Gabey's antics...

Our silly Gabriel is almost two and a half years old!  He continues to be the active, fun-loving, and smiley boy that he has always been.  As you can see, his cheeks are still pudgy and we still get comments about them, but they are much slimmer than when he was a baby.

So what keeps our little boy busy?  Well he loves food, so he spends a lot of time foraging in our pantry.  And this one time, he found our bag of 200 paper cups from Costco.  And he got them all out, and put some of them into his shopping wire basket, and others he stacked into towers.  In the interest of not giving dirty cups to our guests, we put these away where he couldn't reach and he was pretty upset about that.

Putting things in our pantry where he can't reach has become more and more of a challenge.  The shelves we have are made of wire.  So what's one to do if there is something interesting on the third shelf?  Climb up like a monkey of course!

And, very much like a monkey, Gabriel will grab something and throw it to the ground.  Then he climbs back down, and checks to see if what he got looks tasty.  If not, he'll climb back up and throw something else to the ground.  Yes, it can get quite disorganized in our pantry.

Gabriel still loooooves to pretend to cook and spends hours and hours at his toy stove.  He recently found a cookbook of Eliana's and has started flipping through that book.  He flips through various pages to point out the ingredients, pots, pans, and cooking utensils.  He is pretty much obsessed with cooking.

Here's a video showing some of what he does all day long.  Because he practices cooking so much, he can actually use the pan to flip a (toy) pancake, like how a chef flips an omelet.

Gabriel is a curious little boy and has figured out how to turn on the camera app on the iPhone.  

Using that, he enjoys taking pictures of various people around the house.  

Here is a picture he took of Emily using Elvin's phone.

And, here is a picture he took of Elvin and amazingly, it came out pretty well.

Gabriel hates wearing hats.  We have not been able to get him to wear hats--ever!  Except that he loves to wear things that belong to the girls, and so he decided to wear Karina's sun hat one day.  This is really the only documented instance of Gabriel wearing a hat.

And he is still taking a nap every day.  He goes down at about noon or so, and sleeps for about an hour or two.  If necessary, he can skip his nap, but then by 6 or 7pm, he becomes a very dramatic and sad boy, where anything and everything can make him upset.

Other than when taking a nap, Gabriel is quite active.  He is always running around, or chasing his sisters, or opening cupboards.  He loves playing tag in the backyard with his sisters.  Here's a video of him chasing his sisters.  The only thing is that neither him nor Karina understand the rules of tag.  They think the point of the game is just to chase each other, tag a person (any person), say "tag", and then repeat with anyone else...

Gabriel has shown an interest in putting on and taking off his clothes.  If wearing sweatpants, he can take them off by himself.  He still needs help with his shirts (partly because his head is so big, it barely fits through the neck.)  If he really doesn't like a shirt we have put on him, he can usually rip it off by himself, though!  Here he is trying to put on a pair of shorts (his favorite shorts, which he asks to wear everyday, rain or shine.)  He hasn't quite gotten the one foot in each hole part figured out, nor which is the top or the bottom of the shorts or pants.

Gabriel copies his older sisters in everything they do, so consequently, he likes to dance whenever there is music on.  His dancing style, however, has diverged from his sisters' ballet-influenced style.  As you will see, his is a cross between tai-chi and "the robot".  We are not sure where he got either...

Gabriel has taken a liking to wiping things down with his wet wipes.  He will grab one or two or three wet wipes and give whatever is within reach a thorough cleaning...

And lastly, our silly boy likes to sing.  So every once in a while, he grabs the microphone and belts out whatever is on his mind...

And, a few of Gabriel's current "sayings":

A million times a day:  "What that noise?" for any sound he hears.

And also:  "What's that?"

"Why, Mom? Why, Mom" and conversely "Porque, Daddy?"

"Let me see that."

While playing on a toy phone: "Hello?  Oh, it's Gabriel!"

He LOVES to tell us, "I like that!" "I NO like that!" about everything in his world (especially clothes!)