Growing, Going, and Girls

 

Each day with Gabriel now brings something fun and new. He has really been a good little boy lately. He's content to sit and play with a toy, and LOVES to play in his exersaucer! He's noticing and grabbing at everything, and laughs every day. I can't believe how much he is growing and changing.

His favorite place to play- besides Mommy and Daddy's laps of course!


Last week we decided to try giving him some rice cereal. He opened wide like a little birdie, and smiled the entire time! I think he really liked it.



Mmmmm...Yummy!

 Since gobbling up his first serving though, he hasn't really been interested. I guess we'll just try again after a little more time goes by.

Cereal or not, this boy has been making good use of all the food going into his fat belly. He shot out of his 0-3 month clothing (at 4 months), and doesn't really have any growing room left in the new 3-6 month sleepers I bought him. I swear he grew 3 inches overnight! It's a good thing too, because he's only been growing wide for some time now. I kept telling him that if he didn't start growing long ways that he was going to be a square!

Gabriel and I have been on the go quite a bit lately. He loves to be out and about, so I try to take him visiting or just on a stroll at least every other day or so. It's so refreshing to get out of the house, and he really does enjoy it. He has started staying awake on our car rides more often, and gets very excited when I turn on the tunes. He sings along most of the time now (even though he never seems to get the words right!) and it's all I can do to keep my eyes on the road instead of watching him in his backseat mirror. He just melts my heart.

Last weekend, we got together with all the other couples from our childbirth class for a little reunion. It was so fun hearing everyone's birth stories and getting to see all the babies! We ended our little party by lining up all the babies for pictures. Here's a picture of the group in order of birth.



Chase, Blaise, Ethan, Naomi, Gabriel, Parker, and Isaiah

We got quite a few laughs watching them react to one another. Gabriel and Naomi (the only girl!) were the two to watch though. They apparently hit it off and had quite the time talking, smiling, and holding hands!

He's such a ladies man!

"Look Momma, a pretty girl!"

Only a good friend would let you snack on their tutu!



Gabe's discovery

Look what Gabe found in the tub today-





"What is this?"

 



"I can touch it!"

 




"Did you know this was here?"

 


He's pretty pleased with his accomplishment!

 



Sweet Victory!

I mentioned wanting a new camera in a recent blog, and since then my mind has been consumed with nothing else. I've stayed up hours after Gabriel has gone to bed to research brands, models, and prices. I finally decided on a Canon T1i.

Most were going anywhere from $650-$750 (with a lens). $650 is a lot of money for a stay-at-home mom to pull out of her...well, you know. So I got busy posting my belongings on craigslist. After selling a few big ticket items, I came across a posting that made my heart skip a beat. A lady was selling the brand new T1i she just bought for $500!! Apparently she had bought it to replace a camera she had used for years that had broken, but realized very quickly that the T1i was way over her head. Now, I'd like to live my life believing what others tell me, but I just knew she had to be pulling my leg when she said she'd used it twice before deciding to just have her old camera fixed. I hoped that she was telling the truth and planned to meet her. When she opened the lid to the box, I did a little dance on the inside because every item that came with the camera was still wrapped up in plastic! It was very easy to tell that this camera was in fact BRAND NEW! I happily paid the lady the $500 she was asking (I didn't bother haggling since the camera was worth more than she wanted), and skipped back to my car!

I'm now learning how to use it, and thanks to the internet have a small understanding of how to adjust some of the settings (and what the settings even mean in the first place!) I refuse to use the fully automatic settings on this camera, and plan to learn through trial and error until I can take a class. Today I snapped a few cute pictures of my little peanut. He's still not used to me pointing this big black thing in his face, so he looks about the same in most of the pictures I took. I'll have to enlist Daddy or Mimi to distract and entertain him so that his expression isn't always this one-



This is his "What is that?" face.

 I will certainly be posting plenty of Peanut pictures for your enjoyment from now on, so stay tuned!

No Mommy, that's for babies!

At 3 months old, my sweet little baby has decided he is a baby no more! With all the world to see and explore, he is no longer content just laying around cooing. No sir! He wants to explore! How do 3 month olds explore you ask? They can't crawl, can't walk, and can't say, "Hey Mom let's go look over there!" So Gabriel fusses. You lay the kid down for one second and he fusses.



The meltdown is beginning!


It's really quite comical. It's as if he's trying to tell me that he's tired of having to look at the ceiling. Our good friends told us about enjoying "happy baby" while it lasted. They explained that both of their kids reached a stage where they could see something across the room they wanted but because they couldn't crawl yet they had no way to get to it. Add to that the inability to say what it is that they want and you get a fussy baby. I'm wondering if our "happy baby" time had already elapsed.
Some days he requires my FULL attention every minute! He requires that I sit with him in my lap playing with something or watching tv (I know it's awful, but the kid loves tv screens! Funny sidebar- Joey and I took him to the mall to walk around and as we were strolling through Sears a sales lady stopped us to talk to him. She said, "Well hello there! Hi! Hi? You're not looking at me!" He had his head turned away from her and was staring at the wall of tvs in the electronics department! LOL I had to apologize and explain that he also ignores me if there's a tv in the room!) On grumpy days, he also insists I carry him around the house, or venture out in the stroller. I'm actually quite happy that he's taken an interest in riding in the stroller because I could stand to lose a few. Tuesday's stroll began with a failed attempt at a picture with a smile. He was way more interested in hitting the road than having his picture taken.


"Really? Again with the camera! Can we go already?!"

He's also decided he's way too big to be carted around in his carseat. How's a growing boy supposed to explore sitting in that darn carseat! Once again, I think that ceiling is pretty boring. Wednesday lunches with Grandma, GiGi, and Aunt Staci are going to be much more enjoyable now that I've discovered that the kid loves his stroller.

I have no idea why playing in the stroller is better than his carseat, but whatever!

It's hard to believe that in just 3 short months, my tiny baby boy has grown so much. Cuddling used to be his favorite way to spend the day, but he's discovered now that there's a whole new world out there. I just know I'm going to spin around and he'll be headed off to college.