It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Gage had a wonderful first Christmas! We had a month of celebrations. We began by going to Forsyth, Ga the first weekend of December and Gage was able to meet Mama Hux. We celebrated with my dad's siblings and their children. We then had his dedication the second weekend of December. The third weekend, we went to Columbus, Ga. We celebrated with my mom's siblings and their children. We were also able to visit with Ashley Bobo and I was able to go out and have some girl time with her. Gage met Hendrix, his second cousin who is 2 years old. Hendrix loved Gage and we look forward to playing with him again! The week of Christmas my mom came and stayed at our house to help me get everything cleaned and cooked. That Wednesday night we went to Yonkers, Ga and saw a house covered in thousands of lights with the Wicker family. Gage also got a few pictures with Santa there. On Thursday, dad, Bert, Sarah, Temperance, Josh, and Brittany all came in to stay with us until Saturday. Grandmama and Granddaddy Carswell also came in on Thursday to visit for a few hours. Although Bert was sick all day Friday, we had a great time with our family visiting and spending time with them. Temperance was so fun and loved playing with everyone. Gage did pretty good but was a little off his sleeping schedule. Friday evening after the Christmas Eve service, the McCalvin family came in and we all had a family dinner together. Saturday morning after breakfast together, my family left and we spent the day with the McCalvins. We enjoyed eating a nice big lunch together and hanging out. Gage had a great time being with his grandparents, uncles, and aunts. And of course his cousin, Temperance. He got several new toys that he has enjoyed playing and some that he will be able to grow into for the next few months. He also got a highchair that he has enjoyed using while eating his cereal. We have had  a wonderful Christmas and are so blessed to have such a loving family. My prayer is that Gage will grow up knowing that Christmas is about celebrating Jesus' birth with family, and not about receiving gifts.

At Yonkers, Ga

Visiting with Mama Hux

Gage with Santa

Sitting with Aunt Brittany watching Josh feed Temperance

Thanksgiving and Dedication

I realize I have not posted in a while. I have been trying to locate my camera so I could upload some cute pictures from our thanksgiving week, but my camera is still hiding from me. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We went down to Port St. Lucie, Florida and spent a few days with Aaron's family. We were able to take a 5 generation picture and Gage was able to meet his grandparents on that side plus his Aunt Tammi and cousins Dominique and Charles. We also made a trip to the beach to take some family pictures. We all, with the exception of Gage, stuffed our faces with food and enjoyed spending time with family. Gage did wonderful on the 6 hour drive there and back. He is such a good car rider! We have been getting ready for Christmas now that Thanksgiving is over. (I will do another post on Christmas and post pictures from all of our family get togethers.) This past weekend we went to Albany for Gage's dedication. We had him dedicated at the Refuge by Bobby Brooks. After church, we all went back to my parent's house for lunch. We had a wonderful time seeing family and friends and getting to celebrate that special day in Gage's life with all of them. We are so blessed and so thankful for each and every one of them. I don't have pictures on the computer from Gage's dedication, but I'll put them up in the next couple of days. Enjoy the family pictures from Thanksgiving!

Five generations. From left to right: Barbara, Granddad, Aaron, Emily, Billy, Lori. And then Grandma holding Gage in the center.

Family picture on the beach

The whole McCalvin clan!

True Love

I feel like I just need to blog about my love for Gage today. I have been overwhelmed the past couple of days by my love for Gage. It amazes me how my heart continues to grow in love for this child every day. I feel like my heart may explode any minute with how full my heart is for him. It was a year ago from Monday, the 22nd, that we found out I was pregnant. It amazes me how my love for him began that day. It amazed me even more of how much I loved him already when I first saw him and held him in the NICU. How can you love someone so much that you just met?? My love for him has only grown, and I know it will continue to grow every day. It brings tears to my eyes knowing the honor that I have to be Gage's mother. The fact that God gave me a child to love and raise as one of His own blows my mind. It has also brought God's love for us to a whole new level. I know that I would do ANYTHING for Gage and his safety and his happiness. I can only imagine how much greater that truth is for us as God's children. I also can now partially understand the sacrifice of God giving his ONLY son to die in place for all the world. I will never fully understand God's love, grace, and mercy. But I cannot imagine Gage being born and knowing that the purpose of his birth was to die in place of someone else. What love that is!!! I'm sitting here trying to figure out the words to express how great my love is for my son....there are no words that will do it justice.

Snuggled close to my heart, where he will always be

Pumpkin Patch

We were finally able to visit a great pumpkin patch to take pictures of Gage...and of course, it was FREEZING outside. So I didn't get all the pictures I originally wanted, but I did manage to get a few good ones. We were in Albany for the day on Saturday to go to a friend's wedding that night. We made a trip to Mark's Melon Patch that afternoon. Gage did amazing considering it was nap time AND he had a poopie diaper. My parents and Aaron's mom and brother, Travis,  were able to spend the afternoon with us, so we took a some pictures with them as well. I'm going to put several pictures on this blog, but to view all the pictures from the pumpkin patch, you can go onto my facebook page where I have created an album with the rest of the pictures there. Enjoy!!

Family picture

Gage with Lollie

Gage with Uncle Travis

Gage with Papa J and Grandma

 

Halloween

Mommy's Little Pumpkin

We had an extended Halloween holiday. It started on Thursday night for us. We went to the church's trunk or treat. We decorated my trunk with a UGA theme! :) Gage wore his pumpkin outfit with a pumpkin hat. And if I must say so myself, he looked ADORABLE!! I have included a couple of pictures of that outfit. Then on Saturday, we went to Dublin's Downtown Spooktacular. There wasn't as much going on as we hoped, but we were able to see friends and it allowed us to get out of this house for a little bit, which is always nice for Gage and I. He wore the same pumpkin outfit to that as well. Sunday night was our fun night. We had a costume party that night at youth. I had been scrounging for ideas for a while that were fun and cheap. The key word being CHEAP.  I came across a kid's costume online of him being a crayon. It looked super easy to make. All that you used was a pillow case, black fabric paint, and construction paper.

Pumpkin booty

Daddy and Gage at trunk or treat

 So I decided we would be crayons! Choosing the colors was the fun part. We decided to be practical with the colors. Aaron would be blue and I would be pink. And what do those two colors mixed together make??? PURPLE!! So of course, Gage was purple. I made them Saturday night and they turned out great. I was so proud of my very first homemade costumes for our family. Aaron and I are already trying to get a head start on next year's Halloween costumes since Gage will be running around and able to have fun with it.

The crayon family!

Fun weekend!

Gage is ready for bed and saying bye to Uncle Josh and Aunt Brittany

We have had such a fun weekend!! It started a little early on Thursday. Aaron's mom came in for a visit. Gage was excited to see his Lolli, but sad that Pop couldn't make the trip with her. He got to spend alot of time with her on Thursday and again on Friday. She left on Friday around 4:30. Gage was down for a nap, and then had some alone time with me for a couple of hours, and then my parents came in around 7:30. He got to see his Grandma and Papa J for a little bit before it was bedtime. THEN, on Saturday, we added to the numbers with Josh and Brittany driving over from Statesboro to spend the day with us. We went around to a few local stores around Dublin and then went out for lunch. We had a relaxing afternoon at the house watching football, talking, and playing Rummikub. We all went to dinner at a local restaurant here and then out for ice cream. Whew! We were all tired after a day like that. This morning, we went to church with Grandma and Papa J, and then out to eat. They left town after lunch, and after a good nap, we are now about to go to a corn maze and pumpkin patch with the youth group. It should be fun! I'm hoping to get some pictures as well. I'm sure Gage and I will both be ready for a relaxing, do-nothing day tomorrow :) But we sure have had fun being with family this weekend. I have included a couple of pictures from the weekend....though I wish I had taken more. I never think of it at the moment...I need to improve on that.

Uncle Travis carved a pumpkin with Gage's name in it. He sent us the picture last night. What an awesome pumpkin!!

Bumbo Chair

From 2-4 months

This is one of his favorite spots to sit in the house. He loves to sit here and have conversations.

Ok, so the last blog caught everyone up to the point when we moved here to Dublin, and Gage had just turned two months. Since we have been here, we have had no health problems..yay!! He is a strong, healthy, growing boy. I am thankful everyday for that. We have a wonderful pediatrician that we use here, and thankfully have only needed to see him on the normal monthly appointments( well, not so monthly anymore). Gage has learned to smile, laugh, and really starting to interact when you talk to him. In a sweet, soft voice of course. He is trying his best to sit up and stand. He loves to be on his feet and for you just to hold him so he can stand up and look around at everything. He has wonderful control of his head for such a small person. We are really working these days on getting him to grab and hold onto things. He seems to have no interest in it whatsoever. He would much rather smile and talk to you. Which is super cute, and I would prefer that as well :) We have also discovered that he is a major flirt with girls. He will constantly smile and play with them. Not sure what this means for our future with him.....haha! I have loved being at home with him and watching all these milestones develop. I cherish everyday with him and just can't get enough love from him. He will 5 months on October 29th. I can't believe how time flies!!! Within the past few months, we have also made several visits to Statesboro to visit Uncle Josh and Aunt Brittany, gone to Kentucky to visit Uncle Bert, Aunt Sarah, and Temperance. We have had  a visit from Uncle Justin, and have seen Uncle Travis for a few minutes while in Albany one day. Gage has still not gotten to meet his Uncle Zach, but we are trying to plan out a time for that to happen. And he of course gets frequent visits from his Grandma and Papa J (my parents) and from his Lolli and Pop (Aaron's parents). In fact, they are coming to see us this weekend! So..I think that about catches us up on where we are today. He is just wonderful and other than his size, you would never know he was 2 months premature and spent a month in the hospital. God is so very good!!

He now loves his bath time. Also, as you can see here, his belly button is sticking way out. He has an umbilical hernia. Nothing serious, the dr told us it would go away between 18 months and 2 years. Good news! It is now already way down from this picture.

Now that he can support his head, we enjoy sitting him in his bumbo seat.

Introduction

For this blog, I will introduce you to Gage. He was born on May 29, 2010 at 12:15 pm. He was 16.75 inches long and weighed 3 lbs 10 oz. He came 9 weeks early. He was in the NICU for exactly one month. He had no major problems while there, just minor ones including breathing apnea and a staph infection. He was released from the NICU after he was able to nurse or bottlefeed for 24 hours and had no breathing problems off of his medicine for 24 hours. We went home on June 29th. What an exciting day that was!! No more driving to the hospital to see my son and I could wake up to feed him at night, instead of waking up to pump (not fun!) We spent another month in Leesburg pretty much cooped up in the house and then moved to Dublin, Ga on July 31st. So that catches you up on his first two months, I know, not too exciting yet. I'll have more to tell in future posts. Enjoy a few pictures of the first couple of months!

He had to be hooked up to all this as soon as he was born. He only had the breathing machine (the mouthpiece) for about 24 hours.

See how tiny he was?!?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At our house in Leesburg, Ga