It's been four years today since my little guy left this earth.  He's been gone almost as long as we were together.  I miss him a lot.

I think about him often and today I spent some time going through old photographs and remembering.

Garrett was really good baby.

Love that little smile! He had a giant head!  Good thing he grew into it!

 

We spent a fun summer at the beach in Carpinteria when he was just a little guy.  Thank heavens for a blow up pool that kept him (mostly) out of the sand!

 As soon as he was old enough we did swimming lessons.  He loved it. 

 Even when we went to Wyoming to spend some time we always did swimming lessons there too!  Sadly, he was the 'bad kid' in the class.  He was so enamored with the goggles the teacher had him wear that he didn't want to take his head out of the water and he missed most of the instructions.  He made up for it at the end of each lesson when he would wave to his teacher and yell "I love you, teacher!!".

He was always my little helper.  He LOVED to help do anything. I have good memories of shopping and cleaning and doing projects with him.

 

Ward campout and a super cool pinata.  After they smashed it and gathered all the candy, my boys wanted to bring home the pieces of the pinata because they thought it was super cool!

 His "I love you" handshape that he couldn't ever get exactly right... he always did the "hang loose" handshape. (At the splash pad in Tempe with Jennifer and her kids.)

He loved to be outside and do boy things.  We did a lot of fun things together and I'm so glad I took them a lot of places.  This is a picture of us on the top of a small hill at Usury Park. We did a little hike with a bunch of friends one day.  Garrett is holding his hair out of his eyes...his hair was something else!  It was super fine like mine, blonde and very straight.  It would grow fast and it always seemed to be in his eyes.

 This picture makes me happy and sad.  I love that he was such a good brother to Maura.  He was always taking care of her and helping with her. I love the expression on Maura's face!  She looks so annoyed with him!   Maura was only 6 months old when Garrett died and although she knows who he is and we talk about him a lot, it makes me sad that her only memories of him are from pictures.

 

 Today is a good day to remember such a neat little guy.