Gabey the climber

Our Gabey is growing up fast.  He likes to laugh and have fun, and is a very social little boy.

He, of course, is always copying what we do.  Here he is eating noodles and trying to use a pair of kid chopsticks like his sisters.

Something that he came up with on his own, though, was eating watermelon with his fork.  He loooooves stabbing things with his fork and is quite good as using a fork and spoon now.  As proof, here he is using a fork to eat a ginormous slice of watermelon--his favorite food.

We're not sure what we're going to do when fall arrives and watermelon goes out of season...

He also likes to eat seaweed, which we thought was very interesting because neither of our girls will eat it.  (Although Karina likes to get a piece and lick all the salt (she calls salt "saltines") off of the seaweed.   Then she will hand you a soggy piece of seaweed.)

Gabey is also likes reading books.  His current favorites are Waddle, Waddle where the pictures move if when you flip the pages.  He also likes to look at photo albums.

He likes putting on gloves, such as these gardening gloves that Elvin got the girls, or oven mitts.

I guess it's fun making your hands seem like they're really big.

And like the girls, Gabriel loves to play outside.  He is steady enough now where he can manage to walk on the uneven ground without stumbling.  He enjoys rummaging around, finding objects, and playing in the dirt.

Here are Gabriel and Karina shoveling soil.

The kids also like taking turns on the swing hanging from our apple tree in the backyard.  (The girls are in their gymnastics gear because they are doing gymnastics camp this whole week.)

In the backyard one day, Emily attached the hose to thing toy called the Water-pillar.  It's a caterpillar that squirts out water in all directions.  The girls put on their swimsuits in anticipation.  Eliana thought it was fun, Karina stayed away (because she didn't like her face getting wet, she said), and Gabriel absolutely loooved it.  And he was not deterred even when the water squirted directly into his face.

Gabriel's been taking only one nap during the day as of late.  Every once in a while he takes two naps, but he is definitely transitioning to just one.  Also, he has been sleeping a lot better at night.  Last week, he slept through the night on 4 days out of the 7.  Woohoo!  And about time, Gabey--you're 14 months old!

As you probably know, Gabriel is always rearranging the items in our pantry.  Recently, he has taken to emptying Daddy's beer bottles from out of the 6-pack cardboard carrying case.

What surprised us though, was that he then wanted to take the cardboard 6-pack container out to recycle.  First, he tried to flatten it like he'd seen us do with other boxes.

Then he tried to go into the garage because that's where our recycling bin is.  Gabriel has been observing us very closely!

Here is Gabriel showing off his reach again.  It always surprises us when he grabs something right off of the counter.  In this case, he is using the counter to pull himself up to the stool.

He is quite the climber now, which we are still getting used to because neither of the girls were.  If there is a step stool in sight, he will try climbing on it, even if it's at the risk of falling and hitting his noggin on the floor.

He also tries climbing on to the piano bench.  He can't (yet.)

And here's our boy climbing onto the coffee table.  Then he will stand on it.  And then he tries to walk off of it.  Needless to say, we've turned our coffee table upside down in the middle of our living room so that he won't get on it.  It's very attractive.

And he likes climbing onto chairs.  Is the chair already occupied?  Not a problem!

For the baby gates, we used to have two chairs--one on each side--so that the girls can get over the gate.

Well...he's found a way of getting onto the chairs.  

So we've replaced one chair with a very short step stool.  Karina can barely get over with it and Gabriel can't--for now.

So there's our boy.  He's very active, very silly (notice his silly face, which Eliana is copying), and keeps us very busy!