Gaby Goes to the Zoo !

Today, Gaby and her cousins Lulu and Carlos and I went to the Houston Zoo. It was a great day, although a little chilly. Since it's been pretty warm thus far, it was one of the few times the princess was able to wear her leopard print coat :) She blended right in with the rest of the wildlife. This was her first time at the zoo and she did seem to enjoy it!

My favorite part was the elephants! I LOVE elephants! And Gaby's favorite seemed to be the monkeys...

Carlos is so sweet. He insisted on pushing Gaby's stroller all day. He also always wants to get her out of her crib when she wakes up from a nap. He adores his baby cousin! Being a ten year old boy, his favorite thing about Gaby is that she toots out loud whenever she wants. Makes him laugh like crazy!

And Lulu is going to be the best babysitter. She can play with Gaby for hours and is super sweet with her. She has tons of patience and is great at making Gaby giggle! Looking at Lulu's baby pictures, her and Gaby look so much alike. She's going to be so gorgeous as she grows up :)

We all had blast at the zoo! I'm so grateful to be back in Texas so we can do more things like this together :)

Merry Christmas !

Santa Claus came to town and Miss Gaby is now the proud owner of more brightly colored, music playing, light blinking plastic toys than any little girl needs. But of course, when you are learning how to become spoiled there's no time like the present! :)

Christmas Eve at the La Familia Salazar's included getting all pretty in her party dress and being passed around from person to person showered in smooches and hearing baby talk en espanol all night.

We ate Pita's most delicious paella, some classic Colombian dishes, and listened to salsa-inspired Christmas tunes. Our tradition is to open presents at midnight right after Santa drops them off so we had to save Gaby's for this morning. Don't mess with the princess while she's sleeping or you will pay the rest of the day!

Mommy got an awesome new camera to take even more and better pictures of my cutie. Is that even possible?

Christmas Day at Mia's house was yummy and fun! Unkie Stevie made an awesome spread and the girls unwrapped and stole each other's toys. The girls seemed to know that it was Christmas because they were in great moods and moved from toy to toy showing the short attention span needed to take it all in.

Gaby's favorite toy? Wrapping paper.

Mia's? Curling ribbon.

Ahh, it's the simple things in life :)

Feliz Navidad !

We have been in Houston for the last few days spending time with my family.










Unfortunately, with Gaby being sick we had to cancel our trip to Louisiana to visit Byron's extended family. We are definitely missing out on some good food and lots of hugs and kisses. We just didn't want to risk making Gaby worse or getting little Mia or anyone else sick. The princess still has a little bit of a cough but otherwise is much, much better.

Tonight, we will spend Christmas Eve with my family and then tomorrow we head to Katy to spend the day with Mimi, Papa, Candie, Steven and Mia. I can't even imagine the multitude of new toys Gaby will have after these two days.

She is one lucky little girl and we are a lucky family to have such an amazing and precious bundle of joy! Everyday, we get to see her personality come out just a bit more and watch as she experiences new sights, sounds, flavors- everything!! It really makes you see the world with new eyes. I am so thankful for my beautiful, healthy, funny, happy, independent, sweet baby girl. And Christmas seems like an appropriate time to mention it :)

Cold Virus-3 , Gaby-0

I was told the winter would be like this. I thought "they" were exaggerating. Truth is though, babies ARE little germ factories. And just in time for Christmas- yipee! Symptoms include a very gnarly cough this time. Sounds super painful. And for the first time, it's affecting her appetite. Poor little sweetie.

Little Houdini

Our little princess scared the bejesus (is that how it's spelled?) out of me today! Background: Our laundry room, actually it's really just a closet, is upstairs right off of the playroom. So I was putting clothes in the dryer and reloading the washer and Gaby was playing with her toys in the playroom. Now really how long does that take? Two, maybe three minutes? Once everything was started and I turned back into the playroom Gaby was GONE! Now I thought- Oh she must of gone into her room. So I go into her room and NOTHING! I'm not panicked at this point. She's probably in my bedroom (which is upstairs, too). She likes to go in there and play in our bathroom. So I go in there and NOTHING. At this point I'm running- in the bathroom, the toilet room, the closet, behind my bed. There really isn't that many places to hide! Then I walk out of my room and stand at the top of the stairs. With doubt, I think- there is no way is there? But I say to myself, there really is no other place to look. So I start going down the stairs and round the corner and low and behold there she is!! Three steps from being on the first floor!! She went all the way down BY HERSELF and was just tickled with her accomplishment. She gave me the biggest smile ever! As if to say- Look what I did! There's no stopping me now! So there you go the princess is fearless and able to go where she wants now. What I am most proud of, though, is that she scooted all the way down on her belly, feet first. My child is a genius :) !!

Back in the Inner Circle :)

This past weekend our dear friends, the Morrisons, had their annual Christmas/White Elephant Party in Houston. We have, of course, missed the three prior years because we were geographically impaired- but not this year! It was so much fun to see all of our friends, basically my old A&M crowd. The gifts were too funny and Byron ended up with a doozy- priceless Tony Montana/Scarface sneakers!


Even though they were a size 10 (and Byron wears a size 13) he wore them the rest of the night.


Might tell you a little about how the spirits were flowing that night. Gaby, I'll explain this later when you're a wee bit older :)

On a more wholesome note, on our way into town we stopped to have lunch with Mia, Candie & Steven.

For my loyal bloggers, I just wanted you to know that little Mia is perfectly healthy and doing super. She looks so great and is weighing just about the same as Gaby. Seeing those two together is the most wonderful thing. They are so lucky to have each other. I am really looking forward to watching them grow up to be the best buds ever!


Here are a couple of shots of Gaby lovin on her cousin :)

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas...

I've been good Santa, I promise :)!

Gaby and I went to visit Santa Claus today. I dressed her up in her fancy Christmas dress and stylish red patent leather shoes and we headed to the mall. I wasn't sure how she'd react to Old St. Nick, but she did pretty good. She didn't cry, but she definitely was unsure about what the heck was going on. She just kept looking up at him wondering who on Earth he was. We managed to get half a smile, though, and in my unbiased opinion- it is the prettiest Christmas picture ever :)

Another Proud Dental Moment...

A couple of months ago, I decided to introduce Gaby to Mr. Toothbrush. I assumed she would not like it considering she would always give me the tight lipped, head shaking, squirming, "leave me alone" yell kind of reaction whenever I tried to look inside her mouth. Now I know from the experience I have with my kid patients that sometimes things are better left alone (Can you say, Pediatric Dentist?) . But every time she would be sitting on the bathroom floor watching me brush my teeth she would seem very interested. So one day, I showed her her own toothbrush (hot pink, of course!) and attempted to brush her super cute bottom teeth. What do you know! Not only did she let me, she seemed to enjoy and want me to brush them. So now, every time Byron or I brush our teeth we give Gaby her own brush and let her join us :)

PS- And speaking of teeth, Gaby's two top front teeth have been working themselves out for the past couple of weeks. They aren't fully out but they are definitely there! Ouch!

Say, Cheese!!

Let the holiday season begin....

Mimi and Papa came to Austin for an early holiday visit this weekend. We showed off our Christmas tree and had a nice dinner on our Christmas dinnerware. (Don't laugh, things like that make me happy!) They also helped sweet Gaby get over her little cold. She was in a great mood all weekend even though she was sicky and had fun with her grandparents showing them all of her new skills.




Papa and Gaby by the Christmas tree.

Mimi and Gaby reading the classic "Just Like Mommy"

Unfortunately, I must of gotten Gaby's nasty bug and was feeling pretty bad on Sunday. Luckily, with Mimi around I had backup:)

Cold Virus-2 , Gaby-0

Here we go again! Gaby's got another cold. Runny nose and slight fever. Definitely not as bad as last time. Way to build up your defenses little one :) She probably got it from being around so many people for Thanksgiving. Living in a bubble doesn't sound so bad right about now ;)

Gaby's 1st Thanksgiving

We were going to have the Salazar gang over for Thanksgiving this year but Pita came down with viral meningitis last week! She was in the hospital for a few days but is recovering very well. So we packed up Gaby and the boys and headed to Houston (that is the beauty of living back home!).


It finally got chilly here in Texas. Here are Gaby and Pito going for a brisk morning walk.







Here are the two girls in leopard. Pita is feeling much better with the princess around!



Gaby and cousin Lulu.



We had a great time and ate some good food.




Billy fried up a delectable turkey, Marcie and Lulu made delicious pies and Byron made his grandmother's famous dressing!

Gaby napped through the actual meal but that made it easier for Mommy and Daddy to be able to enjoy their yummy food all the way through with no interruptions. It may sound funny but that is actually a small luxury:)

On Saturday we drove to Orange to spend some time with Mimi and Papa and on Sunday we hung out with cousin Mia (and her parents) for some playtime. The girls are beginning to learn the concept of sharing. Mia is not too hip on that lesson:)

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?