Grandma Jan

Dear Friends and Family!  I wanted to share with you something that is close to our hearts at the moment and am asking for your prayers.  Last week, Brooks' grandmother, who lives in Colorado, Jan Perry, had a massive stroke to the left side of her brain, called an ischemic stroke. It has affected the right side of her body and speech.  After several days, she IS breathing on her own, responds to her husband by rubbing his arm with her left hand, and can move her eyes to see people who walk in the room.  She is not in a coma state, but does sleep a lot.  Doctors have been completing CAT scans daily to check for any internal bleeding or swelling in her brain, which there has been NONE!!  This was VERY unexpected and nothing any of us were "ready" for.   Grandpa Larry has been the one to give us a few scares over the last 2-3 years with his own battle of cancer and multiple surgeries he has endured.  

Please lift up Grandma Jan for healing!  Please pray for Grandpa Larry to have the physical strength to stand by her.  Pray for Brooks' dad, Mr. Geary, and his brother, Larry, Jr  as they make the best decisions they can in the best interest of Grandma and Grandpa.

We hope and pray that your hearts are aware to just how fragile life is!!  Thanks!

Grandma Jan with Gavin last November!  She was so excited to meet him!

Gavin spending Thanksgiving with Grandma Jan and Grandpa Larry in 2008

Gavin was entertaining Grandma Jan (this was last month)

Grandma Jan LOVES Gavin!!!

Perry Playhouse

Now that Christmas is over and we've begun the New Year, our house has finally been put back together somewhat (just don't look in our garage because its filled with the overflow--- even our Christmas tree is still standing out there (it's a real one and the trash people haven't come yet).  Since Gavin was blessed beyond abundance for Christmas, we realized it was necessary to pack up toys that have been out since he was 6 months old, choose some toys that we could give to others in need, and find spaces in the house to store and organize his toys.  Gavin has lots of small toys, tools, random balls, miniature cars, books, etc and they all needed a place to go. So, we went and picked up an organizing system to give all of his toys a home!  Over the last 2 months, I've been transforming out family room into an office/playroom.  We've removed the couch and coffee table and made room for a computer table and "scrapbook" table and now it has room for Gavin's stuff, too!  Everything fits perfectly!

While we were completing this process, we decided to put together a slide that Gavin got from his birthday and a picnic table that he was given for Christmas. He hasn't been able to enjoy these as much since they are in garage and it's been really cold outside.  We're waiting for the weather to get nicer so we can move these outside and give him plenty of play time.  However, we did "surprise" him and set these up and then let him loose into the garage to check out his new toys!  I think he enjoyed them!

**We're still working on teaching him that we sit at the table, not stand on it.

Gavin had the opportunity to play with several "play" kitchens that were other kids gifts and he LOVED them!  He played more with the play kitchens then with his own toys.  Of course, Brooks and I really wanted him to have one of his own so we went out Wednesday night and got the last one at our Target.  Brooks set it up and Gavin has played with it every single day, non stop!  He LOVES it!!!  Needless to say, our house looks like a play house.
**Gavin was soooo surprised when he walked in and saw his kitchen.

Gavin has been growing up every day.  I think I write that in every post when I talk about how much he is changing, but it's true.  Just in the past month, Gavin has started talking more and more.  It's not that you can always tell what he is saying, but sometimes you can.  He has learned to sign please and thank you (he learned that one today).  He loves saying football and I think he surprised himself when he said basketball the other day.  Gavin has decided that he would rather eat with a fork then with his hands... that was a really simple transition.  We've been working with him on "poking" his food, which he would try now and then, but for the most part, he would hold his fork with one hand, and eat with his other hand.  We think he watched some of his cousins (who are age 2 1/2 to 4) eating with forks and now that's what he wants to do.  It's really funny, because he gets mad if we we give him a plate of food with out a fork.  We're really grateful that this was something easy for us to walk into!  Gavin has found a few new loves... like chocolate milk (he was shocked when he tasted it), cartoons (but this is few and far between), and music instruments (he can really jam on a guitar and drums).  Gavin also learned that a fire place is HOT!!!! He had a small mishap with a fire place on Christmas Eve and touched the glass doors and burned the tips of his fingers.  He cried and cried and cried. It broke our hearts to see him in pain and NOTHING that we did seemed to make him feel better.  He eventually wore himself out from crying and fell asleep in my arms.  He did enjoy the two popsicles we gave him for him to eat and hold with his fingers to help sooth the burn.  He got some HUGE blisters that grew into the sizes of peanut butter M&M's (they have more of a round shape to them).

2009 was an amazing year for the Perry family.  We are looking forward to seeing what 2010 has in store for us.

Christmas in Arkansas

We spent the past week in Arkansas with Brooks' family.  We had a great time celebrating Christmas and were able to have plenty of quality time with loved ones.  Gavin had a great time enduring the cold weather (it snowed Christmas Eve) and got to play with Maggie, our dog, who lives with Brooks mom now.

Enjoy the pics!  Happy New Year!

For your entertainment!!

WE ARE IN THE CAR DRIVING HOME FROM ARKANSAS RIGHT NOW AND HAVE STARTED ENTERTAINING GAVIN TO HELP THE TIME PASS BY. HERE ARE TWO CLIPS FROM EARLIER.

**Scroll down to the bottom of the blog to pause the music playing so you can hear him laughing and playing.  Beware.... it's loud!

Santa Came Early...Again

We spent last week in Lake Charles having Christmas with my family.  It was a blast.  Gavin loved getting to play with his cousins; we found out my brother Bryan and Anna are going to be having a little girl, Brooks went hunting with my dad and brothers, and I got to catch up with my BFF, Megan.  My friend Adrienne was in town from France and we got to catch up, too.  We surprised my mom with pictures from a photo shoot all of us kids did for her so she finally got a picture of her grand-babies.  We left Lake Charles feeling very loved and blessed!

Enjoy the pictures from the Williams Family Christmas.  Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (if I don't get to post before then).  Brooks, Gavin, and I are off to Arkansas this afternoon for the week!

Santa Came Early...

Brooks, Gavin, and I celebrated Christmas a little early this year and had our family Christmas last week. Since we travel for Christmas and aren't at our house Christmas morning, we would rather not haul our gifts for one another around in the car, just to bring them back with us. Last Sunday night, we let Gavin open his presents from Mommy and Daddy and he LOVED it. He really got into ripping off the wrapping paper and throwing tissue paper around. He played with his toys the entire time Brooks and I opened our gifts to each other. He especially loved the BIG piece of luggage Brooks got me for traveling overseas. He was able to lift it, roll it, and even use it as a step stool (I told you he climbs on everything).

Gavin LOVES getting into the kitchen cabinets and thoroughly enjoys playing with any utensil, pot, pan, bowl, pitcher, etc that is in the kitchen. Brooks and I found a small play set of pots and pans at Target and just had to get them for Gavin. (They even have a set with a mixer and blender that I can't stop thinking about.  It's just too cute to pass up and may be something we give him

Christmas morning to open from us.  Anyways, Gavin was super excited to get the pots and pans and he has been "using" them everyday. His set came with a miniature colander and whisk; so he went into the kitchen and found our colander and whisk and compared them to one another. It was really neat to see that he made the connection between the items. He pretends to make us food and we "pretend" to eat it. Who knows... maybe we have a future chef on our hands.

Brooks and I enjoyed our Christmas gifts from each other, too. Brooks picked out a purse for me that I LOVE.... and the luggage that will be a huge benefit to have once we start traveling. I want to make sure that I have a bag large enough to fit any and all necessities to take with me to Saudi. Brooks wanted some new clothes and a new pair of tennis shoes. We're also building up our collection of TV Series DVD's so I started him The Everybody Loves Raymond Series (only he changed his mind and wants a different series) That's okay... we just need some good options for TV shows to watch once we move.

We feel very blessed to get to celebrate Christmas as a family!  We spent the past week in Lake Charles and celebrated Christmas with my side of the family on Saturday.  Santa was REALLY good to us.  I'll post those pictures later.  It's 12:30am and I'm tired.  Off to bed.

Playing around

Hi friends!  The Perry's are getting really excited for Christmas!!!  Santa Claus is going to be visiting Lake Charles tonight so everyone is already in bed awaiting his arrival.  Brooks, Gavin, and I are in Lake Charles for the weekend celebrating Christmas with my family.  Brooks is off of work until the New Year so we are extremely pumped about getting to spend some quality time with him.

Brooks and I are amazed at how fast it seems that Gavin is growing up.  All of a sudden he has become a lot more aware of things... he soaks up everything like he's a sponge.. he mimicks us, he uses his sign language ALL the time (saying please, more, eat, cup), and he's started to speak actual words.  Today, we were wiping his nose with a kleenex and he blew in it (how cool is that?)  He LOVES blowing on food and saying "hot".  He really emphasizes the "h" sound.  It's precious.  He has officially figured out how to climb on EVERY single chair, couch, stool, step, coffee table, etc.  He's really good at it and we learned that we can't leave him in a room alone because he will end up climbing on the tallest item in the room.  He has heard us say sit down so much that he started repeating it back to us.  He's sooooo cute and fun to play with everyday.  We had some presents for him the other day that we let him unwrap and he really unwrapped them.  It was really fun to watch him understand the concept of ripping off the paper and finding something underneath the paper to play with.  Needless to say, we think Gavin is really going to enjoy Christmas this year.

In order to get ready for the many different days we will be celebrating Christmas with family, I decided to upload all the videos from my video camera onto my new computer, so that I could make more room for all the videoing (is that even a word?) that will be going on.  I am trying to learn the video software that comes with the MAC and I realized that you can create "movies" with your videos.  I decided to play around with a short clip and created this.  I thought it was cute of Gavin.  Hope you enjoy!