"Happy Birthday to you..."

Gabby is TWO!! I can't believe it either. We had her party on Sunday afternoon and I couldn't have asked for a more perfect party. Parents, kids, and innocent bystanders all had a great time. We had the party at The Little Gym where Gabby took classes last summer. It was a fabulous place for a party and I will never host another birthday party at our house again. It was definitely a luxury to not have to clean the house, and to have someone else do all of the work. All we had to do was bring over some food and a cake, and everything else was taken care of.

Gabby definitely knew it was her birthday, although I am not sure what exactly that meant to her. Funny story...I had a box of Annie's Cheddar Bunnies in our pantry that I had bought for the party, and Gabby's snack-craving eagle eyes had spotted them a while back. I explained that those were for her birthday party and we weren't opening them now. She asked for them on a few other occasions with the same response. Then on Sunday when Gabby woke up from her nap, I happily explained that it was time to get up and get ready for her birthday party! The first thing out of her mouth..."BUNNIES??? BUNNIES!!!!!" She was so excited that it was finally bunny time. Little did she know we had MORE THAN BUNNIES planned for her!

We got Gabby dressed in her cute little ladybug top to match the ladybug theme that I got from my friend Atlanta. She does the CUTEST clothing for girls, and you can check out her company here. Then we loaded up the cars and headed over to Little Gym.

Here is Gabby in the party room while the staff was setting up. She is about to burst she is so excited.

Allison and me setting up the food while the staff set the table for the little ones (I didn't get a picture of the table! It was so cute.)

Gabby's cake. Chocolate with chocolate mousse filling. It was YUMMY.

The party has started! The second they opened the doors to the gym, Gabby went running in. She was the first one inside! The kids had free play for 10 minutes while all the guests arrived.

Siblings Luke and Gillian on the mats. I have known their mom, Kelli, since my first year teaching back in 1999. She is also one of my blogging buddies, and I am sure that is part of the reason we have been able to keep up our friendship for so long, despite not having worked together in several years.

Jeremy helping Colin on the bar. Colin's mom is Chalna, a friend from high school. We danced side by side on Drill Team (same height!) and I had not seen her SINCE HIGH SCHOOL! We got back in touch on Myspace/Facebook, and caught up on each other's lives through our blogs. They made a long drive to come to Gabby's party and it was absolutely wonderful to see her after so long, and to meet her sweet family! Colin is the sweetest and smiliest little boy ever, and hopefully Gabby and Colin will have more playdates in the future!

Free play ended, and then it was time for the opening circle. Notice little miss thang plopped herself down in the CENTER of the circle! She definitely knew this party was for her! All the kiddos were introduced and got to showcase their talent (Gabby's was a forward roll).

After introductions, it was time to sing a song with bells. The kids always love those bells...too bad they only got to play with them for about 30 seconds!


Sitting with her mommy in the circle. One of the few times she was actually "sitting"...the rest of the time she was either lounging in the middle, or running through the gym.

Emily and Teri...my sweet sister and her BFF.

After the opening circle and warm up, it was time for more free play!

Here's Gwen and Izzy! They turned two last weekend. Their parents Bart and Gina are some of our best friends. Gabby goes to daycare with Gwen and Izzy, so I am sure the girls will grow to be close friends just like their moms and dads! Gabby is already quite fond of "Bout" and "Nini".

Here's Christina, helping Gabby and Finley on the bar. We took our Little Gym class this summer with Finley and her parents, Sean and Christina. We predict Finley will be a cheerleader just like her mama!


On the left is Jack and his mom Laura. Laura is my gym buddy. On the right is Olivia and her mom Josie. Josie and I were the "pioneers" of the curriculum specialists, and we have been working together for 4 years now. I'm math, she's science, and teachers in our district are always mixing us up because we kind of do the same thing, and we kind of look alike.

Parachute time! Gabby got to sit in the middle with her friends while we spun them in a circle singing "Happy Birthday".

Then the kids got to run under the parachute. Gabby thought this was great fun!

So did the other kids!

Two sillies, face to face!

Colin meets Sam, and is clearly quite happy about it.

Gabby and Jack, playing on the mats.

Airtrack!! This activity was definitely a highlight. The kids had a blast on the big, bouncy, platform.

Gabby follows Finley on the balance beam.

Cannon had to do the balance beam ALL BY HIMSELF, with no help from his mom, Sharla. Sharla used to teach math in my school district. She and her husband Doug live a few minutes away from us and are good friends of ours. Cannon is 3 months younger than Gabby, but you would guess he was a 3 year old from his size and physical skills. He was walking before he was 8 months old!

Finley and Sam on the parallel bars.

Sam is eyeing the food in the party room! His mom is Jennifer, an old math-teaching friend of mine. We both taught 7th and 8th grade math at middle schools in my district, and now she stays home with Sam. I haven't seen her in person in over 2 years, but we have kept up with each other's lives through our blogs and through emails. I consider Jennifer to be my parenting 'expert' since Sam is a few months older than Gabby. It was wonderful to get to see her and catch up with her after so long, and to finally see Sam in person!

Colin and Olivia...I wonder what this conversation is about??

Finley and Christina snuggle

FINALLY, it's time to eat!

One of the CUTEST things was to see all 14 little ones sitting around this short table, on short little chairs. Luke (at the end of the table) was so cute...he was all squirmy in his chair, and the second his mom handed him a vanilla milk, his world changed. He was hunched over that milk box, engaged in a neverending slurp. I don't know if he stopped to breathe before the milk was empty. We found it at Costco, and it was great for a "party treat".

Blowing out the candles...two, plus one to grow on!

All the practice paid off...she did it by herself!

After the kids had cake and snacks in the party room, they got to go back into the gym for Gabby's most favorite activity...balls and bubbles! They dump out huge bins of foam rubber balls, and fill the room with bubbles. Gabby wanted Miss Annette to blow a stream of bubbles onto her tummy (they did that in class a lot this summer) so she spent a good bit of time flashing everyone to give anyone with bubbles easy access to her belly.

Also, I didn't end up with good pics of Kari and Riley, but they came too, and we were so excited to see them! Kari and I have known each other since I first moved up to Dallas, and David and I love getting together with her and her husband, Jeff. And Gabby is quite fond of Riley...her Christmas card picture is on our fridge, and every time Gabby spots it, she yells, "Wi-lee! Wi-lee!" Gabby has only had a few playdates with Riley, so apparently she has made quite a lasting impression!

One of the best parts of the party...during the last 15 minutes, I looked over into the party room to see what needed to be done, and I saw the staff had bagged up all the gifts and put them by the door, that they were wrapping up leftover food in plastic wrap and putting everything back into the containers, and packing up all our food and supplies into bags for us. Once the party was over and all the guests had left, they even carried everything out to the cars for us. We did not have to do ONE THING. AWESOME. Sold. Sign me up for next year. I thought the party turned out PERFECTLY. They alternated between structured activities and free play enough that no one got bored. The kids were entertained enough that parents had time to socialize. David and I did not have to worry about "hosting" and actually got to enjoy the party. I think every kid there had a blast.

And best of all, Gabby had the time of her life. She was surrounded by everyone who is special to her, and she FELT special that day. It was easy to see that she had an amazing time. We are so lucky to have so many wonderful people in our lives and in Gabby's life.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Gabby! We love you!

Other funny Christmas memories

One of the funniest stories from this Christmas is about Gabby's punching balloon. She got a pumpkin punching balloon from Miss Pattie for Halloween and she LOVES that darn thing. David has untied it and re-inflated it multiple times since she has gotten it. When she punches it, she basically just hurls the balloon all over the place like a crazy person, while it hits her in the face and hits anyone else in a 3 foot radius. And she cracks up the entire time, every time. Here she is, having fun with her balloon.



The other day, we were all (me, my mom and dad, Teri, and Allison) sitting in a circle in the playroom and Gabby had her balloon. She went around the circle to each person, asking, "Wah-dee?" (ready?) and when we said we were ready, we got a big punching balloon show (right in our face) from Gabby. Then she turned to the next person and did the same thing. It was hilarious. After several minutes of this, Gabby moved on to something else while the rest of us sat and talked. Somehow Allison ended up with the balloon, and while she was talking and fiddling with the balloon...POP!!! Uh oh. I WISH I had a picture of Gabby's face. Is was a combination of stunned and pissed, and she just stared silently at Allison for at least a full 60 seconds. Even four days later, we asked Gabby, who popped your balloon? And she walked up to Allison, pointed, and said "pop!" Gabby never forgets.

We also had a good laugh over Gabby's pronunciations. She couldn't say "Aunt Teri", so she just called her "Aunt." Which sounded more like "Ant." During Teri's entire visit, Gabby would run all over the house yelling, "ant! ant! ant!" Teri brought her dog Calvin, who became "dow-joo." Grandpa Bob became "bobba" and Allison became "aye-see".

It was also hilarious when Gabby stumbled upon her cleaning trolley which had accidentally not been hidden. It was my parents' birthday gift to Gabby, but we put it together with the Christmas stuff, so it was accidentally left out. Gabby walked into the living room and saw it, got all excited, and David rushed to hide it from her. The next thing I see is David running out of the living room while WHEELING the trolley in front of him (which was hilarious in itself because the trolley is TINY and so David is running while hunched over to about 2 feet above the ground) with Gabby running full speed after him while crying and screaming because Daddy is stealing her new toy. Poor kid.

It is just too bad we can't have a camcorder running 24/7, because that is the only way we could ever capture all the funny things that happen around here.

Christmas continued

I know this is a little bit after the fact, but things have been busy around here! I am finally starting to get caught up.

After our fabulous Christmas morning, Gabby took a HORRIBLE nap (too much excitement! lots of fun people! new toys!) and we all went to David's parents' house for Christmas dinner with his brothers and niece. Nila made a picture-perfect dinner...pork crown roast with stuffing, scalloped potatoes, broccoli souffle, butternut squash, waldorf salad, and chocolate cheesecake, and we brought asparagus with hollandaise sauce.

Gabby got even MORE presents from David's side of the family. Her big gift was a Kitchen Helper from Rey and Nila, and we have already gotten TONS of use out of it. Gabby loves to be up at the counter while we cook, and we also discovered she loves to play at the sink! Yesterday she spent no less than a full hour playing in the sink with dribbling water out of the faucet, with a few bowls and spoons. She washed dishes, poured water from one dish to another, drank spoonfuls of water, and basically just worked away like a busybee for a very long time. She was drenched when we finally cut her off, but she had the time of her life.

Gabby also got several nice sets of Melissa and Doug play food...the food groups set, the cutting foods and cutting fruit sets, and the sushi set. She got lots of new books from her uncle, and Elmo Live from her other uncle and cousin Alex.

It was great fun to have both sides of the family all together for a beautiful dinner and a warm and happy Christmas evening.

David's dad gave Gabby her own little stocking full of treats! She was especially thrilled about the pack of goldfish crackers.

Snacking before dinner with Teri and Nila

My dad took this picture and I am not entirely convinced that I was cut out on accident.

There, that's better!

Gabby had a lovely plate of food, and she got to eat off of the good china! Too bad she was too amped up from all the people and gifts and lack of sleep to want to sit and eat any of it.

Hmmmm, what is that in there??

It's Elmo!! She thinks this is the funniest toy EVER.

Blowing out the candles on the dinner table. We had been practicing blowing out candles at home, in preparation for her birthday cake. As soon as she saw the candles on the table, she repeatedly asked to blow them out.

Christmas eve and Christmas morning

We had the best ever Christmas morning at our house this year. My mom, dad, and sister were all in town to spend Christmas with us. I don't have all the pictures loaded onto my computer yet, but I wanted to at least post a few.

On Christmas Eve we all went out to dinner at Buca di Beppo and then looked at Christmas lights on the way home. We stopped at one house in a subdivision near ours that has a MASSIVE setup. They have all of their windows set up like displays where on the inside of their house, they have wooden trifold boards with elaborate decorations and characters inside. Then their garage is enclosed with a plexiglass door, and the inside is the most awesome Santa's Workshop display. The homeowners have every vintage toy set up inside, like Tinker Toys, Speak 'n Spell, Howdy Doody, and tons of things that are before my time. Gabby was in heaven looking at all of the displays. She was also excited because we let her watch a DVD in the car...it was after 8:00 and we didn't want her falling asleep in the car before getting home, and movies do the trick to keep her awake. As soon as I flipped the screen down, she started screaming, Moo-noo! (movie) Moo-noo! Not sure how you get "moo-noo" from "movie", but she was pretty darn ecstatic about it.

After we got home and Gabby went to bed, David and my dad spent most of the night putting together Gabby's big gift from my parents...her kitchen. They got the KidKraft retro kitchen and it is so cute (and matches the playroom-bonus!).

On Christmas morning we slept in until 8 a.m (which was sleeping in to David and me, but probably not to any of our houseguests). We ate a quick breakfast together and started on the presents. Gabby definitely knew to be excited about the presents. She was so happy and silly and cheerful while opening her presents, and she appropriately ooh'd and ahh'd at each thing she opened. It took a little while for her to realize that the gifts were not all for her, but once she caught on, she did a good job of passing out presents to each person.

Here is the little vase that she painted for her grandparents. She was very proud of her artwork!

Dress-up shoes! These were a definite hit. As soon as she opened the gift, Gabby was ripping off her socks to put her new shoes on. She went running all over the living room (quite skillfulling too!) in her little heels.

New books about Hawaii from the Hawaii aunts and uncles. Gabby will love looking through these! Notice she is still wearing the shoes!

We got matching aprons! Aunt Teri got these from Anthropologie and they are SO cute!

And finally, the kitchen! I can tell we will get tons of use out of this. Gabby has been like Martha Stewart on crack ever since she got this...spastically opening and slamming every door, turning every knob, yanking every handle, NONSTOP.

Gabby played all morning with her new loot. She was so amped up, that for the first time in a LONG time, she refused to nap. She played in her crib (ACTIVELY played in her crib) for a full hour and a half before we gave up and got her back up for a little more playing.

It was a perfect day...all of my family here, lots of laughing, lots of fun, in our happy little house. Just like Christmas is supposed to be!

Update

Another 1.5 pounds lost this week. I was actually a little surprised...after two holiday parties (and a LOT of tasting during all my holiday baking) I was a little worried. Although it is this next week that is going to be the real killer. Tonight we are having a big tamale dinner with my family (my parents will be here in 3 hours!), tomorrow we are having Christmas Eve dinner at Buca di Beppo (Teri will be here tomorrow!), Thursday we have Christmas dinner at David's parents' house, Saturday night we are going out for sushi (Allison will be in town!), Sunday is Gabby's birthday party and Sunday night Allison and I are going to our mandatory dinner at Posados, Monday is our 6th anniversary and we are going to Melting Pot. Whew!

Here is my strategy for not busting out of my pants:

• I will work out EVERY single day. My gym has key card access so it never closes, not even on Christmas.
• I will eat small, healthy meals and snacks outside of each Big Meal Of The Day. No reason that the prospect of one big meal means I have to eat like a horse all day long (even though for me, it often does).
• During the Big Meals, I will not stress out and try to count calories or anything crazy. I will however, refrain from eating until I am ill, or eating as if it is my last meal.
• I will skip my weekly weigh-in next Tuesday, but will pick up again the following Tuesday. Next Tuesday's weight would probably have not only the couple extra pounds from all the big meals, but a few more due to water and bloat from eating rich foods. Rather than freak out over the number, I am giving myself another week to recover. Which will hopefully mean that as soon as the final Big Meal has ended, all the Big Eating will end as well, and I will get back on track as fast as possible. Historically, the Big Eating continues throughout January (inertia I guess), and I am trying to break that habit. My goal for the next weigh-in...to be the exact same weight I am today. Meaning, whatever damage is done during the upcoming week will be repaired during the following week, and two weeks later I will be good to go.

I am having fun with this! My workouts are going well, and even though I am still heavier than normal, I am feeling energetic and light on my feet. I feel good. I'm not struggling. I look forward to posting each week...it keeps me motivated and ensures that being healthy remains a priority. So, thank you for reading and being a positive force for me!

Birthday season

Gwen and Izzy turned two today, and their party kicked off the beginning of "birthday season". Two years ago, we didn't really know anyone with kids. A few acquaintances, but none of our good friends. Now, we celebrate about 10 little ones' birthdays between December and April. It is a good thing we like going to birthday parties, because they make up the majority of our social calendar for 4 months out of the year.

Gabby had the time of her life at the twins' party today. Their parents Bart and Gina had the Tumble on the Go Bus come over to their house to entertain the kids, and it was a huge hit. It's an old DART bus that has been gutted and filled with gymnastics equipment. Gabby took one look at the setup and immediately started chuckling ('huh, huh!') and just dove right in.

Even though she had a little nervous breakdown when we first walked into their house for the party (stranger danger...she clinged to me for at least 10 minutes), she had NO fear of the bus. She jumped on the trampoline, hung from the rings, played in the ball pit, walked across the balance beam, and tumbled on the inclined mats. She played the entire time until the bus had to leave.

After the bus departed, we went back in the house for cake and presents. Gabby could not WAIT for cake. She spied it earlier in the afternoon and was so excited to eat it. She was super antsy while we were singing to Gwen and Izzy and watching them dig into their cake because she was dying to get her own. When it was time to open presents, Gabby stuck right by Bart while he helped the twins open their gifts. Gabby got so excited every time a new gift was opened that I don't know that she fully understood they were not for her. She kept picking up each newly unwrapped gift to showcase them for different people in the crowd.

Gabby's party is going to be next Sunday at The Little Gym. And just like today's party, there will be gymnastics, cake, and presents. So it seems like a good bet that Gabby is going to have a great time!

Concentrating really hard on the noisemaker

Jumping on the trampoline (we were impressed at how fearlessly she just hopped on and started jumping)

Pleased as punch to be on the tumble bus

Playing in the ball pit with the birthday girls

Swinging like a little monkey! (She was one of the first kids to grab on and start swinging...another skill we didn't realize she had)

Pink-lipped and enjoying some cupcakes