The Paladinos

Can you believe our baby girl is 3!  She keeps asking if she’s 5 so I guess she’s already ready to skip ahead.  Now she wants to know how old everything is.  How old is Tinker Bell (we’re still looking into that one GranDeb) and how old are all of her princesses and friends.  We had almost a full week of celebration with a party for her at Mother’s Day Out on Tuesday, her friends sang Happy Birthday to her at a play date on Wednesday and GranDeb came to see us on the Thursday before her party.  It was a very exciting week. 

We had a great birthday party here at the house.  Gabby decided months ago that it would be an Ariel (Little Mermaid) party.  She has been so, so excited for her party and asked about it almost every day for months.  When the big day finally arrived I think she got a little overwhelmed but she had a great time and loved visiting with her family and friends. 

Gabby’s birthday cookies that she took to MDO on Tuesday.

Mommy and Gabby trying on our handmade gifts from GranDeb.

Flounder was Gabby’s first birthday present that she opened.  She sleeps with him every night now. 

A proud GranDeb with her grandbabies.

Papa Dino with the birthday girl.

I think we’ve all given Papa Dino this look at one time or another.  :)

Gabby and Grayson digging for treasure in the sand.

Gabby and her friends made treasure boxes for their buried treasure.

The girls playing in their princess shoes.   

Gabby’s Little Mermaid cake.  Yum!

Blowing out the candle with a little help from Gramma.

Opening one of her Ariel dolls.  She loves all of her dolls! 

Opening more presents

Aubrie riding Gabby’s big girl bike that we got for her birthday.  The other girls were more impressed than Gabby.  Oh well!
 

Grayson giving Peter Michael a hug.  He’s probably just happy to have another boy there.  We had a house full of girls. 

Cute picture!

3 generations of ladies. 

The family, minus Peter because he was napping.  We’ll Photoshop his little head in somewhere. :) 

Miss Sassy Pants pointing at the camera with Aunt Shelley.

Jumping on one of her new presents.
 

All dressed up in her princess gown.

Flying her new kite (you can’t see him here but Daddy is pulling it)

Getting ready to go out in the snow on Friday.
  

Yep, those are bags on her feet.  We don’t have any good snow shoes.

Michael definitely likes the snow.

Warming up after playing in the snow.

The kids looked so cute after church we had to get some pictures.

Just having a little fun with the doll stroller.

I took this video of Peter today.  He makes all kinds of interesting noises now.  One day I actually had to move to the loud side of Wal-mart because he was making his noises loud enough to hear them echo.  That’s right, he’s too loud for Wal-mart.  I guess he’s starting to pick up some things from his sister.  :)

Just to give an update of where the kids are at the moment.  Gabby has been doing okay with her potty training.  She goes no. 1 really well but we’re still working on no. 2.  I can go into more detail on that but it’s probably more than you want to hear.  She still enjoys singing around the house, painting and playing with her princesses.  Peter Michael sits up by himself pretty well and is now ready to crawl.  Or at least he wants to crawl but his body is not cooperating.  He sits up and rocks forward but just lands on his tummy and gets upset.  That’s ok though, I’m not really looking forward to his mobility.  He’s eating his baby food well now and I tried a couple of puffs today for the first time.  He ate them but wasn’t as into them as I thought he would be.  He’s still sleeping well for the most part.  We think that he can say Dadda, Bubba and Momma and actually knows what they mean. 

We’ve been staying inside most of this week because of the weather and I’m starting to go a little stir crazy.  And it looks like things will not be improving the rest of the week with more bad weather on the way.  I might have to brave the cold and make an emergency trip to Hobby Lobby tonight just to get out.  To fill the day today I have been taking random pictures of the kids and even snuck in a video on Gabby without her knowing it (hence the weird angle).  She is big into The Little Mermaid right now and we both tend to break out in songs from the movie at random moments through the day.  Our favorite is “Part of Your World” which is what she’s serenading me with at full Gabby blast here.  She definitely has her daddy’s voice.  :)

Day one of being bored.  Gabby and I had our first ever tea party.  Don’t worry, it’s decaf.  Can you imagine a caffeinated Gabby stuck indoors?!

Peter Michael trying his first ever real food, bananas.  He’s had the baby food version of course but they have these bags that you can put real food or ice chips in and let kids suck and chew on them without choking.  He gummed it right up.  And to think, I used to think this invention was gross.    

Day three of being bored (today).  This is her sad face.

Happy face

Goofy face

And mad face

Bubba thought they were all funny.

You can tell that Gabby must be getting bored too because she was all about taking pictures today.

Michael and I vaguely remember when we used to go out for our entertainment.  A movie, club or just hanging out with kids.  This week Gabby has provided a totally different kind of show for us.  In the video below she created her own drum station complete with stool all by herself.  The drum solo video is thanks to her Uncle John and Uncle David who thought it would be funny to get drum sticks for her for Christmas.  Yes they’re loud but they did turn out to be pretty funny this night.  We don’t have a video of it but tonight she serenaded us for about an hour with her own Christmas mix of Rocking Around the Christmas Tree and Deck the Halls. 

We keep wondering what our kids will do when they get older.  We’re pretty sure that Peter Michael will be an NFL star someday with legs like those.  But Gabby has us totally stumped.  She likes art and music obviously but is also very structured for an artist.  She loves to line things up and put things in order.  It will definitely be interesting to see what she does. 

Just in case you can’t hear it in this video she counts from 1-12 then throws in a 14 and “Bubba pulled on my hair”

Making a funny face

Making a really funny face

Check out the shirt.  It’s all the way from Germany.  Thanks cousin Michelle!
 

I’ve been behind in posts as always so I’m just getting these out here.  We had these done in November at the U of A.  Beaty Photography took them and did such a good job working with the kids (http://www.beatyphotography.com/). 

We have had a great December and been busy as usual for us this time of year.  A few weekends ago we went to Branson with our friends from Ft. Smith, kids and all.  I took Gabby to Silver Dollar City for the first time while poor Michael stayed in the room with Peter.  It stopped raining just as we pulled in the parking lot and turned out to be a perfect visit.  Unfortunately sleeping with both kids in one hotel room was not so perfect and not something we’ll try again.  Gabby gagged herself and let’s just say it’s not fun changing the sheets and bathing a screaming toddler at midnight.  Oh well!  We had a great time anyway. 

Last weekend was the Paladino Christmas party in Little Rock.  As always we had a great time with everyone and Gabby got to enjoy her big girl cousins again.  Peter Michael was in his usual  good mood and loved being held by everyone.

We spent Christmas in Berryville with my family and made visits back and forth between my mom and my dad.  Gabby had such a good time playing with her cousins and her Aunt and Uncles.  We definitely now have thoroughly spoiled children who will have to get back to reality this week.  And we’re also wondering, how in the world could two such small children have so many toys!  But thank you to everyone who provided them because they both love them all.   

Opening her present with Papa Dino.

Peter Michael opening his first ever Christmas present which was a ball popper thing that he loves.  Thanks Uncle Chris and Aunt Shelley!

The leaves were a big hit with the kids.

All lined up on the wall about to jump off into the leaves.  Except Gabby because “she might get hurt” as she said.  Maybe we’ve been a little too cautious with her. 

Here they go!

The ball popper thing.

MeeMaw with her girls. 

Michael had to take Gabby’s place on Santa’s lap.

Another first for Peter Michael.
 

Gabby loves her Uncle Chris.

Peter Michael in his new sweater that MeeMaw knit for him.  Perfect fit!

Our Family

Gabby lined up all her presents in a row on Christmas morning and is waiting to open them.

I love this look.

Gabby with her new princess pillow (which she is now sleeping with).

Trying out her new pillow and blanket.

Reading one of her new books and twisting her hair just like mommy used to do. 

This is what we look like without the kids attached (although if you look closely there’s a blonde head at the bottom of the picture) :)

Peter with Santa Clause again.  Santa needs to work on his smile.  :)

Uncle John was a big hit this weekend.

For the past two weeks we have been potty training with Gabby.  This time it’s a keeper!  We have tried it several times over the last few months and it hasn’t taken but she finally seems ready.  She wears diapers to bed but when she’s awake and home she wears panties and hasn’t had an accident in almost a week.  This time we’re keeping the potty chair in the living room so she can run to it when nature calls.  We figured, hey, our son sleeps in our closet,  why not let Gabby potty in the living room.  She’s very proud of herself every time she goes and loves getting her little treats which we’ll have to cut out soon. 

Peter is doing well and is such a happy baby as you can tell from the below videos.  He’s doing well with his food and has started opening his little mouth like a bird instead of us having to force it down.  His sleeping habits are still pretty irregular.  He’ll sleep through the night about once a week and the rest of the week is up once or more a night.

We spent Thanksgiving in Conway at my grandma’s new house (which is very nice and comfy).  The kids did well (other than the first nights sleep) and Gabby loved being with her family.  She’s very excited about Christmas and insists on listening to Christmas music every time we’re in the car. 

And just in case you wonder why she isn’t in any pictures below, she’s not very into pictures right now. 

He’s a bad biker baby (with a mohawk if you can’t tell)
   

Kicked back in his ducky tub

Peter in his Christmas p.j.’s
     

Gabby in the same p.j.’s. 

We had Peter dedicated last week.  This is his little outfit.

Don’t worry, Daddy is just out of camera range ready to catch him if he falls.

Peter Michael had just learned how to roll over from his tummy to his back.  (11/10/09)

Gabby loves to pretend she is a mermaid and the blanket is her ocean.  We love her imagination. 

This shows how well he sits up now.  Also as a side note, this was taken at 11:00 last night.  Don’t you wish you had this much energy that late.

Just wanted to add a note about the videos.  The site that we upload too has changed some of their settings which is making the videos not work as well.  The play button that is on the actual video picture does not work.  To get them to play you will have to use the play button on the menu bar under each video.  You might also have trouble with sound on the video.  If so there is a volume control on the same menu bar under each video.  If you are still having problems just email me and we'll see what we can do. 

Sorry it’s been so long since the last update.  I’m sure I’m leaving things out since it’s been so long but I’ll try to remember what all we’ve been up to.  Peter Michael is about to turn 5 months old.  Can you believe it?!  I really really wish that I could say that he has started sleeping through the night but I can’t.  I’m sure this will sound pretty strange but as parents of a newborn you’ll try just about anything so what the heck.  A few weeks ago we moved Peter Michael into our closet.  That’s right, he has a perfectly good room with a nice comfy bed, but he prefers to sleep in a pack n play in our closet.  We originally moved him there so that we could let him cry a little at night without having him wake up Gabby.  But as soon as we moved him he started sleeping until 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning.  Don’t get too excited, that was just for about a week.  Yesterday morning he was up at 1:30 to eat and up for good at 5:00.  We had a similar morning today as well.  Last Thursday we started him on rice cereal and pears.  There is a video below if you would like to see how that went.  He hasn’t made much progress but he doesn’t cry anymore at least.  The boy has never turned down a meal as you can tell so I’m sure he’ll like it more soon.

As for Miss Gabby, or “Tinker Bell” as we now like to go by, she is big into princess/pretend.  As you can see from the pictures below she was Sleeping Beauty for Halloween.  She dressed up for a party on Wednesday, for MDO on Thursday and spent Halloween in Berryville with Mimi, Papa Mike, Arleigh and Drew.  She is not ready for Halloween to be over and has decided to be Tinker Bell for Halloween next year.  We might have to get a Tinker Bell outfit for Christmas or her birthday if this keeps up.  She has entered into the dreaded “why?” stage.  We went to Wal-Mart yesterday and I literally don’t think that she took a breath around all the questions.  Everything is “why?” and a half the time I don’t think she even knows she’s saying it.

We’re about to enter into our crazy holiday schedule with plans just about every weekend until January.  So I’m sure I’ll have more to update you on soon.  

Showing off her "cheerleader shoes"

We went to the pumpkin patch again this year.  No pumpkin pictures but lots of goat pics. 

Peter was worn out after his hayride.

Princess Gabby

Peter was a monkey (and yes, he's sitting in a pink Bumbo)

Happy Halloween!

Sorry you have to listen to me being a dork but that's the only way I could get him to laugh.

Gabby treated us to a little concert.  She has learned these songs at school (MDO).

This was Peter's first time in his exersaucer.

Peter Michael's first real meal.  Rice cereal and pears.  Yum!