I'm A-Cruisin' !!

Yesterday, I actually witnessed a new milestone! Gaby is cruising! For those of you that don't have kids- b/c until the princess I also assumed cruising involved a big ship, sunset over the ocean and a frozen concoction of some sort:). Cruising is when a baby actually "walks" along the furniture holding on. It was pretty amazing to see it for the first time and realize that Gaby had never done that before. Most of the milestones come along slowly so you don't actually realize what's happened. But yesterday morning, I was sitting on the floor on one end of the couch with Rosko behind me on the couch. Gaby stood up on the other end and worked her way to us. So precious!! It's little things like that that make a stay at home mom's day :)

Gaby Fun Facts

Crawling Update
Gaby has turned into a world champion speed crawler. One minute she's right next to you, the next minute she in another room! Most times she laughing as she's crawling because she's excited about something. It is just too cute! She's also mastered going up stairs already. She's been doing this pretty much since she began to crawl. Now this is a little scary because she is so fearless. I don't want her to ever fall down them, so I have to be on my toes all the time. Her favorite pastime is to start crawling up the stairs, we tell her "No!", she stops, looks at us, gives us a little smile and wave and then turns around to continue going up. Naughty girl! She is also standing any chance she can get. She loves to pull herself up on my pant leg and try to crawl all the way up.


Eating Update
Gaby is also a world champion eater. I've talked to so many people who complain that their kids won't eat veggies or certain fruits or whatever. We have never had that problem. Gaby has and, I hope, always will eat anything and everything you put in front of her. She's got a great appetite! Recently we've started giving her table food. She seems to love it! She's really gotten the hang of feeding herself and is very skilled at gumming her food. Once she's gets some more teeth there will be no stopping her. Speaking of teeth....

Tooth Update
Since her first two teeth at six months I've been waiting for the next to arrive. We are now at nine months and still nothing new. I think I'm starting to see some white caps on her top gums so maybe we'll soon have some action. Truth of the matter, though, she sure can bite ya pretty hard with just those two little teeth!

Skills Update
In the last couple of days, Gaby's learned to "high five". Extremely adorable! We are diligently working on waving "bye-bye". Sometimes she does it, sometimes she doesn't. But the best part is that it's definitely the perfect paegent wave. Would you expect any less from our princess??

Vegas, baby!! (Minus the baby)

This weekend Byron and I met up with some friends (The Morrisons, The Ogburns, The Hulshofs, and The Hawkins) in Sin City! It was our first "official" vacation since Gaby joined our little family. We were gone for four days and three nights. We had fun running around Vegas partaking in a little debauchery :)



Here are
Jill and I
with Big Elvis!!




After the first couple of days, though, we began to miss Gaby terribly and we kept looking at her pictures on my cell phone. Considering I loooove to travel it's hard for me to say this but- I don't think we are ready to leave her for a full week yet. The princess enjoyed a long weekend with Pito and Pita where she was spoiled and pampered non-stop, I'm sure.

Gaby's First Halloween

Gaby's 1st Halloween was alot of fun! Our neighborhood had a block party so we went to partake in the festivities. There was a dj, moonbounce, costume contest and pizza. It was a little warm, so Gaby only wore part of her costume with her Halloween t-shirt. We met up with some of our friends, enjoyed all the great costumes and ate some pizza. We went trick or treating with the older kids but Gaby and I watched from the sidelines. Overall it was a great first Halloween:)

We stayed out late until the witching hour, so the only thing we missed out on was passing out candy to the trick or treaters from our house. Maybe next year?

Happy Halloween!

Perfectly Proportional

Gaby had her nine month (9 months already, can you believe it???) doctor's appointment the other day. It just happened to coincide with her illness which was good. Anyway, Gaby weighed in at 20 lbs exactly and 28 1/4 inches. That along with her head circumference (which I can't remember) put her in the 75th percentile all around. She is perfectly proportioned:)!! Luckily at this visit she didn't have to have vaccinations except for the flu shot. That's a good thing since she wasn't feeling so well. Today she seems to be getting over her cold. Thank God!

Bodily Fluids Are Nasty!

As the illness continues, new symptoms emerge. Since Gaby can't really breathe through her nose, when she drinks her bottle she ends up swallowing a bunch of mucus. As a result, she's been throwing up right after she drinks. Yipee. Also the antibiotics have given her the stinkiest, most disgusting diarrhea. Yuck. So I'm dealing with snot, slobber, vomit and diarrhea- Oh my!! Gaby, when you can finally read all of this, go find your mommy and tell her how much you love her:)

There's a First Time for Everything

Our poor little baby officially has her first cold! Now, we have been so blessed thus far. Gaby has been the picture of health for the first nine months of her life. I guess everyone has to get sick at some point but it certainly is no fun. Our little sweetie has been running fevers and a very constant runny nose (ick!). Yesterday, she really wasn't feeling well at all. Instead of her usual independent, exploring self she would just crawl over to me and lay her sweet head down on my chest whimpering and having trouble breathing. It is just heart breaking watching your little one be so miserable and not really be able to do anything for her. She also really hates having her nose wiped! So mommy ended up with a t-shirt covered in snot (double ick!). Last night, Byron took out his doctor tools and was able to look in her ears and see the beginnings of an ear infection. So we got Gaby on her very first round of antibiotics. Thank God they make the medicine taste good! We were travelling again this past week so I blame the illness on being around so many people. But again, we have been very lucky and Gaby has never been sick before, so there has to be a first time for everything. It's your turn little girl:)!

Happy Fall Everyone!

A very special pumpkin delivery!

Pumpkins and Flamingos- only in Austin!!

Daddy & Me Time

For the past couple of months, Byron and Gaby have discovered the perfect Daddy & Me Time. Byron decided that bathtime and bedtime were going to be his domain. That made me very happy because it allowed for a little break for me in the evenings. And more importantly since Byron is at work all day long, it gives him his own private Gaby time.

Gaby so enjoys bathtime. As we all know, she loves the water and has a blast splashing around and playing in her tub. Sometimes, Byron ends up almost as wet as she is!

Bedtime is such a sweet experience! Gaby is all relaxed and sleepy after her warm bath. She's soft and snuggly in her sleeper and she smells like baby-heaven! She slowly drinks her bottle and dozes off to sleep only after caressing your face for few minutes. Occasionally, Byron has a late meeting or is on call so I still get to do it once in a while. I was making myself a little jealous for a minute there!

I know Byron loves and will always cherish his Daddy & Me Time and I just wanted to include it on the blog so Gaby will know how special we both think it is.

Little Miss Independent

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. We've been out of town the last couple of weekends and things have been a little hectic around here. Anyway, Gaby is crawling like a champ! She's all over the place and pulling herself up to standing on all the furniture. I wonder how long until she starts taking a few steps? The cutest thing is when she's gotten herself up for a few minutes and then you see her contemplate "How on Earth am I going to get back down?" It's just too funny! You can just see the wheels turning as she slowly works out the problem in her head.



Our swimming lessons are going really great! Gaby is the youngest in her class by at least 7-8 months and she is doing everything the other kids are doing and sometimes more. She can hold her breath for five seconds. And after only 5 weeks, I'm already letting her go once she falls off the ledge and letting her swim on her own towards me. I'm positive that scared me much more than it scared her. It felt so awful to let her go underwater by herself. But she did awesome! She is such a little fish and definitley loves the water!! She has never once cried during our class while all the others cry all the time. It is just so amazing watching her actually swim.

Funny story: Thursdays Gaby goes to Nanny Rocio's house from 12pm-3pm, so I can run a few errands by myself. Rocio is so wonderful with Gaby and she just loves going over there. She watches two other little boys, so Gaby is already on the road to her first boyfriends:) I figured the first few times I would leave her that she would probably be pretty upset because she is so used to it being just the two of us. So I prepared myself. I was going to be strong. Tough. And even though she was going to cry, I would still leave her there and she would learn. Would you believe she has yet to shed a tear? She's just like "Bye Mom! See ya later!" and she gets to playing. I am very proud of my little sweetie, but still a tiny part of me kinda wanted her to notice that I was "abandoning" her. I guess I was wrong. She is definitely an independent little girl:)

And Away She Goes...

Gaby is officially crawling!! Still a little slow and careful but definitely moving from one place to another. She always heads for the TV/Stereo components so now we begin another new lesson....learning the word "NO!" For historical purposes, Gaby began crawling just short of seven and a half months of age.

Gaby other newest trick is clapping! It is too cute! She especially likes Pat-A-Cake. It's also important to note that she is constantly saying "mama". I'm just not sure she's made the connection that that is me. But I like to pretend she knows she's calling me:) Anyway, she is always saying it and I love it!

Labor Day Weekend

The Weekend
This Labor Day Weekend we had two very special visitors. My closest friend from St. Louis, Michelle, came to check out our new town. And Pita came to spend the weekend with Gaby so we could have some fun girl time. Pita was so anxious to come back since she hadn't seen the baby in almost a month! Michelle and I got to run around town, do a little shopping, and eat at all sorts of yummy restaurants. Poor Byron was on call this weekend and really did have to go in alot and did not have any sort of break. Pita enjoyed dressing Gaby up like the princess she is all weekend:)

Watch our world!

Gaby is days away from crawling! I'm starting to get nervous as I know life will become VERY exciting (and even more exhausting!) once she gets mobile. As for now, she is basically rolling around and scooting all over the place. I'll put her down somewhere only to find her three or four feet from where she started. She has got the "backwards crawl" down pat! I feel sorry for the boys as they will be her main target once she gets her groove on.

Chewing- The New Frontier

This past week we started trying to eat Cheerios. It is the funniest thing watching Gaby's face as she tries to figure out what the heck she's supposed to do with them. For now she spits them back out and only after two or three times does she get them soft enough to swallow. I think she'll get the hang of it in no time, though. I finally learned how to upload a video. Check it out...

The Money Shot!!

I finally got the picture I've been trying to get for weeks! Gaby's two little teeth! Check it out...We took our introductory swim lesson this weekend and everything went great! Gaby loooved the water and is already quite a good kicker. She seemed to have an awesome time and drenched me with all her splashing:). We are looking forward to our weekly lessons.

Welcome one and all:)!

Mimi, Papa, Aunt Candie, Uncle Stevie and Princess Mia drove up to visit this past weekend. It was their first time seeing our new house. We didn't do too much, but had fun mostly hanging out and spending time together. We did go to the Austin Botanical Gardens and walked around a bit. Here are Mimi & Papa toting the girls around...

Princess Mia and Princess Gaby basked in the glory of being the two cutest babies in the world and were showered with tons of cuddles, hugs and kisses all weekend. Mia is gaining fast on Gaby and will soon be surpassing her if she keeps up eating so well! The girls enjoyed playing together and poking at each other...

Here are Gaby & Mia saying "We love being cousins-yipee!!"
Mia decided Austin is the "Land of No Naps" and insisted on chatting up the grown ups all weekend. Gaby sucked up Mia's nap vibes and took unusually long naps for the both of them.

Mimi was put on feeding patrol for the weekend and loved getting mushed up veggies spit on her:)

And in other news: Gaby and I signed up for swimming lessons today and start next week. We are very excited to get in the water and splash around. I know Gaby will be a natural!

Morning Routine

We have a morning routine. It varies only slightly from day to day. Gaby starts to move around and talk to herself in her crib around 5:30 or 6am. After listening to her sweet sounds for a little while and thinking that maybe she'll go back to sleep, I finally get up and get her bottle ready. Then I go into her room for the best moment of the day- the first hugh smile! She is always so happy to see me. It used to make my day when the puppies were always happy to see me. It's a great feeling- unconditional love. They should try and bottle it. I digress. I get my sweetie and head back to my bed. Gaby drinks (gulps!) down her bottle and then snuggles in for another hour or hour and a half nap. And I snuggle right down with her. It's those quiet moments that I will treasure for the rest of my life. She always smells so good. And her skin is so soft. We hold hands and doze off. Then I wake up later to the sound of her stirring and then quietly talking to herself or her teddy. I pretend to sleep and just listen until the last moment. Until she's decided to start slapping me in face or pulling my hair. As if to say, Ok mom, time for you to wake up too. Now I can hear what the experts have to say: "You should not take your baby to your bed. You will teach her bad habits. She will always want to crawl into bed with you." My response to that is- is it really so bad?? I think not! This is the sweetest, most amazing time of the day! I'm going to blink one day and my little, precious baby will be a rebellious, independent teenager. And our morning ritual will be reduced to a fading memory and a blurb on a blog. So I will cherish these moments forever because Gaby will only be this small once. And I intend to enjoy every fleeting minute. I, of course, am afforded this luxury because at this moment I am a stay-at-home mom. I am so appreciative of this time. And for those times when I'm frustrated, tired or bored of the "mom thing", I just think about our very special morning routine. As they say in the commercials- it's priceless:)!

The Visitors Continue...

This weekend we had a visit from Pito, Pita, and Tio Billy. It's so great to finally be able to see our family so frequently. Pito and Pita were nice enough to babysit for us on Sat night so we could enjoy the Austin nightlife. We met up with our friends, The Dallas', who were in town from St. Louis for a wedding. I forgot how much fun Austin can be at night! We had great time eating out and hitting a few bars, but I paid for it the next day. This mom is just too old to party anymore:)! Here are the grandparents giving Gaby her morning breakfast...

On Sunday, we had a visit from my pseudo-cousin Alex Ibanez. For those of you who know Alex, he is currently living in California with his wife but is hoping to transfer back to Austin. He was here for some interviews. We hope to hear some good news soon. As one of my loyal bloggers, Alex is proud to have made it onto the blog:)

Tooth update- Miss Gaby currently has two teeth. Her two lower centrals! It's just too cute for words! I've been trying to get a picture of those little buggers but she just won't let me. I'll post one as soon as I can get it.

New tricks update- Gaby is now able to pick up her paci and put it in her own mouth! She also is starting to hold her arms up when she wants me to pick her up. I have been patiently waiting for this to happen and I can honestly say it was worth the wait. I just love it when she does that! It's the best feeling ever!

Gaby's Top Twenty

My little one is growing up so fast! She's already six months and as she morphs from a helpless little baby to active toddler I wanted to write down and remember all the adorable things I just loooooved about her babyness. So I thought I put them into a top ten list. Except there were so many more than ten that I just made it a top twenty list instead (It was even hard to stop there!). I want to look back at this when she going through her terrible twos and threes so I can know that she did have her precious moments:) Here goes....

20. Her very serious, pensive facial expressions
19. Rubbing her eyes when she's tired
18. The smoothest, softest, sweet smelling skin in the whole world
17. The reflex to grab your finger as tight as possible
16. Sucking, smiling, or tooting in her sleep:)
15. The way she caresses my face while she drinks her bottle
14. The super cute gulping sounds she makes when she's devouring her bottle
13. The most beautiful gummy smile in the world!
12. Her absolutley perfect eyebrows and eyelashes
11. The contagious explosion of giggles when she's tickled
10. The sheer joy she gets from watching the dogs play
9. Her chubby toes and feet
8. The first glorious smile you get in the morning
7. Baby crunches- trying like the dickens to sit up
6. Her absolutely yummy baby milk breath
5. Her not quite iny, not quite outy belly button
4. Her precious, gigantic yawns and stretches (el punito)
3. Trying to eat your face any chance she can get
2. Her soft whisperings in the early, early morning
1. The most wonderful feeling of having her asleep on my chest!

That's my little sweetie:)!!