Anybody out there?!?

Well I am glad to know that there are other people in our life that read our blog besides just my mom. For quite a while I was thinking that only my mom was following. A big shout out to Kathy Willis!! Thanks for being one of the few that follow us. Sara Swidorski also checks us out every once and a while. Thanks so much for following us!! And if there are more of you out there....let me know!!

Well, tomorrow is Gus' first official day at Aunt Sarah's house while Joel and I go to work. I am sure that he will have tons of fun...not sure that Joel and I will. We have boring meetings all day! Yuck!! We are so lucky that Sarah is able to watch him while we are at work. It certainly makes going back to work a little bit easier. We will miss him lots, but it is good to know that he is being well taken care of and loved while we are apart. Tomorrow the chaos begins!!! Back to school....

Gus Goes to the Game

Gus went to his very first football game. His daddy was coaching and they even won. Flat Rock beat Ida 40-6. It was a great game to watch and it was fun for Gus to meet so many new people. It was his first game of many, many more to come!!

Gus hanging with some of his Varsity football buddies at his first game!

"A.J." and his buddy Joey. When we introduced Joe to our son and told him the full name (Augustus John Martin Stapleton), Joe decided to call him "A.J."

(They even have a secret hand shake!!)
Chatting it up before the first JV game. Gus got to hang out on the field with some of the Varsity players.

Fun times in the Orchard

Gus and I went to visit Gramma and Papa in Byron Center for a couple of days. Aunt Annie came to visit us last Tuesday and spent the night. Gus and I then rode back to Byron Center with her on Wednesday. Before we left for the west side of the state Annie and I took Gus to his 2 month doctors appointment. Gus now weighs 13 lbs and 6 oz and is 23.5 inches long. He is growing like a weed!! The doctor wanted Gus to start sleeping through the night, or at least longer than 3 hours. We were told to cut out one of the middle of the night feedings. I decided to try this our first night at my parents house...fun fun!! The first night was rough but now he is sleeping at least 5 hours at night time. YAHOO!!!

On our way to see Gramma and Papa!!! Apple orchard here we come!!!

Reading the paper with Papa in his big chair.

Joel finally joined us on Friday for my cousin Andrea's wedding. We are so excited that she finally married Eddy. He and Joel get along really well (a.k.a. "get into trouble together") and Eddy fits in with the whole Otto family. We were pretty excited. Not only that but it was Gus' first wedding. He had a great time!!

My beautiful cousin, Andrea and her dad, my Uncle Chris. So glad that the rain stopped long enough for the ceremony to be outside.

At the reception they had a "snowball" dance. When the DJ said "snowball" everyone dancing had to go find someone else to dance with. My cousin, Nate, came to get Gus out on the dance floor. Unfortunately, Gus slept in his stroller the entire time and didn't know how much fun he was having. I think that the rest of us had enough fun for him.

Gus had a chance to snuggle with the beautiful bride!! He had so much fun at his first wedding!

Later in the weekend, Gus finally got to wear his "Spike" shirt. Before he was born we called him "Spike". When we found this shirt we HAD to have it!! The look on his face tells me that he isn't so sure about this shirt, but I think it is pretty cute!

Joel and I had our first night out together without Gus. We went to South Haven for the evening to hang out with our friends, Sally and Tim.

We had a great time visiting but it is nice to be home. We spent time today up at school. Gus got to help in both Momma's classroom and Daddy's classroom. We went out to lunch then with Uncle Mike and Auntie Diane. And then Diane, Gus and I continued on a small shopping trip. We found a baptism outfit for Gus and went to Office Max. Gotta help Gus gain the love for office supplies. I LOVE office supply stores. The poor kid will probably spend lots of time there.

Gus gets his 2 month shots tomorrow. Should be a fun day for all of us....

Can't believe it!!

Time has just flown this summer!! Can't believe that our little Gus-Gus is 2 months old! Gus has a doctor's appointment tomorrow where we will find out how much he weighs and he will get 4 shots! OUCH!! Can't wait to see how much our chunky monkey weighs!!

In my biased opinion, Gus is very advanced! He has rolled over 5 times in the past week. Very exciting!! He is also starting to smile a lot which totally melts my heart! LOVE it!! I am so excited to watch him grow and learn to do so many other things in life!

Just a few updates

The 3 Day Walk for Breast Cancer

Gus was the youngest supporter at the 3 Day walk for Breast Cancer this year. He was so proud of his Aunt Sarah who did her 4th walk this year. I forgot to take a picture of the front of his shirt, but it had a pink ribbon on it and said "Tough guys wear pink". Gus' cousin Brendan wore a matching one. (But his said "Mom" on the back where Gus' said "Aunt Sarah".) It was a really hot day, so we only stayed for a little while. But we were glad that we were able to stay long enough to see Aunt Sarah and her friend, Cheryl. We also got to see Sherla, Gail, Kerry and Nan. We are so proud of all of them!!

Gus could be Mother Teresa for Halloween...

I put this picture on here just because it is funny. I love how cuddly Gus is after his bath. When he is wrapped in this towel he reminds us of Mother Teresa minus being a nun, an old lady, and all of the great works that she did. (I am sure that Gus will do great things for this world some day...so far he just made me a Momma and I think that is pretty great!) Just felt the need to share this picture of our cuddly little monkey after his bath. And yes, once we take the towel off the hair on the top of his head sticks straight up on end. LOVE IT!!

AUNT ANNIE!!

Speaking of things that we love....Aunt Annie has been visiting us a lot this summer!! Gus loves his Aunt Annie and we are pretty sure that the feeling is mutual. Annie has gotten really good changing Gus' diapers really fast so that she doesn't get peed on. She is pretty proud of this accomplishment. Aunt Annie comes back to our house tomorrow. She is going to go to cheerleading practice with us, help in my classroom, visit my friend Amy and go to the doctor for Gus with me. Gus has to get his 2 month shots. OUCH!! Not sure who is going to be bothered by it more. Sure, it will hurt Gus, but I may have to pick Annie up off the floor.

He's got skills!

It has been an eventful week here at the Stapleton house. On Tuesday, while at cheer practice with me, Gus decided to roll over for the first time!! He even did it for a second time. Not sure if these are just flukes....or is he just that strong? Either way....I'll take it!! Gus has also become slowly more full of smiles. Yesterday he smiled back at me a couple of times when I was being silly. What a fun moment!! So in turn, I started crying. I was so excited!! This morning, Gus was full of smiles for both his momma and his daddy. I'm not sure who was having more fun....the two of us or Gus. Today Gus and I get to go play with Brendan and Hannah. We are excited to do a fun craft project. Can't wait!!

How soon is too soon?

I am so happy that Gus entered the world with a full head of hair. I don't think that he would be nearly as cute with a bald head. I love that right after his bath his hair sticks straight up on end. People keep telling me that his new born hair would fall out...but when?!?! It has thinned out a little bit, but I think it is just getting longer.

So I am beginning to wonder how soon is too soon to cut my son's hair. He has this crazy baby mullet going on in the back of his head. I am trying to refrain from getting out the scissors. At what point is it reasonable to cut a baby's hair. I'm not asking for much cut off...just the mullet. I am offen told that I am crazy...but would this be over the top?

I am going to try to control myself. But just a warning to all those around us...keep your scissors hidden. There is no telling when I will lose control and go after that MULLET!!

Aunt Annie

Last night was Joel's first night away from Gus. It made me a little nervous so I made my sister come stay with us. Since I was interning yesterday and Joel had to leave before I got home, Gus had Aunt Annie babysitting him for the first time!! And they both survived! :)

Today is my last day as an intern. Whew! I am so happy to be done with it. I can hardly stand it! I am so excited!! Then I get spend the rest of the summer before school just hanging out with Gus-Gus!

Time flies...

Ugg!!! How can it possibly be August already? Didn't school just get out? Wasn't it just June? Where did July go?? I know that August will fly by, but at least we don't have to go back to school until September this year. Kind of nice!

I also can't believe that Gus is already 6 weeks old!! That is crazy to me! He is getting a lot chunkier and is paying more attention to us. Joel and I keep hoping that he cracks a real smile one of these days...I know...it will happen before we know it!!

Yesterday, my friends, Amy and Kathy, threw a beautiful shower for Gus. There were a bunch of people there from work, some from my grad class and a few other friends that I have in the area. We are so blessed to be surrounded by such supportive and generous people. Gus came home with lots of goodies. He is such a lucky boy! On top of all of that excitement, Papa and Gramma came over for the day, too!! So all around, it was a day of spoiling Gus. My mom and I even got to sneak out to do a little shopping. We went to buy a shower gift for someone else, but you know that we came home with a few things for Gus, too.

This morning we went to Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jason's house. Sarah was having a portrait party. The same person who did Gus' newborn pictures did these, too. There were 7 families there to have pictures done. It was loads of fun. I did stoop to a new low. The photographer had this beautiful "tutu" skirt. Both Sarah and I wanted Hannah to wear it in a picture. Unfortunately she was being a little stubborn. I ended up offering a bribe to my four-year-old niece. I offered her $5...she said "more". The girl drives a hard bargin!! So I told her that I would get her $10 in "Disney dollars" for her next trip to Disney. Little did she know that I was already going to do that for their trip in November...oh well...I won the battle with the four-year-old. She ended up wearing the skirt in a picture with Gus and Brendan and then a few by herself. YES!!! I was so excited about it!!! Totally worth the bribe. (OH! And apparently she also didn't know that she was going to Disney in November...oops! Let the cat out of the bag on that one! Sorry, Sarah!!)

We are excited to check out a new church tomorrow morning. We need to get Gus' baptism planned. If we switch to this church, I would really like him to be baptized there. If not, we will stay at our current church for a little longer. I am hoping that St. Joe's (where we are going tomorrow) is as good as we have heard! I would really like to switch. We shall see!!

It is almost time for Gus to eat again and then after that it is his big boy bed!! Okay...so his big boy bed is actually his crib. He did pretty good in it most of last night. We are hoping that he will be in it all of tonight! One can hope right??