Changing so quickly

This was an email I sent to my mother-in-law; updating her on all the happenings with Garret. After I wrote it I just wanted to make sure I had this month captured for myself as well. The one thing I forgot to mention was Garret eating food. He has been doing this the past couple of weeks but this week, and mainly the past few days, he has caught on really well. Today he ate almost an entire container of squash. He has ALWAYS been a good little eater.

So I feel like just in the past week Garret has learned to do a lot of new things. He is getting so so fun. This past week he has laughed so hard. Aunt Carol, Uncle Mike, Amanda and her little girl Jordan were in town for the long weekend and so we were out later than usual and we blame some of the crazy laughter on Garret getting too tired. But it was really really cute.

He can roll really well but only to his right, for the time being. He did roll all the way over, from back-to-back yesterday for the first and only time so far. Brock was so excited and kept saying, "Good job Buddy. Im so proud of you." Last night for the first time time he rolled in his crib. When I went in their to feed him around 5 am. He was squawking but not doing his usual whine. When I got in there I saw the reason why. He had rolled over and was on his tummy yelling for someone to help him. I fed him, put him back in the crib and went back to sleep. When I went to get him at 7:30 to get ready for church he was sound asleep....on his stomach.

This week he also has found his thumb and bottom lip. He sucks on both but not at the same time:-). The thumb thing really has been the past couple of days and has been really cute but I don't think it is necessarily a habit I want him to get in. You can throw out a pacifier but it is hard to get rid of a thumb :-).

So besides rolling from his back to his tummy, he can also scoot really well on his back. He was laying on my mom's bed trying to take a nap. Ace was on "baby duty" so I didn't get to see this but I guess he had scooted out from between two pillows preventing him from rolling and when my mom and Ace went to check on him, lucky they did it when they did, he had his head dangling off the bed. One more scoot and our sweet little boy might have ended up on the hard floor.

He is talking and talking lots more. Lately he is making a high shrieking sound. We were watching American Idol and Garret and I we were holding some of those high notes like that rocker James contestant does. Ace was supportive but I think after about 30 minutes of this show he was nursing a pretty strong headache.

Here are just some other fun pictures of Garret as he continues growing right before our eyes.

(spending an afternoon with cousin Brynlee)

(at Uncle Beau's graduation from Vet school. Actually at the food court at CSU. Uncle Shay and Ace needed a little something from Panda)

(Brynlee in a basket....3 weeks old)

(Garret in a basket...5 1/2 months old)

(nothing like a Sunday afternoon nap in just a diaper)

Garret rolls over

He did this about a month ago but I wanted to make sure we had it recorded on our blog so here it is. He does it like crazy now! He first rolled over and did it pretty consistently for about a week and then he took a couple of weeks off and didn't do it AT ALL! He didn't even pretend like he was trying. Then one day he just did it again and now it seems like that is all he is doing when he is laying on the ground. It has gotten to the point where it is pretty hard to get things done because he will roll himself over onto his stomach and get stuck. He will start whining until I roll him over but almost instantly he flips himself back over and the process is repeated. He is getting so big and more and more fun each day.

Welcome Garret Timothy Stryker!

On December 15, 2010 Garret came into the world after 19 hours of labor. He arrived at 8:22 pm, weighed 7lbs 7oz and was 20 inches long. Ace and I had it in our mind that Garret would come either bald or blonde but instead he came with a full head of brown hair. He is perfect! He had a blister on each hand from sucking his hands while in the uterus so his love for sucking has made feeding really easy for me. He is really easy going and usually sleeps pretty well at night, usually. Garret will be one month old this week! That just blows my mind. This post is a collage of pictures, people and some of Garret's first experiences.

Here are some of Garret's firsts.

First time meeting mom and dad

First outfit to go home in

(he didn't wear it very long because he had a leak)

First time in his car seat

First Christmas!

(stockings left to right: Garret, Ace, Lacy, G'ma, Asia, Zac and Sully)

First time in his crib

First bath

First piece of mail addressed to him

Here are pictures of Garret with some of the people we love.

Garret and Granddad

Garret and Grammy

Garret and Maryann

Garret, Brock and Shay

(Shay had been home for only two hours and Garret was 25 hours old)

Garret and Kali

Garret and Daniel

Garret and Sara

Garret and Cayson

Garret and Afton

Garret and Meredith

Garret and Beau

Garret and Asia

Garret and Zac

Garret and G'ma

Garret, Gabe and Ashley

Garret, Tana and Brinley

The past few weeks our house has been the napping house.

And after we nap, we nap some more.

Here are a few things we have learned.

1. Umbilical cords are to be thrown away......not eaten

Garret's fell off, I mistook it for a pretzel on the floor and will never make that mistake again. Before you judge too much I want you to know that I immediately noticed the lack of taste and extremely weird texture so it was in and out; much better than if I had chewed and swallowed huh?

2. No matter what you think, when you are at a doctors appointment and they say to take the clothes of your baby off to get an accurate weight, they don't mean the diaper as well. Remember that next time Ace and we will have far less laundry to do:-)

3. When your baby sleeps extremely well one night that does not mean he will do it again the next.

4. No matter how sad and tired you are to be awake at 2 in the morning, when you walk into that nursery and pick up your baby you will be filled with love and that baby will get lots of kisses.

Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree

Last year Ace and I started our first Christmas tradition. We cut down our first Christmas tree on my parents' ranch. When we got it inside it looked more like a bush but we still had a blast and decided that this was something we wanted to do from that point on.

This year Ace got us a permit to cut down a tree on Forest Service lands and so Saturday we used my parents dually truck to find our perfect tree. We really wanted to take Sully but when we got to my parents we decided that Sully might not do so well on the back of the dually so he had to stay back with Jamie and wait for us to return.

When we got there Ace and I both realized we were expecting something a little different. We imagined we would drive up some dirt road and basically pull straight into a Christmas tree farm-type situation and have millions of perfect trees to choose from. Not so. Turns out we had to hunt and hike around for the perfect tree. But at dusk we found the perfect one for us.

One thing about this tree is that it has one base but as it grew it broke off into two trunks that run parallel to each other. We decided to cut it right below the split off so as not to lose any fullness from each branch but to also not have it too tall.

In the above picture it is hard to tell but there is a bird's nest. I thought it was pretty cool and we should definitely keep it but Ace thought it was kind of gross and cut right above the birds nest.

The reason Ace's backside is wet is because after we cut down the tree we decided it would be smart to see about how tall it was. Ace is about 6'1" so he laid down next to the tree. Turns out it was still a bit taller than Ace. When we got home we discovered it was a whole 4 1/2 feet taller than Ace. Trimming the Christmas tree took on a whole new meaning this year.

Somehow our tree survived all the random cuts here and there to make it fit in our house. And we were right, it is perfect!

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope your holiday traditions are as fun and full of as much love as ours are.

Stryker family in fall

Sorry for the delayed update. I was supposed to do it, but often it sounds boring. But now I really have something cool to write about, so here it is.

Presenting the Stryker family fall 2010 photos! These include Lace, me, Sully, and Baby Stryker in utero. It was hard getting him to smile for most of them, but we were able to salvage a few good ones. Getting Sully to sit still, on the other hand, was a nightmare, but his disposition lent itself to some funny candid shots.

A big thanks to Jeremy Wade Shockley, esteemed photographer at The Southern Ute Drum, for the pro photography!