February Blues and Baby News

It's the last week of February. Woo hoo!! In all honesty, it's been an okay month. We've had some sunshiny days which makes the freezing cold bearable. We spent Presidents Day up with the Washburns traversing dangerous snowy trails with our off-roading strollers and watching in bemusement as the boys charted out their giant 75 mile hike that will take place this summer with Dad. Cold sleeping. Carrying all your food. Wild animals. Sounds like a party men.  

 

But when the clouds settle in, we Gailans have to get creative to stave off cabin feaver. Like....randomly putting on Dad's stinky Texas Tech cap backwards just cause we can.

Or becoming a piano virtuoso.

Or just sitting in a laundry basket so Mom can't finish folding the laundry. Side note: Clark LOVES helping with laundry. His favorite thing is for me to toss all the folded socks at him and then he will meticulously pick each one up and put it away in the drawer. :)

This also happened. Don't ask. I blame the Dad. When you leave your boys home alone all day long weird stuff is gonna go down. Sorry baby. But hey nice abs.

On a sweeter note, my baby is a reading machine. Still no actual English words but lots of gibberish that he with rapid fire spit out and lots of pointing at things in the book as he makes noises or movements (exercise!). We aren't sure how he got up on this footrest but isn't he cute?

This is my favorite development this month. I've always ALWAYS wanted a baby who loved little stuffed animals and he finally caught on. Every day he'll pick one or two to be his buddies for the day (Pooh Bear and the Hulk are todays) and he'll carry them around and sometimes kiss them on the nose or talk with them. At night he sleeps on his side and we'll set one of them in front of him as a sleep buddy. The other night he closed he eyes when I laid him down and then peeked when I put the Hulk down. Quick as a snake, he reached out, snagged the Hulk, and pulled him into a hug as he closed his eyes again. So. Freaking. Adorable.

Pardon the scandalous photo. I don't know how to do that fuzzy thing. But I liked this bath photo. He LOVES the bath, I think we've mentioned that. Lately he's been stacking those plastic buckets and putting balls into them. He also found a shaky ball last night and we a little crazy with it in the bath.

 

And finally, the big event of the month. The Gailan baby! We've been waiting anxiously for Kristen to have baby girl forever now. We thought she'd go the beginning of the month because her Doctor's kept hinting that way but Super Bowl Sunday came and still no little girl. Which was fine because it meant we got to continue the tradition of having everyone over for some seriously good dips and lots of laughs (and Peyton Manning won so that was a bonus!). Finally on the Friday of President's day little Stella Gailan made her appearance. Dana and I were actually in the temple when she was born so we missed the big announcement from Matt. Dana visited on Saturday while he was at the hospital and then we all went Sunday for some seriously lovey time with our tiny new niece. She is gorgeous and so small. Clark and I were both sick so we kept our distance but what a little cutie. The new parents seem to be settling in and we know they will be amazing. This photo was the Tuesday before Stella was born when Matt and Kristen were getting their practice on with a walk. Look how natural Matt looks:)

Congrats to Matt and Kristen and welcome Baby Stella!!