I love being on vacation!

I absolutely love being on vacation with my baby girl! We haven't done anything spectacular at this point but we are having a great time and enjoying our time together. Steve and I are even more enjoying staying up late. Now that Gabbie has been going to bed later she is sleeping until 7:00-7:30 which means mommy and daddy are sleeping in too! Getting back on schedule next week is going to stink but I am enjoying it now:)

Here are two pictures from Saturday night. Gabbie had her new Hello Kitty shirt from Grandma on that she loves.




Today we went to the golden arches with the J family. Gabbie and Jack had a blast together. They are so absolutely cute to listen to and watch. Now for some pictures.


Terri and Tim - told you guys you would make the blog:)

Gabbie playing on the germ breeding grounds at lunch.

Jack or Baby Jack as Gabbie calls him

Gabbie and Jack on the computer at the golden arches. Seriously they have computers for kids at McD's now!

Doesn't she look guilty of something.

Gabbie and Jack again on the computer. Jeff also making a blog appearance.

Christmas

Christmas was a blast. Gabbie seemed a bit overwhelmed Christmas morning with all of the presents Santa brought her but she managed to open them all and got a little play time in before it was time to go to Grandma's for yet again, more presents! This child got so many presents I couldn't even begin to count. Tomorrow is clean up and get organized day!

Now for pictures. I took 200 pictures this Christmas! I won't bore you with all of them though!

Gabbie opening her house.

She loves her house! We made the mistake of letting her open it first though which meant at the beginning she wanted to open all of her presents in front of the house.

Gabbie's Tinkerbell pillow. This is her first real pillow.

Tinkerbell shirt

Playing with her house- this house is so cool if I may say so myself. It came with almost everything you would need for a house, except a couch. Isn't that odd?

At Grandma's house opening her Tinkerbell slippers

Here is Gabbie opening her Hello Kitty radio from Grandma

Crazy Christmas Eve

I cannot believe Christmas Eve is almost over already. This has been one quick and crazy night. To sum up the night there was a lot of food and a lot of presents. Gabbie was too funny. She opened up a little pink computer from Uncle Pat and didn't want to open anything else. She just wanted to play with the computer. Fortunately that passed and she went to town opening the gifts. It was so fun to watch her excitement. I cannot wait until tomorrow morning when she sees her gifts from Santa!

When we first got to Steve's parent's house Gabbie was really crabby. Steve put her down for a nap at 12:30 and she decided to play in her crib instead of sleeping. She finally fell asleep at 2:30 and we had to wake her at 3:30. She was not happy. This is the crabby/sad/sleepy face.


Another sleepy face.

After dinner she perked up especially when she found out it was present time!

Gabbie loved these Hello Kitty hair pretties (what she calls them) from Grandma.

Her pink computer from Uncle Pat and Peyton

Of course one of her favorite things to do. Play with the dog! She chased him in circles for quite a long time. Buddy is a great dog and tolerated her torture!

So close yet so far away

We went to see Santa today. Wait let me rephrase that, Steve and I actually saw Santa. Gabbie instead clung on to Daddy and refused to even look at Santa. We were so close, it was our turn, and I thought it was going to happen but nope Gabbie had other plans. Needless to say I got nothing in the way of Santa and Gabbie pictures. The funny thing is the Santa picture helper girl asked before the picture what package you wanted. I told Steve I wanted to see the picture before I decided. Ha ha did I really think I would get an actual picture??? At least we can say we tried.... She did save us a lot of money!

I did manage to take a couple of pictures before we left to go see Santa. Here is one of Gabbie with her snowflake tights that I love! I got them on ebay brand new. The brand is Gymboree. Let's just say I paid nearly as much for them as I did for her Gymboree dress she is wearing for Christmas! I waited until the last minute to get her dress and got an amazing deal! Can't say the same for the tights but I guess the 2 together kind of balance each other out!



I am sick again. Seriously, I am so tired of having a sore throat. Hopefully it will be gone by Christmas. I am so excited for Wednesday at 1. My office closes at 1 and then I am off until Jan 5 on vacation! That is 11 whole days. I haven't been off that much in a row since we went to Guatemala to pick up Gabbie. I can't wait!

Hope everyone has a wonderful week and Merry Christmas!

One super fast extended weekend!

I am amazed at how fast this weekend went by. Gabbie is doing great. We were actually able to go to a friend's house on Saturday night and another one today!

Our friends Abbie and Joel had twin boys back in September so today we went to see them at Jenn's house. They are so cute and have grown so much since I last saw them. Gabbie was happy because she got to see baby Jordyn, Jack, and Jacob! Now for pictures.

Gabbie and Jack. They sat here and colored for a while. They had an actual conversation which was too cute. Gabbie said something about her baba and Jack asked her if it was chocolate milk and they talked about that. It was so cute. Here are the pictures from their big conversation. It is so neat to watch them grow up together like Jenn and I did!

Jacob and Gabbie playing together

This is Will (I think). The twins are not identical. Jay looks more like Joel so when they are next to each other I can obviously tell them apart but alone it is harder.

The Green family. They are great babies but I can't imagine having twins!!!!

Gabbie is still obsessed with baby Jordyn. She kept saying 'come on baby Jordyn, come here baby Jordyn". Baby Jordyn would sometimes follow her too. It was cute.

Gabbie's left eye is looking so much better today! You can hardly tell she even had surgery.

Guess who wouldn't cooperate???? Gabbie of course. She absolutely refused to sit near anyone but instead wanted to stand. This child has a mind of her own that is for sure! She is stubborn. I wonder who she gets that from? Hmm.....

Jay is on the left and Will on the right. Aren't they adorable!

Gabbie and Jack were so cute tonight. They sat here and colored.

Look at that booty! I loved these PJ's!

Our big girl is okay

Gabbie got her surgeries today. The morning started off bright and early. We got to the hospital and played, played, and played! Gabbie went for wagon rides, colored, jumped on the bed, watched TV, and did all other sorts of things. Then the anesthesiologist came in and said he would give her something to calm her down a bit. 15 minutes later she could barely keep her eyes open and when the doctor came to get her instead of her screaming for mommy and daddy she fell right asleep in his arms on the way to surgery. I must say I was completely relieved as the separation moment was the one I feared the most.

An hour later all 3 surgeries were done. She got her adenoids removed, new tubes (thankfully because we learned the right ear was loaded with fluid), and her chalazions removed. Coming out of anesthesia she was very disoriented and freaking out but according to daddy the nurse got her to calm down a bit with some morphine and asked her if she wanted a slushy and she was happy! Heck who wouldn't be with morphine and a slushy! Mommy on the other hand was waiting in the room feeling sick to her stomach but luckily by time they brought her back to the room I was better. Gabbie then fell asleep on me for around 45 minutes and when I switched her to daddy she left behind a 5 foot long piece of drool and a pool on my shoulder sleeve. Yummy!

After 5 hours at the hospital we were released and she was doing quite well. It has been touch and go today. One minute she wants something and the next she is screaming that she doesn't want it. Last year with the tubes she was fine by night but I guess even though these were all little surgeries 3 at once must have been a little harder on her. She was such a good and brave little girl today. She sat completely still when the nurse took the IV out of her arm. She let me take the eye bandages off at home. I am so proud of her.

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers. Hopefully tomorrow morning she will be even better.

Surgery update and a video (hopefully)

We went to the ENT today. Gabbie needs tubes and her adenoids out. She will also get the chalazions under her eye removed. There was a cancellation so surgery is scheduled for this Friday!!! I am so relived to get it over!!!

Now for the video. Here is Gabbie playing the part of Annie singing a little Dumb Dog. She normally gets the words a lot better as she knows all of them but during this version was just fixated on the I ain't gonna feed you part. I still thought it was cute though. She is so passionate about her Annie songs. Of course every puppy is named Sandy now. She is really into Annie!Will she be the first Hispanic Annie one day? Never know:)

Two years ago today....

this was the scene.


We were in Guatemala meeting Gabbie for the first time. I will never forget walking into that tiny room and at first not being able to find her. Then her foster mother, who was back in the corner, held her out and there she was. She was so little and so gorgeous she took my breath away. It was surreal. We spent a short amount of time learning about her schedule with her foster mom and off we went to spend four short days with our baby girl.

That was then and this is now. Unbelievable! She still takes my breath away. This child is all I ever imagined and then some!

Loving on grandma's dog. She loves this dog so much.

Did she really say that?

Gabbie has really been saying some funny things lately. I am not sure where she gets some of this stuff. It is funny too because many times she knows she is being funny. Anyway, Monday night it took Steve and me together to get her diaper changed and pajama's on. She was not having any of the getting ready for bed routine. So, we both are putting her pj's on and she starts screaming 'no guys, no guys, no guys, no guys' over and over. We busted out laughing so hard. Since when did we become guys????

Dinner is one area we need supernanny for. Gabbie wants to get up and walk around. So a couple of nights ago Steve was holding her while he was finishing eating and told her she needed to go sit down so he could get more food. She proceeded to tell him no. He told her again that he was going to put her down or she could go sit with me or on her chair. She proceeded to look directly at me and say 'get food now'. Apparently she realized if I got it then he would not have to put her down. For those that know me well, they know that is hilarious. Usually Steve is the one serving me, not me him!!! We laughed so hard again and get this, I actually got the food.

Finally tonight Grandma came over and we all watched Rudolph on TV. It was Gabbie's first time seeing it and she seem to like it a lot. Grandma was leaving and we were all say bye and as grandma walked through the garage Gabbie said 'be careful'. It was truly so sweet. I often say this to my mom because she has a 35 minute ride home but tonight Gabbie totally beat me to it.

Nothing gets by Gabbie

Gabbie seems to have reached the age where I can't lie to her anymore about things. For instance we were sitting here a couple of minutes ago eating pull and peel twizzlers. We each had an entire rope. I had put the package up high on our dresser so she couldn't see them and wouldn't ask for another one. Well after she ate hers she asked for another one and I told her they were all gone because we ate them all. So she got off of my lap, went in to our bedroom, came back out to me and said "I show you mama come here". She grabbed my hand and took me in to our room and showed me the candy standing far enough back to see on her tippy toes. Nice huh? So, I broke it in half for us and she proceeded to attempt to sword fight with it.

We decorated for Christmas last night. It is amazing to me that an entire year has gone by already since last Christmas. Gabbie was so cute with the tree and ornaments. Grandma came up and brought Gabbie a Tinkerbell ornament which is perfect since Gabbie is in love with the movie and everything Tinkerbell. In our house Annie and Tinkerbell rule!

Eating cheetos before decorating. This child LOVES cheetos!

Being a little stinker

Putting an ornament on the tree. I have all of my old ornaments from when I was a child. It is funny because Gabbie likes some of the characters now, like the care bears and disney princesses.

Such a big girl!!!

Now the fun begins, trying to keep her from constantly touching the decorations!