Moving

We're in trouble!

  

This little girls isn't even really crawling yet and she gets around quickly. Just yesterday she made it all the way around our kitchen island (which is pretty big). Time to start baby proofing I guess.
 

Family Ties

It looks like some things just run in the family.

Good morning!

 We have the best baby in the world, for many reasons. What's the best reason? She's been sleeping 8+ hours during the night since she was 2 months old AND she wakes up like this:

Happy as can be and ready to start the day. This is a picture of her the first night she slept for 8 hours, taken May 18, just 2 days shy of 2 months. She's so proud of herself.

The bonus is that she usually has some pretty awesome bedhead in the morning too.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Let's be honest, though. Even if I try to do her hair it pretty much looks the same way. It's just funnier in the morning for some reason.

Summer of cousins!

Aven got to meet all of her cousins this summer. It was a blast!

 These three are part of the 2012 crew. Aven is just excited to have Capri around now so she'll have someone to play with for life. Is it child abuse to force cousins to be BFFs?

 

Aven's first big road trip was up to Oregon for Happy's retirement party. (Happy is James' mom which makes it the coolest grandma name ever.) We broke the super long trip in half by stopping in Sacramento to hang out with Trent and Elli. Check out Aven's stink face. Best picture ever.

 

Maybe I lied. This is a pretty awesome picture too. She went on her first plane trip to see Avery and baby Callie in Missouri. Callie is the last of the 2012 crew and she sure makes Aven look like Gigantor.

We love all of our cousins and can't wait until we can actually play together, as opposed to being forced to take pictures with them on the couch.

(Disclaimer: I am still not that great at making sure I take pictures of the important things so cousins not pictured but equally loved: Jolie, Leah, Cal, Kyla, Tyler, Jace, and Blake. See what I mean, I'm a slacker. In fact, I didn't even take the first picture either. It's something I'm working on.)

Having fun at 4 months

This sweet girl is 4 months old and we are loving every second of it. James and I pretty much adore her and think she's the most amazing thing in the world.

A few weeks ago she started laughing. That combined with being super tired made for one funny little girl. I was holding her and thought she was sleeping but when I looked down she was just looking up at me smiling.

Isn't she so cute?

Happy 2 Months

 Aven is 2 months old and growing big. Here she is so pretty for church.

And Diesel loves when Aven's having some tummy time. He always lays right beside her but usually chooses to have some back time since I'm willing to rub his tummy for him. Here are the two best friends just hanging out. 

 

Bad Day

Aven is not having the best day. You would never know by this picture though.

Baby Aven Is Here

James and I are both enjoying our sweet baby girl.

Aven was born on March 20th at 1:01 p.m., 8 lbs 13 oz (big girl).

Diesel was skeptical at first. . .

but finally decided he could at least enjoy tummy time with her.

Merry Christmas

From James, Patrice, Baby, and Diesel the pouting reindeer

Happy Halloween!

After great thought, and a lot of practice, Patretus finally mastered her Halloween pose (since it wouldn't be quite right to call it a costume at this point).

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Baby Skeletor.





















Isn't she scary?

Rounded to the nearest tenth Top Ten.

It's been a while. In fact, it's been FOREVER! Needless to say, it was time to update the world on what was going on with Team Gordon. So here it is... drumroll please. We've decided to throw together a Top 9 Events of the last 7 months. I mean, round numbers like 10 are so overused. . . and frankly, overrated, and this certainly has nothing to do with the fact that no matter how hard we tried, we could not come up with one more thing to make it an even ten. Nine is so close to ten anyway, so who's even counting?!

In any case, enjoy.

9. The Move: On Febraury 9th, 2011 we decided to pack up all our things and get out of the snow of Utah and into the sun! We moved to AZ where I was able to live it up on the golf course, running old men for all they're worth, which was less lucrative then simply collective. Turns out a long drive in AZ wins you a pair of dentures. Though you wouldn't believe what those are worth on the black market down here...
Diesel took the move pretty hard, and just seems to be hating life. :)

8. Les Miserables: Patrice's mom surprised us with some tickets to see Les Mis in June. No pics to share from this one, but it was INCREDIBLE! Though evidently they don't think kindly of crowd members standing up and singing along... What can I say? The beating of my heart echoed the beating of the drum!

7. San Diego: The entire Erb clan took a vacation to San Diego in June and had a blast! Most of the time was spent hanging out on the beach playing whiffle ball, paddleball, and volleyball. We also went to Sea World, and FYI sitting in the Soak Section isn't nearly as fun as it used to be as a kid, though it was the perfect cover-up after wetting myself with excitement during the dolphin show.










6. Grand Canyon: My brother Joe and his family were moving from Texas to Sacramento so we met them in Flagstaff and made a trip to The Big Ditch. It was a first for me, and it was an unbelievable experience. Joe and I decided to get adventurous and go beyond the railing, though you couldn't pay enough to go that close to the edge. As you can tell, I can see the view just fine from 20 feet back.





















5. Coaches Gordon: Patrice got hired as a JV volleyball coach at her Alma Mater, Ironwood High School. I also started coaching JV football at Valley Vista High School (Go Monsoon!). It makes for some pretty long days for both of us, but we are both loving it! Coaches Gordon have thus far amassed a combined 8-3 (.727) record, which begs the question: where would these teams be without us? No answers please. :)

4. Un Nouveau Prof de Francais: After applying for tons of jobs in AZ, I finally was able to land one! That's right, I am finally putting my PE degree and English teaching minor to work by teaching.. French? Oui. Le Francais. Valley Vista High School in Surprise, AZ decided to take a chance on a PE teacher with no experience to take over teaching French. So far it's been... interesting. It's a lot more work than I ever anticipated, but I am starting to get my feet under me. I haven't put anybody's head through a wall.. yet. Small victories!
Patrice insisted that I get my picture taken on my first day. Le nouveau prof de francais est si beau!!

















3. Bandon Birthday: My dad's 60th birthday was in September and we concocted an elaborate scheme to make it his best yet. Thanks to some help from Joe's high school buddy, we were able to surprise my dad at Bandon Dunes, where we played all 4 courses over two days (no carts allowed at Bandon Dunes). Pacific Dunes is ranked as the second best course in the country by Golf Magazine, and it brought us all to our knees. My iPhone's camera could only capture a piece of how amazing the courses were, and words can't really describe what an amazing weekend it was.

























2. Gold Cup 2011: It just so happened that the same weekend we went to San Diego the Gold Cup Final was in Pasadena. The prospect of Mexico vs. USA in the final was too much to pass up so we went with Patrice's brother, Todd and his wife, Kristin. The final attendance count was somewhere around 93,000 with maybe 10% of those fans cheering for the US. It looked promising when the US went up 2-0, but Mexico proved too much in the end, winning 4-2. At least, I think that was final score. We didn't stick around to the final whistle, choosing to sprint to our car instead of becoming celebratory piñatas for the 85,000 less-than-sober Mexico fans. Run for your life, gringo! :)































1. Patretus: That's not a type-o. You read it right. Patretus. For those who haven't heard, Patrice is pregnant, due mid-March 2012. We are pretty freaking pumped about it, to say the least. After some time, we decided that we couldn't really refer to it as "Baby" since it was more fetus than baby, so we decided to start calling it Patretus which may or may not stick when it's born. After all, Patretus Gordon has a ring to it...

Sitting in the airport

Right now I'm sitting in the airport waiting for a flight that was supposed to leave at 7:05. . . it's now 8:43 and it's scheduled to depart at 12:25. Pretty much I have a lot of time on my hands and no reason not to blog. I should have a lot to write about, but I just went through my pictures and found a few that are pretty cute that I meant to post but never did. Here they are.This is Diesel in his Halloween outfit. He's a bat. . . and he LOVES it (as you can see).

We went on a drive through Provo Canyon back in November and decided to get out and take a few pictures. Well, Diesel would not stop squirming around so the first picture turned out like this:

And the second one turned out like this:

He wasn't very happy after that.

James and I went to Hawaii with my parents (which was awesome, even though I never blogged about it). I laugh every time I see this picture because they were both such good sports about the flowers behind their ears (which I'm not entirely sure was even my idea in the first place). We went to the PCC, Pearl Harbor, the USS Missouri, and the North Shore. James and I also ate at Ted's Bakery (3 times in 2 days). Their chocolate haupia pie was delicious.

I've been watching a lot of old home videos lately, and I'm just going to be honest. I was the cutest little girl in the world. Seriously. Don't you think so?

Last one I promise. Diesel puts up with so much from me. I put his ears back in a ponytail and I think he looks like a samurai.

That's all I have for now. And it's only 9:15. It's going to be a long night.

Respecting Thanksgiving

We live in Utah. I don't know about everywhere else, but in Utah Christmas music starts the day after Halloween. James sternly told me the other day "Thanksgiving will be respected in our house," meaning no Christmas music or decorations will be tolerated in our house until Thanksgiving has been completely enjoyed. Consider the new background a sign of my respect for the often overlooked holiday.

(On a side note, I have been listening to Christmas music in my car since November 4th. He specifically said in our house, so I don't think I'm breaking the family rules.)

Recognition is the first step to recovery

I admitted something to James last night that I have never told anyone before. There was no reason for me keeping this a secret except for not wanting to sound weird. . . but everyone is a little weird, right?

So here it is:

I LOVE Lucky Charms cereal. We don't get it a lot because I pretty much eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until the box is empty. We had coupons last week so I got to get two boxes at one time. Mmmmm. When I was younger I would only eat the delicious little marshmallows (I'm sure most people can say the same and I'm sure my siblings LOVED me for that). Now that I'm older and much more mature I just eat everything else and save the marshmallows for last. I'm not that weird, right?

If only that were my secret.

When I have a bowl of milk with only marshmallows left I can't just eat them like I eat all other cereal. I like/have to eat THREE marshmallows at a time and they all have to be different (one horseshoe, one pot of gold, one rainbow) OR they all have to be the same (three clovers). I don't know when this started or why I insist on doing it but I have to. There are exceptions, of course. Like at the very end if I have four left, I'll eat the four all together if they are all different. If they aren't I'll separate the ones that are the same and eat two at a time. Or if there are three left, I'll eat two and one. Does it make sense?

After I told him my secret he said to me "Recognition is the first step to recovery."

So here I am, admitting to you all that I have a problem. Hi, my name is Patrice and I eat my Lucky Charms marshmallows weird.

This is where you say "Hi Patrice" and tell me about your weirdness. Don't worry, this is a safe space. No one will judge (I hope).

?

Does updating the background of our blog count as an update?

U.S.A! U.S.A!

James and Diesel are ready to cheer on the U.S. during the World Cup that starts next week. I'm excited too but Nike.com doesn't sell women's soccer clothing for some stupid reason. Don't worry, I'm not bitter at all.

Golf

We like to golf.



I like golfing because I get to use my pretty pink and orange golf balls that James bought just for me.





















James likes golfing with me because I get to be his caddy.























Yesterday was the best day of golf I've ever had because I got my very first ball mark after hitting a very beautiful shot (which was a little too beautiful because it hit the green and continued to bounce right past the hole and down a very large hill). Can you see it?





















I was so proud of myself.

On a side note, I cut my hair for those of you who didn't already know. I went crazy and decided to donate it. I'm still getting used to not being able to put my hair in a ponytail without a million clips holding it in place. But I like it. I want it to grow out a little bit, but it's a fun change from having really long hair. And I get to look like Erin.


Another side note, here's another picture of Diesel listening to the walls talk to him. I just think it looks so silly. What dog sits and stares at walls?

Diesel's Sixth Sense

He hears walls talk. . .


































































What do you think they say to him?

My Little Guinea Pig

About a month ago I got a sewing machine for a few reason. One, I was in desperate need of a talent of some sort. Of course, being athletic is great, but in the world of Provo, Utah, if you don't sing (like me) and don't play an instrument (like me) and can't create cute things to show off to your friends (like me a month ago) you pretty much feel like a huge failure. Two, I wanted a new hobby. And three (which I didn't know was a reason until after I started sewing), I wanted to dress Diesel up in cute little clothes without feeling guilty spending money on stupid dog outfits.

I started simple. After going through my t-shirts I found a BYU shirt that I haven't worn in quite a while, cut it up, and started sewing. It was so funny because Diesel stood so proud every time I held something up to him to measure it. He kept trying to jump on my lap to see what I was making him. And what did I make him? A cape, and he LOVES it. He prances around the house like he's such a stud and it's just so funny.

The second thing I made was a little more ambitious, and I think it turned out pretty good.

Introducing our little gangster.



















Ok, so it turned out a little huge. I blame the size chart on the back, because while Diesel's body length may be a medium, nothing else really is. Don't worry, I did a little improvising and now it fits better. The best part is Diesel loves wearing it and he looks so cute.

I also made James and myself some pajama pants, but those aren't nearly as cute.