Puzzle Master

Gaby is a HUGE fan of puzzles. Always has been.

Remember this post?

She has moved on to the much more difficult 25 piece puzzles and finishes them in no time. It's fun to watch her work through them and put them together.
And she's always very proud of her accomplishments. As are we :)
I bought these at the dollar store and do believe they are the best, most entertaining couple bucks I've ever spent :)

She's cute!!

It's back! It's back!! It's back!!!

I finally got my camera back!! It took long enough, don't you think?!? About six weeks. And in the process, I killed our old point-and-shoot. It was pretty obsolete these days, anyway, with it's measly 5.1 megapixel capacity. But as you can imagine I'm so happy to have my Nikon back and am excited to take lots of fun pictures! And, of course, a certain someone is NOT allowed to touch it ;)

YIPEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Playa del Carmen

We made it to Mexico and back! We had a great time, had some good weather (although a bit steamy at times) and had fun w/my parents, my sister and the kids.

Getting to Cancun was a bit of a challenge. I'll give you the cliff notes version- late check in, bumped from our flight, stuck in standby hell, decided to separate, and poor Byron didn't make it to the hotel until 11pm. That about sums it up!

After that mess, though, everything else went pretty smoothly. Gaby swam her little heart out and really had a blast w/her cousins. Lulu and Carlos got to do some pretty adventurous activities (parasailing, zip lines, ATVs) that Gaby can't wait to be old enough to partake in. The rest of us took advantage of the relaxation aspect of our vacation. I'm always so grateful to be able to create awesome memories with our family.

PS- Since I didn't have a camera, I'm still waiting on the files from Marcie. I'll post a slideshow when I can...

Playa

Manana we leave for Playa del Carmen, Mexico!!!

Can't wait for some beach time :)

Marcie got a cool underwater camera so we might get some really neat pictures. Look for them soon...

Wish us luck on Gaby's first international travel.
Stay away swine flu!!

Ducks aren't picky...

We fed some ducks and birds the other day. We gave them the whole wheat english muffins we had bought that tasted like cardboard. They seemed to enjoy them :)

Diaper Free

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty! Free at last!!

Last night was the first night Gaby slept w/out a diaper!

She was still wearing them at night even though for the past month or so they have been completely dry in the mornings. We were just going through the motions of finishing off the diapers to make an event of it. And our big girl is so very proud of herself!

And so now we are officially diaper free. What will we do w/all the money we'll save? I know.......more shoes!!! ;)

2 1/2 Yrs old !?!

My little sweetie was born two and a half yrs ago, today. Sometimes it's so hard to believe! The amount of fun and joy Gaby has brought to our lives is immeasurable! Her giggle makes our hearts burst with happiness. Some of her facial expressions makes us laugh until we cry. And holding her sweet, soft little hand makes us realize what a precious gift we've been given. A beautiful daughter who is healthy and happy! She's got a pretty great sense of humor. And on the flipside, her temper is something to watch out for! But mostly, she is a true delight to be around and it's such a privilege to be her parent. Sometimes, I just wish I could stop time and really soak it all in for what it is. The sweetest times of our lives...

Happy Birthday, Pita!!

As unbelievable as it sounds, my mom turned 70 yrs old this weekend!! Marcie, Billy and I planned a little dinner party in her honor.
The princess helped by looking cute... Our pretty table...
A few of my mom's closest friends joined us... The beautiful birthday girl... Gaby helped blow out the candles... So we had a little surprise up our sleeves. Since Lulu turns 18 in a couple of weeks, we decided to plan a family trip to Mexico to celebrate these milestone birthdays. Here are the girls getting their surprise... Happy birthday to my gorgeous mom!!

I hope to look half as good as you on my 70th birthday.

We all love you very much!!

The Children's Museum

We had the pleasure of hanging out w/Gaby's friend, Tripp, today!! His mom, Elizabeth, had some important meetings to attend to and asked me to watch him for a few hours . So we headed to the Children's Museum for a morning of fun!

First stop, a little tractor play... Then Tripp showed Gaby how to use a crane... The choo-choo train in the sky was pretty mesmerizing... We even built some cars... It was definitely interesting trying to keep up w/two kiddos who were running in different directions at all times, but I survived. Just mild states of panic everytime I thought I lost one ;) But seriously, Tripp is a great kid and we had a fun day with him!

Pigtails !!

Beach Portraits

Happy Independence Day!

We had a fun and busy 4th of July! We started the morning off w/a parade. We went over to who is quickly becoming Gaby's best friend, Ellington's house. They live on the prime corner for parade viewing... Look it's me in a picture :) It was a small, but fun parade to watch. There were kids on bikes... A marching band and dancers.... This guy cracked me up.... Being so cute, the girls got plenty of candy and beads thrown at them. Fourth of July is the new Halloween. Who knew?? And the grand finale? A fire truck of course :) Afterwards we headed to the park and actually got to see the fire truck up close... Gaby actually wanted to get her face painted for the first time...

She got a butterfly on one cheek and a ladybug on the other. And a couple of tattoos on her hands. Here she is checking them out. Can you tell it was HOT?!?! In the afternoon we went to two different bbqs. We went swimming and ate lots of good food! Somehow I forgot to take pictures. Oh well. Gaby had refused to take her nap earlier in the day and was pretty pooped by about 8pm, so there were no fireworks for her this year. Maybe next year? Hope your 4th was as fun as ours!

Random Tidbits

Gaby's newest, most favorite sentence: "Wha happennnned?"- I hear this one a few hundred times a day. And actually it is just so adorable and funny that I don't mind it at all! She gets this very perplexed look on her face when she says it, which is just too cute.

Gaby's newest milestone: "I"-Very simple, but actually a very important milestone. Gaby is finally using the term appropriately. Instead of the usual "Me want","Me hungry" or "Gaby want", "Gaby hungry" she's replaced it w/"I". Makes for much more grown up speech. Awwwww, less and less baby talk. *sigh*

Gaby's favorite song: I have this CD I made for us to listen to in the car w/half normal, adult songs (like Jason Mraz, Bob Marley, Jimmy Buffet etc) and half kid songs (like Old McDonald, Mary had a Little Lamb, etc) thinking it would be tolerable and make us both happy. But Gaby has found her all time favorite song which we have to hear everytime we get into the car and multiple times thereafter- "Pop goes the weasel". So now it is literally engrained in my brain and I catch myself singing it or dreaming about it all. the. time. I think playing the same song over and over again is how they torture terrorists. Help me.

Gaby's version of Ring Around the Rosies:
Wing awound de rosies
Pop goes de rosie
Ashes, Ashes
Fall-in down.
Watching her sing this is just too cute for words :)

And this concludes the random tidbits of information I wanted to tell you about. Good day :)

Scooter in action....

Remember the scooter Gaby got for Easter? It has definitely been getting lots of use. She has gotten so good at riding it and really has fun with it. We are certainly getting our money's worth from that toy!