Model Baby

OK, I'm totally gonna look for a baby bath product manufacturer to send this photo to because I just think it's adorable and they should see my little Gerber baby in his bath seat. I know, I know, every Mom in the world says that....but who can argue with me?

Water

Gabe loves to play with water in any way, shape, and form. He likes to brush his teeth, wash his hands, splash, take baths, swim, drink water, chew ice, pour water into cups....you get the drift!

Anyway, in the tub, he gets to make as big of a splash and mess as he'd like as long as the water stays IN the Bathtub! Daddy has taught him to pour water on himself (in an effort to calm his fears about washing his hair) and now Gabe thinks this is hysterical.

Daddy captured a great action shot and I think it pretty much says it all!

Gifts

"You're kidding me... It's not even my birthday yet and I get presents too? UNBELIEVABLE!" Shouted Gavin.

Birthday Prince

I purchased this hat, pre-party, specifically so Gabe could wear it and then sometime during the party, it got misplaced and we almost didn't find it....so once recovered, he wanted to wear it home and open presents in it. That made Mommy so happy!

He's MY Birthday PRINCE!!!!

Proud Papa

Daddy played, slid, jumped and ran around with Gabe and they had an absolute ball for 2+ hours. Gabe was so exhausted when we got home, he napped for 4 hours.

I thought this photo was neat because he's on Daddy's shoulders and it captured Gabe's smiling face right in the spot where the "O" goes on the sign. He certainly is a MONKEY!

Neither of us can believe we are the parents of a 2 year old! Time has flown by since 2/24/05 and I'm so glad we've been able to document it all in photos, movies, and on this blog so I can scroll through and reminisce (and by that I mean laugh or cry) anytime I want. Gabe gets a kick out of watching movies of himself lately too.

These kid birthdays are so much fun, but I'm relieved to know we have 364 days in between to recover and brace ourselves for the next one!

Happy Birthday Toooooo Yoooooou!

Gabe loves Blue's Clues and can sing all the songs and make all the hand motions from the show. He still likes Elmo and Sesame Street too but the place where we had the party doesn't really do themes and you aren't permitted to bring in anything, except the cake, so we chose to do a Blue's Clues cake this year.

Gabe really liked it and picked the blue crayon right off the top of the icing with his fingers and then squeezed his fingers into a fist and said "mess". He liked the #2 I placed on the cake as well but, he was a bit afraid of the candle because we warn him about things that are hot all of the time. Gabe isn't much on sweets so although there was LOTS of cake to go around and even some leftover to take home, he didn't care anything about eating his cake. I sure did, and it was delicious. He was so proud when everyone was singing the Happy Birthday song to him.

I can't wait for MY Birthday Party

Gavin was a big hit at the birthday party for Gabe. He still isn't too sure about people that he doesn't see on a regular basis, so the trauma was rough when he was getting passed around at first and tears were flowing for a while, but he took a nice nap on our neighbor's warm shoulder and then he was all about the party!

Here he is sitting in the inflatable birthday boy throne.....and he's all smiles!

Birthday Breakfast

Knowing we would have a long and exciting day, I wanted to be sure Gabe had a good breakfast. He's almost always a good eater in the morning and tells me just what he wants. This morning, he woke up in a great mood, so excited about his second birthday and the party, of course. He ate a plate full of goodies...pancakes, an omelet, blueberries, and peaches. Yum!

You need a full belly before you go and jump around at your birthday party!

Daddy's Boys

Here they are.....all the boys in the office with Daddy. Aren't they precious? Just warms Mommy's heart.

ABCDEFG...

Gabe knows how to say his ABC's and thinks the ABC song is the most fun he's had since he learned "If you're happy and you know it" and "Ring around the Rosy". He can say every other letter if Daddy or Mommy starts off alternating with him and he can identify all of the capital letters in any order including going from Z-A. He isn't even tricked by M and W or O and Q. It's so cool. He's so proud of himself. When we record him on video, he enjoys watching it back and seeing himself.

When we are driving in the car, he looks for signs and spells things. He identifies letters all over town and in stores and sometimes he finds things I wouldn't have even noticed.

Now, I want him to learn some of the lower-case letters and be able to identify them just as successfully. He didn't realize that there were other ones for him to know! We recently got these Blue's flashcards and he likes them alot. They have flaps that hide the lower-case letters on each card and he gets to lift them to reveal the little letters. He is so careful not to tear them when he plays with them. He has already picked up on a few of them.....stay tuned for more learning fun.

Hugs

Gabe is really into giving hugs lately and really loves his brother. So while he was playing outside and using his sidewalk chalk (which he loves just about as much) yesterday, he kept running in the door to where Gavin and I were sitting, as we watched him play and giving Gavin hugs. It was so sweet to watch the 2 of them. I just sat back quietly and snapped alot of photos. Gabe just giggled and grabbed Gavin repeatedly and softly said, "hugs". Ugh!... I just love these 2 adorable boys.

2 in the Tub

If you saw the post about Gabe eating spaghetti, you will know why the bath was needed more than usual.

the 2 boys had a great time in the tub. Gabe enjoys bathtime anyways but now that Gavin has a new tub seat and can sit up and enjoy the bubbles and toys a bit more, they really get a kick out of bath time, together!

Gabe was a ball of red meat sauce and oregano after the spaghetti dinner that he ate, all by himself, so this bath was really crazy. Gavin thinks Gabe is too silly. They both splashed and Gabe helped pour water and wash Gavin's hair. He handed him toys to play with too. They laughed alot and then got out all smelling clean and ready for baby lotion and PJ's.

Eating Noodles

Gabe calls all things pasta, "noodles," that includes mac n cheese, spaghetti, etc. He really likes "sauce" and he also likes "meat." So all 3 together when Mommy makes spaghetti with meat sauce is a master creation for the boy!!

He had so much fun eating out of a big bowl filled with noodles and sauce until he was covered in red up to his elbows. He was trying so hard to scoop the noodles up with his fork and then get them into his mouth but it was such a task, that he ended up swinging the noodles around by one end and trying to catch them with his mouth. It was a real sight! By the end of the meal, he needed a bath....desperately!!

Banana for Baby

"Thanks for the banana, Brother! It's sooooo yummy!"

Here again, Gabe is totally feeding the baby the wrong things. This banana was peeled for Gabe and he ran off and it must've fallen out of the peel in his hand because in the next minute, Gavin had pulled himself over to it and cradled it in both hands like a giant slice of watermelon and stuck his whole face in it. Banana was everywhere, needless to say. I keep telling Gabe not to feed Gavin all of the things he eats because Gavin is too little. But, I'd say Gavin doesn't mind a bit...what do you think?

Teefers

Gavin is sporting 2 front teeth on the bottom and although it was hell for him to get them in, now he's pretty used to them. He'll shoot you a big grin once in a while and flash those 2 tiny pearly whites proudly. Gabe totally thinks he can eat anything he eats now, so he feeds him crackers and banana and apple wedges.....totally inappropriate for the 7 month old. Gavin just beams at him though so of course he feels encouraged to keep it up no matter what Mommy and Daddy tell him about not feeding his baby brother his snacks.

Gavin's first tooth broke through the gums on 2/9 and his second one just appeared right behind it on 2/16. He's eating Cheerios and Stage 2 foods now and will soon move up to Stage 3 I'm sure of it. The boy loves to eat so teeth can only help him!

Chillin' Out

Gabe likes to hang out on the sofa and watch his shows. He used to never want to be in our bed, but now he will run up to the side and say "up," especially if one of us is still in the bed.

He will say "under" and wants to get under the covers and be propped up on pillows to watch his half hour program. It's really cute and sweet. This particular morning, I was still in bed and trying to keep Gavin quiet in the wee hours of the morning, when Gabe woke up. He ran into our bedroom and made the "up" request, so I tossed him up there and got him all situated under the covers. Then Gavin and I crawled back in with him. Gavin sat up to see what Big Brother was looking at and I went to grab the camera, quick!

So cute. I'm sure Gavin won't want to watch the same things soon enough, but for now he was content to sit with Gabe and do exactly what he wanted to do. It made me smile so I wanted to share.

Dancing Fool

Once a week, Jules goes over to a girlfriend's house to hang out and have a 'mommy's night out'. Well, when mommy is out, the boys and I listen to music and act goofy. Recently, Gabe has started dancing. As always, I can't do it justice, so enjoy...

"Haint"-A-Holic

So, Gabe's newest hobby is to haint....for those of you who haven't been following the latest news, he says the /h/ sound in the place of P, so paint becomes 'haint' and boy does he love to haint! In fact, he's a haint-a-holic.

I bought him some watercolors when we were at the local craft store. It was just a small set of 4 attached to a book and he really thought they were just like crayons, until we got home and opened them. Now, he's totally hooked. And I do mean totally! I've created a monster...or shall I say, Monet-ster? j/k

Gabe haints all the time. He no longer wants to color. He used up all of the 4 colors on the initial set of watercolors and I had to go to the store and find a new set of 8. He enjoys them so much as you can clearly see. I have his artwork hanging in the kitchen and he likes that alot. He's so proud of himself. He can identify all of the colors too and likes to fill the brush with the color of his choice and then rub the paint soaked brush all over the largest piece of construction paper I can find. He even calls out letters, objects and shapes like that's what he's drawing or painting. When he completes his masterpiece he holds it up proudly and says "pitch" (for picture)!

Going for a Ride

Gabe got this wagon for Christmas and he really likes riding in it. We went for a walk around the block recently and we carried Gavin for a while and when he got too heavy we decided to give this a try and see if it would work. Gabe rarely has enough interest in Gavin to actually hold onto him and we certainly didn't want him to throw the baby out of the wagon along the way! He likes to take Gavin down the little slide he has in his room too but once he gets to the bottom I have to scoop Gavin up quickly or Gabe pushes him out of the way to go on the slide again himself.

But, this time, in the wagon, he did great and held onto Gavin so well. They really enjoyed the ride around the cul de sac. We'll have to try that again soon.

I'll show you how, Brother

Gabe is trying to help teach his baby brother how to crawl and I snapped this one when they were in action. Gavin watches everything Gabe does so intently. He wants to do everything his big brother does, so maybe this will help Gavin figure it out!

Around the Blocks

Gabe is such a good kid and really tries hard to be gentle with his brother and even share his toys. Gavin just wants to eat everything anyways so Gabe is good about giving him the books or toys he doesn't want to play with at the time so Gavin can gnaw away at them until they saturated with drool. He's cutting teeth, so that's his primary focus...to soothe and satisfy the mouth/gums.

Here they are sharing the blocks that Gabe got for his birthday last year. Gavin was so cute trying to see what Gabe was doing this particular afternoon and Gabe obliged by allowing him to peer into the truck filled with large lego blocks and he even let Gavin hold a few of them while he stacked the others.

I hope they continue to play this well together...but I'm sure the tattle-tailing and fighting is soon to follow. I'll cherish the sweetness while it lasts.

Now what?!?

OK, so Gavin is working hard on figuring out this crawling thing that everyone says is all the rage for babies his age....he has gotten up onto his knees a few times and is rocking back and forth alot but can't quite get to the part where he should alternate a hand and then a knee, without falling on his face. He gets so frustrated and looks at me like, "OK, Mom, I'm on my hands and knees... now what?"

It should be any day now that he's off...but for now he's content with his rocking!