Gage

He wouldn't sit still for the 12 month pictures!

My little chunk of Gage . . . what would be do without you (and in the beginning they thought you might not make it because your gestational sack was small, but now you're the biggest one!) You are such a funny baby!!

Gage loves to smile, loves to laugh and gets very excited frequently. He is also my resident fit/tantrum thrower and my whiner. Seriously, he covers both ends of the spectrum.

In his Texas Tech t-shirt

Gage was the second born and the smallest of the bunch back then. Westin out-weighed him by a pound and now he out-weighs Westin by at least 2. He was also one of my first two to come home on Sept 23, 2010. As a brand new baby, Gage had this little old man look and he ALWAYS looked serious. When we would walk into the NICU, we could always knew if Gage was crying because he had a very distinctive cry that sounded a little like a squealing pig. Maybe that should have been my first clue that he would be my whiner.

Gage quickly started to catch up and soon he was the biggest! . . . and, then we started to see a silly side to Gage. He is still very silly. He loves to put his hands, or his toys, or his food on top of his head and he smiles and laughs while he does it. When he sees you, he rushes toward you like a stalky bulldog with a HUGE grin on his face . . . unless he is cranky, then he comes toward you slowly, stops just short of you and then collapses while rolling back and forth on the floor and crying until you pick him up. It's really pretty comical. At times, when he is mad or upset, it is almost like he has forgotten how to crawl. His other fit throwing technique is to bang his head on the tile floor repeatedly. Now before you get too concerned, you need to understand how he does this. It is very calculated . . . he lowers his head slowly until he is almost to the floor and then hits it just hard enough to make a noise on the tile. It is strictly an attention getting technique. What are we going to do with him?

Gage is such a momma's boy and he would be happy to be where I am at all times! He is definitely not an independent baby. For a while we got the impression that he would have liked to have been an only child, but once he got bigger and mobile, now he just plows over everyone else like they're not there and he doesn't seem to mind them so much anymore.

My favorite Gage baby memories will be 1) the way he would watch his little light up rain forest toy every night with his bobbling head control at bedtime 2) the way he showed affection by head butting you instead of with hugs or kisses (we do get some kisses now) and 3) the way he would try to push himself into an upside down position while laying on his tummy on my chest because he LOVES upside down. Like I said he is such a funny and silly baby!

We were surprised that Gage was the first take steps and he is the only one currently consistently taking stable steps. He's up to 4-7 steps at a time and I think he can walk, he just doesn't know it yet! He was always kind of lazy, so we thought he would be last or at least second to last. But he running to us with arms flailing in the air and an big old grin on his face. shows you what we know!!

Gage is a beautiful blessing in our lives and we feel so fortunate that he beat the odds and made it the finish line with the others. Our lives would not be complete without this silly, whiny, chubby ball of love. We praise God for the opportunity to be his parents!!