Check out the Wife's Blog

I have had zero time to blog since the new job. Sarah had a chance to so I'm deferring to her For an update with some grwat pictures by yours truly.

Go HERE.

Thanks!

I Like Ike (Isaac Jeffrey)!!!!

7lbs 11oz, 19.5 inches of goo covered sweetness.

Baby Mama

Warming up for a bath.

Yes, that's comb-able auburn hair. Yikes!

Trying to sleep through a bath..faux-hawk at no extra charge.

Grandma "Grammy" Black

Grandma "Mimi" Paterson

Gabe was not too excited. "No baby, I coloring"

But he got real curious.

Mama is doing really well! Much better than the last one. I'm across the street at a Panera and this connection is not great so it has taken way too long to get these loaded. I better get back before she thinks I made for Mexico.

What Gabe Wants To Do 24/7

So Gabe wakes up wanting to color and have a pop tart. Every morning. With. Out. Fail.

"Ummm?" Uttered when picking out a new color.

I think Gabe and George have the same hair cut.

Concentrating.

Making faces.

Your face will freeze like that.

Getting fancy.

Yes, I realize to the casual observer it looks like we only own one shirt for our son, but it has a baseball on it. He walks up to everyone, pulls the bottom of his shirt out and says "BASEBALL". He only wears it like twice a month. I swear.

Full Speed.

Jump!

Here is Gabe doing Tai Chi. The daycare is real big on forming a well rounded child and they've been working on this for 5 months. They learn 2 positions every month. I sometimes find him practicing in his bed when I go to wake him up in the morning.

Or he could be dropping leaves to see what happens. You decide.

Well, it's been 80 and sunny here for the past 10 days and it looks like that will be the case for another week, so I'm sure we'll get some more pics soon. It's just too nice not too.

Pictures of Ike will be up asap after his arrival, so put a reminder on your calendar to check back here at 2pmish on 10.06.

I'm Going to Need an External Hard Drive

Fun with Photoshop

Vintage

Hollywood

I asked for belly, not nipple.

Charmer

More to come

New Camera = Never Sleeping Again

So we bought Papa Bergstrom's camera and I have to say, I think I'm in love. Why? See for yourself.






Several of these are straight-out-of-camera, which is pretty awesome. I'll let you guess which ones.

Hanging With His Hommie

We went over to Becca and Travis' to hangout and see the new addition Kelan. I think Gabe forgot who Curran was, which means we need to get back into our Saturday night groove.

Zoo Day

Perfect weather for a trip to the zoo! Gabe loved it and ran around for the first half. Then his legs gave out, but was a trooper. I took the old fashioned camera (read non-digital) and will add pics from that when they are developed (I'll get a cd so I can).

Havinababy Itsaboy

October 13th we will be welcoming Isaac Jeffrey to our world.

Poor kid (edited for the saintly eyes and ears of my mother...yeesh) never saw it coming.

Sugar Buzzin'

Ok, I had written this whole story about our new computer, but then I hit save and went to get a drink. When I came back it was gone. Don't know where it went, but I'll tell it to you another time. Here is Gman's second Easter.

They had an egg hunt for the kids at Buddy's school so I took time off that afternoon and ran over to help them. And yes the little harnesses that they put on them to walk them down to the playground are hilarious. There is a leash that attaches to it. At first he wasn't real sure.

But he figured the hunt out straight away.


That is until he noticed the girls that were paying attention to him.


"Hey, ya wanna go down to J. Brian's for some shots of milk?"


"Here, look at my eggs and tell me how cute I am."


What a pimp.

So we had to have a hunt at the house. I know my son is a genius and all but this is what the hunt looked like.
By now he was an old pro.


With out all the distractions of 4th grade women he was pretty focused.


And now the genius bit...half of his "eggs" were basketballs.


And yes I realize the eggs he is playing with are not said basketballs...it's really the only thing keeping him out of Yale this year.

So there is most of it. There was not one but TWO hunts out a Mimi's house. Great Aunt Mickey couldn't help herself after missing "The Big Hunt of 2008", she had to "hide" ( a term I use VERY loosely) the boys' easter buckets. Yes buckets, they live on a farm. We forgot the camera but took a bunch of pics with the Tipton's camera, we just haven't recieved them yet. All and all it was a great Easter and a lot of fun watching Gman enjoy it so much. Hope your's was just as much fun.

He Speaks!

So Gabriel has suddenly become easier to understand. "Dog" is still his favorite word, but now he sits with every book he owns around him and carefully turns every page, scanning relentlessly for a dog. When he finds one he points and says "dog, bow wow". He knows about nine or ten animal sounds and a whole slew of words. (editors note: My favorite animal sound is when he throws his hand above his head and says, "Wooo!". That's an elephant. Can you picture it? Try it.) Now before you think I'm writing this to show how smart my son is, his cousin Corbin was talking earlier than this, as was I. So no, Gabe is not a genius...ok so it's too early to tell, but he'll probably be gifted at best. Why? Well last night he did something for the first time. He spoke his first sentence. A feat alone not remarkable, see Corbin comment. However, he did so in proper English.

My first sentence was "Her likes it". While the genius there was that my first sentence was a lie to get out of trouble for petting the cat "too hard" and pulling her tail, pronouns and tenses tend to escape toddlers. (editors note: yeah, so it really should have been my parents first warning sign that this was my first sentence. Like they couldn't see a career in politics, law, or PR in my future. Plus you have to pet your animals hard enough that they feel it...ya know, so they KNOW you love them.) So my son walks to my wife and says,

"Daddy did it."

She repeats it, he says, "Yes."

I repeat it. He replies, "Yes. Daddy did it."

Subject. Predicate. Receiver.

A declarative sentence in proper tense.

Fricking Genius.

Ok, not really, but we are super excited none the less. The kid makes the most expressive faces I've ever seen...I can't wait to find out what he's been thinking.

Oh, and if you're wondering...We have no idea what it is that I did.

This is What Pete and Julie Get for Going to Mexico

We're pregnant!

People sometimes have all of their children 9 months after their anniversary or a birthday. Our anniversary is April 24, Sarah's Bday is January 26, my Bday is May 22. We're due around the 10th of October (Gabe was born on the 18th). We move into a new home and 9 months later we have a child. We're never moving again.

More to follow.

Is This What My Mother Meant When She Said She Hoped I Had a Child Just Like Me?

It has come to my attention that my son is something of a ladies man, that the girls at school all vie for his attention and jockey for position to get to sit next to him. Ok, it’s one girl. Out of 5 children in my son’s class there is one girl, but still. I witnessed this today as I dropped him off at daycare. They were either starting breakfast early or I was running late, you decide. Anyway I took off his coat and he made his way over to the table and sat down to eat. After the pure and utter shock wore off from this eerily adult thing to do, something happened that I would not have believed had I not been there. The girl, we’ll call her Emily because that’s her name, got up from her chair and walked around the table and sat next to Gabe.

Apparently the look on my face asked the question for me because Gabe’s new teacher replied, “She always has to be next to Gabe”. There was a seat open next to Emily, but Gabe just went to the first seat he came upon and sat. Again, my expression was doing the talking for me; “he doesn’t seem to notice” was the answer. My first thought was: Hussy! My second thought was, well he is pretty cute…looks a lot like his dad after all. Then I was back to: Hussy! And as I walked out to my car it hit me: Gabriel is his father’s son.

All of my life my closest friends have been girls. It wasn’t until 7^th grade when I met Ryan and then Kurt that I had close guy friends and even then my BFF was still a girl. I have no idea if all or none of these girls ever liked me as more than a friend, but that’s the point: I had no idea. It wasn’t until college when someone actually pointed out to me that one of my “friends” really really liked me. Of course it was 3 months after she had decided not to return to that school, in part, because I had not reciprocated those feelings. Yes, she partied a bit and her grades weren’t great because of it, but her parents gave her a choice and she chose to transfer because she felt there was no reason so stay at WMU. To me she was someone to go to the Rec and football games with and she got me into fraternity parties I wasn’t invited to. (Which brings us to Uncle Jeffrey’s tip of the month: Wanna get into any house or fraternity party? Bring a cute girl and five of her friends. No one asks questions.) I thanked my friend for being so timely with her advice...yup, another girl, go figure.

The point is not how handsome and charming I am. As true as it may be, it’s still not the point. The point is I have a perfect opportunity to “life coach” (that’s what the hippies call it) my son when the time comes. Hopefully his old man’s advice will help him avoid losing his best friend after 6 years because she decided to stop talking to him one day and he had no idea why until years later (different girl than the one above…I was so innocent). As much as I love the age that he is, I get a little choked up when I think about him having success in something he loves (even if it’s not sports), learning to ride a bike, learning to drive, graduating from more than nursery 3 to toddler 1, going off to college and getting married. They are milestones I can’t wait to be a part of. For now though, I’m more than happy to sing "If You’re Happy and You Know It" and have him clap and stomp, because that too was a pretty great milestone today.