Aaron Robert week 1!!!

We welcomed Aaron Robert Garner into the world on September 14th 2010 at 10:36am. After a quick 6 1/2 hours of labor Aaron's 9 lb 14 oz, 21 1/2 inch little self was pushed into the Garner family!!! We are truely blessed to have our newest addititon, he is a beautiful miracle!

Big sister Anna is Aaron's biggest fan and loves to hold and cuddle him as much as possible!

All three kids love to hand out together on the porch!

Mommy in her most popular nursing position, she and Aaron spend lots of time like this!!!

Daddy is more than excited to have another boy in the family. Right now he loves to nap with his beautiful new boy but is looking forward to the rough housing to come!

Mommy and Daddy are just overjoyed with the newest addition to their family!

Gabe's Photo Shoot

Happiness is written all over his face. We were playing chase and Gabe sought the couch for refuge!

THis sly little smile was the result of an attempt at getting his fingers in a special cake!

"OK mom what do you want now?"

This adorable little cloth diaper clad fellow just fell asleep on the floor after a long morning of play therapy!

Licking our chops getting ready for lunch!

Anna'a Photo Shoot

That is a huge slug that Anna is holding. There is no more appropriate picture to start with than this. Anna is a combination of princess and tomboy!

She has her daddy's eyes, no doubt about it. Another brown eyed girl!

That little bit of a swollen cheek was the result of a run-in with a bee, the bee stung but Anna won!

Though looking a little pouty, this face is going to melt hearts, I am sure of it!

Say cheese! We were going for the just rolled out of bed hair look!

Spring in here!

We are so happy to have the beautiful spring weather here! We did a little spring shopping and bought a new digital camera after our old-fatihful finally gave out 7 years and over 6,000 pictures later! So we are back in buisness with photo recording Anna and Gabe's every move!
Gabe is now 2 years 2 months old, 3 feet tall, and 35 pounds! Gabe's current favorites are grapes, Let's Talk Puppy Dog videos, and playing in the dirt! Anna is now 3 years and 9 months old, 3 feet 3 inches tall, and 39 pounds. Anna's current favorites are strawberries, school at home and at MCA, and collecting worms! We love and miss all of our friends and family and are looking forward to lots of visitors and visiting in the quickly coming summer!

We still love to spend lots of our outdoors time on the swings, though Gabe and Anna continue to like to use swings in the non-traditional ways, pretending to be flying like airplanes!

Gabriel is very careful about the DVD's he allows himself to watch so he always reads the back of the box first to make sure the content is appropriate for his age and desires!

Anna finally recieved some new play-dough since all of hers had become this rather undesirable brown color and rather hard. She is loving it, and making sure this time she only takes out one color at a time!

We bit into our first watermelon of the season, plenty juicy as you can see! Gabe and Anna had an eating contest devouring about a qurter of a rather large watermelon on their own!

We went to Sam's Club for the first time in about three years and to Anna's absolute delight they had the biggest box of Strawberries she had ever seen! She ate that entire box in three days single handedly, and that was with us telling her several times a day she could not have any more!

Dec. 26th surprise visit!

Our second day in NJ we made a surprise visit to Aunt Michelle and Uncle Maurizio's new house!  With a little help from Auntie Lola and Uncle Will who were visiting from NC also!  It was an incredible surprise and a wonderful visit.  We also got to see cousins Amy & Diego and Great Aunt Lisa while we spent the day at the Gadaleta's!  It was awesome!

Christmas Morning

For anyone who may not know, we had a last minute change of plans for Christmas.  Aunt Kori's flight to NC was cancelled on Christmas eve afternoon, and so we quickly changed gears, packed up the car and headed to NJ!  We arrived at Aunt Kori's at 5:30 am, and since the little ones had slept in the car they were awake and ready to open presents!  It was wonderful!

Bathtime Play

This Blog is entitled bathtime fun, but let me tell you it should probably be entitled "winter pool time"  since this bath was taken mid afternoon, and there was nothing calming about it, and no cleaning went on except for mommy having to clean up the water disaster in the bathroom when they were done.  Above you see Gabe and Anna having swimming races around the tub, and below you see Gabe winning the who can make the biggest slash game that he and Anna also like to play!

Cups are an absolute neccesity for bathtime at the Garner household.  They serve many purposes such as hair rinsers, bathroom flooders, mommy soakers, and as pictured above chew toys! 

Leaf Play

Anna was trying so hard to take a nice picture with her brother, but he did not want to be interrupted while he was working on raking the leaves.  1 square foot down only ten more acres to go!

Anna was enjoying playing in the leaves with her baby.  She is a very good mommy in training.

As you can see, pinning this kid down for a picture is a challenge, but I finally got him!  He thought it was a really fun game:)

Gabe's 1st Piano Lesson!

It was a beautiful moment for mommy to watch Bob and Gabriel playing the piano together.  Gabe loves music and especially the piano and guitar.  He is very patient and self-controlled, and I think especially enjoyed the best piano teacher in the world, his DADDY!

Are those not just the most handsome pair of faces you have ever seen?!

Anna accolades

I, mommy, wanted to take the opportunity to give our Anna Kathleen her due accolades!  She has been growing into a beautiful, loving, and talented little girl with her heart turned toward the Lord.  She has blossomed, just like the flowers she is holding, despite challenging circumstances.  She has endured a season with a reduction of some of the attention she was use to and learning new family routines with a kind and gentle spirit. She is mommy's best helper with Gabriel, always letting others know that he is learning to talk and always willing to talk for him:)  She still loves doing school at home with mommy and is writing her name everywhere she goes on everything that she can! As you can see above she loves to play on the PBS kids website continuing to learn her letters and numbers with enthusiasm.  She can even dress herself and do her own hair, and has a special style all her own, that mommy and daddy call the punky brewster look.  We are so very proud of our singing, dancing little princess!