He is just too stinkin cute!

This was supposed to be Gavin's 4th of July outfit from Nana, but with it being a 12 months size, we figure we better get use out of it before it's too small! He was sooo cute in it today with his crocs from Gammy. We ran several errands this afternoon and everyone stopped and complimented how cute he was and what a happy baby he is. It sure makes running errands take a lot longer when you have people stopping you in every aisle to talk about your baby!

Daddy is working tonight, so it made me smile when I went in to check on Gavin and he was curled up with "Vinnie"...

Future Musician?

Gavin's new favorite toy... I ended up cutting the string off and now he takes the mallet everywhere hitting whatever he can find that makes noise!

Sunday: Mothers Day

Yep, you can officially call us beach bums this week. We got up Sunday morning and threw around ideas for what to do for mothers day... all I really wanted was some family time. Jason was finally released from "lockdown" late Saturday night and we were so thankful that he was able to be home for mothers day. I just love watching Gavin and Jason bond on the weekends, I don't like when other things get in the way of our weekends!! So, what better place to get in some needed family time then the beach?!? Jason hadn't been able to see Gavin having fun in the sand yet, so I wanted him to experience that. We had a really good time.

My boys

Taking Gavin out deep!

The waves were finally calm enough to get him out a little. He was nervous at first, but then loved it when I would jump every time a little wave hit us. He was laughing!!

Take a look at Gavin's farmers tan! Those spf 50 shirts really work.

I'm so thankful I could spend my first "real" mothers day with my family.

Playing in the sand with my son.

What a dirty boy!!!

On our way home from the beach Jason took me to Vinnie's Pizza downtown. It was delicious and I ate way too much.

For my mother's day gift, I'm going to get my hair done this weekend (if I can get an appointment) and Jason's going to get to spend some one-on-one time with Gavin while I get pampered. I also got a new swimsuit. Motherhood and nursing led to my old suits not fitting properly, and I'm very excited about my new suit for our next beach day! Thanks for making my mothers day exactly what I wanted babe - a fun day with my 2 favorite boys :)

Saturday at Tybee

Trip #2 to Tybee this week! Saturday a friend of Jason's got married on the beach - Jason was "locked down" for quite some time at work over the weekend and wasn't able to be released for the wedding, so Gavin and I went alone! At least our high school friend, Megan, was in town and she was able to help keep me company and help me with Gavin. I swear, she was a Godsend this weekend. I wasn't expecting Jason to be tied up at work, so it was very nice having Megan here with an extra set of hands. She played with Gavin, took him for a walk so I could shower in peace, fed him, etc. Thanks so much Megan!!! You'll never know how much I appreciated having you here. It was great catching up on old times too!

Here we are before the wedding started... poor Gavin (I forgot his sunglasses!)

I pumped a bottle since I wasn't sure about the seating situation with an outdoor wedding - it came in handy about 2 minutes into the wedding ceremony! This picture really shows you how much Gavin has grown. I had a cramp in my arm by mid-bottle just from holding him!

The Bride & Groom, with our battalion chaplain!

Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Jake Hughes!!!

After the reception, we changed into our swimsuits and played on the beach for a couple hours. Gavin is such a beach bum... Give him a few toys and he's good to go.

We caught up with Neelee and Max near the pier - Max has an awesome new beach chair! This picture was taken right before Gavin started putting sand on Max's head! Silly boys. I think we even caught them checking out girls once or twice!

Who needs plates when you can just use the tray!?! Gavin is getting awesome at using the pincher grab to feed himself Puff's and Cheerios, so today we experimented with mashed pears. He really took the time to explore what was going on and feed himself. It kept him busy while I heated up the rest of his meal.

Using his thumb and index finger to pick up a piece of pear!

I'm so proud of him.

Here we are later (with no clothes, due to how messy he got at lunch!)... he is getting so tall and lean, it must be all the movement he's doing here lately. Gavin's newest thing is pulling up on the bookshelf and pulling several books out and onto the floor, then crawling all over them while I attempt to read him one or two.

Gotta love Baby Einstein - the Animals and Seasons cards keep him so busy. We go through the animals and I make all the sounds. His favorites right now are the sounds of the bee and the frog. He gets to giggling and it makes me laugh! He also likes the spider card because I'll sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" which is still a favorite of his.

Dinner!

Can you see a concoction of mango, peas, and turkey on his face?

Too bad I didn't get a picture of his onesie... it says "My family tree is full of nuts!" and has a picture of squirrels holding acorns.

He has THE BIGGEST brown eyes!

If you're not into couponing, stop reading now because the rest of this post will get boring!!

Onto my couponing of the day!!!! Today was the first day of actual food groceries that I feel like I really got a great deal. On my overall bill, I saved 41%; that includes several items I didn't have coupons for. The items pictured above are what I had coupons for. I only paid about $45 for the items you see above, and that includes the 3 jumbo overnite packs of diapers!!! I have decided that the cheapest place for me to stock up on diapers is Kroger.

***You can load Huggies coupons to your Kroger Card from both Cellfire.com and Shortcuts.com. Then, you can ALSO bring in Paper Manufacturers coupons and use those on top of the coupons already loaded to your Kroger card. Huggies Overnites are on sale at our Kroger for $9.77 (They are sold for around $12 at most stores). I had $1.50 off on my Kroger Card from shortcuts.com and $3 off on my card from cellfire.com... then I brought in 3 paper coupons, 2x$1.50 off and a $2.00 off. So, with the 5 coupons I was able to get an extra $9.00 off the diapers after the sale! I would have paid $36 to get these diapers somewhere else, but got them at Kroger for about $19!!! That's almost a 50% savings on Overnight Diapers.***

Other great deals:

The Rice, Mrs. Grass Soup Mix, and 2 jumbo salsas were completely free with coupons.

The yoplait light is usually $0.55 each, but with a sale and coupons I was able to get 12 of them for $0.36 each. I love finding deals on things like this that I eat EVERYDAY!

The Vaseline Lotion was on sale for $2.50 and I had a $1 off coupon loaded on my Kroger card from cellfire.com and I had a $1 off manufacturers coupon, so I got it for $0.50!

I had a $1.50 off coupon for the yo baby organic yogurt, so it came to about $2.50 - we're going to start Gavin on this next week since he'll officially be 8 months!

Bertolli sauces were on sale, and then I had a $1 off and a $0.60 off coupon so those came out to be about $1 each.

The Smart Water is normally $1.89 and was on sale for $1. I'm looking forward to using these for my workouts the rest of this week.

***One other Kroger tip: Kroger doubles coupons EVERYDAY up to and including $0.50!

I was never a Kroger shopper before living in Savannah because I find that their prices are more expensive on several items, but with The Grocery Game, learning how to coupon, etc. I find that I can get some GREAT deals on several products at Kroger that I wouldn't be able to get at the Commissary or Walmart (diapers, for example).

Tomorrow I'm hitting up Target after my workout. I have a LONG list of items that I can get for dirt cheap to FREE! I'm taking Melissa along for the ride to show her the tricks of couponing!

One last photo... Have I mentioned how excited I am about Gavin moving up in the world to some finger foods!?!? I stocked up on a few things that we will add into his meal time in the upcoming weeks. Usually I like to make everything from scratch, but we have been on the go SOOOOO much lately that I like to have a "to go" supply always ready. I love that organic items are becoming more and more available at reasonable prices lately!

Fun in the Sun

Today we loaded up the kids and headed to Tybee for a unique workout, which didn't go exactly as planned. We quickly learned having 4 hungry kids on a crowded, windy beach on Cinco de Mayo isn't really a good equation for a workout. We did our best, and will have to make it up tomorrow! But, why not make a fun beach day out of it anyway?!? With all our attention focused on the kids, we had a wonderful time. After lunch and getting used to the wind there were no more fussy kids and we could all enjoy ourselves and get a little sun. Hey, at least tan fat looks better than pasty white fat - so we did accomplish one mission!!!! Above is a video of Gavin, trying to figure out how waves work. He enjoyed himself until a big, cold one hit!

Here is our "spot", we had to move 2 different times to stay clear of the water! Do you think we have enough equipment for just the few hours we spent there? Gavin sat for the longest time playing with all the buckets and shovels and spent the rest of the time crawling around. He didn't require much entertainment on my part at all, so I was able to search for seashells with Mackenzie. We found lots of shells with holes in them so she could make necklaces with them later.

Heres Gavin with a mouthfull of sand crawling straight for the ocean. I love his swimtrunks (found them on sale for $1.98 at Target!) and swim top. The set is SPF 50 - I topped him off with a hat and coated him in Aveeno Baby Sunscreen - he didn't even get a hint of a burn. I think he's gonna just be a tan boy like his mama!

Trying to get mommy!

(Mackenzie is in the background collecting shells)
Gavin and I - he can't help but wave at everyone when they go by!

Finally made it to the water... trying to figure it all out

Trying out a seashell... I didn't stop him from putting the sand or shells in his mouth, but just watched carefully. He learned on his own that neither taste very good!

Pooped.

I didn't even get out of the parking lot at the beach before he was asleep. He didn't make a peep the whole drive home. I think we'll be making weekly trips to the beach this summer! Today almost made me wish we lived ON the beach, Gavin loved it so much that I could sit and watch him do this everyday. Can't wait until Jason can join us one weekend.

Sunday Video

Excuse the loud grunt at the end: Jason wasn't aware I was filming and he was stretching!

Gavin is slowing walking along furniture now when he wants something, and you'll see at the end that when he really wants something he can "sprint-crawl" to it! He eyed his truck from across the room. In the beginning of the film, he's playing with 2 bags of diapers and some Dr. Scholl's inserts, all of which I got completely FREE with coupons last week!!!

*Jason escapes when he notices I'm making a video, he hates to be caught on camera!

*Gavin's onesie says "future buckeye"

Sunday Sleep-in & Shopping

Sunday we got up around 8:30am, had some breakfast, and decided we needed more sleep. We brought Gavin in bed with us and had a family nap until noon! It was so nice to catch up on some sleep after Saturday night being a late night. We wanted to do some shopping today and did that after lunch. Jason had been interested in looking for a new pair of shoes and I had a few gift cards I wanted to use. We first went to Bass Pro Shop but Jason didn't find the type of shoes he wanted. We then went to Bath and Body works so I could use my $25 gift card from my birthday. I had a $10 off any $30 purchase from online, so I was able to get $35 worth off stuff and not pay anything! I pick up a teal robe that was on sale and some good lotion. Next we went downtown to Half-Moon Outfitters to look at their shoes. Jason found some he liked but they didn't have his size so they are transferring a pair in from another store. Last, we stopped at Banana Republic. (I had a $100 gift card.) I haven't bought normal non-maternity clothes for myself since before I was pregnant, so I was super excited! That store is VERY expensive, so I was excited that I was able to pick out 2 complete outfits and an extra tank top. Plus, they were having a deal yesterday that if you spent $100 that you got a $30 gift card to come back and use later this month. So, looks like I'll be able to go pick out one more summer top in a week or so!!! Gotta love gift cards :) When we got home I made Chicken & Cheese Enchilada's (I used a Campbell's soup recipe) and refried beans - it was the first time I'd made this and it turned out awesome. I think this will be one of our new favorite meals.

Company Party

Saturday afternoon we had a company party at Sean and Melissa's... it was a great party - not too crowded, no one got crazy, and the food was awesome! They had Sticky Finger's Catering (like we did at the platoon party), but they had a few different things. The Mac and Cheese was so good! I think I ate three plates of food, I'll need to work out extra hard this week to burn off those extra calories! It was super hot outside so we took turns hanging out in the back yard and the living room to cool off. The kids had a blast - it was fun to watch them all get along and get SOOOOOO dirty! Melissa snapped a great family shot (above) for us, the Smith Family in our Americana colors! Gavin had a red, white, and blue striped polo on similar to Jason's, but a dirty diaper mess led to a mid-party change into some pajamas! Thanks for hosting such a great party McGee's! We love our army family :)

Gavin tried out Mackenzie's chair... we have to find one of these for Gavin, as we want to go on a camping/hiking trip this summer sometime!

A sea of chairs overtook the backyard!

(This picture was probably about 10 minutes before Jason gave Nico -18 mos- a brownie full of nuts, and quickly learned NO NUTS until age 2! haha)

A little Ranger booty shot :)

Gavin enjoyed Colton's swing...

Here's Nico working hard on getting dirty!

The little boys take a turn at the jumparoo - Colton enjoyed getting bounced around, but Gavin quickly decided that this mess wasn't for him!

Love those blue eyes and messy shirt!

As you can tell, we are pretty good at trying out other peoples "older" toys before we buy them ourselves (camping chairs, swings, wagons, etc.) Gavin LOVED the wagon - I'm sure one will be in his future (Nana has already claimed it as a 1st b-day present from her!)

A final shot... some of our poor hubby's unexpectedly had to go into work for about an hour so a few of us wives were stranded on post with the kiddo's. We pulled together and got them ready for bed as a team! Above is me nursing Gavin and knocking out a bedtime story at the same time! We were all so sleepy and were thankful for the guys getting back and us all being able to go home to bed!

Sleeping

Baby's 1st Turkey

We finally decided it was time to give meat a try. Our pediatrician said he was ready, but I still wanted to wait closer to 8 months to start. (I love the wholesome baby foods website and I try to go by their recommendations most of the time.) Gavin is now successfully feeding himself Gerber Puff's, Cheerios, the occasional dog food, and has great trunk control as evident by his crawling everywhere, so we thought he was ready. We read that turkey or lamb were good "first meats" so we started with turkey. It was so easy to make at home and Gavin enjoyed it a lot. We'll do a few more days of turkey and then will start with lamb!

Cooking the turkey

Ready to be pureed

(add water as needed to get the consistency your baby prefers)

You can freeze the turkey just like any fruit or vegetable.

(I've read that meat is only good frozen for 1 month.)

Ready to serve!

Thursday Morning Butt-Kicking

Two of my friends and I have started working out together in the mornings. (See our blog at 3momsonamission.com). We are just getting started on the site, but should have it filled with workout ideas, words of inspiration, etc. in the weeks to come. We want a way to remember the workouts we did and a way to see all the progress we are making.) Above are 2 pictures from our circuit training day. Whew - Neelee came up with a workout that kicked our butts! It's so hard to entertain THREE small kids so these pictures show a bit of the humor it takes to pull it off. You should have seen us taking turns doing weights and abs in front of the kids trying to be silly and keep them entertained! I love that we are showing our kids early on that it is important to take care of your body, and they get to be a part of the action! A year from now it will be hilarious, as I can see them next to us trying to do situps and pushups right along side of us!

I'll use anything as an excuse for pizza!

Wednesday evening we had a visit from a high school friend, Megan. Hard to believe we met her about 10 years ago!!! She was passing through on her way to VA and stopped in for a night. It's always so nice to catch up with old army brat friends. We can always pick up right where we left off and have a great time. We took her out for Vinnie's Pizza. Gavin enjoyed a nibble of my crust!