My First Easter

Hi. Simon here...it makes blog posting more interesting for Mom somehow if I narrate...weird, I know. So let "me" tell you all about my very exciting weekend!

First of all, here I am--aren't I just the cutest thing you've ever seen? I got this ducky in my first-ever Easter basket...but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to last Wednesday...

Last Wednesday Grandma Marilyn came for a sleepover at my house. It was loads of fun, as we got to read stories and chat and chat. The next morning some of the grown-ups were grumbling about waking at the crack of dawn or something, but I don't know what they were talking about. After my usual middle of the night wakings, I woke up to find we were bumping along the road, and had been for some time, apparently.

I've trained my parents pretty well by now, so they were pretty quick to pull into a gas station whenever I got hungry. I even have my Auntie Karlie wrapped around my little finger--whenever I was awake in the van she would smile and talk to me to keep me company :). After about seven hours on the road, we arrived here, at the cabin my grandpa and great-uncles are building.

Look who I found inside--Grandpa Steve! He was hard at work, but I convinced him to take a little break to have a chat with me. Then we left the cabin and headed for the farm...my first trip to the farm!

I met Great-Grandma Pearl right away. She was so happy to see me, and smiled at me whenever I was in the same room with her, even though she couldn't remember my name. That's okay, I couldn't remember hers, either.

Being at the farm was exhausting, so I took lots of naps.

I played with Grandma and Karlie a lot, too.

And I got to meet Great-Grandpa Roy, of course! Who knew he'd know just how to keep me comfy? I guess raising over a dozen kids will teach you a thing or two about what babies like...

Everybody loved me. No, really...look, here I am just trying to pose for the picture and they're all looking at me instead of the camera! (I made sure to wear my overalls for my first trip to the farm--so I could help out if needed. But nobody would let me do anything useful, they all just wanted to play.)

After a couple days at the farm, we drove seven hours back to Northfield. Here I am just chillin' in my car seat. Then, before you know it Mom and Dad stuffed me into my car seat again, this time for a 4.5 hour drive to Madison! Seemed to me like they just couldn't decide where they wanted to be.

In Madison, I got to meet my Great-Grandma Carole and Great-Grandpa Howard. They loved me too, just like everyone else! I must be one likable kid. It's exhausting being so likable all the time, actually--as you can see above, I'm a little exhausted already in this picture, because it was at the tail end of our big Easter gathering. Do you like my Easter outfit? Mom picked it out, and asked me not to get it messy. I only drooled on it a little bit...

I got to spend some time with Aunt Liz in Madison. Here we are playing on a blanket that she and my Mommy remember from when they were little (or so they said, they seem awfully big to me, I'm not sure they were ever little).

My first Easter basket! I was going to find it myself, but Mom was so excited that she insisted on helping me. I decided to amuse her. Look how happy she was to find it!

The day after Easter, I got some great snuggle time in with Grandma Phyllis. She's an extra-good snuggler, I think...I'll have to remember that for my next visit.

I got to spend some quality time with Grandpa John, too. I tried to stay awake and play, but he rocked me right to sleep!

All in all it was a very exciting weekend. And then, to top it all off, my parents made a huge deal when they heard me giggling the other day. They even pulled out the camera and took a little video of Mom--get this--pretending she's going to eat my scrumptous cheeks but then kissing them instead! What can I say? It was funny, so I giggled!

Simon Giggles (25 seconds):




Hope you all had a blessed Easter weekend.
~ The Gubbins Family

Home Again

Well, we have returned from our Easter weekend travels. Simon was great--we really couldn't have asked for a better traveler! Still, it will be good to get back to a normal routine for all of us.

I'm hoping to have some time tomorrow to post photos from our adventures. Until then, here's a random video of what we saw in my parents' backyard Easter weekend--wild turkeys! I suspect their behavior must have something to do with mating season...its just too randomly entertaining not to post.

Turkey Dance (30 seconds):

So long for now...

I thought I'd leave you all with a video and a few photos while we are gone for a few days.

playtime with Daddy

our little pirate/biker dude (Andy was going for pirate but Jess thinks he looks more like a biker)

hanging out with Mom

Simon would like everyone to know that he is doing oh-so-well with his eye tracking...as he shows off for you, here:

Watch the Keys! (51 seconds)

Procrastinating

Hi everybody!

Hi everyone, Jess here, procrastinating...that's right, Simon is at work with Andy, so this is my baby-free get-work-done time, and I'm getting NOTHING done. Geez. You'd think I'd be able to work just a couple hours in the afternoon, wouldn't you? But no...baby-free time means I get to sit through a whole meal, browse the internet without interruption, etc. and so I find its actually quite difficult to get work done, with OR without Simon here!

So I thought I'd post, but don't really have anything particular to post about. Instead, I added a little ticker at the top of the page showing how old Simon is (thanks to Katie for posting tickers on their blog, what a great idea!), and decided it was about time to update the name of our blog. We are now "Mr & Mrs Gubbins & Son"...not very creative, but hey, we're sleep deprived.

In other news, we'll be heading out of town for two back-to-back trips to see family over holy week. First we'll be heading to northern Minnesota to see some of Andy's relatives, leaving super-early Thursday morning. Then, we'll be in Madison to see some of Jess's relatives, starting on Sunday. Surely there will be new photos to post upon our return!

Week (or so) in review

Well, its been a quiet week here in Northfield (not my hometown)...

The first quiet week in a while, it seems. The weather finally cooperated in bringing above freezing temperatures, so we've been trying to enjoy it by taking walks the past couple of days.

Simon, all bundled for a walk in the stroller

A week ago we took Simon in for his 2-month well-baby visit. The diagnosis: he's well! Not that we were worried :). He weighed in at just shy of 13 lbs, keeping him on his 75% trajectory for weight. The most traumatic part of the visit was getting his first immunizations--3 shots and 1 oral, for a total of 5 vaccines. Poor thing! I don't think we've ever heard him scream so loud or get so bright red! But, he handled it well overall, calming down just after the shots. A few doses of infant tylenol over that first day, and he was good as gold.

He's even smiling, showing off his stylish thigh band-aids just after returning from the doctor...

And the non-baby-related excitement in Jess' life is a new knitting project: the Alexi cardigan. It's by far the most difficult project I've tackled yet. If you check out the pattern or zoom in on the photo below, you'll see from the picture that it is FULL of cables. I love cables...how they look, that is. I do NOT love knitting them, as I find them rather tedious. But, I've only done two small projects with cables, so I'm thinking that maybe I just don't have enough practice yet--so my thinking in taking on this ambitious cable-full cardigan is that I'll either become proficient with a cable needle or learn to go without (or decide I really do hate knitting cables...but I'm hoping one of the other two happens).

back ribbing for my new project

And, for those of you in cute-baby-withdrawal, here are a couple brief videos, showing what Simon spends a lot of his time doing these days:

Just Kickin' It (9 seconds)




Talking & Smiling (23 seconds):

Weekend with Visitors!

Here are some more photos from the weekend...

Jess, Sarah, & Aubrey, reunited again

Simon enjoyed lots of playtime with Sarah, who made tummy time much more fun

big smile from the 2-month-old!

Simon meeting his godmother

Grandma & Grandpa, and Aunt Liz hadn't seen Simon since the week he was born--he's so big now! Here he is with a new blanket that was a gift from one of Grandma's friends.

playtime with Grandpa John

hanging out with Grandma Phyllis

just chillin' with Aunt Liz

Baptized!

Simon has been dunked! (Okay, not technically dunked, but still...) We have lots of photos, but many of them are quite similar...i.e. Simon, Andy, and Jess, with _______ (fill in the blank), just after the baptism. We'll send those out to family in an email, but thought we wouldn't take up space on the blog showing you every combination of family members who were there..here are just a couple of my favorites. (More photos from the weekend to come...)

I love the smile on Hubert's face!


The godparents--Sarah and Aaron


It was an exhausting day!

[By the way, if you have high-speed internet and are interested, you can watch or listen the baptism service online, as St. Olaf has all its Sunday and weekday chapel services online--go here and click on March 2. Pastor Jennifer gave a wonderful sermon.]

Variation on a Theme

Hi everyone!

We have a very exciting weekend--Simon is getting baptized tomorrow! This means that we have guests! My good friend Sarah is flying in and will get to meet her godson for the first time, and Simon's grandparents (on Jess' side) and Aunt Liz will get to see him for the first time since the week he was born--and he's so big now! For those of you who won't be here, I thought I'd leave you with a few photos and a video for your weekend enjoyment :).

Our little one is growing like a weed! Here we see him last Sunday, 8 weeks old, compared to when he was 12 days old--he's grown a whole head-length!



Simon's most recent change is that he has discovered his hand...he can now bring it to his mouth to lick and suck, but only in an approximate, jerky way. And he can't actually get a good, satisfying suck on any part of his hand, because he generally tries to cram the whole thing in his mouth. This means that when he's going down for naps, he ends up bringing his hand to his face, knocking his pacifier out of his mouth, and spends a few seconds trying to suck on his hand. After a few seconds of not really being satisfied, he'll finally let out a wail...and then the whole thing starts all over again. We are looking forward to the day when he can just suck his own thumb to be content, but it may be a long road of pacifier-knocking-out-without-real-reward until we get there!

We were delighted one night, however, to find that he actually found his thumb, and got a few good sucks before it slipped out of his mouth--much more effective than his usual whole-fist-in-the-mouth strategy!

Here Simon is modeling a little earflap hat I knit up this week, to give to a Mom in the new mom group I go to. It just barely fits him, but her little guy has a slightly smaller head (I think)...

Continuing on the theme of Simon tolerating his parents' wackiness, we have the last of our current stock of entertaining baby videos (and I think this one takes the cake!). We call this one "Hover Baby" (about 1 minute long):