Where did you get that from?

Sometimes I wonder where Garrison comes up with the things he does. The other day we were finishing up eating when, out of nowhere, he grabs his plate and starts licking it clean. Of course I couldn't help but laugh, which only encouraged him more. As he continued on I wondered where in the world did he manage to come up with licking his plate. Oh where his mind must go in times like these.

I don't think there's been a day, since he's been born, that I haven't laughed at something he's done. I can't wait until he can start talking and then I think I'm going to be in for a ton of laughs.

Garrison is starting to develop habits a lot like Thomas. Thomas, I'm told, was very particular about his things as a child. Sharon, Thomas mom, has told me many stories of him putting his sports pencils all in a neat row with the sports logos pointing up and facing the same direction. Or how he used to lay his clothes in his drawers according to how he would wear them that week. Pile one: pants, shirt, underwear, socks, pants, shirt, underwear, socks, pants... you get the idea. Don't think he out grew that either. He may not put his clothes in that order anymore, but he still has his things organized and looking ever so nicely. If you stepped one foot into our bedroom you'd be able to tell who sleeps on what side. Luckily I like to be organized too, but Thomas is way more particular than myself. So Garrison has started showing signs of this behavior. At meals he likes to have his juice cup in certain spots. Not all the time, but you know when it can't be touched. I'll put the juice cup down on his tray and he immediately takes it and moves it to one certain side. Sometimes, just for the fun of it, I'll move it back. He'll pick it up and put it back in it's place, with a little attitude to add. And lately, I've noticed, he'll put his food in a certain place on his tray. He cracks me up.

Speaking of cracking me up. The other day Thomas and I were joking around with each other about what we do during the day. I joked with Thomas that all he does is hang out with youth kids and play games, how hard is that? While he said that all I did was play with Garrison. (understand we were completely joking with each other and know that we both do WAY MORE than that). Garrison happened to be playing next to me so I said to Garrison, "hey Garrison daddy thinks we play games all day long." He stopped playing, looked at me and said, "hmm". We had a good laugh over that one.

I have so much fun with Garrison. He keeps me laughing and entertained with the things he comes up with. It's hard to imagine what I did before he came along. My days must have been so boring. I wish I could think of other great things he's done, but it's 10:25 pm and my brain has gone to bed. I'm sure there will be many more stories to share in the years to come...

our weekend

Oh my goodness! I have so much to tell, but I'll make it a few posts. I have to get better at posting things. I have things to share, but then end up not posting them right away. Either Thomas needs the computer for school, Garrison is going from one thing to the next and I can't concentrate or I'm just plan tired and would rather go to bed. Anyway, I need to post more often so that I don't overwhelm you or myself with so much information.

With that being said I must tell you about our wonderful weekend. This is probably more entertaining for me than for you. Sorry.

Weekends at the Bush household are not Saturday and Sunday. Our weekend is Friday and Saturday. With Thomas being a youth pastor and working on Sundays he takes off Friday so that he can have two full days with us. Isn't he sweet!? I had a really hard time adjusting to this "weekend". I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I've always had the "typical" weekend and thought that's the only time you can have a weekend. But anyway, I have come to terms with it and actually enjoy it more. I love going out on Friday afternoon and not having large crowds to deal with like you would on a Saturday afternoon.

This last Friday it was absolutely gorgeous in Superior and Duluth. 75 degrees gorgeous! Since I've been cooped up in the house all winter long with a one-year-old I wanted to get out and enjoy it as much as I could. Thomas and I decided, well I think it was more me than him, to go to Canal park and walk around and we thought we'd kill two birds with one stone and take Aza along with us so that we could get her walk in. Aren't we smart!? Aza had other plans and I wasn't very happy about them.

If anyone has come to know our dog you'll know she likes to talk. I don't mean in a low, deep manner. We're talking loud, high pitched, obsessive barking that won't go away no matter how hard you pull on her collar, tell her to be quite or shut-up or try and distract her with anything. If she has something to say and she's going to say it.

This is our experience at canal... Thomas is in charge of Aza when we go out, well pretty much always, and I handle Garrison. As I'm getting Garrison out and loading him into the stroller along with all our stuff. (I was prepared for a long, nice walk and packed three water bottles for all of us) Thomas was taking care of Aza. Great! All is well so far.

We start heading out to do a walk along the lake when Aza discovers water. Now I know you're thinking she pulled Thomas into the water and had a grand ol' time. Nope! She decided that she wanted everyone to know she wanted to go for a swim. So she starts to bark and bark and bark. The only thing that Thomas could think of was to run with her to distract her from the water and give her a job to do. So Thomas takes off running and leaves Garrison and I to walk the lake walk. Needless to say Garrison and I had a great walk together, the ten minutes that we were there. Thomas and Aza ended up running probably a mile and everytime they would stop she would start barking. I was glad that I wasn't anywhere near them and didn't have to "claim" Aza as my dog. They got so many stares and even scared a lady. By the time Thomas reached Garrison and I he was exhausted, Aza was thirsty, but wouldn't drink anything and I was mad because my wonderful walk was ruined because our DOG wouldn't stop barking which meant we were heading home. And believe me, it echoed between all the buildings making it even worse. (I'll post a picture of Thomas, Aza and Garrison on our ten minute adventure. Thomas has the computer that I need to do that on and so it won't be until this weekend. I made them pose to prove we had gone to Canal park.) That was our Friday... Saturday...

Thomas had to attend a meeting 2 hours away from Superior Saturday afternoon and he decided to take the car. Now my car has been with me for 12 years. It was the car that I took my drivers test in, took to college, took on lots of road trips and experienced my first accident in (first accident as me being the driver). But lately it's not been the most reliable vehicle to drive so I was surprised when he said he'd take it. He left at 10 am and by 10:45 or so he had called me to tell me that the car had broke down and was smoking so bad he felt like he was in a NASCAR race and I may need to come pick him up. After a few hours and a couple of phone calls later Thomas was able to get it towed to our mechanic and I didn't have to go find him.

This was good and bad news. Good because he was coming home and could spend his "day off" with us. Bad because we are now down to one vehicle and it happened the day before Thomas was to go to the cities for two weeks and do his incentives at Bethel (he was planning on taking the car). So Sunday afternoon Garrison, Thomas, Aza and I loaded up the truck, drove down to the cities, dropped Thomas and Aza off at his sisters, stayed for about 2 hours and turned around and came right back home. (it's about a 2 1/2 hour drive one way)

We've decided that we will probably hold off getting another car for a few months and try to survive on one. Which will be interesting considering that we both have jobs, granted they are both flexible, but still.

Oh, don't you love when our plans are different than Gods plans? On Friday, even though we didn't get to go on our beautiful walk, we came home and spent some nice family time together outside. Garrison got to play in the yard instead of ride in a stroller and fifi and foofoo (aka Lady and Bear) were able to join us as well and get some energy out. And Saturday, Thomas was able to spend some time working on our bathroom (which he was really hoping to do on Sunday) and hang out with us even more before he left for a few weeks. AND if Thomas would not have had the meeting he wouldn't have needed the car and would have taken it Sunday night to head off to the cities. Which would have broken down then and not have been as "convenient" as it was on Saturday. Gods plans are always better than ours.

Doctors appointment

Yesterday Garrison had a doctors appointment. He does so good when we go there. He sits nicely, smiles at the doctor and, for the most part, lets the doctor do his thing... until that first prick of getting a shot. Yesterday he received FOUR shots and none of them could be combined so it was four individual pricks. The good news is is he's done with shots until he goes off to kindergarten. YES!!!!!! I hate watching him get shots. He goes from looking-around-the-room-talking to red faced, big rain drop tears screaming in one second. I felt so bad for him this time. By the third shot he was shaking. Poor guy.

We also have a skinny mini on our hands. He weighs 19 lbs 8 oz and is 29 inches long. He's not even heavy enough to be facing forward in his car seat, but we've changed it around anyway. I asked our doctor if we should be concerned that he's small and our doctor looked at him and said, "He's looks proportional to me. He's probably fine if he's developing normally." Probably fine! I hate the word fine. "How's dinner?" "Fine" "How do I look?" "Fine" "How is my sons physical health?" "Fine" (Fine is an easy way to not say what you're really thinking.) Shouldn't we be concerned with his weight? At what point do we need to be concerned? I'm not a paranoid parent, but this is one area that I wish the doctor would elaborate on.

Our next appointment is in 3 months. Hopefully, he'll have put on more than a pound and we'll only be 2 months away from trekking two kids to the doctors offices.

Happy Easter!

Yhew! What an Easter weekend. I wish that I had pictures to show you of everything we did, but I haven't gotten in the habit of bringing my camera with everywhere we go yet.

Our crazy weekend started on Friday morning. We packed up Garrison and Aza and headed to St. Cloud for a few days. It was non stop from the moment we drove into St. Cloud until we left. My dad moved into an apartment a few weeks ago and hadn't had much time to put things away, hang pictures and make it homey. Thomas and I got started right away on that project and helped my dad put stuff in his cupboards, hang pictures, rearrange furniture and hang curtains. It looks so nice now and I'm glad that my dad can come home and kick up his feet instead of look at everything he needs to put away.

Saturday was my mom's birthday, but most of us couldn't get together with her then so we decided to celebrate her birthday Friday night. All my siblings and their significant others went and met my mom at her favorite resturant... Guadalajara's. She loves it there so much that the waiters know her order without her even having to say anything AND she knows the waiters names (without looking at their nametags.) We had a really good time and, like always, Garrison stole the attention of everyone around us. People love when he sucks his thumb and pulls on his ear. Who knew?

On Saturday we ran to stores to look for a spring shirt for me to wear on Easter. I don't want to stretch out any of my non maternity shirts and my maternity shirts aren't in season since I was pregnant with Garrison mostly during the winter. I HATE shopping while being pregnant. (Just a side note) The first store I found absolutely nothing, but Garrison received a whole lot of stuff for his room. That's what happens when you have kids. I can't walk into a store and not buy something for him. I need to stop that before he gets old enough to figure that out. Otherwise I'm in BIG trouble.

After that wonderful event, which I did end up buying a non maternity shirt, we headed out to my brother's place to see how far he's come with their remodeling project. Their place is coming together nicely, but I must say I'm glad that I don't have to live in a remodeling mess. Sorry Tom and Dawn. (watch for pictures of our "remodeling" project)

After we left there we ran and got something to eat and had 30 minutes to get Aza at the kennel before it closed. If anyone has ever driven in St. Cloud you'll understand that it's the worse place to drive EVER. Everytime Thomas and I visit St. Cloud we are so glad that we moved away. We arrived to pick up Aza with 9 minutes to spare before they closed. Then we were off for home.

Oh, did I mention that Garrison peed through every outfit that I brought him before Friday afternoon? Yep, he wore aired dryed clothes for most of the weekend.

My sister, Jackie and dad decided to come to our house for Easter and I had nothing prepared. So when Thomas and I got home Saturday night we quickly made a run for Walmart and bought our Easter dinner.

Easter was great! We went to church and had their Easter breakfast, followed by service. When we arrived home we let Garrison look for his Easter basket. It wasn't very hard to find since I layed it on his fire truck in the middle of the room. I wasn't sure if he'd even understand that he had a basket to look for, but he noticed it as soon as Thomas brought him in the room.




Here are a few pictures of our Easter

doctor appointment

This morning I had my 16 week appointment. It's unbelievable that I'm already 4 months pregnant. I know that there will be a time, shortly, that I'll be saying, "I'm only (fill in blank) months? I feel like I've been pregnant forever." But until then I'm amazed that I'm 4 months.

This appointment was short and sweet. I was able to talk to the nurse practioner about my dizziness and headaches that I've been experiencing more and more lately. She recommended that I eat more frequently and drink lots of liquids. If that doesn't work then it's probably from my blood flow needing to go more towards the baby. We're leaning towards me needing to drink and eat more often because I've been dehydrated lately, according to my urine samples. (I know, to much information)

I also was able to listen to the heartbeat. At my last appointment the heartbeat was 157. Garrison's heartbeat was always in the low 140's, so I was excited to hear that this baby was beating higher. Could it be a girl? (I've heard that higher beats mean girl, lower beats mean boy) Today the heartbeat was 144. Who knows what were having anymore. It's Gods way of reminding me to not think about what were having as much as needing to trust him and let him take care of all the details.

Our next appointment is an ultrasound on May 4 and if the baby cooperates we'll be able to find out if it's a boy or girl. Stay tuned...