I know you've all been waiting for it. Greg's first post! Let's do this.

Yeah, I thought it would be nice to start my first post with a video. It's amazing how fast Little G learns things. I literally did this little trick with him that morning and after like the 3rd time he knew exactly what I was gonna do. Daddy's little sponge. Anyway, Kara has been doing a great job with the blog and I promise I'll start doing it more so you can get our different perspectives on things.

Like the fact that I'm probably not gonna be the, what shall we call it, the "discipliner" in the family. My job is to make sure everyone is having a great time and is well fed. One example of that is when mommy is getting ready in the morning, daddy puts Little G in his walker and puts a large amount of cheerios on it and he proceeds to walk about the house dropping cheerios everywhere and the dogs follow him around and finish them off. It's all about teamwork.

AND NOW ITS TIME TO MEET THE REST OF THE FAMILY ON THE BLOG

This young lad is Woogie. Woogie is a Boston Terrier and Gavins future partner in crime. The story behind Woogie is an interesting one. Hank, my best friend, and myself both mentioned that we wanted Boston Terriors one day long ago and some time after that Hank out of the blue calls me up and says that he found a litter of Boston Terrior puppies and figured we should grab a couple. So I got Woogie and Hank has Ollie, both brothers and happy little dogs, as you can see. A couple of things about Woogie, he has a freakishly long tongue that doesn't quite fit in his mouth. It's impressive. Also, he has gas, common for the breed. Astonishing evil, obnoxiously audible gas that could be bottled up and used as a dangerous weapon. You don't even know.

And here he is in his favorite place in the world. Our bed. Seriously, he spends most of the day there.

This little lady is Ellie Mae. She was technically Kara's dog and got here shortly after I got Woogie because her dog at the time, Princess, went to live with her parents, Bob and Debbie.
There's not a sweeter dog in the world and every night she sleeps in our bed. This pic was taken one morning, you can tell because she always gets her bottom half wet because of the dew.

I know, you're shocked by the intense beauty of this divine canine specimen. This is my first true dog and her name is Savvy. Savvy is about 7 years old and was born in a ditch when I was in college. My neighbor at the time gave her to me for free. Savvy is not exactly um a pure breed. Could be some fox in there, possibly some groundhog or large muskrat or something. Definitely some hound though, because she's got a pretty good howl and nose. One thing Savvy is however is a great dog. She's follows me around everywhere and has pretty much never done anything wrong. She sheds like its her job, which Kara just loves, but even that can be overlooked. I have no doubt that she'll live to be like another 15 or 20 years and there I'll be walking her proudly around the neighborhood and explaining to my neighbors what the hell that roundy reddish gray thing on the leash is. That's just Savvy and no she's not for sale.

And I thought I would just throw this in here. Just really blows me away how big my little jammer has gotten. Now he's waving and talkin and doin other stuff. Those boots were his newborn boots and now he has brown ones in size 18-24 months...mind you he is 10 months old! I just love this picture and he seems happy, even from the beginning. I think he was just a couple weeks old here.

Big G will be posting a lot in the future cause I'll admit this was fun. See ya'll later!

I'll get whatever I want for Christmas....

Talk about a happy baby! We had our family Christmas pictures taken today at Picture People in Rogers...the first time all seven of us (Mom, dad, Kyle, Haley, and the three of us)have been together for pictures! We got a ton of great pictures and Gavin had a great time and was soooo good...as you can see from the above pic!

After we finished up, we went to my mom and dad's for dinner and a family night. Gavin is absolutely mesmerized by lights, and the Christmas tree is his favorite! Here's a cute pic of him and Bob-O playing with the tree.


He's also discovered a favorite new food...mashed potatoes. If they are on my plate, I don't get to eat any of them! It's not a bad deal for me. I don't need to be eating them anyway! But he can't get them in his mouth fast enough! Both of our clothes were covered in potatoes by the end of dinner! Look closely at his face!

And here's a cute pic of my handsome boys watching some football. Daddy loves his boy time with Gavin! He's definitely ALL boy.

Say Cheese!

It's quite possible that I have a future model on my hands. Whenever Gavin sees a camera, he immediately smiles as big as possible until you've taken the picture! And I'm pretty sure he looked at me tonight before I took the shot and said cheese...WOW! It's adorable! Here are just a few examples...

And for those of you that might be wondering where he is, we had to get him a "cage" to keep him contained so we can actually get a couple things done during the day! He loves his new little play space. I highly recommend it!

Here's a pic of Gavin and his friend Jonah playing in the cage! Too much fun!

Maybe Vegas needs a new slogan...

Ok...so for those of you that don't know us well, we go to Vegas every year. We got married there and it has become a yearly tradition for us. We knew immediately after we got married we were ready to add to our family, however we were having a difficult time. I developed a pretty bad shoulder injury, and found out I needed surgery, so I decided to get it taken care of before we got pregnant. I scheduled my surgery and checked in and had all of my pre-op stuff taken care of. The anesthesiologist came in to talk to me and was on his way back in to put me under and...SURPRISE!!! The nurse rushed in to tell him to stop because my pregnancy test was positive. I didn't get to have my surgery. That will explain the picture below...

Need I say more? I know I'm a little biased, but I'm pretty sure this is the best jackpot V EGAS has to offer! Thanks to Uncle Greg and Aunt Kathy Nichols for my cool t-shirt! 2 years later I'm still trying to figure out the best time for my surgery. I'm thinking January...Greg will be the big 30 on the 4th and Gavin turns 1 on the 7th. After that, it's time to fix Mommy

What a fun weekend at the river!

We decided last week to take a much needed R&R weekend to Greg's parents river house on the King's River. We haven't been in almost a year, and we were ready for a reason to kick back and relax! Drew and Britani, Greg's parents, and his little sis Addison were all there with us. We had a great time! We didn't do much...it was too cold! Greg and I went for a short hike to the river but it was too cold to take Gavin along. He had fun zooming around the house in his walker!

We did get to have a bonfire after he went to bed and make smores...YUM! Pretty low key, but all in all a great family weekend!

Gavin and Greg with Uncle Drew and Papa Skippy!

A beautiful view of the King's River

And another...

Making smores with the fam!

Where to begin...

I'm not exactly sure where to start. I haven't done a post in FOREVER! Reason being that our hard drive on our laptop crashed, then we went to Vegas for a long weekend...I planned on doing a post right when we got back but we got a virus on our desktop so NO COMPUTER for over 3 WEEKS! I've about gone crazy! It's kind of sad how dependent we've become on these things. We finally have our laptop back and were able to recover all the important things...i.e videos and pics of Gavin! I was very relieved!

Let's see...we'll start with Vegas 2008. So much fun! We've been every year since we got married there. Our best friends Hank and Hollie Hankins joined us (it has become an annual event for the 4 of us!) And even better, we had another couple this year to make the trip even more fun! Wilson and Katy Ward made the trip complete! We had such a great time. It was our first adult trip as parents, and while we enjoyed it we were ready to get back to our little monkey!

Our first night...immediately went to Fat Tuesday's for a tasty beverage and then to Trader Vics for some appetizers and more tasty beverages!

Our second night...went to PRIME with Hank and Hollie for a fabulous dinner overlooking the fountains at the Bellagio! After dinner, we met up with Wilson and Katy and went to JET nightclub at the Mirage. We had free drinks all night...so much fun! Pictures not included.

Friday night we had dinner at Treasure Island at Social House with the whole crew and watched the Pirate show from the deck. Very fun! After that, we went to PURE at Caesar's Palace and had a great time! Here's a cute pic of Wilson and Katy!

I have not given Fat Tuesday's appropriate credit...let's just say we went there a minimun of 2 times a day. They knew our names by the time we left! For anyone thinking about going to Vegas soon...the Fat Tuesday's in Caesar's is the best! We very much enjoyed it!

Our last day was definitely the most adventurous. One of Greg's friends lives in LA and found out we were in Vegas. After a hard core night in LA, he decided to hop the red eye and surprise us. We were awakened to a phone call about 7:15 from him telling us he had hooked us up with a cabana and suite at Mandalay Bay and we were all going to get to watch the Razorback game poolside at the topless pool...don't get too excited. Only part of it panned out! He called Greg and got our room number at Caesar's and told us someone would be up with the info...and about 15 minutes later he busted in and had us pack all of our stuff and we headed over to Mandalay Bay for a change of scenery for our last night! Hank and Hollie had to leave Saturday afternoon, so we were ok with a change after 3 nights of Caesar's. We went up to Mix at the top of TheHotel at Mandalay Bay (65th floor...incredible view!) and had a couple of drinks. Great way to finish off the trip!

To finish off a great long weekend, I had some success (finally!) on the slots at the airport on our way home. Greg gave me $10 to play on Wheel of Fortune ( a family favorite). I decided that I should probably go with a quarter machine given my lack of success thus far on the trip...the dollar machine wouldn't have lasted long. I got down to my last 3 quarters and bet them all...and won $400! I was pretty pumped. At least enough to make me want to go back again next year!

VIVA LAS VEGAS!