The best gift I could ever get

Before being a parent I would hear people say silly things like "I don't want my child to get any older, I want to freeze this time forever" and "I am so sad that my little on is starting school it makes me sad that he/she is growing up so fast".  Before children I thought these statements were the most ridiculous thing that I had ever heard!  I would actually roll my eyes and let out a sigh.  Boy how times have changed!  I would love to freeze Garrett at this age!  He is SO MUCH FUN!  This has been my favorite stage BY FAR!  He is so loving, silly, funny and the best gift I could ever wish for.  I sit sometimes and just think of how sweet he is and it warms my heart to no end.  We got a letter in his box at school this week about how he had been extremely kind to one of the teachers telling her how pretty she was and gave her a kiss.  The teacher said it made her week.  I cried reading the sweet letter that she wrote knowing that he is being so kind to others.  I came home and tried to read the sweet note to Josh, but couldn't even make it through it without crying.  And sadly I am getting teary eyed just thinking about it.  I gave him the biggest hug and told him to keep being the sweet little boy that he is and that I was so proud of him.  I'm sure he doesn't even realize how happy people are because of him. 
There are so many things I love about this little boy who is growing up so fast.  Here are a few of the things that he is doing right now and just make me SMILE:

1.  As in a previous post he loves to tell stories.  Every night he makes up a story.  They are very detailed and are basically a story mixed of things that had happened to him mixed with monsters, cars and bad guys that batman has to get.  I look forward to these and am going to try and record some because I forget the stories so easily.
2.  He tells me I am pretty about 10 times a day.  He is such a little flirt.  He loves to compliment people and loves to be complimented himself.  If you tell him he is handsome he just grins and says "awww"
3.  He loves to talk.  All day long.  I don't think he takes a breath from the time he wakes until he goes to sleep because he doesn't stop talking.  One day he was playing and talking to his toys and he looked at me and said "mommy did you hear me not talking to anyone? "  I smiled and said "yes buddy I did". 
4.  His imagination.  Oh my word.  I love it!  I could sit and listen to him play for hours.  He plays with cars or Buzz and Woody and just has a ball.  He makes up scenes and does such a great job!
5.  He can drink a Capri Sun faster than any person I know!  He can kill one in about 5 seconds.  This makes me a bit worried for his college years.  I'm sure he will be a huge hit around the parties!
6.  If he is talking on the phone with someone he thinks that they can see him through the phone.  I haven't told him any different because it is pretty funny.  He says "did you see that?" and I have to say "I think grandmommy missed the truck crashing" so the person on the other end knows what is going on. 
7.  He still refers to Josh and I as "my daddy" or "my mommy" but does it when he talks to us.  He will just say "My daddy I need..." or "I love you my mommy". 
8.  He is sooo enthusiastic when you surprise him with ANYTHING!  The ooohs and aahhhs are fun.  He will make the smallest little thing the biggest best thing in the world!!!
These next 2 things just happened as I was doing this blog:
9.  He loves to play the game Come Find Me.  I used to love this game.  Now it is fun for about the first 2 times and then gets really old, but I love the innocence in it.  He hides and tells you where he is.  For instance he made me come sit in the closet with him and Sandy.  Then he walked behind the door and said "come find me mommy".  He doesn't think I know where he is.  Ha!  Love it.
10.  He loves Sandy.  Our poor Sandy.  Her little world was so calm before G came along.  Now she is constantly being pat and rubbed and touched and annoyed!  Ha.  She tolerates him.
11.  He loves basketball now.  Every night when we get home from daycare he asks if we can play.  He is actually really good and makes his shots about 60% of the time.  I love to watch him dribble the ball.  His mouth is wide open!  Ha!  He really gets into it.  On a side note Josh has told me that I'm not allowed to be out there anymore because if G gets "hurt" and I'm there he acts really emotional and cries.  Apparently Josh doesn't put up with that.  I will still be out there.  :-)
12. His choice of clothes/shoes.  It it's tacky to me, it's a win for him!  Any shirt that is construction orange (you know that really BRIGHT orange) is a must for him.  We are lucky enough to have one with monster trucks on it.  He is almost outgrown it (oh darn).  He also has those spiderman shoes that light up that don't match a thing that he owns.  HE LOVES THEM.  I've learned that things that make him happy are a win no matter how tacky.  It makes me happy to see how happy they make him.  I did however make him go to Old Navy and pick out 4 plain shirts that he would wear that don't have designs on the front.  We will see how it goes!
13.  When he eats anything sweet you can tell that he is like his mommy and loves sweets.  He will not remove the sweet (donut, cookie, cake) from his mouth until done.  He keeps it up to his lips.  I guess he is scared someone will get it.  He also eats his cupcakes from the top down.  All the icing first then the cake.
14.  He loves to say the blessing and sing "Jesus songs".  He busts out with Jesus Loves me and a few other ones randomly and it makes me so happy.  One night in his prayers when listing his friends he is thankful for his number 1 friend was Jesus.  LOVE THIS BOY!
15.  He is SO SMART!  His memory is ridiculous.  About a week ago he was in the fridge looking for pudding and grabbed one of mine.  Mine has a lot of fiber in them.  When he went to grab it I said "Don't eat that!"  Garrett asked why and I said "Because it will make you stinky!"  (It was the first thing that came to my mind).  G looked at me with a confused look and I followed it with "only grown ups can eat it".  About a week later on the way to school he asked me what my school looked like.  After explaining to him that grown ups get done with school and we go to work he sat there for a minute and said "When I grow up I'm going to get finished with school and eat foods that make me stinky".  OH DEAR.  He associates being a grown up with being allowed to eat foods that will make you stinky.  I went ahead and warned his teachers in case he said anything.

I could go on and on, but I seriously sit sometimes and could just melt thinking of how special our little guy is.  I never knew that being a mom would be this much fun.  It is a lot of work, but so worth the rewards that we get!

How could I forget this...He loves rocks!  He brings home about 10 rocks every day and we have a jar full.  It's the little things that make him happy.  The first day he brought them home I thought he had found rotten teeth.  They are gross looking, but they are rocks (thank goodness)

"Mommy I've got a story for you..."

Boy we have a little one with a BIG imagination.  I can't tell you how much I just love this and have been looking forward to this time.  He will sit and play with his toys and make conversation up with the different cars/super hero's.  It's fun to listen to him when he doesn't know we are listening.  He will put them in time out and everything.  Ha!
His favorite thing to do is tell stories.  Every night before he goes to be he says "Mommy (or daddy) I've got to tell you a story."  The story used to be "There was a wolf and he would huff and puff (insert blowing noise) and blow the house down.  That's the end of my story."  He would then say "your turn mommy".  I would try and do a story with him in it.  "there once was a prince named Garrett".  He would stop me and say mommy you are silly, I'm not a prince.  He would laugh and laugh! 
Now the stories have become longer and sillier.  We were at daycare and he said "mommy I've got a story for you"  He says "One day daddy was going down the street and two cars crashed and daddy lifted the cars over his head!"  Bahahaha!  It tickled me!
Mainly his stories consist of most of the things that he has seen throughout the day or whatever is right in front of him.  Tonight his stories consisted of his cars that are on his wall.  I hope that he keeps getting more detailed in these stories and they don't stop any time soon!  They are a treasure to listen to and I look forward to hearing "mommy I've got a story for you"  I LOVE IT!

Cha Cha Cha Changes

I am not a huge fan of change.  I am an anxious person.  That being said, there are changes going on right now in my life.  My best friend who I have worked with for the past 4 years left for another job last week.  I am sooo sad.  It is so quiet at work now.  The benefit to this is that I am getting a lot more done...hahaha!  It is so hard though because Susie and I just clicked.  We laughed all the time and work was honestly fun when we were together.  We have found a replacement and so far we are getting along GREAT.  I'm just having to work on not talking too much.  Ha!  I don't want to scare her yet. 
Another big change getting ready to happen is that I am selling my car!  I have had my Honda since December of 2000.  A lot has happened in those 11 years.  I graduated college, started my "big girl job",  got married, moved to Greenville and we brought Garrett home in the Honda.  It is amazing thinking of all those amazing times.  I was going to keep my car for another couple of years, but was approached by a family wanting it for their daughter.  I couldn't pass up the opportunity up so the search began for a new car.  Well new for me anyway.  I am having to wait an additional week though and if you know me I'm not very patient.  Ha!  So I am excited about this opportunity and ready to see what I will be driving!  Hopefully I will find something amazing!!
My running has not been going so great these past two weeks.  I've not felt 100% and didn't do a long run this past week.  I have to do one this weekend because my half marathon is in TWO WEEKS!  YIKES!  Ready or not I'm doing it.
Well hopefully I will have a post soon about my "new" car :-)

Snuggles and Cuddles and one funny, smart big boy!

Last weekend we sent Garrett to Pops and Grandmommy's house for a sleepover.  When we went to pick him up the next day my mom said "I was freaked out when I saw that you didn't pack a pull-up."  I was confused and then realized we forgot to pack one!  Oops!  Well they put G in his big boy underwear and he rocked it!  He was dry throughout the night! I was so excited for him!  This is about his last "big" milestone of being a big boy!  We have just been lazy about putting him in underwear at bedtime because we didn't have a mattress cover and just haven't taken the time to buy one.  We actually used one of Sandy's puppy pads.  We decided that we weren't going back to pull-ups since he had proved that he could go without!  That was last Saturday night and so far (knock on wood) we are accident free!  SO very exciting!
Garrett has been obsessed with puzzles lately.  It is so fun to watch him put them together.  He really does an amazing job and can do some big puzzles.  I love watching him learn things.  He catches on so quickly.  We need to go out and buy him some more big boy puzzles.
Garrett also has become so snugly lately.  I don't know where the change happened but he loves to crawl up in our laps and just snuggle and cuddle.  It may only last for a minute and a half, but it's the best minute ever.  He also is giving tons of hugs and kisses!  This is so awesome because he used to not hug and kiss much at all.  I am enjoying him making up for lost time!  On Friday morning he came and got in our bed after he woke up laid with me and just snuggled for about 15-20 minutes.  We laid in silence.  It was awesome.  He talks non stop, so I enjoyed some peace and quiet and snuggles!
We've also noticed that when he's eating he likes to give out hugs and kisses too.  I tell Josh that he loves food like I do and that food makes him happy like it makes his mama happy!  Ha!
So far every year keeps getting better and better with him.  Some say that age three is worse than age 2.  Really two wasn't bad and three has been fun so far.  Don't get me wrong, he has his moments and frustrates us.  But overall he is just a kindhearted little guy.
This week he was watching Peter Pan and apparently Captain Hook took Peter Pan's shadow.  He was telling Josh and I about this.  The next day on the way to school I asked G if he wanted to see his shadow when we got to school.  He busted out laughing and said "MOMMY use just kiddin'".  I said no buddy you have a shadow.  He then again kept telling me over and over again that I was kidding with him.  He thought I was a comedian or something because he was rolling in his car seat laughing so hard.  I couldn't help but laugh because he was so tickled.  Well then since I was laughing he really did thing I was kidding.  What a mess he is.  When we got out I showed him our shadows and now he is obsessed with shadows!
He is also enjoying going to basketball and baseball games for ECU.  The last ECU weekend game is tonight so we will go to that.  There is also a baseball tournament that if the wind slows down we will attempt to go to.   Fun times!

Valentine's Day and some date nights

Josh and I are VERY lucky to have 2 sets of wonderful grandparents that live in town.  We need to take advantage more of some date nights with them :-)
Two weekends ago SuSu (Josh's mom) was able to take care of Garrett.  We dropped him off and had an afternoon and date night together.  It was MUCH needed and so awesome.  We went and saw The Vow.  It was a good romantic movie.  After the movie we went to a new restaurant for us, but has been in Greenville for awhile.  It is called Wasabi 88 and is very popular for sushi.  Josh and I don't do sushi, but their Hibachi was AWESOME and so was their spicy chicken.  Oh my I wish I could be eating it right now.  Here is their website and if you are in Greenville it is a must to check out.  http://wasabi88.com/ They are only open for dinner though!  We slept in and went to church.  It was such an amazing service and I was so glad that Josh got me to go.  I wanted to be selfish and stay at home.  Ahhh so glad that I went.
Valentine's Day was on a Tuesday night.  Some friends of ours had told us about a Murder Mystery going on at ECU.  It is open to faculty, staff and students.  Dinner was included and we decided that it would be fun to do something new.  We met with our friends Olivia and Joe and tried to solve the crime!  It ended up being a double murder and we figured out one of the murderers, but not both.  It was honestly a fun night and was neat going on a "double date".  Here are a few pictures before we left.  One is of G the next morning.  He made a bow tie at school and was so proud and I just thought he was precious :-)

Garrett wanted to get in on the picture

Valentine's Day 2012

Given best smile by his teacher and his bow tie that he made :-)

OMG I could just squeeze him...ha!!

It was a great day!
Last weekend we let Garrett stay with my parents.  Before we took him over to my parents we went to Krispy Kreme for breakfast.  This was so much fun.  He loves doughnuts as much as his mama.  We let him wear his pajama's.  After breakfast we went to ECU's campus and ran around with G.  He loved it and we did too. This time we did a lot of independent things.  I went grocery shopping and shoe shopping...ha!  It was great.  I also went out for a run.  Was trying to get 3-6 miles in and only got 1.7 miles.  Very disappointing, but it was OK.  I listened to my body and hope to be able to get in a 10.5 mile this weekend.  We got yogurt and had Italian for dinner.  It was OK, but the service was awful.  Just so you know if you eat with us you will probably get bad service.  Josh and I tend to get bad service most of the places we go.  Not sure why?!  We came home and ate in front of the TV and watched the movie Courageous.  It is a must see and very thought provoking. I truly enjoyed it and would recommend it!  Sunday when we got Garrett it was FREEZING and cold!  So we all put our pajama's on and had an indoor movie afternoon.  G sat still the entire time and it was quite nice.

Time to plan some more date nights ;-)

Winter is here...burrrrrr

It has been very cold here these past few weeks.  I'm not a huge fan of cold weather, but strangely prefer to run when it is cooler out.  Now by cooler I mean it needs to be in the 40's!  Needless to say my running this past week has been HARD and not as consistent.  I did however have an incredible run with my girls last Saturday.  We set out for a 7 mile run and we ended up doing 9!!!!!  I was so excited.  I haven't been able to run like that ever!  Traci and I ran a 10 mile race in December.  Before that, 8 miles was the longest I was able to do.  This was a HUGE accomplishment!  I missed this weeks long run with the girls so had to do it on my own.  I ended up running 10 miles!  My knees hurt bad after, but today has felt better.
We have been going to a lot of basketball games recently.  Garrett LOVES them and does so awesome during them.  He didn't do so great during football.  The games were too long and HOT.  So this has been really nice.  Baseball season is right around the corner and we will be trying out baseball games next!
Last weekend Garrett and I went out and fed the ducks at the Hospital.  The ducks are not scared of people and will come right up to you and take the bread.  Garrett talks to the ducks the entire time and just laughs!  I love it.  This time however there were seagulls out there.  I truly dislike seagulls.  They were all in our faces begging for bread and stealing them from the little ducks.  We had to stand on a bench because the ducks were crowding us.  Here are some pictures from our little adventure:

Look how close they get!

My guy with all the ducks following him for some food!

I had to put him up on a bench because they were crowding him ;-)

Following the ducks around.  They actually didn't run away, just waddled on.

Then there were a few chases :-)

Garrett has also been SO FUNNY lately!  OMG he kills me.  Tonight at the grocery store he was talking to the cashier and I couldn't hear what he was saying.  All I heard was the cashier say "You are three.  Oh I'm 21"  With a big grin.  I couldn't tell who was more proud to tell their age!

He also tells me that I'm his favorite girlfriend and that I'm beautiful.  Melts my heart!  He is just a doll!

January wrap up

I saw someone else do a blog on their month and thought it was a good idea to try and remember what was going on.  We will see how it goes.  January ended up being a VERY busy month for us but we had a BLAST.  We had Garrett's birthday party and then 4 of his buddies had birthday parties too.  It was a lot of fun.  We had Garrett's at ViQuest in their indoor pool.  So much fun.  The other parties were held at Jump Fit and a gymnastics place.  We love Jump Fit.  They have one huge bouncy castle and then a huge indoor playground set.  We also found out you can pay to go for an hour if you want to.  We will probably do this at some point because it got TONS of energy out!  Gymnastics was fun too!  They had a huge pit of foam to jump in.  Garrett loved it!!!
I've gotten back into running.  I never got "out" of it completely, but slowed down a lot.  SO once December was over and I had gained 8lbs (urgh, but totally fun doing it) I knew that it was time to jump back in!  I got a running watch for Christmas and it is just awesome.  We don't have to stick to a certain path anymore, we can run wherever we want to go!  I also decided to run a 1/2 Marathon.  CRAZY!!!  I was going to do my first in October, but a good friend convinced me to do one in March.  I didn't think I could do it, but feel better about it now (ran 9 miles today).  My friend Richard is also nice enough to run with me.  He is faster than I am and is willing to sacrifice his time to help me out.  I'm so excited about it.  Nervous too.  Will keep you updated as we go along.
Luckily January was very mild.  We had some days that were upper 60's lower 70's.  It was very nice! 
Overall it was a great January.