Bella, Gabe and Josiah

I finally did it. I pulled out all of Gabe's 18-month-clothes. I don't know why it always takes me so line. I fight it for a long time and then when I pull out new clothes, I discover that he's got super cute clothes that I can't wait to put on him. So why do I fight it so bad? The tipping point was this weekend. He was playing outside and had a full diaper and when he came in, he'd popped the snaps on his onesie. Then Sunday morning Pat put three shirts on him and none of them fit. So as of today, Gabe is now wearing 18-month clothes...and he's only 28 months old! And doesn't everyone play with a backhoe in the bathtub before school???

The weather was lovely tonight, so we decided to pull out our bikes and go on a family bike ride. This might be the first time that all four of us have gone on a ride. While Pat pumped up bike tires, the kids rode their bikes in the steet. They decided to race. Seeing as only one of them has pedals on their bike, I'm not sure it was a fair race... Once the tires were pumped, we put Gabe in the trailer. He completely freaked out. It was almost a panicky cry. I'm wondering if he thought it would be like the snow machine? Once we got going, he was totally fine and spent the whole ride yelling "Mommy I ride Daddy bike!" and telling me that he was having fun. All in all, it was a lovely way to spend a Friday evening.

Gabe has this little plastic fish that he got in an Easter egg last month.  He loves this little fish and it often ends up in his carseat so he can play with it in the car.  Last night we had this exchange: Gabe:  Mommy, I bite fish. Me:  Why did you bite the fish? G:  Very, very sad. M:  The fish is very sad? G:  Fish very, very sad.  Fish cwying.  Fish take a little rest. M:  Should we be quiet so the fish can take a little rest? G:  Mommy quiet. -------------------------- This morning Gabe took one of Bella's granola bars out of the panty and showed it to me.  I told him no, that it wasn't his and then promptly forgot about it.  A few minutes later, as we were trying to get out the door, Gabe hands me the granola bar and his lunchbox and says "lunchbox."  So, someone got to have a granola bar in his lunchbox... ------------------------- As I turned down the street to drop Gabe off at school this morning, I saw the garbage truck a block and a half awa

A couple of weeks ago, on Gabe's due date (the 9th), I tried to get another moose picture so that I could track his growth. He was not having it, so I gave up. This week, I was getting him dressed and he suddenly yelled "My moose!" and lunged for the moose. Then he sat on the chair and said "moose lap." I took that as an opportunity for my moose picture. "Moose Cheese!" And just for comparison, here are the two moose pictures, almost exactly two years apart: A lot changes in two years...  

"Mommy! Blue ball stuck doot-do-do-doo!" Translation: Clearly we still need to work on colors. Also, it cracks me that everything that be used as a trumpet, like this wrapping papper roll, is a doot-do-do-doo.

Sometimes it's nice to just remember the random little moments of our day. Plus, if I don't write some of this fun Gabe stuff down, I'm going to forget it and I really don't want to do that. This morning Gabe got down from his high chair after breakfast and discovered that his blanket was on his stool. He thought this was hilarious. "Blanket over stool! I wanna sit blanket stool!" Then he got stuck. Then he found the helicopter. Last night I was at a friend's house and she asked me if Gabe would like her son's old helicopter. Um, yes. But I got home after he was already in bed, so I just left it in the living room for him to find. He was so excited! He had to take it with him to school (although he had to leave it in the car) and this afternoon when he didn't want to leave school I reminded him that the helicopter was in the car and he was instantly ready to leave. On the way home, he kept talking about "I show Daddy new helicopter." (Don

Some early morning yoga before school...    

The weather was actually reasonably nice this weekend, so Gabe and I decided to do some yard work. My goal was to simply pull all of the dead stuff out of the garden. Gabe's goal was to pull all of the dirt out of the garden. He was so proud of himself that it was really hard for me to tell him to leave the dirt where it is. Eventually I convinced him to dump it on the other plants, but that only worked sometimes... Then he found the rocks. Oh man, those were the best! He spent a long time scooping up rocks to put in his bucket. At least I convinced him to use his own bucket, rather than the bucket I was using to pull weeds. Then he found a soccer ball behind the shed. I had no idea it was there, but he managed to find it. Then yesterday we decided to pull out his bike. Pat bought it for him over a year ago, but the poor kid was too short to be able to sit on it. Now that he's tall enough, I don't know if we'll be able to keep him off of it... "I want to go there!&

If I don't start writing some of these funny Gabe things down, I'm going to forget them... Last night we got home late and Gabe was so tired he was loopy. All he could do is laugh hysterically. Bella was sitting in the middle of the floor and he was running in a circle around her, stopping in front of her, hitting her on the head wuth a balloon and laughing one of the deepest belly laughs I've heard from him, only to run around and do it again. I took a video and showed it to them and he laughed just as hard at himself in the video. I couldn't even make him go to bed because the laughing was so amazing. ----- He had a pinecone in the car this morning and asked if he could "Frow pinecone high sky ceiling?" ----- He's in the bathtub playing and he just said "Holy moly smoke!" ------ He's learning so much right now it's crazy. He's bringing up things that happened months ago like "Gabage tuck gabage can over!" (When the garbage

Today is Gabe's due date. If all had gone according to plan, I should be planning his second birthday party right now. But I'm not because we did that months ago.  I got an extra four months with my sweet little boy. And yes, it was hard and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But now that I look back, I wouldn't trade that time for anything.  I love you, my sweet little firecracker of a boy.  

Okay, so I know that I'm an entire week late on the Easter pictures, but I'm going to blame the fact that I've been sick all week and today is the first day in a week that I've felt like a normal person... Anyway, Happy Easter! We had a lovely day. First we went to church. Then Gramps put together an Easter egg hunt for Gabe. It turns out that he's really not good at hunting for eggs... Then Gabe ate one starburst and he had so much energy that he would should "Ready Set Go!" And run from one side of the house to the other. He probably did that 30 times. There's a reason the kid eats very little sugar... Bella put an Easter play on for us and then we had a lovely dinner. Then I started to feel sick and have been sick all week. Oh well, the rest of the day was nice. I hope you all had a lovely Easter celebration!        

Gabe, Gram and I went on an Easter Egg Hunt. One of the local churches put on a huge egg hunt, plus a bouncy house, the Easter bunny, snacks and bubbles. Gabe did not like the Easter bunny, but he thought the rest of it was wonderful! He loves the bouncy house. However, he is so small that he made all of the other moms nervous. Also, he was too little to make it up the ladder to go down the slide. I think he could've figured it out with a little time, but since the whole place was moving and there were a bunch of other kids also trying to go down the slide, he couldn't do it. Luckily, one of his day care friends was in there and her big brother helped him up the first time. The second time I had to climb in and help him. After the second time, he got distracted by the bubble machine, which was probably a good plan...