Photo Update

To Jared and I it doesn't seem like Gavin has changed all that much, but when I compare what he used to look like to how big he is now, I can see the difference.

In the past seven weeks here's some more of what we've been up to:

Visits from family, both in person and via webcam

Gavin's first carnival - Our Stake does an annual carnival, with music, cotton candy, snow cones, hot dogs and hamburgers, and games for the kids.

Since my parents live in Saudi Arabia, they don't get the opportunity to go to the temple very often. It was great to be able to go to the Provo temple while they were here visiting! My parents brought family names, and we did sealings. It was wonderful to be able to go and do that together. I love going to the temple and am blessed to live close to so many. It's easy to get distracted with other things going on, but once I'm there I never regret it. I want to become more dedicated and try to go to the temple more often.

Gavin was blessed on Father's Day, while both mine and Jared's parents were in town, and Jayden was there as well. It was a special day, Jared gave a beautiful blessing, and it was great to see so many friends! It was fun to celebrate Jared's first Father's Day with some gifts as well!

Lots of walks! The grocery store is just a few blocks away, plus there's a park right by our place.

Learning to play Halo with Daddy

Gavin has started smiling, and is just so cute!

So Close!!

This week has definitely been a long one! I know I planned on blogging each Wednesday, and that's still the plan, but yesterday I think I was still recuperating from the all-nighter Jared and I pulled Monday night. Jared is so close to being finished with his thesis, and he's more than ready to be done and focus his attention on 100% on TranquilMed.

We were on campus so Jared could finish up his thesis, and I helped a bit with the reference page, and to proof read his paper. We were both jealous of Gavin, who slept contently most of the night in his stroller. At about 5:45am Tuesday morning Jared dropped me and Gavin off at home and went back to campus to finish things up and turn in the draft to his advisory board. His defense is July 29th, and fingers crossed, by August 12 it will be all done.

I am so proud of Jared, and lucky to have such a wonderful, intelligent, dedicated, loving husband. We think Gavin has a bit of a cold this week, and he's been more fussy than usual. Jared is out taking him for a walk right now, so that I'm able to do some stuff for me. I love watching him play with Gavin, and Gavin loves smiling at all the silly things Daddy does! I couldn't have asked for a better husband and father for our children!

ps - I'll upload some recent pictures of our cute boy later, I'm off to join Gavin and Jared on their walk!

No Naps Mommy!

I thought babies this little (Gavin is six weeks old today), typically spend alot of time sleeping. But not this one. Gavin is sleeping really well at night, usually only waking up once to nurse, but we've found he's much happier in the evenings (as are we) when he gets at least a few naps in during the day as well. The only problem....he'd rather be up playing than sleeping!

For the majority of the day while Jared is on campus Gavin is content to be laid out on a blanket where he can look around and watch what's going on, or swing happily in his swing. Usually the only times he's really fussy during the morning or afternoon is when I'm trying to get him to fall asleep!

At first I would simply lay him down in his crib after nursing him. He'd be wide eyed and happy, looking around; I'd leave him alone thinking he'd eventually fall asleep, but once he gets tired of the view from his crib he'll start to whimper for me to come get him, then cry until I do. I go get him, lay him on the ground in the front room, and once again he's as content as can be to just lay there, wide away!

The past few days I've started trying to rock him to sleep in my arms before placing him in the crib, which works half the time, but the other half of the time this is what ends up happening: I'm sitting in the glider rocking Gavin in my arms; he dozes off but I make sure to rock a few minutes longer to make sure he's good and asleep before attempting to stand up and make my way to the crib. I successfully get up, get to the crib, and just as I'm about to lay him down a smile slowly creeps across his cute little face until his eyes suddenly pop open and he's grinning BIG!

He's saying, "I tricked you again Mommy, now can we go play!?" I so wish I could capture this charade of his on video because it is so stinkin' cute! About half the time he ends up winning at this point and I'm more than happy to just cuddle and play with my cute little boy, postponing nap time till later.

June Update

I know I've probably said this before, but I really want to get better at updating our blog more regularly. So my new goal is to post once a week. I'll make Wednesday my blog update day, so I'll remember to do it each week.

Gavin is now one month, one week, and two days old today! And already we've seen so many changes in him. Although it did take him three weeks to get back up to his original birth weight (7lb 8oz), Gavin is doing well and now weighs 8lb 13oz!

He's still not a fan of bath time or tummy time...

But loves cuddle time with Mommy & Daddy, and has just started smiling!

Jared got to celebrate his first Father's Day and was given some books from Gavin (they were more for Gavin than Jared though). I think the real Father's Day gift for Jared was being able to give his son a baby blessing in church that day.

Last weekend was a busy one, with Canada Day, family reunions, and Independence Day. July 1st we planned on going up Provo Canyon for a wiener roast, but had a last minute change of plans and went to Utah Lake with some friends instead. So we improvised our wiener roast slightly before heading over to Joel and Angie's. We set off fireworks and played with sparklers until the mosquitoes forced us to leave.

The 2nd was the Crookston Family Reunion up Provo Canyon. There's no real blood relation, but they're still considered 'family' and Jared's gone to lots of Crooskton Reunions. This was my second Crookston Reunion.

Saturday morning we drove up to Huntsville for my Hall Family Reunion. We had lunch in the backyard of the David O. McKay home, then went to the Huntsville Cemetery where family members are buried. I think I was able to figure out how I'm related to some of them, but I'll have to check with my Mom who's alot better with all the family history. Even though it was my family reunion, we randomly met some other Edgel's there! Another Edgel, somehow related to through Jared's Grandpa Max Edgel, had also married into the Hall family! So it ended up being a bit of an Edgel Family Reunion as well.

After dinner Jared and I headed for the airport to pick up my Dad. He had a one day layover in Utah before flying back to Saudi, so he spent the night at our place and got to see Gavin again before heading home. Because the 4th was on a Sunday this year, and we're in Utah, the big fireworks show was on the 3rd. So after picking my dad up from the airport, we headed home, fed Gavin, and were out again to watch the show. After such a long day Gavin pretty much slept through the show, and didn't even wake up for ice cream at Sub Zero!

This past Friday was National Cow Appreciation Day (thanks Allison for letting us know), so we all dressed up like cows and headed over to Chick-fil-A for a free meal. Even Gavin got a free kids meal, which he generously shared with Daddy, although he insisted on keep the toy all for himself!

Gavin has enjoyed meeting family and friends and can't wait to meet more family when we go on our trip to California in August! We're going with Jared's family, but I just found out this week that the Trousdales will be in California the same week visiting Mike's family, so we'll have to plan on meeting up with them since we'll only be a few hours away!

I've created a Picasa web album for Gavin that I'll keep updated, so if you want to see more pictures of this cutie here's the link! http://picasaweb.google.com/jennifer.edgel/Gavin?authkey=Gv1sRgCJnerKTbqKrDVQ#