what would you like to celebrate?

take your pick:

the canucks sweep the blues in round 1!

(we've made franchise history!)

it's earth day!

(ironically enough, i'm spending the day inside doing laundry. plus i've caught a cold. sucks.)

it's administrative professionals day!

(shout-outs to my peeps at work! i hope i still get the bonus when i return to work...)

gabe likes meat!

(after a failed attempt yesterday, i hid it with his vegetables and he loved it! AND he's taken his first sips of water from his sippy cup! mind you, he spat it all out after so we'll see what happens next time :P)

happy easter!

this has been a really fun weekend. on friday gabe got to play with maddy, who is a very outspoken little girl with a very loud voice. whilst communicating with gabe about her toys, she totally freaked him out and he started to cry. we persisted and kept putting them back together, but after the 3rd outburst, we finally separated them :-)













gabe got a real treat for easter...we all dyed eggs for him, and his grandparents bought him an easter gift - emil, the organic giraffe binkie! for some reason my mom kept calling sophie the giraffe emily, so to "man" up his toys, we're calling the binky emil. and great-aunt billie also bought a gift for gabe...a blow-up bunny rabbit...i thought i might pass out before i got him blown up :P















it's been really great because chris actually had friday AND sunday off all day, so we got to spend lots of time together! and to really top off our weekend, gabe got his 6 month shots today...well, thankfully it was only 1 shot...loaded up with 6 different vaccines! we are so proud of gabe...he didn't even squeek when he got injected! and we timed it perfectly as usual, and right after the appt he took his nap!

we got all of gabe's measurements, and he's a funny guy...he's weighing kinda heavy at 18 lbs, 11 ozs! but his body length is just below the 50th percentile and his head size is still in the 75th percentile! our doctor was impressed by his weight gain since his 4 month check-up :-) hopefully gabe'll get his body sorted out and even out before his 12 month check-up!

mmm....bacon :-)

Yum yum yum! Anything with bacon wins top scores in my book. I bought my first issue of O magazine with Michelle Obama on the cover, and discovered there are recipes in the magazine. And there just happened to be a bacon-wrapped shrimp dish:

2 tbsp honey
1.5 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp Dijon mustard
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
½ tsp ground pepper
12 jumbo tail-on shrimp, peeled and deveined
6 slices bacon, halved crosswise

1. To make dressing, put 1 tbsp honey in a medium bowl. Add lemon juice and mustard; whisk to combine. Slowly pour in olive oil, whisking constantly. Season to taste with salt and pepper; set aside.


2. Use ½ tsp pepper to season shrimp all over. Wrap 1 piece of bacon snugly around each shrimp and secure with a toothpick running lengthwise (so shrimp can lie flat).


3. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Arrange shrimp in a single layer and cook, flipping once, until bacon is just crisp, about 10 minutes. Drizzle honey over shrimp and continue to cook, basting often with pan juices, until bacon is caramelized and shrimp are cooked through, about 2 minutes more. Transfer to a large plate.

Now that we're planning ahead for Gabe's meals, i'm starting to improve my diet (baby steps!), and i added organic yams to our meal and grilled cherry tomatoes. Overall a delish meal and i'm looking forward to making it again!

a major milestone!

i can't believe we missed it! sometime in the past few days, gabe's first tooth popped up! i think it's safe to say it happened on sunday night. chris and i had a date night at the canucks game and my parents were generously babysitting again :-) gabe was pretty fussy the entire time we were gone, but we all attributed it to a little separation anxiety.


tonight after his bedtime meal, gabe was crying so i stuck my finger in his mouth to suck on, when i stumbled upon his little incisor tooth! it wasn't even at the "breaking through" point, it was full on OUT! (his 2nd tooth is en route as well!) for 2 months chris and i have been checking his mouth because we thought he was going to be an early teether (red cheeks, "old man" lips), then after he started solids we just kind of forgot about potential teeth. even when he bit me multiple times today, i still hadn't clued in to a potential problem...i thought he was just being a lazy eater!

in hindsight, gabe`s taken a keen interest in sophie the giraffe, chewing on her legs and ears so i guess she`s performing well as a teething toy :-) i've been anticipating this day for a long time, and i had expected a change in his behaviour, sleep habits, and physical signs. but i'm completely stunned that there have been no dramatic changes...well...last night he slept longer than he's ever slept before...almost 12 hours! plus he had 5 mini-naps today, AND he went to bed at his normal time tonight and only fussed for 5 minutes!

6 months old!

blast it, time just flies by! my little buddy is 6 months old today, and i can't believe it! he has become so interesting in the past month with all of his developmental and social skills.

• he's almost 18 pounds, and 25 inches long!!! (yikes, we need to research for our next carseat!)
• he loves sitting in his bumbo chair, and will reach for his toys when they fall onto the ground
• he's well-behaved with everyone he meets...definitely a people-pleaser :-)
• now that gabe's eating solids, we've noticed him "chubbing" out a bit (his face in particular seems to have gotten a little pudgier)
• speaking of solids, gabe's increased the amount of food he eats...1 tbsp is no longer enough, so i'm trying to feed him at least twice a day 1.5 tbsps of rice cereal. i don't know about gabe, but i'm already bored of it...so i think i might start a new food item next weekend.
• gabe is an active baby in his crib - he's constantly spinning around and rolling onto his tummy at night and needs rescuing :P he's a pretty funny guy...when i rescue him, he looks at me and gives me his "what'd i do? or thanks for rescuing me!" smile. at 3 a.m., after that smile all is forgiven.
• he went through a phase a couple weeks ago of waking up for a night-feed, but i think we're past that hump...perhaps it was a growth spurt since he's gained almost 3 pounds this past month!
• he definitely knows his mommy & daddy! if someone is holding him, he will occasionally look my way, and start to reach an arm out for me. it's nice to be wanted :-) as soon as gabe hears the key in the door, his head starts spinning around trying to find daddy, and he gives chris the biggest smiles and arm flaps. so cute!
• speaking of daddy, when we put chris on speakerphone, gabe will now try to communicate back with grunts and squeals!
• we started our 2nd session of music together classes, and the older kids are loving him and greeted him with kisses last week!
• we're having issues with the tv...gabe gets distracted easily during a feed and will stop to see what's happening on tv. so we've tried to restrict the amount of tv he watches overall, regardless if it's baby einstein, hockey, or whatever else we're watching.
• he's dropped a nap...if he can get a total of 3-4 hours of naptime during the day, then he's good until bedtime, which has been bumped up to 9 p.m.!
• he still does his "old man" lip pursing thing, which has been accompanied with drooling recently, so i'm thinking there might be a tooth on its way!

we've had a busy week again! lunch-dates, birthdays, the baby fair...so much to do and so little time :-) this coming week is shaping up to be a busy one again...but at least we have a long weekend ahead of us and so far it's gonna be a low-key one!