What's your name?

Gabriel has finally begun to say his name, or at least a close approximation of his name. Since our last post he has gone from calling himself "Babo" to "Gabiel"! This evening his mother heard him talking as he was playing with a laundry basket, so she asked him what he was saying and he responded, "Gabiel HIDING". Jenelle and I looked at each other and ran for the camera, the video below is his response to his mother asking him, "What's your name?".

Looking back, it is amazing that only a year ago he starting standing up! To those of who have kindly shared words of wisdom with us regarding parenting, you were so right...they do grow up quick.

Hello, my name is: Babo

...or Bob.

I'm sure that Gabriel is not the easiest word for a not quite two year old to say. When we ask him, "Gabriel what is your name"? His reply has always been, "baby". However, recently he has been able to mimic a lot of words that we say, so his pronunciation has become stronger with many words. Now when we ask him what his name is, his reply is "Babo" for Gabriel and "Bob" for Gabe. He also likes to talk in third person. One our favorites is, "Babo fast!". That is what he says when he runs around the house ;). Or "Babo did it!", when he is able to do something on his own like wind up a toy.

Gabriel's vocabulary is expanding everyday. He has been putting words together to make somewhat of a phrase but today takes the cake. He made a complete sentence! Well, minus some words to make it flow. His sentence was, "Babo may mess woom". Which translate to, "Gabriel made a mess in the room". I was so excited to hear him say 4 words in row like that! Not so excited, though, about all of the books he threw off his bookshelf and on to the floor.

Our little baby is definitely not a baby anymore. He's a talking toddler!

Sing, side, choo choo, san

It's been about a month now that Gabriel's swing set was "created". It took Steven many nights of assembling the frame in the garage and entire Saturday of putting it all together in the backyard, with the help of Jenelle's dad and Steven's parents. The minute Gabriel wakes up in the morning he runs to the sliding glass door that leads to backyard and repeats, "sing (swing), side (slide), choo choo (the glider) and san (sand). He loves to swing, but is still a little cautious of the slide (only because it's pretty steep for his age).

Great trip to Atlanta

We took our first real road trip in February to visit with Steven's family. His sister, Cristina, was celebrating a milestone birthday and had a great celebration! Gabriel did so well on the trip up there and back down. We stopped at a few rest stops along the way to let Gabriel get out and round around a little bit. Steven came across a water pump at one of the rest stops and Gabriel enjoyed playing with the walloo (Gabriel's interpretation of water). It was a nice long weekend with all of Steven's family and we cannot wait to do it again.

Cristina, the birthday girl, and Steven's mom

Sylvia, Steven's sister

Ma...let me watch tv in style

Is he learning fashion early? Or does he just like to play with the zipper? We seem to find Gabriel exposing his burly chest a little too often when he wears pajamas with a zipper. He does enjoy walking around while airing out his chest. I guess it's just a matter of time to find him without any clothes on.

Handy Gabriel

Gabriel seems to take a liking to Handy Manny. For those who are unfamiliar with the Spanish-speaking handy man from Sheetrock Hills, his tools even talk, sing and dance. Gabriel loves to dance when the characters sing the chorus during every show. We got Gabriel a set of his very own (Ikea) tools for Christmas and he loves playing with his mau-mau (hammer). Steven & I recently updated our guest bathroom and Gabriel was a huge "help" every step of the way. He had his mau-mau in tow and tapped on anything he came in contact with.

Here are the before and after pictures of the vanity. Not bad for our first time :).

Greetings in the New Year

As part of our New Year's resolution, Jenelle and I hope to keep the blog updated on a more regular basis. We really appreciate your patience thus far :-)

So it's been about 6 months since our last post...so much has changed. Little Gabriel is now walking, no running regularly. He can say many words, including "mama" , "dadda", "bye bye", "ai esta" (means "there it is" is Spanish), "mas" (means "more" in Spanish), "nigh nigh" = nighttime or bedtime and "beh beh" = baby or any child he sees. He can also identify people by name: Lola= "lala", Nana= "nana", Abuelito= "feve", and Grandpa= "papa".

Gabriel is a great little communicator. Jenelle spent time teaching him sign language at a younger age and he now uses a few signs regularly, such as pointing at his palm when he wants more of something and shaking his hands from side to side when he is finished with something.

Other developmental milestones include his ability to now climb throughout his environment. He climbs on the couch, chairs, up a small stool to reach the sink and wash his hands. Just this evening he climbed on top of a footrest so that he could reach the light switches for the fan and overhead lamps...oh boy, haha.

Another first for us was Gabriel received his first stitches ever, unfortunately. Having a boy, I imagined the day would come, but not at 15 months. He was playing with cousins and hit his forehead on his bookcase. He handled the entire ordeal much better than his mother or I and fortunately the scar is barely visible and is healing well.

I'll leave you with a few shots from his 2nd holiday experience. He had a blast learning to open presents and learning Christmas tree etiquette.

Wishing you and yours a Happy and Blessed New Year.