A Quick Gage Update

I noticed that I didn't really say anything about Gage in my last blog, so I was going to just let you guys in on some of the latest with him.

He has been putting lots of sounds together lately.  He's got the "na," "ba," "la," "da," and "ma" sounds down pretty good... which yes, finally, he's saying "mama."  He's been saying "dada" forEVER, so it's nice to hear.  Well- except for when he's mad or whiney, which is when he mostly says it.  Haha.  I'm not sure if he's using mama and dada toward me and Jody, and he actually knows the meaning, or if it's still just babble.  But he DOES know the word "no" and has said that.  : P

We are two weeks out from his 15-month appointment, which is when the doctor had said to try again to get him on milk.  For those who don't know, at a year old, we tried switching him over to regular milk, and his tummy didn't tolerate it very well.  His doctor put him on stage two formula (for older babies), so we have been giving him that.  Two days ago, I put some milk into his sippy cup.  He wanted NOTHING to do with that!  He took two gulps of it, and promptly threw it on the floor.  I went after him with the cup, and he actually ran away from me saying "naaa." (Which I believe was "nooo" for him.)  Well, we put the milk into a bottle, and he showed a little more interest in it, but again, after a few drinks, was putting it down.  So THEN, we warmed it up a little.  Bingo.  He downed the whole thing.  So I guess we will continue the warm milk in a bottle, and then try warm milk in a sippy cup, and then hopefully move to cold milk in a sippy cup.  He is just SO much more complicated than Zane ever was!  Zane switched to cold milk in a sippy cup, got off the bottle and pacifiers at a year, and we never had a problem.  Oh well, as they say, every baby is different!

Also, Gage has finally climbed up onto the coffee table.  He's been trying for a little while now, and just the other day, got those chubby little legs to get all the way up.  He's a little too scared to stand up still, but he will lay on his tummy, and sit down on it.  He also climbed up onto the little footstool we have for the rocker.  Hopefully he's not going to be too much of a climber!  That's when the injuries start!  lol

Made it up there!

My little cutie-pie!  Getting so big!

So, there's a little update on my Gage!  That's all for now!

My little ham- Zane

So, we've come to realize that whenever Zane is presented with a camera pointed at him, his immediate response is to strike one of many of his poses.  It's usually a big grin, but it can turn into some pretty radical little stances!  Jody decided to tell Zane to do things like give us his "sad face," or "sleepy face," ect.  Follow are what came out of this little "photo shoot!"  : )

This is just the sweet smile you'll get when he knows he's about to have his picture taken.

This is his angry face (looks like he's trying not to laugh).

I think this one was his silly face. (But we have a lot of those!)

Okay, these next three were just a LITTLE staged, but he still did them- See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Speak No Evil.

Zane- show us your sleepy face. (That's just what he did.)

Zane- what if the music is too loud? (This one cracks me up!)

Zane- cover your mouth.  (We ran out of creative ideas!)

And finally, last but definitely not least, my all-time favorite....

Zane, show us your Rock 'n' Roll face!!

and...

...which of course, was followed by his "Rock and Rolla!"  

So anyway, I just wanted to share, in case you didn't already know, how much of a camera-junkie my son is, and why he cracks me up so much!

Our Mini-Vacation

Okay, so I'm just a tad-bit late on getting some of this stuff on here and updating my blog, but hey, I'm getting to it!  1-year-old and 3-year-old boys can really run a person into the ground!  Oh, but you know I wouldn't change it for the world!  

Anyway, on with my topic.  So, for the third week of July, my mom decided to keep Zane and Gage for the week.  Being that she's a teacher, she gets the summers off, and likes to get a week where she can spend time with her grandsons.  I, personally, think this is awesome.  Of course, I enjoy the break myself- you know, getting some alone time with Jody and just having calm evenings and mornings, but I also think that is really cool for the kids.  They got to have time to bond with their Nana, and I think that is so important- especially since they don't get to see her all that often.  She said she really enjoyed the time with them, too, so I'm glad everything worked out well.  I know Gage can get to be a handful at times!  

So, aside from all the good times the boys had, swimming in the wading pool, Zane learning to play Concentration with cards (which, btw, thanks Mom- now he wants to play it every time I turn around, haha), and all the other cool stuff they did, Jody and I had some fun ourselves. 

We took a couple of days off work, and besides being lazy, we did some things together, too.  We got to go out to dinner a few times - just us - and ride the bike (woo hoo!!) every time we went somewhere!  

Here he is to pick me up and take me away!

We tried a new Mexican food restaurant one night and went to a favorite of ours, Genghis Grill - a Mongolian stir-fry restaurant - another night.  And we also went to SIX FLAGS!!!!  Yes, that's right.  Six Flags.  It was so much fun!!  We went on a Thursday, (July 17th) so the park was relatively empty.  We rode pretty much every roller coaster there, and the Titan 3 times!  The Titan is a roller coaster, and, in case you are unfamiliar, is the largest ride ever built by Six Flags Inc, and the tallest drop is over 25 stories high, and it reaches speeds of 85 mph.  OMG, it is such a thrill!!!  We also rode this new ride, the Superman, that was really awesome!!  It shoots you up into the air super-fast, and then drops you back down!  

Here's the Superman ride:

About an hour before we left for the day, we were getting a little sunburned and a little exhausted.  So to cool off, we decided to ride a water ride.  I knew I would get soaked, but at that point, I was just fine with that!

Here we are before the ride:

And here are some people who are about to get drenched:

I didn't take any after pics of us... just because I know I already looked pretty rough as it was, and I knew that after that ride, I certainly couldn't look any better!  LOL  But yeah, it was a wonderful day, and a great mini-vacation that Jody and I got to have!  

We did miss our boys though, and it was definitely nice to have them back.  There were rides at the park that I kept saying, "Oh, Zane would like that," or "I wonder if Zane would try that..."  You know, I could tell I was missing them.  Anyway, here's a pic of the four of us that we took just before they left:

So that was our week in July.  Pretty cool.