Christmas 2012

Gage's first Christmas was great....we can't wait until he is older to really understand what its all about!  Erik's dad, Gary came down on December 23rd to see Gage and go to the Panthers game with Erik on Sunday.  We had a great visit with PawPaw Gary and were sad to see him leave.  Then on Christmas Eve day we drove to Burlington to spend time with Erik's mom, Grandmaw Allene, aunt, uncles, cousin, sister and our nephew, Chase.  Gage opened his first present there and enjoyed tearing the wrapping paper!  We spent Christmas Eve day with Erik's mom's side of the family and drove back to Charlotte that night.  Well...Christmas Eve night was quite interesting.  Apparently Gage was excited about Santa coming because he did not sleep past 3:30.  Being the awesome mom that I am, I let him chew on my iphone.  NOT a good idea.  He must have slobbered in it a little too much and the thing wouldn't even turn on.  So....I was without a phone on Christmas and then the day after Christmas until about 3:45.  Thankfully I bought an extended warranty on the phone and got a brand new one...FO' FREE :)  Without my phone (Lord, I thought I would never live..haha) I did not get a ton of pictures.  I guess I could have used my real camera, but who does that?!  I did get a few Christmas morning with my Ipad.  As always, Erik and I are so thankful for all the friends and family we got to spend Christmas with.  Gage was worn out and slept well the next two nights :)  Here are a few memories from Gage's first Christmas. 

Our Stockings :)

 

Gage opened his first Christmas Card from PawPaw Gary and Treena :)

 

Waiting for Santa.....

 

And this is what Gage thinks about Santa!

 

I believe he likes the box :) 

 

Merry Christmas!

 

Christmas Jammies :)

 

The wrapped gift in the red is his gift from mommy and daddy (you may think we are bad parents for getting our child one gift, but we don't like clutter and knew he would be getting a ton from our families :)  The gift was a turtle that lights up and plays band instruments.  He prefers his remote, car keys, and cell phone :)

 

One of his favorite gifts from the world's best babysitter, Ms. Cindy!

 

9 months of pure joy.

We cannot believe our little man is 9 months (Thursday, 12.20.12). He is the happiest, sweetest, spittin' upetist little booger (Erik's nickname for him) and we love him to pieces.

So here is what he is doing these days:
-he says dada, mama, and PawPaw :)
-trying to crawl (can go backwards but not forwards)
-laughing and talking (just noises) like crazy
-eating solids
-drinking out of a sippy cup
-grabbing anything he sees and putting it in his mouth

Here are a few of our favorite pictures/videos :)

Minutes old, 3.20.12

First trip to Nannie and PawPaws. 

Dave and Buster's with PawPaw Gary and Cousin Chase.

 

Mimi bought me my first teddy bear :) 



My first Halloween as Elvis! 

 

Me and my girlfriend, Sloan on our First Halloween!

 

Just hangin' out after a check-up 

 

 This boy loves his daddy.

 

 









PawPaw.

 

My 9 month update:

Height:  28.75 inches (60%)

Weight:  19 lbs, 0 oz (25%)

Head:  45.75 cm (58%)



The Season of Giving.

So every year my team and I at school collect coloring books and crayons to deliver to the children at Levine Hospital in Charlotte.  I dropped them off yesterday and the ladies helping unload them probably told me thank you 10 times.  We were more than honored to be able to do something like this and hope that despite being in the hopsital on Christmas, the children can enjoy this small gift from us, who are more than fortunate.

Here is a picture of the coloring books and crayons.  Although we didn't count them all, I would say there were 75-100, or at least a wagon and a half full :)

I Smile for Everyone but.....Santa.

Erik and I decided it wasn't worth the long lines to get Gage's picture taken with Santa.  But then....I thought maybe we should since it's his first Christmas.  Erik went to the Panther's game with his dad so I decided to "quickly" run to the mall before church and get Gage's picture taken with Santa.  By "quickly" I meant an hour and five minutes to go through the "short" line, and this is what we got........

 

Haha, what a little turd!



 

We got this in the line that moved so "quickly".

 

 

Play Ball!

Although Gage has been sick, he loves to throw the baseball!  We were all at my Mom and Dad's celebrating my Dad's 56th birthday when Tristen and Bella wanted to throw the ball with Gage.  He loves playing ball with his cousins!

Gage. 9 months

Sick household.

Erik has been on and off sick for like 2 weeks now.  Gage has had a horrible cough for about a month, had one trip to the ER, 2 doctors visits and.....no diagnosis. Erik took him to the doctor today because he had a 102 temp. They tested him for EVERYTHING and its "just a virus". He has been doing that weird breathing sound again so our sweet friend, Kari let us use her daughters nebulizer. At first Gage was having no part of it but then I put Mickey Mouse clubhouse on my phone and he sat there for 10 minutes :) Hopefully this crud will go away because both of my boys are pitiful :(

Da.Da.Ma.Ma.Crawling

Well...I have to admit, Gage said Da.Da first.  I am ok with that because he does love his daddy :) I think the first time he said it was at about 8 months.  Now...he is 9 months and saying, Ma.Ma.  Ahh, I love it!  Everyone was right, they do grow up so fast.  BUT, I absolutely LOVE this age.  He can sit up, hold his own bottle, sleep through the night (most of the time), entertain himself, and now he is starting to crawl!  Right now he scoots backwards but its still fun to watch!

Newtown, CT.

It's still hard to believe that someone would be crazy (I could think of better words, but I'm gonna use that one) to kill INNOCENT children.  What is happening to this world?!  Our first day back since the attack, we had a staff meeting about how to approach the issue if asked by any of our students.  We were told to keep it short and simple but to be truthful.  Honestly, I didn't know what I was going to say.  I didn't want to say too much and cause them to become scared but I didn't want to act like this was a small incident.  Well, no one said anything about it for most of the day....until after lunch.  I had one of my sweet, innocent little kindergarteners come up to me while he was standing in the back of the line.  He said, "Mrs. Nordmark, can I move to the middle of the line?"  I said, "Why do you need to move to the middle of the line?"  He said, "I just don't want anyone to come up behind me and scare me.  I don't want a monster to get me".  I immediately knew he was referring to the tradegy in CT.  It's so sad, our children don't even feel safe in their own school.  All I can do is pray for healing for all the families who lost loved ones and for the teachers and students all over the world that now feel a bit unsafe when going to what once was.....a safe place.

Diarrhea.

So my class and I were waiting outside the gym to go to PE.  A kindergartener gets out of line (that's a nono) and says, "Mrs. Nordmark, I have diarrhea". My response (amongst all the ughhhhhh's and me trying to keep a straight face), "Ok, well do you need to go to the bathroom?" His response, "No" and he definitely just walked back and got in line.  Thanks for sharing. I mean really?!

Our first trip to the ER with Gage.

Nothing like some bad news for the first post, right?! So Gage has been sick for about 2 weeks now with a runny nose and constant coughing.  I didn't take him to the doctor because every time I do they say, "Its just normal, plug in the humidifier and give him some Tylenol". Ugh, so annoying. So anyways, we put Gage to bed at 7:45 on Thursday night.  Well usually I am asleep by 10 at the latest and Erik doesn't hear the monitor (unless its on full blast) but we were up watching 'Panic 9-1-1' (OMG have you seen that show !?!).  Well at 11:00 Gage started moving around a lot and just making weird noises, so Erik went to check on him. He brought him to the bedroom and wanted me to listen to him breathing.  Well it was horrible.  He was like sucking for air and trying to cry but he couldn't....his throat and cough were really dry.  So I facetimed by oldest sister to listen to him.  She thought he sounded bad too so we decided we should go ahead to the ER. We got there and of course he started to sound better.  The doctor came and listened to his lungs and said everything seemed fine but she wanted to do some chest x-rays.  Have you ever see the x-ray machine for babies?? HORRID.  So Gage had so sit on this seat (kinda like a bicycle seat) with these two plastic pieces pressed on both sides of him.  THEN I had to hold his arms above his head while he sat there and SCREAMED.  You see people, I was part of the torture.  I'm not gonna lie, it was awful and I was getting a little teary eyed.  After what seemed like 2 hours (probably about 4 minutes) they finally let me hold him.  What was so hard, Gage is a tough little thing, not much makes him cry but when I had to hold his arms he was looking at me like, "what are you doing to me??"  Long story short, they found nothing.  Although there was no diagnosis or medicine prescribed, we do not regret taking him....that was a scary thing to see! Thankfully his breathing is better but he still has a pretty nasty cough.  Gosh, I didn't know I could love a little soul so much?!  3 hours of sleep and work the next day was totally worth it!

I'm a rookie blogger.

Well, here I am....a rookie blogger.  I have been trying to create a blog for, I don't know.....8 months now, since Gage was born.  Well, I couldn't think of a name and everyone I thought of was already taken.  So here I am :) My sister is a master blogger and my friend, Jen is great too! They have been my inspiration for starting this.  I will use this blog to tell you all about the craziness of our life.  I got the title from the, "Life is Good" brand you always hear and see about.  Like I teach my kids, "good" is dead, there are much better words for "good", so our title is: Life Is Better Than Good. Erik and I have so much to be thankful for and I'd like to share that with everyone.  Bare with me.