Starting with Squash

Penn tried his first vegetable today at lunch.  Squash.  Abbie was around and literally snapped play-by-play pictures.  I have to say my facial expressions are what's really entertaining here (and quite self-incriminating, but you want make fun of me, right?).

I decided to start with his oatmeal so that he would get a few normal bites before trying the new food.  Ab happened to snap that.  Seriously, my face is messed up!  Here I'm saying..."Ok, Penn, are you ready for this new treat?"

Then I serve him up the oatmeal.

And then he follows it with his thumb as usual.

So then we got to the squash.  How did this face not scare Penn from opening his mouth?

Penn looks like he's not too sure of this new food.

Here I am totally falling into the trap of mimicking the open mouth on the baby.  I had no idea I was so expressive at meal time.  Poor Penn!

Here I'm saying, "Yeah, do you like it?"  Penn looks unsure about the food and my face.

And then after a few more bites where it seemed to be going oh so smoothly Penn started to balk, wonder and even gag a little.  

At this point we went back to the oatmeal and finished that off.  Afterwards we tried a few more bites of the squash, but Penn had definitely decided that he wasn't a big fan of that today, so I gave up (until tomorrow of course, but don't tell Penn!).

Big Boys Keeping Busy

It's been a lot of Penn posts lately.  So what's up with the big boys?  Well, we are keeping them busy, particularly Koen.  He's doing very well with all the excitement of the holidays, houseguests and still getting used to having his little brother in his room, not to mention being off from school.  Tavin has mostly stayed around the house, but he has been on some outings with Daddy as well.  Here he is out enjoying the snow with Grampa and Abbie yesterday.  Notice how he is totally mimicking Grampa's shovel positioning.  

Today Tavin and Koen went to the Children's Museum with Doug and Abbie.  It was a really fun outing.  I have only a few pics and a video to prove it, but I know the boys had a blast.  When Tavin was asked what his favorite part about going to the museum was he said, "Bruh-bah."  That's pretty sweet.

Koen accomplished something new there today.  He climbed a rope ladder.  Doug took a video and Koen was quite proud to show me his big feat.  Enjoy!

Abbie and Douglas, thanks so much for hanging with the big boys this morning.  They needed to get out of the house and I definitely enjoyed the peaceful few hours at home with Penn.  =)

Penn's Getting Some Gagnon Love

With my parents and sister in town, Penn is definitely getting plenty of Gagnon love.  It's so great to watch him getting to know their faces and getting more comfortable in their arms.  Here are a few favorite shots I've captured over the last few days.

Grampa and Penn working on tummy time.  Penn still hates it, but it's a little better when Grampa is loving on him.

Super cute smiles from happy Penn with Grampa.

Gramma loves to get her hands on Penn too.  She's often helped me by feeding him his cereal so I can work on something else.  Penn doesn't seem to mind.  Look how he has his hand on hers.  Precious.

I used to be a Gagnon too, so I had to post these cute snuggly pictures I got with Penn last night.  

He did the same sort of snuggly with his Aunt Abbie tonight.  It's like his head gets heavy and he just loves to lean it against your face at this time of night (right after 7pm feeding). 

This is definitely a special time.  Oh, how I love having family around and seeing the boys interact with their aunt and grandparents.  Such a blessing!

First Christmas Comparisons

Although the little guys were all at different stages for their first Christmases, I thought it would be fun to show some pics from each of their first celebrations of their momma's favorite holiday.  You can see the family resemblance, but all 3 have their own look for sure.

Here's Koen celebrating his first Christmas at 8 months old in NH.

Tavin's first Christmas was really at 8 days old, so I decided to show a picture of Tavin at 1 year, Christmas 2010.

And here's Penn Rye at 6 months, Christmas 2012.

I thought it was fun I found a shot of all 3 of them on Christmas Day with me.  I must love to cuddle up to the best presents ever!  I also have some candids.  Koen and Penn are actually wearing the same shirt in their candids which helps with the comparison.

Christmas 2012

We had a very merry Christmas (Penn's first one!) on Tuesday.  We have fully adopted the Gagnon (my maiden name) tradition of drawing out Christmas morning as looooonnng as possible.  And I love it that way!  Doug has come to appreciate it (although gets a little impatient and rushy at times).  Amazingly, Koen is totally fine with it.  We must have been the only house in the city of Pittsburgh with a five-year-old who waited until 9:30am to start the present opening (you know, we've got to shower, eat, etc.) and then endured a 4 hour long process of one-by-one opening and enjoying presents, taking breaks for snacks, etc.  We were all so proud of him and thankful for the enjoyable morning we've all looked forward to for so long.  Here's a picture glance at our day...

Yummy French toast breakfast.

Penn Rye was pretty happy on his first Christmas morning.  

As the final preparations were made (clearing the table, doing dishes, wearing Penn out for his nap), we had some fun taking pictures.  I had to show off Penn's cute Christmas day sleeper...is that a reindeer on his bottom?

Aunt Abbie got a Christmas snuggle too.

Amazingly we got all 3 boys to pose with Aunt Abbie in front of their Christmas tree.  Having her here is something the boys relate to Christmas day.  She's a present herself!   These 3 just love her so much!

We got some sweet shots of Douglas with his big boys too.  

Ok, so finally at 9:30am we got the presents going.  It's become a tradition to take a picture of the boys opening their first present of the day.  This year their first presents were from Abbie, cute placemats.

Don't worry, I won't post pictures of every present being opened.  Just a few good captures to tell the story.  Like this one.  Koen got Lincoln Logs!

He's quite the builder.  He jumped right in and completed one of the buildings.

Abbie and I got identical presents from my brother, Phil.  It was such a thoughtful, sentimental gift.  He took a bunch of old records we used to listen to as children and through an amazing software program he transferred the recordings into mp3's and made us CD's with all the files.

I can't wait to share these songs with the boys.  Thanks, Phil.  It was such a surprise and so thoughtful!  Next we got to open our thoughtful presents from Koen.  He made 3 presents at school (just like the 3 gifts the wise men brought to baby Jesus).  The first was for Tavin.  It was a "boo boo bunny."  Koen made it out of a washcloth.  You put an ice cube in the middle for a friendly, cheery ice pack.  What a cute idea!

The second present was an ornament for Gramma and Grampa.

The third present was for me.  A decorated frame with a picture of Koen showing off some cool art he made at school.  

Koen and Tavin both got a toy from some sweet friends at North Way that wanted to bless them at Christmastime.  Koen got some Cars Legos sets and Tavin got Duplo Legos.  Tavin set right to work. 

Koen didn't waste any time either.  (Doug got his hands into the project too, Koen is impressive with these Lego sets, but he tends to speed through the instructions and get ahead of himself...Doug was policing that a little bit).

Tav got an exciting new construction vehicle from Gramma and Grampa.  A trencher.

I think he likes it!

Grampa got in on the action to help Tavin learn the different things the vehicle could do.

Gramma and Grampa also gave Tavin his first Bible.  For months now Tavin has been very interested in Koen's Bible and I often found him looking through it or asking to read it.  I had given my mom a heads up that this would be a special gift for them to give him.  He was so excited to receive it.  It happened to come with a little carrying bag and he was also thrilled about that.  He carries it all around the house.  So sweet!

Aunt Abbie gave the boys some silly Pirate Parrot puppets.  They were a huge hit!  And Penn enjoyed getting a puppet show from his big brothers!

My brother Phil waits until the last minute to get the boys' gifts.  He called just last week for ideas and I happened to know exactly what each would really enjoy (and I knew that they weren't getting it from Doug & I or Gramma & Grampa).  Turns out Uncle Phil might just be Santa Clause because they got exactly what they wished for!  Koen has been so into his Lego City Police helicopter since Uncle David gave it to him at Thanksgiving.  Thanks to Lego and their shameless advertisement of all the Lego City Police sets available in the packaging of the helicopter, Koen is well-versed in what else he could get.  I let Uncle Phil know and he totally came through.  Koen got a set with a cool police truck that pulls a trailer with a Zodiac-type motor boat on the back and it comes complete with a burglar trying to escape.  Koen was sooooo thrilled!

Koen opened that present at 12:45pm.  He did this set for the next 4 hours straight all on his own.  I'm thinking we should be stock in Legos because we are going to be investing in more sets I'm sure.  What a fantastic toy for a bright little guy!

Tavin's gift from Uncle Phil was based off of one of Tavin's favorite toys to play with at Kaiser's house.  Tavin has been talking about the Bruder crane his buddy, "Kai-Kai," has since early November.  He was pretty excited to open up his own crane in his own living room!

Thanks, Uncle Phil!  These should keep the boys busy for awhile!  And I love that they will be thinking of you when they play with these special gifts.  So, yes, this was at the winding down of our morning.  At 1:30pm my parents opened the final gift of the morning.  A panini press.  There's a story here.  A long one.  So I'll give you the super fast version.  Doug and I have had a panini press for 6 years now.  Every time my parents come they greatly enjoy the improvement it has on their sandwiches.  They eat sandwiches every day at home for lunch.  Finally we all realized that this would be a great addition to their kitchen as it has been for ours.  They had forgotten our intention to buy them one and they were pleasantly reminded/surprised.  So fun!

It was a fantastic Christmas morning.  We had a lot of fun watching the boys enjoy their gifts, break into some new things and play.  We all enjoy giving gifts and loved finally getting to see one another open gifts we had planned for awhile.   

Soon after the present-opening was complete Tavin and Penn laid down for their afternoon naps.  Koen was up all afternoon on the dining room floor working on the Legos.  Mom and I did a lot of picking up and organizing.  Douglas prepared our evening meal.  It was a warm, family afternoon.  After Penn's nap he needed a fresh outfit (huge Christmas blowout ruined the poor reindeer).  I had to take some pictures in his "ho ho ho" shirt.  So cute!

My little guys will always be my favorite Christmas gifts.  We are so blessed to have these lives in our home, hands and hearts.  They are tiring at times though and Christmas was a high energy day for sure.  After they were all in bed we adults really relaxed.  We had a Christmas movie on in the background, Abbie, Mom and I played Scrabble and laughed a lot, enjoyed great food and some yummy treats and just soaked up the last few hours of Christmas together.  What a great day!  Merry Christmas!