In about 2 hours it will be a year since I went into labor with you. In about 5 hours you will be 1 year old...With tears in my eyes I try to accept this fact. Did you know that I was scared out of my mind to have you? When Lily came out and they said "It's a girl!" I sighed with relief. I thought I knew how to deal with a girl (your sister has proved that wrong!). When they told us at the ultrasound you were a boy I cried. Part of that cry was "Wow! We get to have a boy and a girl" the other part of that cry was "oh shit! what am I suppose to do with a boy". But boy oh boy, you have filled my heart. You have made me completely freak your dad out and wonder if we could have another. You have been THE best baby since day one! Your smile lights up our lives. Lily's main goal of the day is to make you laugh. You love your sister, as long as she keeps a respectable distance from you and isn't trying to squeeze the crap out of you. You follow her all day long. You  ALWAYS follow her into the bathroom. This drives me crazy. Yesterday you swirled her toothbrush in the toilet. Regardless she still loves you to pieces. We all love you to pieces. You love to cuddle. You will sit still on my lap for longer than 10 seconds. You grab for my hand to help you down/up stairs instead of swatting it away and wanting to do it yourself. You love to play peekaboo and have the cutest little laugh on the planet. You like to climb off our bed in the morning and go sit next to Ringo on his bed. You LOVE being outside. When you are outside you are constantly carrying around a golf club or a broom. You like the sandbox. You like playing in the dirt. You fit perfectly on my chest. When it is nap/bed time when we sit in the rocker you instantly put your head on my chest. I love feeling your skin on my cheek. I love these moments. I want to freeze time. I want to remember every little perfect moment with you. This has seriously been the fastest year of my life. I want to thank you for being my son. I want to thank you for being you. You completed our family in a way we didn't even know we needed. You made us all love more. We love you Brock Thomas Gaylor. To the moon and back. You are our sunshine.

5 Years/60 Months/260 Weeks/1825 Days

How are you 5? How did this time fly by us so quick?

 Days old...

 1 year....

 2 years....

 3 years...

 4 years....

5 YEARS OLD!!!!

Our baby girl, our first born, our practice baby, our adventurer, our hyper active hypo, our dreamer, our daddy's girl, our mommy needs a drink girl, our drama queen girl

I could go on and on, but right now I am so overwhelmed by the fact that you are 5 and all that goes with that. Do you know that I have to register you for kindergarten next week? Do you know that I actually had no idea that I had to do all that? Do you know that I can remember every minute of being in labor with you? You were stubborn from day one! You didn't want to come out! You have made me a parent. Sometimes I am not the perfect parent, so sorry about your bad luck on that one. Your dad and I are stubborn too. You might win some small battles but I WILL win the war :) You have made me appreciate my own mother so much more. You have made me change my outlook on life and what my priorities are. You have made me question my sanity sometimes. Until I had you I don't think I really envisioned what my life as a grown up was going to be like. Now I know that I was meant to be your mom and I get the pleasure of seeing you grow up. I just didn't realize it was going to go so fast. Your imagination has taken off! Lately you pretend to be a nurse and I get to be a doctor and our living room is full of stuffed animal patients that have a lot of ailments from a hurt bunny ear to a pelican with a broken wing. You try to give Brock the doctor responsibilities but he isn't as gentle as you would like him to be. You dance really funny. And today I heard you singing every single word to Taylor Swift's "Mean". You like to call your brother "Charlie". And for some reason you do puppy sprints from one end of the house to the other. You love to be outside and actually ran outside in the snow with no shoes or socks on because you wanted to feel it on your toes. You love school but never want to talk about it. You love to read books and I really think you are starting to recognize a lot of words on your own. You are so good at math, it amazes me sometimes. I was told that one of the things you had to know for kindergarten was to be able to count to ten and I was so impressed with how much you know beyond that.

You have personality kid! I love that about you. I love that you are a little weird. I love that you boss the babysitters around and make them do whatever you say, but also follow the rules and don't give them trouble when it is time to brush your teeth and go to bed. I love that you prepared me for Brock because I think he is going to make you look like an angel. I love your smile and the way you say "pretty pleeeeaaaase" when you want something sweet. I love that you push a chair around to the counter every time Daddy or I are cooking something. I love watching you with your dad. It makes my heart melt even though I know he is your favorite over me. I think it is funny that you talk to your poop and say goodbye when you flush. I love when you say "silly me" and go do whatever it is you forgot to do.

I could go on and on and on and on.

but seriously, 5 YEARS OLD?

9 Months/5 Years

Took the kids to their 9 month and 5 year check up the other day. Brock was 9 months on Friday 13th! Yikes! That might explain the up every hour last night :)

9 month stats:

21.9 pounder

29 inches

75% for both height and weight

He is pulling himself up on everything. pushing his walker and highchair and dinning room chairs all around the kitchen. He is obsessed with the dishwasher and wanting to be in the bathroom and Lily's room. He hates getting dressed and runs (crawls really fast) away from me once he is nudey. He is a snuggler and loves kisses and tickles. He WILL NOT be ignored! The other night Shane got home from work and had to use the bathroom. Brock had crawled really fast towards him and screamed until Shane was done and able to pick him up. Both kids get really happy when Shane walks in the door. Shane said it is the happiest time of day for him. Brock says "Dada" most of the time and calls us all Dada. He is starting to point and I think he has waved at me a few times. When he is excited he jumps up and down. He is in 12 month clothes. He pretty much just passed right over 9 month clothes. People are always surprised when I tell them he is only 9 months. He has 5 teeth and is working on 6 and 7. I really hope we get a break from teething once these ones come in. He is pretty much doing everything a month or two earlier than Lily. At this time Lily didn't even have any teeth and was still only army crawling.

 My 1st project competed from an idea I saw on Pinterest. It will be going on the picture wall for now. I hate my handwriting but I think it would be wierd if I had someone else write it.

Lily's 5 year check up went really well too. She won't be 5 till February but thought I would get it out of the way since we were going for Brock's 9 month.

Stats:

40 pounder (50th percentile)

43 inches (75th percentile)

Good news is she is tall enough to go on the majority of the rides at Disneyland!!!! and we can now use the regular seat belt with her booster seat. I can't believe she is going to be 5.

She had to get her 5 year shots. Three of them. 2 in one arm and 1 in the other. She was so brave for the 1st two and just said "ouchy". She told the nurse that was enough, but we had one more left. And unfortunately the worst one. She screamed the whole way home that she couldn't stretch her arms out and that she couldn't believe the nurse would do that to her when she wasn't even sick. Maybe she will be an actress when she grows up and can take care of us when we get old.

Taking advantage of some winter sunshine

Oh hi chunky chunkersen!

Some cuteness from today

 pretty much the cutest thing ever!

Alyssa came to visit today. Lily was a pro at holding her!

A Merry Christmas Message

 Skyping with Grandma and Papa

 Cookies!

 Master cookie decorator and mess maker

 These are already all gone by the way

So proud! She wouldn't stop or take a break until they were all done!

I want to start off by saying that Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. Growing up my mom and dad always made it a big deal too. I remember making cookies with mom. We always made a ton and I still make the same ones that were always my favorite. My dad always made a big deal about the tree. I will never forget the year he decided that the tree needed a color theme and wanted a tree that was blue and silver/white, with ONE strand of tinsel on each branch! Katy and I joked that it was a department store looking tree,but it was beautiful. After that it was always something like that-red/white, blue, red/green. To this day my tree is pretty much always red/silver/white. I do love a blue themed tree, but my collection of ornaments hasn't grown to that level yet. I love that this year Lily has really fell in love with the holiday. She loves the tree and everyday rearranges the ornaments. The advent calenders are a hit and the elf Kyle has yet to disappoint.  And of course she loves the cookies and the rest of the treats.

With all that being said the last couple of years have been hard for me. I miss my family so much. I miss the huge Christmas Eve dinner at Aunt Jill's and Christmas dinner at Mom and Dad's house and seeing how many people we can fit into that small little house. And I miss playing games with everyone after dinner. And I miss meeting up with friends that are also home that can make me laugh so hard it hurts.

You might be asking yourself if you miss it so much why do you live 2000 miles away? I too ask myself that same question and believe me we are trying our damnedest to get back in the Wisco area. If I could go back in time I would tell my 25/26 year old self to think about what it is going to be like when you have a family. I don't regret moving here. Shane and I were on our life adventure together. We fell in love here, got engaged here and made our beautiful family here. Our intention was to always move "eventually". We didn't anticipate a housing crisis/disaster. We didn't anticipate how much we would need our families. We didn't anticipate needing our friends companionship so much. We had each other and that was enough. 98% of the time it is enough. I have a house full of blessings. But I find myself feeling lonely sometimes for all the people who love me and mine so much. So the message here is don't take your family for granted. If you have them close scream with joy from the rooftops!

Disclaimer: This post might be stemming from lack of sleep and the tantrum I threw at 3:30 am last night (foot stomping, snot filled sobbing kind of tantrum) because a certain little 8 month old wouldn't go back to sleep and didn't want to be held, fed or rocked. And another certain 34 year old husband just stayed sleeping

8 months!

It was not easy getting a picture this month. I think I took about 70. Thank god for digital cameras!

8 MONTHS!

So happy!

 Pucker up

 Yeah, I'm 8 months

He is on the move! Crawling, pulling himself up on anything and everything. He stands up next to his walker and walks it around the kitchen. He is the proudest, happiest baby when he stands up. He is saying Mama and Dada. In the middle of the night I hear "Maaaammmaaaa" coming from his room. I go in and the sweetest little monkey is reaching out of his crib for me. When I pick him up his head instantly rests on my shoulder. We snuggle for a few minutes in the rocking chair and then he is ready to go back into his crib back to sleep. As much as I love my sleep, I do love these moments with my babe.

As you can see he is a good eater. He still loves squash and bananas and is starting to eat little bits of pasta and pancakes. He is really interested in what we eat and wants to try it all.

His hair has turned completely white, his eyes are still blue and his ears stick out a bit. He is starting to get a third tooth. Everything goes in his mouth. We have trained Lily to keep her small toys in her room and make sure to pick them up when Brock comes in her room to visit. He still loves being out and about. He barely makes a peep when we are out shopping or eating. People are always commenting on what a good baby he seems to be. It is true, he is a good baby, but sometimes he doesn't like the car rides or being cooped up in the house all day. He likes to look at new things and see what is going on in the world. He still loves to watch his sister do anything. sometimes he uses her hair to pull himself up, but she doesn't seem to mind too much. She adores him. He is the first person she asks for when she wakes up in the morning.

Diaper changes have turned into a WWF wrestling match.

Nicknames: Lily and I call him "Boobers" Lily's also calls him "Luigi" and Shane calls him "Bubba" or "Buds"

Two kids, holy cow, they are exhausting! I think we were in bed at 8:30 last night.

As much as I love my two little wonderful monkeys. I am thankful for the babysitter tonight and Shane's Christmas party!

Christmas happenings

Christmas has arrived at the Gaylor house!

 We got this beauty of a tree. Lily was very excited to decorate it and told us how each ornament was very special.

 We went to Bellevue botanical gardens for Garden D'Light and Lily was in heaven. Brock was just happy he had on about four layers.

 Lily was amazed that they used all her favorite colors in the lights and that there were butterflies, dragonflies, turtles, spiders, alligators made out of lights. All her favorite animals of course. How did they know?

 She stopped to smell all the "flowers"

 checking to make sure my babe was nice and toasty

 "I just love this!"

 kisses

A Pucker up and a poke in the eye. Now that's Christmas!

 This is our elf Kyle. Grandma Lois sent him to stay with us this month

The Grandmas gave us these advent calenders. 1st thing Lily does each morning!