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.

1-year old photo shoot...kind of

Hello everyone! I know it was been a while since our last post. It feels like the days have become shorter recently...thus is parenthood I suppose. We are hoping to keep the blog updated more regularly, thank you for bearing with us :)

Here is a shot from Gabriel's most recent photo shoot. We would have liked to schedule the photo shoot for his 1st birthday, but unfortunately our friend and photographer is moving out of state :-( at the end of the month.

He is now a little bit over 10 1/2 months old.

Real food

When Gabriel had is 6 month check up, his pediatrician said that he can start eating real food. Jenelle decided, while she was pregnant, that she wanted to make all his food in the beginning. We started with pureed sweet potatoes. He really enjoyed his first taste of food.

Jenelle makes a batch of veggies or fruit every week and freezes it in ice cube trays. We defrost a few cubes for each of his meals.

So far, he has had homemade sweet potatoes, pears, zucchini, apples, butternut squash and green beans. The only one out of those where he gave us a "yuck" face was when he tried zucchini for the first time, but it has grown on him.

When Gabriel sees the bowl and spoon he knows what's coming. As he sits in his highchair, his legs start to kick and he bounces up and down with his mouth wide open.

Pickwick Park

Steven's parent's have a great, new park in their neighborhood. It has 2 large jungle gyms, swings, small rock "walls", gazebos to barbeque, and a large walking path. It's a great place to bring Gabriel when the weather is right. We have been bringing Gabriel to the park well before he entered the world. Steven and I (and sometimes his parents) would make our walking route through the park to the walking path while I was pregnant.

When Gabriel was about 5 months old, we decided to let him try out the baby swing. He sat in it and was stiff as a board. We would swing him and he would just look straight ahead and not move a muscle, the only things moving were his eyes...and they were staring at us. It was as if he was thinking, "what is this thing?".

Nana & Feve (Steven's parents) take him to the park on most of the days they watch him during the week. he seems to enjoy the swing now.

It's funny to watch babies experience things for the first time. Everyday is a learning process for Gabriel.