Gus's new buddy

Since this blog is about the whole Garrison crew, I had to show a picture of Gus and his new little buddy.  If you look closely there is a toad in front of Gus.  He spent about 25-30 minutes just staring at this frog the other night and now when he gets a little dark out he looks for him and then rushes out onto the deck to stare at him.  Funny dog.

Early Potty Training??

Since James is super fast these days, I should not be surprised at the places he ends up in around the house.  But the other day I heard him laughing and there was a little bit of an echo.  Well you can see what I saw, maybe he will be out of those diapers sooner than we thought. :)

Pure Michigan

The pictures speak for themselves.

9 months old

James is now 9 months old.  Month 8 was full of activity and lots of learning.  Here are some of the things he was doing in month 8.

Food: We tried and liked peas, carrots, green beans, vanilla wafers, ice cream, crackers of all sorts, sweet potato fries...we tried and did NOT like broccoli.

He started to crawl like a normal kid, well sort of - he uses his right leg to propel him forward - he would really be moving if he had a scooter or skateboard. He learned how to climb up a step, pull himself up on things, put a ball or block in the bucket, blow rasberries, bite (not good), give high-fives, drink from a glass, and wave goodbye.

We now weight 20 lbs 5 ounces and are 28 inches long - since he is moving so much he has slowed down on gaining weight.

We are so proud and can't wait to see what he does next. 

 This is the first thing he pulled himself up on besides his crib.

VACATION

Every year our family has gone to Burt Lake in northern Michigan and this year we were lucky to get a whole week away.  And even though we were on Mullet Lake this year, we had an amazing time. We were sure that the baby and the dogs would kill us but we had tons of fun!  There are too many pictures to lay them all out so I have a bunch of collages for your enjoyment.

James on the boat.  He pretty much hated the life jacket but we had to keep it on in the river to avoid a ticket.  This picture in the bottom right is my favorite.  He had been on the boat about 10 minutes and we put all that gear on him as a joke and then he just cashed...and was totally out for 45 minutes!  It was hilarious!

I had to work one of the days of the trip so Andy, G & G Hogan took James to Mackinaw City and ove to St. Ignace.  I made them promise though that they would not go into the special Indian store because I wanted to be there for his first time in, so Andy just took James picture outside it and then we got him a coon skin cap.

This is James first tast of ice cream! GG was kind enough to give James a little bite and he couldn't get enough, he kept opening his mouth like a little bird and so he and GG shared the Snickers bar.  GG ate the outside chocolate coating and the peanuts and James took care of the rest.

On yet another trip to Mackinaw City ( I am pretty sure my parents went 7 or 8 times), this time in search of smoked whitefish, we also found an elephant.  James was not really a fan, but I paid a dollar and fed her.  Pretty cool since I had never fed an elephant before.

These are just random pics of James on the boat.  He had such a good time on the boat but he was not such a fan of the lake - I think it was too big for him.

Family Boat pics

And we can't forget the dogs.  We were sure that we were going to have to sedate or seperate them in order to keep our sanity.  After a couple days though, they were buddies and completely fine around each other.

Week at Grandma's

The week before we were scheduled to go on vacation, we decided to start relaxing a bit early and went to Grandmas. Unfortunately, James got an ear infection so was pretty pissy but we managed to get a few good pictures.  Grandpa taught him to wave and Grandma taught him to play with the blocks.  It was great fun!

This was our first ride on the Meijer horse!!

Hanging in the backyard

For Father's Day we bought Andy this portable digital frame and these are the pics that I put on it.  James and I just hanging out in the sunshine.

Hanging with Gram H.

These pics are from several weeks ago when Gma H. came and stayed when Andy and I went to Omaha for an awesome wedding.  They took a bit to get back because they were on Gram's computer, but she got good ones!!