Happy Birthday, Gaige

I had every intention of doing a nice, long birthday post for Gaige this morning. Not that he reads my blog, but I did want to give him the appropriate shout-out. I had a bit of a stressful morning, however, followed by a pretty busy day. I just now logged off of the ole work computer and it’s 9:00 PM.

Anyway…

Our oldest grandson, Gaige, turned seven today.

Many of my readers know all about my convoluted family tree. It’s not my parents’ fault (they’ve been married for 51 years!). The craziness started with me. I always did like to do things differently.

I’ve only actually given birth to one kid, Eric, who just recently turned 21. In 1993, I married Hubby and became the proud step-mother (at the tender age of 26) to Shannon and Amy. Since we already had three children between the two of us (not to mention two crazy, non-custodial exes) we decided we didn’t need any more children. A lot of people are of the “you should have had a child together” mentality. But I think that’s just dumb.

I’m getting way off track here. Sorry.

When Amy was 25, she married TJ, who had two kids from a previous marriage. Gaige was already about 16 months old before we even met him. The point of all this is that I don’t have any baby pictures of Gaige on hand to share. The earliest shots I managed to dig up this morning are the one posted above and this one.

Both of those pictures were taken when TJ brought Amy and the kids to the WV place, which at the time was the WV construction site, supposedly to “help” with the building. What he really came to WV for was to ask Hubby for his permission to marry Amy.

A little over a year later, the two got hitched and Amy had her own instant family.

Gaige was not thrilled with being the ring bearer. He liked the idea okay. Until it came time for him to walk down the aisle and he realized all eyes were on him, he froze. Of course, everyone was oohing and aahing and giggling at this cute sight. Gaige thought everyone was laughing at him, so he just dropped the pillow, covered his eyes, and refused to move.

Fortunately one of the guys from the wedding party came back down the aisle to retrieve the petrified boy. And Gaige stood patiently with the rest of the wedding party while Amy and TJ exchanged their vows. Patiently for all of about two minutes. Then he started walking around the altar area, looking at stuff, completely out of Amy and TJ’s field of vision. When he found a pair of pink sunglasses someone had left in the choir loft, I knew we were in trouble.

He immediately put them on then walked over and sat on the edge of the altar facing the crowd.  People (including me) couldn’t help but giggle a little bit. I mean, it was so darn cute. I didn’t have my camera with me, but the photographer did manager to capture one shot of Gaige in the infamous glasses.

And here he is just a few years later at the WV place. He always was the cutest, most photogenic kid I’ve ever known.

Seriously. He’s just got the bluest eyes. And those dimples! Couldn’t you just eat him up?

He’s got a very expressive face.  For better or worse. This series of pics I shot about a year ago is another favorite of mine. Click on the picture for a bigger view.

I can’t remember exactly how old he was in the baseball picture. I’m thinking he was four.

The guitar shot was Halloween 2009. Gaige strummed his sister’s pink guitar and sang “If You’re Happy and You Know It” to Hubby and me while his siblings got dressed.

And we can’t forget that gem of a shot I posted yesterday…

I could go on forever with the pictures, but it’s late. So I’ll stop now.

I hope Gaige had a fabulous birthday!