Another video of Gabrielle swinging..

... because it is her new favorite thing! I researched all of the parks with baby swings in Raleigh & will be on a tour of them for the next few weeks! The weather today was in the high 60's with straight sun and a slight breeze. Absolutely gorgeous. I just can't believe what a mild winter we have had, but I am not complaining! Soon we will be in bathing suits and basking in the sun.. ahhh! For now... we will enjoy sweater weather & blue skies.

Mat Kearney.

Last week Mom and I saw Mat Kearney. Last year we saw him in Carrboro for his acoustic show & sat front row falling in love with him. HAHA. This time we were fortunate to get another front row show in Raleigh. The house was packed and there were probably close to 500 people packed inside. It was their headliner show of a 3 month tour and we were happy to be their first stop. Mat was pumped and we may have gotten the best show of their tour ;) 

Playdates & storytime!

Everyone told me I would reach the point where I would want to get out of my ways of hanging out at the house all day. They were right. I am in full swing. I feel like I owe to Gabby to meet friends and get her socialized, as well as myself! I need the conversation and Gabby needs to know she isn't the only baby on this earth ;) I found out about a baby-friendly program called Storytime that is offered at all libraries in the area. We are right smack in the middle of the city so there are 4 libraries within 10 minutes of us! We are fortunate to go to one storytime a day. I have never seen this side of Gabby. She has totally come out of her shell in the past week. She was the loudest baby in the room the other day, screaming and 'talking.' Who are you?! Haha. Its nice because during the program they play songs and we dance, do hand rhymes, and read stories. Gabby and I are LOVING it (especially because its FREE.)

We have already made friends! Today we had a playdate with a little boy named Jacob who just turned one. His Mother, Kym and I strolled around Pullen Park. We thoroughly enjoyed the 65 degrees, blue skies and sun! Gabby had 3 firsts today.

She rode the carousel & had a ball. She was so serious when i sat her on the horse but as soon as she felt the wind she was laughing and screaming! Gahhh, so cute. The two babies enjoyed the train & got pushed in the baby swings. Kym was clever to offer her sweater to stuff behind Gabby to keep her from falling back! I have never seen Gabby so smiley and giddy.

I also joined two Mom meet-up groups. We are enjoying meeting new people and sharing stories with strangers who we hope will be live life long friends.

Sweet giggles with Daddy

Baby loooves playtime with Daddy. Mommy=food. Daddy=fun. Haha.

A different kind of New Years Eve.

Before the fiasco of laughter.

Dan and I went round and round about how we wanted to ring in the New Year. We first thought the smartest thing to do was for me to work but no jobs opened up. We then thought to go out but didn't want to ask either set of Grandparents to give up their New Years Eve. We didn't want to be completely lame so we thought up the idea to make a nice dinner, make dessert & toast to Dick Clark's countdown.

 Kroger had a really good sale on already cooked lobster. We scored the last two in the store, had it with a side of green beans, cheese biscuits and homemade mashed potatoes.


Dan has never eaten lobster before & I really hate this was his first experience. We did exactly what we were told to do. Steam the lobster for 5-10 minutes. We left them on for 8. I have had many lobster in my day, vacationing to Maine and attending the lobster festival multiple years in a row as a kid. I was hoping it would be the same kind of melt in your mouth lobster meat but boyyy was it not! It was the most gritty, tough meat I have tasted & we were happy Kroger refunded our money the next day. The mashed potatoes is my Mother's recipe & they turned out AMAZING. I am so fortunate to have that recipe in the family. Green beans, check. Cheese biscuits, burnt & dry. Ohhh, and we can't forget about the spinach dip I worked hard on. I made the horrible decision to use miracle whip instead of mayonnaise. Um, yeah. No. Not good.

Wannabe Bananas Foster

Dan was really grossed out by the lobster (hehe)  and had a hard time eating it. At least the champagne was yummy (for Dan!) No drinking for the breastfeeding Mama! Our semi-disaster of a dinner left us crying in tears of laughter. That was the most Dan & I have laughed in months & both agreed we would rather have laughed that hard then have a flawless dinner & mild conversation. We fried bananas with brown sugar & made a coconut sauce with coconut milk, cinnamon & sugar. They ended up being amazing.

We poured champagne (Juicy Juice for me) & toasted together, alone, on the couch. It was sweet & romantic. I couldn't have thought of a better way to ring in 2012. We are so, so excited for all of the fun times in the future. Happy New Year!

Kisses from my girl.

This month has been so much fun watching Gabby interact with us for the first times in her life. This video is one for the books. Enjoy!

Gabby meets Santa!

We decided last minute to get pictures done with Santa. Literally. We went on Dec. 24th & were expecting a long line. Much to our suprise the line was managable, only about 10 families infront of us. Gabrielle is going through a bit of stranger anxiety and I was certain she would lose it when we handed her over. But nooo.. We got a SMILE!! Multiple ones, too! She actually never looked up at Santa. Gabby was distracted by Dan, me & the guy taking the pictures who was ringing a loud bell & calling her name. We left so so happy. I wanted to give her a special treat butttttt drew blanks. Lol! Way to go Gabby!!!

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