A Boy And His Blankie

Before Gabriel was born, my sister sent a huge box of baby clothes to me. This girl has a problem with shopping. Seriously. When she found out I was having a baby, she went nuts!! She got him stuff in every size from 0-18 months and he's still wearing a lot of it! One of the other things she got for him was a blanket. It was one of those fuzzy, super soft blankets. When he was teeny tiny, Gabe didn't really care that much about it. But then when we moved to Utah, he became obsessed with this blanket. OBSESSED, I tell you!! I don't know why he suddenly became so attached to it. For a while, he wouldn't go anywhere without it. He took it in the car, to Grandma-ma's house, and drug it everywhere in our house. We started calling him "Linus" (Peanuts) for a while. It was all we could do to get it away from him long enough to be washed!

Here he is in the car with it...

Draggin' it around Grandma-ma's house...I love those jammies...

Video Proof!!

Finally, we were able to pry it away from him. So he doesn't drag it around with him near as much as he used to. However, he cannot, will not, absolutely REFUSES to sleep without it. If it somehow makes its way out of his crib and we put him to bed without it, he will cry until we find it and give it to him--which is really saying something because he is an outstanding sleeper!

Daddy's Boy

For my 100th post on the baby blog (100 posts!!) I would like to give a shout out to my two favorite guys. Both sweet, handsome, smart, talented, and strong. The first, my husband McKay who works tirelessly to finish his education and ROTC in order to provide an even better life for us, never says no to helping out around the house (and rarely even has to be asked), and continues to be the best example and most amazing father to Gabriel. The second, my sweetheart of a baby boy, Gabriel, who brings so much joy and laughter into my life and always knows when to give Mamma hugs, kisses and snuggles. I don't know what I would do without either one of them!

I still can't get over how cute it is that Gabriel is such a Daddy's Boy! A lot of people assume that I would be a little upset or jealous about that but I LOVE it!! Nothing makes me happier than to see my boys hangin out, bonding.

 Watching either Sesame Street or Veggie tales....

Every day when McKay gets home, Gabriel gets the cutest little excited face! He runs as far as the baby gate will let him and waits for Dad to pick him up, saying and signing "Da-da" the whole time. He almost always takes McKay's hat and puts it on himself...then back on Daddy....then back on himself....etc.

Gabriel also loves to step into Daddy's boots and tries to walk around...but they are too heavy for that...

I love my boys! I am a very lucky girl to always be surrounded by such handsome, sweet, loving, helpful, funny, awesome guys!!

That's My Boy!!

I have always I hoped my kids would be lego maniacs. So far, my wish has come true! Gabriel LOVES his legos (duplos) that he got from Nana and Papa Rivera. I am LOVING it!

I have a bad habit of criticizing parents who spoil their kids (I do this in my head because I fully understand that everyone chooses to parent the way they feel is best and I know that it is not my place to tell others how to raise their children - get off my back!!) I think kids that are handed everything their little heart desires grow up thinking that's how life really is. I've seen kids whose parents gave them everything they wanted grow up to be unappreciative, entitled, irresponsible adults. So I don't buy Gabriel every single toy that I would LOVE for him to have...even though part of me wants to.

I DO, however, buy him book after book after book. It is my FIRM belief that a child can never have too many books. Ever. So Gabriel is steadily acquiring quite the library. He loves his books and I love that he loves his books. They can be found in many different parts of the house. I cannot wait until McKay breaks down and lets me buy a book shelf for them.

I adore my little bookworm! He knows the sign for book and if he can't find one on his own, he waddles up to me with an concerned/eager look on his face signing "book" and I find one for him. He settles into a comfortable position and proceeds to flip through pages, exclaiming "Oh! Ooo! Wow!" while pointing at pictures and mimicking the vocal tones and fluctuations he remembers hearing us use when we read to him. It is SO cute to watch.

I am enjoying motherhood more than I ever thought I could enjoy anything. Gabriel is the absolute light of my life.

Keepin In Touch

I look at my life and what fills my days and I am absolutely amazed. What seems like the simplest thing nowadays seemed like out of this world impossible alien technology ten or fifteen years ago. Think about all of the things a cell phone can do nowadays. A CELL PHONE. It's a mobile phone, a camera, a video camera, a handheld gaming console, we can send messages to each other instantly, scan a bar code to check and compare prices on almost any consumer item, surf the web, find the cheapest gas in a **-mile radius, download and read a book and much much more depending on what phone you have.

On my computer, the possibilities are nearly limitless. From games to mail to photo editing software. And the INTERNET! Holy cow! Can you believe everything we can do and find on the internet?! If you had told me ten years ago that we would have the capabilities that we have now....I would laugh in your face. We have limitless knowledge at our fingertips in an instant. Need a recipe for Quinoa? Don't even know what Quinoa is? How do you even pronounce that? Google will tell you everything you need to know. Thanks to social networking sites like facebook, I can instantly share stories, pictures, videos and more with family and friends around the world! I could go on and on for pages and still not even scratch the surface of all of the technological advances that have been made in the past five years. (And there continues to be more and more every day! Remember when 512KB of RAM and a 50GB hard drive was unbelievable?! Remember how happy we used to be just to have the internet when it first became readily available tot he public? So what if dial up took 10-20 minutes just to connect? I currently have a 14661 kbps download speed and a 45917 kbps upload speed. For now, that's awesome. OUTSTANDING. Especially for what I pay--Thanks Fibernet! But in a year or two, that may be a joke.)

Easily one of my favorite programs to have and use at this point in my life: Skype. I have family and friends in all parts of the country and in different parts of the world. And I don't know if you've noticed, but I move a lot. A LOT a lot. Over 15 times in the past 5 years. I've always tried to keep in touch with good friends and family and now that I have a son, it's more important to me than ever. Skype makes that possible in ways I never would have imagined. Not only can we talk, but we can also see each other, play games with each other, share pictures and files and more.

Gabriel has learned the sounds of Skype and he knows what each sound means. As soon as he hears Skype's startup sound, he knows he will probably get to see Gama (my mom), Ti-ti (my sister), Papa (my dad) or someone else that he loves. When he hears the skype sound, he perks up and gets an excited look on his face and says "Oooh! Oooh!!" and runs to the computer and starts waving and blowing kisses at the screen--whether there's someone there or not! It's so cute!! I'm not sure if you noticed the pictures of him skyping with Gama on Christmas....he loves it!

He also really loves seeing Ti-ti, who is currently deployed (Navy) in Japan. (She's okay - stationed at Kadena in Okinawa, the earthquake and tsunamis didn't affect her, thank goodness!)

We Skype with "Uncle Mitch" (a good friend of mine that I've known since High School) as well!

I am so grateful to live in a day and age where technology like this is available!

P.S. I updated "Keeping Current With Gabriel"! Check it out!

Rounding out 2010

So here are the rest of the cute videos from December 2010 and then I can finally move on to 2011!! I'll get caught up here pretty soon...I promise...

Gabriel started plopping his tongue in December (honestly, he may have started doing it long ago and I just didn't notice because he does it pretty quietly...)

We went to Cracker Barrel with my grandpa and his wife and my aunt and uncle. You can't leave Cracker Barrel without wandering through the store and checking out all of the odds and ends they have in there!

Here, my grandpa is playing tricks on Gabriel...

Gabriel has started razzing again--I've noticed a pattern with him and razzing now. He does it a lot when he is teething. There are one or two front teeth coming in and I think his first molars will be making an appearance within the next couple of months...

I almost never give Gabriel candy. Daddy, however, is a different story. He's a sucker--he'll give Gabe a taste of whatever he's eating if I'm not looking! So McKay was eating a candy cane and Gabriel climbed up on his lap and started begging like a sad puppy....so, of course, McKay gave him a taste. Bad idea!! So McKay was sharing it with Gabriel, offering the candy cane here and there and then boop decided that he would take control of said candy cane....but he still shared with Daddy!

It is rare that I can catch Gabriel on video doing something that I've asked him to do. He'll do it all day long until I get the camera out and then he won't do it for the camera. I got lucky with this one and caught him signing "banana" (well...his variation of "banana" - it's supposed to look like you're peeling a banana and your finger is the banana)

So that's all for December - I'm done doing my belated 2010 blogging! On to 2011 and new adventures!!