Memorial day and other randoms

I haven't been on the comp lately, but we had an "extended" Memorial Day weekend.  We were at the lake and lots of storms came though cutting our power at home.  Nick had to go home to make sure the basement didn't flood and to buy a generator.  The power was estimated to be out for six days - yes, SIX days - so Gabs and I (and the dogs) stayed at the lake.  Finally we came back home to power on Wednesday, so we were pretty excited about that.  Saturday night at the lake, though, Gabrielle spent in bed with us....all night....for the first time.  We put her to bed in her pack 'n play, then later when Nick and I went up to bed she woke up and cried until I put her in our bed.  She "slept" in between us, waking every hour to look at us and say "hi!" repeatedly until we woke up and told her to go back to sleep.  NO ONE got much sleep at all that night. 

Gabi had fun at the lake, though.  She liked to hang on to my fingers and run up and down the big hill with me.  She liked the lake, until it started getting really choppy.  She didn't like the big wakes coming into the shore at all, so we got out then.  She went in the boat around the lake once....but the second lap she was definitely over it.  I don't know if I've ever heard that many "ah dah's" in one 15 minute period. 

Gabrielle is continuing to really become much more vocal.  She's learned how to say paci (pee-see) which isn't good.  Then all I hear from her little mouth is "Mommy...pee-see!" over and over again.  Ahh!!  She also randomly knows the word "mermaid".  We have one book with one random mermaid in it and every time she sees it she points and says "meh-maawh!"  I guess all I can think is if the other girl at her daycare is really into mermaids and she learned it that way?  Who knows!

She's also picking up water (a-wah or wah-wah), chair (chee-ah), up, pretty (pree), down, yes, and several other words on the horizon.  Now she's getting so many words I'm that dorky mom that tries to decode what their kid is trying to say.  "What??  Cheese?  What do you want?  You see a tree?? Where do you see a tree?  Oh, pretty.  The flower is pretty.  Yeah.  Good job."  It was almost easier when she only had her good four or five words and you knew exactly which word she was saying. 

Also, in much more exciting news..... my friend Jess had her baby yesterday!  Brooklyn Michelle has arrived and I can't wait to meet her!  I don't know how Jess got out of the last 1-2 miserable weeks of pregnancy but I'm glad that sweet babe is here! 

Here are some random pictures from the last couple of weeks.

And Gabrielle really has discovered that she LOVES drinking out of a straw.  Loves it.  While at the lake, I actually bought G her first fast food meal......yeah.  I got her a kids cheeseburger, apples, and white milk from Wendy's.  Well, she chose to eat a couple of apple slices and then chugged her whole jug of milk.  OK, guess I taught her well :)

I made some bran muffins today and Gabs gobbled them right up!

Hmm...which shoes to wear?

How 'bout these?

Trying to put them on herself.....

Getting extremely upset when she doesn't succeed.

Shoes on.  Enough pictures.  Time to play outside.