Raising a FOODIE!

What a mess!

Penne alla Vodka!

Ohh boy, Gabby's favorite thing to do.. 'TEE' or how the rest of us say it, eat! Up until Gabby turned 1, I was very particular about what she ate. I swarmed off the Grandparents the best I could to keep her from having allergies as an older kid & just stuck with plain ol' baby food. But, now? Now that we are 1? Its time to really dig in.

Can you guess her favorite food? What more can you expect from a little italian baby.. PASTA.. with sauce! YUMM. Yesterday, I made a bolognese sauce  and slow cooked  in the crock pot for 5 hours. It was delicious, and Gabby thought so too. She ate 2 plates of it!

Mm, pretty good!

So that is what heaven tastes like?

Last week, we went to Dickey's BBQ downtown & Gabby tried her first taste of soft serve ice cream. Lucky girl! We even took a trip to Chick-fil-a, my favorite. She gobbled up some grilled chicken nuggets! I am one happy Momma to give her a variety of foods now, instead of boring purees! Bon Appetite, munchkin!

Look WHOO's 1!

After months of planning, Gabby's 1st Birthday party was a hit! I decided to do an owl theme. Of course, my first thought was a princess party, but how many years is she going to want a princess party?? I figure while I have the choice, it will be something cute & fun.. like OWLS!!! I seriously love owls. If I could decorate my whole house in them, I would. Ok, maybe not my whole house.

Anywhoo.. it was fun! I got a lot of ideas via pintrest. I made decorated paper lanterns to look like owls & made felt owls with big googly eyes! I painted cork board decor in the shape of an owl, made pendant banners & a picture collage of Gabby's first year. I even did a video slide show of Gabby from the kicks in my stomach to saying her first words!

We bought the cake from Whole Foods & they did SUCH an amazing job. I gave them almost nothing to work with and trusted them completely... But I did designed the owl on the cake, which was cool. I gave the lady the picture of the owl & asked to include pink in the cake.. and the owl. No other colors or design specifications. So neat!

Gabby's party included family & friends since I have known since childhood. She had a blast opening presents and pulling all of the tissue paper out! During cake time she was a little unsure about what it was. After I let her taste it, she went to town! No real mess, but it was fun to watch. If this is any inclination about how she is going to be as a kid, she will be very particular about being dirty :)


The sandwiches & cupcakes were catered, thanks to my Mom, from Carolina Cafe. I made a yummy homemade mac & cheese with a white pizza dip. My Dad, Mom & Dan's Mom all brought delicious sides including ambrosia salad, cucumber dill salad & shrimp cilantro dish!

Thanks to all who came out & made this day very special for Gabby. Lets hope she remembers it ;) Hehe.

Happy Birthday, Gabby!! XOXO

Happy Birthday, Sweet Gabrielle.

Dear Sweet Gabrielle-

My beautiful, free-spirited first child. My goodness, you are already one. Where has the time gone? One year ago, I saw your perfect little face & held you in my arms for the first time. I knew we would have something so special, something other Mom's may not experience. You are everything to me. In one year, I have not spent more than 3 hours away from you. Not because I can't, simply because I don't want to. Every morning I look forward to seeing your smile and spending my days with you. This motherly love thing is surely something spectacular. The way you will only lay your head on me, the way you will only reach to come to me, & crawl to me to want to be picked up really does mean what you feel for me is just as strong as the way I feel about needing you.

You continue to amaze me everyday. I am so thrilled to watch you grow & become the most loving, kind little girl, teen & woman. Today is a bittersweet day for me & your father. As much as I am happy to see you grow, I know I will never hold you in my arms as a 'baby' again.. but you will always be my baby. You have turned out to be such a happy, funny spirit. Such a personality! From a young age, you love to make us laugh & you respond so excitedly to a laugh. It is the sweetest thing. I am such a lucky person to have been blessed with such an extraordinary child. So innocent, and such an angel you are. When you walk into a room, all eyes are on you & in 20 years I can imagine that will be the same case. Don't change, sweet girl, you are perfect. You will do amazing things one day, I just know it. Happy 1st Birthday, Gabby.

Love,
Mommy.

Our Super Smart Girl! (& her tricks, too!)

It is really starting to sink in that our little cooing baby isn't so coo-y anymore. She is a talking, animal noise making, crawling boddler (baby/toddler!) I should have known with my talkative ways, Gabrielle would be a little chatterbox.. and with a name like Gabby, could you guess otherwise? From the minute she wakes up, it's non-stop chit chat. She tries her hardest to attempt every word we try to teach her. Gabby really loves talking.


We play a hand game with her that my parents played with me as a child called "Roundball, Roundball." She just loves it, and this week started saying "Rou-bow, Rou-bow" while doing the motion of the game. It blows my mind that she is just 11 months and has a vocabulary of about 10 words. I am totally having a braggy moment, so bare with me here, Gabby's my first and so so smart I can't resist! Maaaaybe this means she will be an English major? Singer? Public speaker?!

Gabby Graduated from the Army Crawl

Gabby started scooting, pushing off with her foot around 7-8 months. Over the months, her army crawl has gotten reeeally fast. She follows behind me all over the house just as quick as regular crawling. Everyone, including myself thought she would just go straight to walking since she was so comfortable with the way she crawled. Welp, we were wrong! In the few days she has been crawling, crawling! Yay, Gabs!!

Gabrielle's Room

I can't say that I've ever posted pictures of Gabby's room in our new house so I thought I would. Recently we switched rooms with her because the little girls next door were waking her up during nap time when they would play right outside of her window. We actually like it better for her & us! We did sacrifice the bigger room but we spend way more time in her room during the day than ours & the closet works better for her things. Enjoy!

When you enter closet you can walk to the left and right

Collage on the wall I made & changing area

This lamp was yellow and white and I painted it!

Books galore!

Looking at the closet

The trees are so nice outside 

Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve

Weekend after weekend passed that we never visited Hemlock Bluffs when we said we were going to. We had nothing planned for Sunday which was very rare so we packed the backpack & headed to Cary.

 It was Gabby's first time riding in the child carrier backpack & she loved that thing! The trail was mulched & lined so it wasn't extremely advanced, which was a good thing because we aren't! When we started the trail I noticed we were going slightly downhill the whole time. We reached the lookout point and could see the lush preserve and the Western Hemlock trees. Pretty cool.

On the trail

Western Hemlocks

 Going back up hill for .5 miles was just short of suicidal. And to make the incline worse, we passed our turn off point and had to back track! Clearly pro hikers.

Yep.

It was really nice to do something different. We were both a sweaty mess afterwards & it felt great to get such a workout!