesday morning before we wrapped it and yelled at me when I tried to take it away from him. He finally gave it over to Zac and we had to hide it the rest of the day because he would go into our room to try and find it. He sure loves Elmo, and I am okay with that.

We also gave him a 'learning cube' thing that has a bead toy on top and then activities on each side of the base as well as a shape cube.

Like most kids he did not care for his cake. I actually crumbled it thinking if it was in pieces he might try to pick some of it up. But he touched the frosting and could have cared less about it. So after few minutes we just put him the tub.

Halloween 2010

I was really excited for Halloween this year and now it is over and it seems like it went by so quickly. I wanted to do something fun for our costumes to kind of get zac into the fun of Halloween as well. We thought about it for a few days and ultimately, this is what Zac decided that we should be:

Can you tell who we are?

If not, we are these guys. The Imagination Movers from the Playhouse Disney.




Gavin LOVES Warehouse Mouse, so it was obvious that is who he would be. I was Nina, because she is the only girl in the show. And Zac looks the most like Rich, so that is who he was going to be, but then he decided he should be Smitty because Warehouse Mouse and Smitty go together. (Warehouse Mouse is Smitty's pet right? I have always thought so). Anyways I thought it was a good idea, but I think Zac really just want to grow sideburns and a soul patch. Whatever, he was excited about halloween and that is all that I cared about.

I made Gavin's costume and then we bought the jumpsuit for Zac and I added the patches. It did take me sometime to get it all done, especially because it had to be done before our halloween party last week.

We were able to go trick-or-treating at Zac's work on Friday and he told everyone that I made the costumes and it made me quite embarrased but it is nice to know that he is proud of me and likes to brag about me sometimes. Zac even wore his costume all through work and I was very proud of him and excited to see those that he works with.

Here is Zac's cubicle at work.

Getting the idea of picking out candy.

These were taken at Zac's work, no one else was in the room so I don't really know where Gavin is looking in each of the pictures.

We then had our ward trunk-or-treat on Saturday and it was nice except it was incredibly windy. I hope that Gavin enjoyed his first Halloween, and those who knew who we were, really enjoyed our costumes. I am glad with how they all turned out.

Gavin in our trunk after he finished trunk-or-treating.

A better view of the back of the boys costumes.

I also tried to make pumpkin shaped pancakes for breakfast this morning, this was my attempt.

I am finally done with most of my busy stuff. I now just need to focus on getting Gavin's birthday stuff done. I wanted to do a party but I think we decided it would be too hard to get people to come so we are just going to do stuff as a family and then we will celebrate a little more when we go to Idaho for Thanksgiving.


10 days until Gavin turns 1!


Here he is taking is first real steps. We have been trying to get him to walk for a few weeks and he would sort of take one step and sit down, this is the first time that he took so many steps so I was quite excited.