Great Gavin stories...

Sorry, all, for the big gaps between these updates. Life is so busy, and Gavin and I have both been sick for the last week or so, so that really slows things down. Here are some classic Gavin tales of late that I thought you might enjoy reading about:

-One night recently Gavin decided to brush ALL of his stuffed animals' teeth & then throw his toothbrush into the "hink."

-Another good one is when I watch Gavin giving milk from his sippy cup to his stuffed animals. Man, he takes good care of those things!

-Awhile back when we met my dad and step-mom at the Red Lobster Gavin touched a live lobster after putting his entire hand and sweater cuff in the tank earlier. Don't worry: I did wash his hands thoroughly before lunch.

-Gavin's latest fascination is lining every wheeled object up in a train. I think that this started after Grandma & Grandpa Topping gave him a set of magnetic trucks that he links up, and I'm still trying to figure out if he thinks that everything will connect the same way now. It's so cute to watch him! Today at the doctor's office he took a table of tractors, cars and trucks and immediately made them all into a train.

-Gavin is officially binky-less now, praise God! We really worried about breaking him of his pacifier/binky/chupon/pick-your-favorite, but thankfully the worst was really the first night of crying (2 1/2 hours!), and now he's getting used to just sleeping with his "mitts," the little cotton mittens that are intended for infants to keep them from scratching themselves. Yes, we realize that we still have one sleep prop to battle at some point, but on this one I think we'll take the classice stance,"I'm sure that he won't be sleeping with his 'mitts' when he's in high school."

Hanging out with Anistyn and Garrett...

Check out the showdown! This is Gavin with Anistyn, Brent's cousin's daughter. (I always end up forgetting what the family relationship is, if there is one, but it's some sort of cousin reference with something removed or added with a cardinal or ordinal number thrown in there.)
They look similar in stature, though they are at least one year apart.
Here they are playing together at Grandma's. Gavin wanted to make sure to show Anistyn all of the cool tricks of this toy.
Here are Anistyn & her little baby brother, Garrett. So cute!
What precious kids! It was fun to see them play together.

Sledding with Mommy...

Here's our not-so-"Baby-Gavin" in the "no" with his "mitts" on. (Actually, they look like they're about to come off because they have a very short lifespan on his hands.) I pulled him around our street and up and down our driveway when it had snowed recently, and he got a big kick out of that. He's so much fun these days! He says and does the funniest things. We went to the zoo the other day, and of all of the amazing creatures in cages, the ones that fascinated him the most were the "cock cocks" (peacocks), so much so, in fact, that he asked for one before his nap after we were home from the zoo. Pre-cious! (The asking, by the way, was the word "cock cock" and the sign for please. Too cute!) Then yesterday a little ladybug appeared in Gavin's room, and that just made our morning. He loved watching it crawl up and down his arm, and then he liked transferring it to Mommy's arm too. But the best was when he attempted to drop the ladybug into his crib after saying "nut night," completely unaware that he had actually put the ladybug permanently night night, as evidenced by the poor little creature's crushed wings when it staggered out of the crib. Gavin looked a little confused when I threw the ladybug into the garbage with the stinky diapers and said "night night," but then he moved on...and soon we were back to playing with trucks.