Great news!!

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share some good news with you all. For the past 2 nights, Gabriela has been sleeping through the entire night. With a little whimper here and there, she goes right back out. We've been working hard the past week trying to get her to fall asleep on her own. It's been painful for us since we don't like to hear her cry. We didn't do the "cry it out" cold turkey method because we could only handle letting her cry for 10 minutes at a time, but we didn't pick her up. For about 4 nights, Jeff and I would rub her back and sing to her whenever she woke up crying and couldn't get back to sleep. Let me tell you, it usually took 30 minutes of rubbing her back and singing nursery rhymes. Jeff sang "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" about a million times. We can't complain though because it works!! I can't tell you how nice it is to sleep a whole stretch of time.

Two days ago I noticed her two bottom, front teeth were popping through. The left one is completely through the gum line but the right one is still just below the gum line; though you can see it. She's still gnawing on everything, but it'll be cute to see her with her two bottom teeth soon! She's liking her rice cereal more and more and her favorite foods are sweet potatoes and butternut squash. She doesn't mind carrots, but absolutely does not like green beans, apples and pears.

Gabriela also has a new trick. She's sitting up and she loves grabbing her toes. We think she can finally reach her toes because she's gotten a little (not much) leaner. She loves to "talk" more and more and we wouldn't be surprised if she's an every talker! We gave her her first hair cut this past week as well. She's also rolling like crazy. To put it simple, she's ALWAYS moving, even when I feed her, she's still moving her legs. We're going to have our hands full when she gets moving.

Kisses to you all!

November get together

Yesterday we got together with 2 couples that were in our birthing class. We've keep in touch and once a month (we try at least once a month) we get together. Yesterday we got together at our house. The girls dressed up in their Halloween outfits for a quick picture and the adults got to compare stories. Naturally Oliva and Charli have been sleeping through the night for months now and Gabriela is the oldest. In the picture, you have Eeyore (Olivia), and chicken (Charli). Olivia was born May 13th and Charli was born May 9th.

Earlier in October we got together at Nicole's (Olivia's mommy) house. The girls don't do a lot of playing with each other yet, but it will be nice to see them grow together.

Check out webshots for more pictures!

It's been a long time!!

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post. It's been a hectic, yet funfilled month! First of all, I started working Oct. 1st. My new job is teaching online. I'm still teaching Spanish, although it's more grading than teaching. The only time I work is when Gabriela is sleeping or napping; which cuts down on my free time to blog and scrapbook!

The month of October was packed full of visits. We had our Sister-in-law, nephews, Grandma, my Brother, Cousin Mike, Jeff's Mom and Boyfriend visit this month. We also went to a pumpkin patch with the Grimes', Brenda and Thomas. We also visited with Jeff's day, Granddaddy, Grandmommy, Aunt Aletta, and Uncle Bob. I'm sure we did more too, but I can't remember!!

Gabriela had her 6 month appointment this past Wed. She now weighs 18 lbs. 5 oz. and is 25 1/2 inches long. She is louder than ever and seems to want to talk really bad. She can roll from back to front and front to back; though she rarely rolls front to back. Gabriela also sits up pretty well but she's not at the point where she can position herself in that position. We have to put her in the sitting position.

We just started her on some solids and she's a little slow at getting the hang of it. I'm making all the baby food and I'm really enjoying it, not to mention it's really easy. She's tried rice cereal, apple sauce, green beans, bananas, and butternut squash. Her favorite is butternut squash which gives her gas apparently so I have to not give it to her as often.

As for her sleeping....well, she's still waking up about 3 times a night. The Pediatrician says that there is no reason for her to do so and to let her cry it out, but Jeff and I can't stand hearing her cry very long. I figure she'll sleep with due time! We'll see.

Halloween was fun! We went to Krystle and Andrew's, Joe and Esperanza's, Frenchie and Jerry's and my parent's house. We would have loved to go to Jeff's dad's house and many other houses, but we were short on time. At the end of our journey, Gabriela got really cranky which is to be expected since she was in and out of her carseat a lot in only a couple of hours.