Matthew's First Birthday

This little guy is SO dang cute and we just love him! I (and his Mommy) wished we lived in the same town so that we could hang out more often, but I LOVE every minute I get to spend with both of them.  Matthew was the answer to his parents prayers and it warms my heart to see what a great Mom Kendra is.  He is the happiest, go with the flow child I have ever met. 

 

The boys had a great time at this baseball themed party and of course Kendra had all the details covered for his party.  My favorite were the French fries that were really sugar cookie strips and the ketchup that was really frosting! 

 

 

Amber and Adam's Wedding

My cousin's daughter, Amber, got married and she was beautiful.  They boys hadn't really been to a wedding that they remembered so it was cute to see them watch.  They talk about people being married, but I knew this didn't know what is was going to mean.  As you can see Gannon was really interested!  He quietly watching Mickey Mouse as Garrett took in the crowd.  My favorite part of the ceremony was the "shot" the bride and her dads took at the start of the aisle.  I always look for something that stands out as different at weddings because that is how I remember the as a unique event.  This was that moment for me!  It was a fun night hanging out with all the family.

 

Super Proud Parents

Garrett loves 1st grade and his teacher LOVES him.  She always tells me how smart he is and how helpful he is in class.  She often calls him her right hand kid.  Whenever she needs something from the office he's the one she sends.  We had his first parent teacher conference and she said he will even get up and help his friends in class when Mrs. D is busy.  We are very proud of this little guy.  He continues to be awesome in school passing all his math speed tests with 100%, reading with the advanced group every week with 0 errors on his 1 minute reads and he LOVES to do homework!  His favorite part of homework every week is writing the 14 words of the week each in a sentence. 

 

Mrs. D selected Garrett and another student has her students to be recognized for the Character Counts Pillar of Respect.  He is very respectful and a great listener...at school!

 

 

He's addicted!

Garrett's loves sports and I'm pretty sure he's hooked on running!  As soon as we walked in the door from his first 5K he wouldn't stop asking when the next one was and he wanted to make sure he was running the next one with Mom, "because Dad had to walk"!  I saw another local race was coming up and I registered both of us for the 5K.  The run took place right down the street from our house so we walked over and got our bibs and off we went.  He loves it!!! Talks the almost the entire way, which is a good sign that he isn't over doing it.  He was funny along the run, he saw a squirrel and asked if we could tell Dad and Gannon about the creatures we saw. 

 

We improved his time by a couple minutes, but he was  a little sad that he got second in his age group this time.  Hard to explain to a 6 year old that the age categories change at races so the kid that took 1st is a 13 year old cross country runner! 

 

He is awesome and his passion is amazing at this age.  Let's hope I can be his pacer for a while before he can leave me behind!

 

Gannon and Dad joined for the treats, raffle, and bounce house fun.  We won an ITunes card in the raffle and the boys loved the slide and bounce house! 

 

First Days of School

The first days of school are over and done!

 

Gannon started back to his last year of preschool the week before the rest of the family.  Makes the first day of school for Mom a little easier!  He loves Montessori and had been missing his friends so he was excited to go back. 

 

Garrett started 1st grade at Chenoweth and was nervous about meeting his teacher the Friday before school started, but on the first day he did great.  He knew the routine of going to Chenoweth so he wasn't afraid like last year.  He had a great first day.  I couldn't convince him to get a new shirt for the first day, but was excited to wear his new shoes.

 

First day for Dad and Mom were great too!

 

YEAH, everyone has settled back into our school routines.  I didn't realize they both picked green shirts for the first day! 

 

Grandpa Bill's Giants Game

For my Dad's birthday or Father's Day (can't remember which) I got him a "Father/Daughter Date to the Giants game.  Actually it was a Father/Daughter Date + 1!!! I knew there was no way I could go to Garrett's favorite team's game without taking him with me. 

 

We picked up Grandpa in Modesto, rode the BART into the City to watch the Giants.  Garrett had a dentist appointment that morning and we had a little parking delay at the BART station so we missed part of the 1st inning which is when they scored all their runs! But, it was still fun to spend time with my Dad and Garrett at a beautiful day game at AT&T Park. And the Giants won.

 

Garrett's First 5K

Dave and I have tried to talk Garrett into running one of the 1k kids run that typically are the start of one of my runs, but he is always too afraid to do it on his own.  When I signed up for a local 10k Dave decided to sign him AND Garrett up for the 5k to see what Garrett could do.  He has "runner" in his blood and will soon wear out a stretch of carpet in our house!  At my 15k in Santa Monica Dave said he ran back and forth for at least 45 minutes while I was running.  He was very excited on the morning of his first race!  Dave got him all stretched and ready to go.  We all lined up together and took off!  Dave said he talked the entire first mile, pretty par for Garrett, and then was trying to run faster, but kept looking back to make sure Dad was still behind him.  At the end he took off without Dad and finished with a 34:21.  We are very proud of our little guy running the entire 3.1 miles.  He has requested that I run the next 5k with him so we'll see if we can beat that time!!!