18 months old!

As she picks up the bowl to bring it to me and ask for MORE!

She takes her job of licking the bowl extremely seriously.

Rockin' some Crazy Hair

Gabriela and Daddy with her new year's hat.

Somehow our tiny precious little baby turned into a spunky, adorable RUNNING toddler! I can't believe Gabriela is one-and-a-half! How did this happen?!?!

Gabriela's latest hobby is coloring. We gave her a pencil one day and she had so much to write, we decided it was time to get her some crayons. She loves it! She says "color" and is always asking to draw. When she writes, she sometimes says "Circle" and draws in a circle-ish manner. Gabriela can repeat names of colors too. I can't tell which she enjoys more though - actually coloring or putting all the crayons back into their case neatly, pointing in all the same direction!

She also loves puzzle time. Gabriela has a puzzle with all the letters of the alphabet and she can do it all by herself! Some letters are a little tricky, and she will do her "help" sign when she needs a little assistance figuring it out.

This month we had our first blood injury with Gabriela. She had her apron on (or "api" as she likes to call it) and was standing on a chair, helping mommy make brownies when she slipped off. Of course, I caught her on the way down with my jedi-mommy reflexes, but not before she bit her tongue. I couldn't immediately tell that she bit her tongue, because all I could see in her mouth and dribbling down her chin was blood. We stayed calm, Lane discovered the cause of the injury, and I took Gabriela in the bathroom to show her how fun it is to rinse out your mouth and spit out water. She immediately forgot about her injury, and then we let her lick out the brownie bowl. Now she is always asking to do it - she says "agua", closes her mouth, sticks out her lips points to the sink, and starts swishing.

Gabriela likes to point at the dinner table and say daddy, mommy, "Lah-lah" or sometimes "Bah-lah" She will say her name if you ask her what her name is, or if she sees a picture of herself or her reflection in the mirror.

She is a real trickster with her appetite. I guess this is common for toddlers. Sometimes she will eat thai food, or gorgonzola crackers, or salmon, and we recently discovered that she loves balsamic vinaigrette. But other times she only wants to eat cereal. Last night she had three (toddler sized) bowls of cereal and a huge handful of blueberries for dinner. She picks up her bowl, shows it to me, and says "ahhwanMORE".

Gabriela continues to love reading. But she also loves to go bye-bye. The other day we were home together and apparently, things weren't happening enough for her. She started saying "go! bye-bye!" Then she pointed to her coat and said "coat" and tried putting it on by herself. Next, she opened her diaper bag and put a hairbrush and some books inside and started dragging it to the door. um, I got the hint. I can't wait for the weather to get warmer so we can start going to the park and the zoo again.

Gabriela is a little social butterfly. She waves and says hello to everyone. She gets everyone to smile. How could they not?