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Okay, I am a little late in posting this, but I can’t believe that my little man is now 1 year old!   Where did the last year go? (He was born September 27, 2008).  I will be honest, part of me is kind of glad that we are done with the new born stage of things.  He was a sweet little guy, don’t get me wrong, but he is a very high maintenance little person and now that he can be a little more independent, it makes things a little more bearable. 
Here are a few facts about Gagey I thought would be fun to post:

-What time does Gage typically wake up? Anywhere between 7:30-8:30.
-On a good night, what time does Gage go to sleep? 7:15pm.
-What’s Gage’s favorite show?  Backyardagan’s and Peep
-Gage’s Favorite Food? He likes lots of different foods, but he LOVES chicken nuggets when I let him have them.  As snacks he LOVES grapes, yogurt melts and gold fishies.
-What’s my Favorite thing that Danny does with Gage? When they sit down and play with Gagey’s cars and make car noises.
-What are the 5 things that make me smile while being a mom to Gage?
A. The way Gagey grabs and hugs me when I get him out of his crib in the morning, or from a nap, or when I’m on the floor at his reach.
B. Listening to him make car sounds when he is playing with his cars.
C. Hearing Gage call out, “Mam! Maaam!” when I am not in his sight.
D. Listening to him sing and watching him dance when music is on.
E. Listening to him babble, as if I actually understand what is coming out of his mouth.
F. I’m pretty sure I love just about all of it!
-Favorite pastime with Gage? Going swimming with him.  This kid LOVES the water, and is a little water bug.  He gets so sad and upset when we have to leave the pool.
-Favorite quality about Gage?  He is such a little goober, but melts my heart with his smile and hugs and little voice.
-What’s a scary or heartbreaking moment you’ve had with Gage?  Anytime he has to get shots breaks my heart.  But when he was newborn and had to be admitted into the hospital for a few days.  That was pretty sad, and I felt like the worst mom because he was there.
-Gage’s favorite toy:  He LOVES his cars.  He’ll turn anything into a car.  That and his mom!  He loves to crawl all over me!
-Favorite “game”: Emptying out all the drawers as fast as he can, upstairs.  He’s getting pretty fast at it.
-How many teeth does Gage have?  He cut 8 in 3 weeks, when he was 6.5 months old.  He has 3 of his 4 molars now. So total 11 teeth!  He’s a little vampire, too!
-Words and phrases Gage says: Mam (mom), Dad, Baba (bottle), whasat (what’s that), no, yah (yes), hi, bye, hot, stop. 
-Trade mark: His scream/cry.  They can pierce your ears.  And even Micah knows Gage’s cry/scream when he’s in another room at church, and we are in the hall.  It’s that bad. Haha!
-Does Gage have a ‘lovey’?  Well besides me, I’d have to say his blankets that Aunt Camber made him.  Micah loves her blankets, and it looks like Gagey loves his, too, now!

And of course, here are a bunch of pictures of his little birthday party.  We didn’t really have a party, but just cake and ice cream with some friends (The Bowen’s and Blue’s).  Gage was sick on his birthday, so he wasn’t exactly the happiest little beaner.  But here’s the documentation, none the less.
The last 4 pictures are of Gage (and Micah) opening a box from Grandma and Grandpa Stauffer.  Gagey got some pink jimjams that he didn’t particularly like, so he gave them to Micah. ;)  

We have had the most annoying fly in the house the last couple of days.  [What am I saying, ALL flies are annoying!!]  But this one was some crazy biting fly, and its bites hurt!
Anyway, Danny had enough of this stupid annoying fly.  It had landed on the ground near Danny, so he picked up his heavy brown shoe and hit the poor little annoying pest.  The fly didn’t even have time to see what was coming for him.
Danny lifted his shoe up and all of a sudden Micah freaks out and starts crying, “My flyyyyyy!!  My flyyyyy!”  She was crying hysterically because Danny had killed her poor little fly friend.  I felt so bad about Micah being traumatized, but when she wasn’t looking, I was laughing sooo hard!
Leave it up to my daughter to make a pet out of an annoying insect… pretty sure it reminds me of my pet ant, Kittus.

While I’m at it…
Gage is cutting his molars!  Grr!  Poor little man is in such pain.  He woke up this morning not feeling too well, and has been very clingy and whiny.  I checked a couple days ago to see if he was cutting his molars, because he’s been sick (but this cold has been going around) and his gums were just fine.  But today when I checked, he had one breaking through and then 2 bumps where other molars were trying to break through.   Pray they hurry through… I’m going crazy. lol!

Okay, I guess she didn’t really go to real school, but it’s German Kindergarten and it was her first day.  She only went for a couple hours, but she LOVED it and can’t wait to go again tomorrow.  Our friends down the street have a little girl Micah’s age and today was her first day as well.  Micah had such a fun time and has talked about going to school all day, and can’t wait to go tomorrow!  I took a bunch of pictures, so enjoy!

So this morning as we were getting ready for church, Micah accidentally smashed Gagey’s finger in the dresser drawer. (She felt bad and gave him hugs and kisses better and said sorry).  Of course he cried, but I just thought it his little fingers got squished a little.  I didn’t know it was his poor little pinky finger. During RS I looked at his pinky (because his nail looked a little funny) and I noticed it was a little swollen and bruised.  Poor little guy!  Here are a couple pictures of his little finger.

Danny’s birthday was today, and I must say, I’m not a big fan of birthday’s that fall on a Sunday.  There isn’t much celebrating you can do on the day of their birthday, and going out before or after the day just doesn’t feel the same.  (Though we still went out on Saturday).
I was smart and scheduled a baby-sitter, 2 weeks in advance, to come watch the kids on the 15th so Danny and I could go out for his birthday date.  I was planning on taking him to eat sushi and then a movie, however we had some investigators and the missionaries come over for a barbecue and they didn’t leave until 4:30.  We ate a lot of food so we weren’t really hungry when it came time to leave for dinner.  So we just went out and looked around a few stores.  We did this without the children which was such a nice change.
I took Danny to a movie that started at 7pm, and we were home by 9:30pm.  We had a nice time going out and being just the two of us.  We don’t do that nearly enough.

Today (Sunday) the kids and I woke Danny up by singing happy birthday to him (really it was just me singing) and then throughout the day Micah would randomly tell him, “Happy Birthday daddy!”  She LOVES telling people “Happy Birthday” when it is their birthday and gets really excited when I let her know she can tell someone happy birthday.
After church we came home and hung out for a bit and then took naps until dinner was ready.  Danny cooked a roast (only because I SUCK at cooking roast and he does such a yummy roast) and we ate dinner.  After I cleaned up the mess we had Danny open presents.  His main present is something fun for the car (it hadn’t come in the mail yet so I couldn’t wrap it) but I had 3 little gifts for him.  Here are a few pictures of him and the kids as he opens his gifts.

(Gagey is naked because we just got done eating dinner and it was too early to dress him for bed, and I didn’t want to put new clothes on him.)

I’m so glad that I get to be the one to celebrate Danny’s birthday’s with him!!  I love him so much and hope that he had a great day!!

WE LOVE YOU TONS DADDY!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Yeah, I’m pretty much not doing a good job at keeping my new blog up to date. Mostly because I have not been taking many pictures. I need to fix that.

Micah’s new obsession is making sure you kiss her on the forehead when you give kisses. Not because she’s too good for kisses on the lips, because she wants that too, you just have to make sure you kiss her on the forehead too or she’ll hunt you down until she gets a kiss on the forehead as well.

A conversation I had with Micah:
Me: “Micah, where is Gagey?”
Micah: “He’s makin messes.”
Me: “Uh-ho!”
Micah: “Ohhh deeeear!”
Me: “What are we going to do?”
Micah: “Go shut door.”
I just love that I’m able to talk with her and we are able to have little conversations. It’s so much fun, and she’s says some of the funniest things!
Something sweet she said today was, “Carli is special to me.” It was pretty random. Micah loves her Aunt Carli, and will always pick up her toy phone and say, “Hello? Oh hi Carli! How are you?” I haven’t even talked to Carli on the phone for a while. Maybe that’s Micah’s way of telling me to call her. Hmm… I’ll have to make a call soon.

Gagey is obsessed with the stairs now! I HATE this part of them learning to be mobile. I don’t think I’d be as nervous about it, if the stairs weren’t wood and tile, but they are and I am nervous! He’s already made a couple journeys up the stairs without anyone behind him. Lucky for us he hasn’t tried to turn around or do anything that would make him lose his balance. I try to keep the gate up, but the stairs aren’t the best set up, and the gate doesn’t fit and he can knock it down. Any ideas on what to do?
Gage also has this thing with biting, grinding his teeth and screaming. He’s not teething and hasn’t been for a couple months, he just likes to bite and grind his teeth. We try and intervene when he grinds his teeth, and try to put a top or binki in his mouth, but to no avail, he still grinds them. And the biting, he just likes to bite. But it’s mostly just me who he bites. I flick his little mouth when he does bite, but that doesn’t keep him from biting again another time. I have little bite mark bruises from him on my shoulder. It makes me laugh. He’s such a little Parana!

Danny has been back, hard at work, for a few weeks now. He enjoys being back at work, but at the same time he’d like to be home with us. His work has learned throughout the 2.5 years we have been here, that Danny is a VERY hard worker, and very dependable. Therefore everyone comes to him with everything. It can get to be a bit much, I’m sure, but I know he likes knowing he is needed. Don’t we all like that feeling?
It’s been great having him home. We really did miss him a lot, and we are so glad that he didn’t have to be in the desert any longer than he had to be. Hopefully he doesn’t go back… EVER! But we are military, and we knew this is what we signed up for. But I can hope, no?

And then there is me, Cymony. Nothing new with me really. Same old stuff, different day. Oh, I’m teaching the 14-15 year old’s class on Sunday. Which reminds me, I need to find out what lesson I’m teaching them. Crap! I get so nervous! I have officially diagnosed myself with agoraphobia mixed with social anxiety. They are real things, and where I might not be so sever I can’t leave my house, I still believe I have them. So I’m totally freaking out about this lesson, and hopefully you understand why, now.

We have the missionaries coming to the house for dinner tonight. And I think an investigator Danny gave a BofM to while he was in Iraq. So that’s exciting.

Anyway, the kids are down for a nap, so I should probably get something done while they are down. – Oh, funny thing real fast. I put them down about 20 minutes ago, and I just heard the click of the light switch. Micah found her way into Gage’s crib in the dark and they were playing. She found the light switch and that’s what prompted me to see what was going on in there (I could hear them talking, just didn’t know they were in the same bed.) Oh, these two are already getting into trouble and Gagey isn’t even a year yet! Oh dear!

While Danny was on R&R (he was given 2 weeks off for a break after being in Iraq) we decided to go to Garmisch, Germany. While we were there we took a day to go to the zoo over in Munich. It was a pretty big zoo and we saw some awesome animals. Micah is at the age where she knows the names of the animals she sees, so we thought it would be fun to take her. This was her first time visiting a zoo. She had a lot of fun naming the animals and got so excited with each new animal we came across. Gage just kind of hung out and didn’t know what to think.
We saw flamingo, elephants, camels, deer, birds, alligator, buffalo, wolves, wallaby, lions, monkeys of all sorts, snakes, giraffe, big bugs and I’m sure a bunch more.
We had a great time, and still hear Micah talk about the animals we saw.  Thanks dad for taking us!

Micah overlooking the flamingo.

Family picture with the gorilla

This baboon loved looking at Gee. As I started to walk away to see the next animal, the baboon jumped and attacked the window. When I came back over with Gage he calmed down.

Not the best picture, but Gage and Micah

Geebs

Me and Micah looking at a snake... I think.

Geebs looking at the flamingo.

Danny, Micah and Gage all looking at the Gorillas.

So it has been about a month, but since I haven’t been able to blog for a while, and am now able to, I wanted to post some pictures about the best day EVER this year!

A sign we had up for the day Danny came home.

Me, Micah and Gage waiting for Danny to fly in.

Danny coming out of the PAX terminal.

Another shot of Danny coming out of the PAX. The guy to the left is SSgt. Ritchie. Him and Danny were roommates for the 5 months they were deployed.

The first hug in 5 months!

Gee getting passed to Danny.

All 3 of my babes! Love them all!