A cool new trick!

Gabrielle can now go from laying down to sitting up all by herself! Hmmm...how did I find this out? Well, I peeked my head in her room on Friday to check on her napping and there her little head was propped up looking over the edge of the crib at me. I did a double take, first thinking she was just pushed up on her tummy like usual. I thought her head looked pretty high up for just being on her tummy so I looked back in and she was sitting up in her crib! She has gotten herself up to sitting several times over the past few days....in her crib, on our bed, and on the floor while playing. So proud of that little bugger! She even attempted to take a step crawling yesterday. She has become a pro at getting way up on her hands and knees and rocking, but yesterday while she was doing that she reached one arm out to try and get to Oskar, but she tumbled forward. No tears, it just didn't work. Oh well, I'm sure there will be many more of those to come! Annnd...Gabi goes back to the doctor tomorrow to check on her speech. Ugh. I really think she was become more vocal in the past week, though. She is makes sounds a lot more frequently throughout the day and they seem to vary a big more too. She has figured out that if she makes noises with a toy in her mouth she can make some pretty cool sounds too :)

We had quite the weekend and I don't even have any pictures to show for it :( We had volleyball on Friday as usual, but it got stormed out so we had most of the team over to our house. Then we got up early Saturday morning and headed to Hastings to the lake. Nick and Jason stopped by my parents first to help them move some big furniture because the rents are having their whole kitchen totally redone! Then we went to the lake and played on our new jet ski for a while (awesome!) and Gabi sat and played in the lake. She had lots of fun and still loved the water. She did have a new fascination/obsession with eating handfuls of sand. She was a sneaky little girl and we had to watch her like a hawk so she didn't die of sand inhalation! Then we went out to dinner with Nick's family for Father's day at a "cook your own steak" place. Hmmmm....expensive food that you have to cook yourself?? Haha, it was nice though. Nick grilled our steak and I grilled our garlic bread - I helped! Gabi was pretty good and did very well through a long, late dinner (with help from the whole fam, of course). She's at the age where she likes to be entertained and is a wild little wiggle worm, so sitting quietly in a high chair for two hours definitely doesn't happen!

The next morning we got up and went out to brunch with my parents for Father's Day, then rushed home to get to Nick's softball games. Nick's company put together a team and they play in a league in Eaton Rapids. They played the team that won the championship last year, so Nick's team got beat pretty bad...but they all had fun and Nick played well. Nick's first Father's Day wasn't too overly special - like I said we were busy with family, games, and unpacking the whole day but it was ok. Gabi got him a tastefully and faintly engraved pint glass. You can barely tell there is anything engraved unless you really look so I think Nick liked it. I joked with him that Gabi was going to get him a World's Greatest Dad t-shirt :) Haha...no way.

In food news...Gabi girl tried her first "puff" today! For those of you who don't know, puffs are the first actual solid finger foods babies usually eat these days (or so I'm told...). They are like baby bite-sized cereal pieces that melt very quickly in their little mouths. Gabi seems so interested when we are eating I thought it might be a good time to give these a try. She doesn't quite have the fine motor skills to eat them very well yet, but that is another purpose to having these - to improve her motor skills. She'll pick up the puff but it will be inside of her tiny little fist, so she can't really get it in her mouth. I helped her eat a couple of them, just to see if she liked them and she did pretty well. It took a few tries to keep it in her mouth but once it got kind of mushy she liked it.

Gabrielle started her swimming lessons today too! She really had fun and was quite the ham and teacher's pet. Every time the instructor would look at her or talk to her she was just kick her legs and smile so big! We sang songs, played with balls and noodles, and floated the babies on their tummys and on their backs through the water. We have her lessons four days a week for two weeks. We're looking forward to tomorrow!

Ok, I think that is all of the excitement for the past few days. Have a great week!