Wrapping Up January

Holy crap. This is sad. I get further and further behind every week. Am I seriously JUST NOW finishing January?! I need to get crackin.

Gabriel has been trying to drink out of things like a "big boy" since he was around six months old. But that was usually him trying to drink out of the rinse cup in the bathtub... Now it's everything! He always wants to drink out of a cup. We don't always let him because he would make a huge mess, but every once in a while, we'll give him a little bit of water in a cup.

Gabriel continues to dance and boogie his little heart out. I'm really bummed that I can never catch his most awesome dance moments on video, because they get pretty awesomely cute and funny. He always tones it down (or stops altogether) when I turn on the camera....if I can even get it and start recording in time...

Gabe lives in his own little world and I love that about him. There are times that he will NOT let me blog or work or cook or clean in PEACE, but then there are plenty of times that he plays independently really well also. I have no idea why he does some of the things that he does or what is going through that head of his. I may never know...I'm sure it would be interesting!

And that's it for January 2011!!

UN / FORTUNATELY - My Happy List

I decided to go ahead and link up to Mamarazzi's Happy List this week. I have soooo many things to be happy about and thankful for!! And, though I didn't intend to, I feel a lot like my friend in one of her latest posts.

I am HAPPY that Gabriel loves bathtime. He splashes and plays and farts and he is just hilarious and fun to watch! Plus, I love the smell of a clean baby!

UNfortunately, while I was trying to take a video of his cute little naked tush, this happened:

If you can't tell what happened at the end there--that was me dropping my phone into the tub. Now I'm "one of those idiots". HAPPILY, I have worked for a company that does technical support for mobile devices (without really telling you what company I worked for, I can say I supported the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch....) so I knew exactly what to do to avoid damage and I took action immediately. My phone is fine.  :0)

I am HAPPY that my son is healthy and happy and active. UNfortunately, that means he makes more messes and gets into plenty of mischief!

So I am HAPPY that I have a baby gate. The Gabe-Storm is containable, people.

I am HAPPY that my son loves me so much that he can't stand the idea of not being in the middle of everything I'm doing. UNfortunately, that means he's always under my feet--which can be dangerous in the kitchen. HAPPILY, Gabriel is easily entertained by kitchen utensils!

I.K.E.A.

I freaking love IKEA. I get into trouble there, though. I see so many things that "make so much sense!" and it's all so inexpensive and I always end up buying things I didn't intend to. I also end up spending a lot more time there than I plan to.

Gabriel took his first trip to IKEA with mommy not too long ago and he was a trooper!! Right in the middle of the bathroom stuff (I think...? or was it window treatments?) they have a little kiddie station that Gabriel LOVED. They think of everything.

I have been dreaming up a cute little toddler room setup and the process has completely consumed me at times. I find myself spending hours online shopping and comparing - beds, dressers, toy boxes, book shelves...oh my...I cannot wait!! IKEA has a pretty good contender for a toddler bed - the length (yes--of the whole bed) is adjustable and it comes with a cute matching toy chest! I also found some cute chairs. Oh yeah--Gabe is totally obsessed with little chairs. If he finds one anywhere--or anything that somewhat resembles a chair--he will sit on it. Who am I kidding? He'll sit on anything. The other day I caught him sitting on a shoe. Seriously, though, the kid is like Goldilocks - a connoisseur of chairs. Only he's obviously not as picky if he'll sit on a shoe. He found a cool little chair that he liked at IKEA though!!

I want to get it. I just have to find a way to convince McKay that the purchase is justified...

Gabriel took on IKEA like a champ!! He put up with my browsing and oohing and ahhing for hours without a peep! He actually kinda got into it with me. He would find something he liked and point at it excitedly and go "Ooh!" or "Oh! Wow!" Hahaha--crazy kid. He was pooped by the time we left though! He conked right out in the car on the way home....

Mess Machine

Gabriel.

Can make.

A MESS, y'all.

And sometimes, I just let him.

He's a good boy, though, and he helps pick up too! Man, I love my kiddo.

Boo-boo :'(

Okay, so this is a testament to just how behind I am. This happened in January. Ugh. I always say that I will get caught up and believe me--I really really want to!! But with a full-time job plus wife and mommy duties plus...stuff....makes for a busy life. Plus, I can be a little lazy. And I'm a procrastinator. Basically, there isn't really a good excuse. Aaaannyywaaayyyy.....

So Gabriel was running around playing and he slipped and fell (we have hardwood floors and they can be a little slippery) right on his face! I turned to grab him and saw that he was bleeding. A LOT. I couldn't get it to stop. He split his upper lip...I wanted to cry! I was so upset that I couldn't fix my poor little baby - I was shaking!!

It finally stopped bleeding and he stopped caring and just wanted to continue playing....I was left trembling and whimpering on the couch....

He has since healed beautifully. There is just a tiny faint little scar on his upper lip that you can barely see. Looks like he heals like Mamma!! (We now have "house socks" for Gabriel that have little rubbery dots on the soles so he won't slip!!)

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!!