lil' cowboy

The past two weeks, Gage has started horseback riding and he LOVES it! Look at how cute his big grin is :) It makes me so happy to see him up there.

And HAPPY 3-21! Today is World Down Syndrome Awareness Day because people with Down syndrome sport 3 copies of the 21st chromosome. We feel so blessed to have Gage in our lives. We love you, Gage!!

Fun in the SUN!

We absolutely love the neighborhood we moved into. There are SO many kids and all the families have been so welcoming to us. We try to get together at least once a week to let all the kids play and let the mom's have some time to visit. Today, the weather was so nice, we took the kids to the park! We all loved it so much.

Gage was such a boy the whole time, walking through the weeds and mud all around the park and chasing after dogs instead of playing on all the playground equipment. But he sure did have a good time!

Here's PROOF...


Aye, Aye, Aye! Notice the shoe in the bottom right corner... I had to yank to get it out! Little Stinker! Gage has now learned that when you get stuck in the mud and the friends you are with at the time are girls...

You end up in purple stretchy pants and pink sneekers. Lesson learned!
(yeah, right!)

Long Time No See!

Well hello, blogworld! I have been MIA. Not for any particular reason other than the fact that... well, yeah, no particular reason actually! But, I have been given a little grief about the slacking and thought an update would make it all better! Get ready for some cuteness.. this little boy is growing up and, if you ask me, he is cuter than ever.

Well... some holidays have come and gone since the last post, including Halloween.
He dressed up in his Uncle Kaden's old bear costume. Uncle Kaden is in South Africa right now so he thought it was pretty cool Gage got to be his bear!

And here's the little mister telling mom what he is dressed up as (sign for bear, for those who don't speak his language :) )

My biggest excuse for not blogging... we bought our first house! We found it back in September but had to wait for it to get finished. It was totally worth the wait because we got to choose everything for the interior on our own! It was a little intimidating, but it turned out beautiful. Just like we had imagined! And yes, I did bring the tripod on our move-in day since it was just the three of us. And we shot lots of family pictures before we walked in and of us unlocking the door. And then Derek carried me in :)

We got the keys late November. My sweet hubby had these flowers for me as we went in. Such a sweet surprise!

We had a big snow storm and decided to go build us a quick snowman. Gage loved eating the snow but didn't love walking in it. And I say a "quick snowman" because it didn't last long. Gage wasn't the biggest fan of the cold. I don't blame him!

Gage and I went out with my family to choose our Christmas tree. Usually, Derek would come with us. But a few days later he had to take a big portion of his CPA exam, so he was at home studying away while we went out and got it. Luckily, I have a wonderful big brother and dad who helped cut it down and lug it down the big hill!

Of course, Gage got to go see Santa the week before Christmas! I was sure this was going to end in disaster, but this boy sure proved his mamma wrong! He kept telling me "ho ho ho", which is his way of saying "Santa". They sound alike, don't they? :) I was so excited we got to go see this Santa in particular. This is the REAL Santa. Ever since I was a little girl my mom told me this was the real Santa and the Santas at the mall were Santa's helpers but they were mean. (At least that's the way I remember it, she may not have said it exactly like that!) His beard is real. AND he drives a red car with the license plate that says "the sled". How cool is that! He tells stories as you wait for your turn to go see him. Gage anxiously watched all the other kids and then was totally fascinated with him when it was his turn!

Gage LOVED having so much family around. And the LOVED having so many people to play ring around the rosie with! One of his favorite games of all time. In this picture, he stopped his Uncle Kody at the center of the stairs for a quick turn of ring around the rosie...

And here he is with Lolo and Lola, his great-grandparents, playing again! I'm pretty sure Lola (his great-grandma) played this game with him one hundred times while we were there for the Christmas break. They would "all fall down" together and everything, it was so cute!

Gage and his cousin, Paisley all cuddled up in their Christmas PJ's.

Christmas was so great. We woke up and got to call my brother in South Africa. You may have noticed the "cut-out" of him in the picture where Gage, Lolo and Lola are playing ring around the rosie. We made that and take him all over the place with us for pictures, it is way funny and it actually looks pretty darn good in the pictures! But we got to talk with him for about an hour and a half. He is doing AMAZING. He has the best attitude about everything, we are so proud of him and happy for him!
After the phone call, we opened gifts. Gage has never had so much fun opening presents, whether they were his or not! The picture above pretty much explains his attitude throughout the day.
Christmas was wonderful and we were so happy to be able to spend it with all of our family.

Mister Gage is growing up more than I can believe! He is such a smart boy and has the funniest personality. He loves to play CandyLand, and is having fun learning his colors. He has learned some and others are starting to be more familiar to him. He also loves coloring, playing with playdough, and playing with stickers. I can tell his imagination is developing and it is so cute to "spy" on him when he goes into his room by himself to play!

Learning early :) Always the best part of making a treat!

Now that we are in a place of our own, we get to have our dog live with us! He is a boxer and his name is Gunther. He is the best dog ever, really. He is Gage's seat when he watches movies (above)...

And his arm rest. Gage loves to walk with his arm around him! And yes, we make our dog wear shoes. He is very playful and scratches the floors! Even when Gage pinches Gunther's floppy lips, or grabs his ears, Gunther just licks Gage. He is the perfect dog for our family.

Derek and I have been collecting tools in hopes of creating furniture and projects on our own. After Christmas, we had collected enough to go for it!
The creme entry table was my project.

And the coffee table was Derek's project! Didn't he do such a great job with it? I love it! We had a blast making them and we got to make them exactly how we wanted them to be. Can't beat it!

My family came to visit and Gage and Paisley had lots of fun together. They just love each other, it is so cute to watch them give kisses and loves! Here they are watching a movie together.

And here is Gage and his girlfriend. Is she not adorable? We were so lucky to meet her and her mommy this past week and they live right by us! Lots of fun times to come!


Whew! Lots of pictures!
And for the rest of the updates...
Gage is now back in Early Intervention and has been for about a month. His therapist are great and he has a lot of fun with them. He has started a weekly class that our EI team has put together. It is pretty much Kindermusic but for free! Can't beat that. He has gone a couple times and I am just thrilled about the results! They focus a lot on oral motor strength and skills and I can tell it encourages him so much to make new sounds. Speech is still our area of struggle, but he is making great progress. He can tell me quite a few animal sounds. My favorites are moo and baaa. Baa is so cute cuz he does the little "shaking" sound at the end, ya know what I mean? "ba-a-a-a". So funny! His favorite and most often used words are "no" (go figure) and "what's that?" He is so curious about every sound he hears and if I don't answer him when he asks me "what's that?" then he will ask me again so I'll tell him.

It is weird to me to just get ready in the morning and have him totally entertain himself playing the whole time, or when I pour him a bowl of cereal & milk and he just takes over from there. Its little things like this that make me realize our little boy is growing up and it is so fun to watch it happen.

There is the update and no promises will be made, but I am hoping next time it won't take me as long to get another update posted! I still love reading everyone's blogs and keeping update on everyone, thanks for being patient with me :)

Orange!

Lately, Gage and I have had some crazy weeks, all jumbled and stuff going on all the time. We've been having lots of fun, but I decided that a theme for the week or something would be fun and maybe give us a little more structure! I think maybe a little of my motivation for this comes because Gage hasn't had therapies for probably 4 months now. With the move and all that, we really haven't pushed too hard to get them up and going again, yet. Not gonna lie, it's been kinda nice! But I still want to give him opportunities to learn. So we are on a mission to learn colors! Orange probably wouldn't have been my first choice on a color to teach Gage, but since it is Halloween this week, I decided it would be fun and there seems to be lots of orange around!

We woke up this morning and dressed Gage in an orange shirt. Then for breakfast, we had mandarin oranges, and peach yogurt!

Then we put Gage's orange apron on and colored an orange picture to send to Uncle Kaden in South Africa! (Any time we start coloring, Gage asks for a "fish" so I get to show off my drawing skills for him :) )

For a snack, we had orange goldfish! Then I didn't take a picture at lunch, but we had grilled cheese sandwiches with orange cheese.
We've had a lot of fun so far, I think we're going to like doing this!

Pumpkin Pickin'!

As Gage and I were driving last week with Gramma Jill & Papa Joe, we came across this house with pumpkins piled all over the front lawn. We decided to stop there and pick our own pumpkins!

I think Gage thought the whole pumpkin thing was pretty cool, going around and knocking on them and seeing what they are all about.

But when we decided to plop him onto the big pile of pumpkins, it wasn't his favorite thing. That is, until Hewie joined him! Then I think he was too distracted to care!

It was fun checking out all the crazy pumpkins and choosing our favorites!

Cousins

We got to have our family come visit us for the weekend, so we had to get some cute pictures of the kids.

::: Paisley & Gage :::

::: With Gramma Jill :::

AHH! A spider!
(not really, but that's totally what it looks like!)

Fun Fact

another fun fact:


Gage loves playing on playgrounds. As long as there aren't other kids around, he goes up and down and up and down. If there are other kids around, he is completely fascinated by them. Especially the older kids that are all over the place. So he stares in amazement.

And because he watches the older kids all the time, he thinks the monkey bars are so much fun. He hangs on for dear life (even though I don't let him go) and gets so excited.

And this toy thing, whatever it's called, is super fun. Gage is demonstrating how you are supposed to play on it. In his eyes, this is totally the way you do it, and it is way fun. Reach up as high as your arms will let you and then stick your belly out.

We live right next to an elementary school right now, so we've loved being able to just walk to the park whenever we want to go play. But now almost every time we go to walk out the door, Gage looks up at me and signs "play" with a questioning look. As if he is trying to say, "so we are going to play, right?" :)

Fun Fact

Another cute little fact:
Gage now understands the "real" purpose of dandelions.
(I think Papa Joe might have had something to do with this new fascination)


first, ya pick it,

then, you blow on it and watch the seeds fly away!

It made my day the first time I watched Gage bend down to pick a dandelion. I remember getting so excited when I would find one, it is so fun to watch the same excitement come from Gage!

Party Month!!

It's October, and that means it is the month to CeLEbRaTE Gage! October is Down syndrome awareness month, so I am going to try really hard to be good about blogging this month so everyone can join us in our celebration of Gage!

I'll blog random facts about Gage and the joy he brings into our family every single day!

Gage keeps me on my toes, that is for sure! He loves to play outside. These pictures are from a cute farm near our home.
Fact 1: PuDDleS!! Puddles are the coolest thing ever, just ask Gage! If he sees one, we must stop. He may be soaked by the end of it, but man are they fun!

Alive & Well!

Just in case anyone was wondering... we are still here. Just have been really neglecting the blogging world for the past few months. We moved last Saturday, so maybe that will get things a little settled down for us! At least I'm hoping so!
I got a phone call from my dad a few weeks ago informing me that there haven't been any updates in a really long time and I needed to get on it... so here it is dad! And a fair warning to anyone reading, this is the most obnoxiously long post I have ever done... but I'll try to be brief!

Gage turned 2 just over 2 months ago. He sure has grown up, it is so much fun! I love watching his personality come out more and more. We took him out for some 2-year shots, so here are a couple to go along with the one I posted a few months ago!



I like to call this one "Bad to the Bone"

We threw a little family party for Gage's birthday. This is his surprised look he made when he came out and saw Gramma Jill and Papa Joe were there to see him!

One cool, spoiled rotten dude!

Gage's "Smash Cake"
Last year, during Gage's 1st birthday party, he had a fever over 103 degrees. Not so much in the mood for eating his cake. So we decided he got another shot at it this year. I made him a "deer cake" and he definitely loved it! Didn't hesitate a bit!

He even blew out his own birthday candles, he was so excited!

"Mommy, taste how good this is!!"

The cake for everyone else, made my Gage's great-grandma

The decorations...

More decorations... Cathy made Gage this adorable letter to go in his new room! Isn't it so cute?! It will go so perfect with the theme we are going to do.

We had a great time and we were so happy Gage wasn't sick this time so he could actually enjoy all the fun and attention!

We went to visit Gage's Great-Great-Grandma, and took some 5 generation pictures. This is the look you get when you tell a 2-year-old to look at the camera and say "cheese!!"
In the picture is my mom, my grandpa, me, Gage, and my great-grandma

Blowing kisses to his new cousin. He loves baby Paisley, he sits and watches her whenever she is around and tries to help her mommy take care of her.

Gage's first day of class! Growing up so big!

Gage loves the piano. Always has. He was so excited when he learned to climb up on the bench so he could play whenever he wanted to! I love to watch him play, he plays so nicely like he is really trying to play a song. And he loves to sit on his Uncle Kaden's lap and watch him play music.

Speaking of sitting on laps... this is our lap dog. Or so he thinks....

Gage's first good black eye. When I took the pictures it didn't look too black, but it slowly got worse before it got better. He decided to go down 3 cement stairs face first... no fun!


Gage's favorite thing to do is sing songs. If we would sit and sing songs for him to do the actions to all day, he totally would be in heaven! So I took a few pictures of him doing 2 of his songs. I really need to get pictures of the others, I love watching it!

"If you're happy and you know it....

... stomp your feet!!"

"The isty bitsy spider went up the water spout... (yes, I am totally aware of what sign he is doing... but that is what he has come up with for "the itsy bitsy spider!)

... down came the rain and washed the spider out ...

... out came the sun and dried up all the rain ...

... and the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout, again!"


There's our update for now! Hope you enjoyed it :)