are we in arizona?

because the thermostat reads 100 degrees today.  are you kidding me?

worse than i remember

when searching for houses in the seattle area, we learned that most houses in the pacific northwest do not have air conditioning because you really only have a need for it a couple weeks out of the year.  well, this is ONE OF THOSE WEEKS!  it was in the 90's today, and it's going to stay that way through the week.  "record-breaking" temperatures here in the seattle area.  i remember thinking, "surely a country girl who grew up without A/C can handle a few hot weeks in any given year."  well, this girl forgot one important thing - i might not have had A/C growing up, but i did have a POOL.  and that pool made all the difference.  we lived in that thing during the day and there was nothing better than a late night swim in the pool to cool off after a long, hot day.  so, after this long, hot, exhausting day, I'm going to lay in bed and think about walking out my back door, staring at my reflection in perfectly calm water and diving right in to feel the cool rush of water around me.  aaahhhh.... or maybe i'll take a cold shower :)

b and g

gavin @ 8 weeks

brooke @ 29 months

a photographer friend of mine, john oaks, was nice enough to do me a huge favor and come take photographs of us in our house before we left cincy.  our first house will always be very special to us.  it was small, but we loved everything about it (well, almost everything :)  john sent me the pictures this week, and i think they turned out great.  most of them are of the 4 of us, but there are some of the kids individually that simply capture my heart.  i thought i'd share two of them now.

mr. happy go lucky

at 3 months old, gavin is as sweet as ever.  he's constantly smiling and laughing and almost always keeps his cool, even when his sister is in his face or screaming in his ear.  he's our happy little guy, and i couldn't possibly love him any more than i do.

in the past week gavin has started holding his neck up for long periods of time, using his arms and legs to hit the animals dangling from his play mat, grabbing things with his hands and rolling onto his side.  it won't be long and he'll be rolling all the way over.  it's so much fun to see him growing and developing.  as you can see in the picture, he's also lost almost all of his hair!

the things she says...

i find my daughter's vocabulary to be pretty amazing for a 2 1/2 year old.  the things she says absolutely crack us up!  i thought i'd capture some of her latest phrases.

first, i should tell you that i've gone from "mommy" to "mom" in the past 4 weeks.  i certainly didn't expect this at the age of 2 1/2, and it makes me feel like brooke is way too big for her britches!  in fact, most of the time it's "hey, mom..."

"mom, gavin is smiling all over the places" (meaning: gavin is smiling a lot)  this one is my fav.

"mom, what time is it?" followed 2 seconds later by "mom, what time is it?" (laura - sound familiar? :)

"do you know what his/her name is?" (now asked whenever we see a little girl or boy that she doesn't know, which is a lot these days)

"what's their last name?"  (lately she's been memorizing everyone's middle and last names)

"mom, i like gavin's PJs.  they're cool."  (ha!  i have no idea where she picked this up.)

"mom, do you have one of these for me?"  (asked whenever she sees something she likes or thinks she needs.  for example, her friend's play stand mixer, my baby carrier for gavin, etc.)

"cousin pierce loves me a lot.  cousin joey loves me a lot."  (differentiated from mom & dad who must only love her a little :)

"llama pajama macy's i don't know about that!" said loudly and emphatically  (a recent trend is taking fragments of things that make sense and combining them so they make no sense at all.  llama pajama is from a book, macy's is the department store, and "i don't know about that" comes from somewhere but we're not sure where.)

"daddy, i bought that for you."  (she loves endearing herself to her father)

"i want it, i want it, i want it!"  (i'm desperately trying to teach the child some manners :)

and, of course, she wouldn't be a 2 year old if she didn't ask "WHY?" a million times a day!

little mama

phew... that was a long break.  sorry!  now that we're settled in seattle, i hope to find time to blog much more frequently.

last week when my mom was still here she commented that brooke didn't seem to be very interested in her baby dolls anymore.  i guess she was just getting acclimated to her new house because a few days later... the babies were back.  this past week brooke has been playing "little mama" to her baby dolls.  she feeds them "the milk" when i nurse gavin.  i wish i had a picture of her holding her baby doll up to her chest trying to do it "just like mommy."  brooke's latest pleasure is her new baby doll carrier.  two days ago she pointed to my baby carrier for gavin and asked "do you have one for me?"  so yesterday when we were in the local toy store, i saw this baby carrier and had to buy it for her.  isn't she so sweet?  what a good little mama!

Gavin Cole Stealey

Our beautiful baby boy, Gavin Cole Stealey, was born on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 1:51am. He weighed a whopping 9lbs. 2oz. and was 21.75" long.   Brooke is a very proud big sister!!