Adventures with Gabrielle

Danny and Brie in their matching Pirate duds:)



We've been having a good time taking Brie to new and exciting places. We got to go to Charleston this past weekend and we visited some friends at their beach house on Folly Beach too! The Castleman's have the Beach pictures in their camera, but I can post a few from Charleston. We didn't even have to stop the whole way to Charleston! Special thanks to Katie for being a great entertainer of Gabrielle when she started to get a little fussy. The trip home was a different story. We had to stop because she was screaming to the point of making herself cough! Basically, she just didn't want to be in her carseat. So we walked around a convenience store in Orangeburg for 20 minutes or so and tried again. She was good for a few minutes but it didn't take her long to get mad again. She finally stopped when we exited the interstate. Boy was that a relief!







I also forgot to post pics from our outing walking down the river trail with Juan and Raquel. Raquel had a blast walking Skoshi and Brie slept most of the time, but did wake up to smile for pictures at a vista point:)




Monday I had to go to the dentist so she of course went with me. She isn't the biggest fan of her carseat, so that wasn't going well, but the receptionist took her out and Brie ended up being greeter at the dentist office while I got my teeth cleaned!

Yesterday, she got to go to work with me out at McEntire. She was the hit of the day of course. Surprisingly, she took 3 naps so I got to get some work done and she wasn't even fussy. April took good care of putting her to sleep and holding her for one of her naps. She's not spoiled much:)

Tonight Gabrielle gets to meet Austin and Kylie! I can't wait to be able to post some cool pics of her meeting her cousins. Stay tuned!

Gabrielle is 2 months old!

So, we went to the pediatrician today and put the poor girl through a lot of torture. She has grown, but she's still pretty little for her age. I told the doc that it's because she comes from a long line of Irish midgets:) Brie weighs 10.15 lbs and is 221/2 inches long, which puts her in the 50th percentile for her age. She's quite alert and responsive to tons though...nosey the doc says:) She had her shots today, so she's been sad and fussy. It was heart wrenching. I'm also a bit annoyed by the mixture of vaccines. I wanted her to get some of them, but they mix them in such a way that she gets things she doesn't need...like Hep B. I mean seriously...why does a baby need a shot for that when Danny and I don't have it and she doesn't have sex or use IV drugs. But they mix it with DPT and Polio which you totally want your kid to have. Grrrr.

Danny had a beautiful first Father's Day. We had a nice family day at my parents and he and Joey even got to go hike while Brie was napping. Then we got some nice Father's Day pics:) Joey had a bit too much fun with the camera though.

We are hoping to head to Charleston this weekend. Maybe this short road trip will work out better than the last foiled plan. We are starting in the AM which is usually a nice peaceful time for Brie, so stay tuned for updates from our potential adventure.

Trucking Along

So, it's been a bit since I've had the chance to post, but things are going well. I pulled several drills at McEntire last week in 4 hour periods and after being there for 3 days in a row I was totally worn out and experiencing pain and cramping in my incision area. I didn't know being a desk jockey for 4 hours was so taxing on a body. Others who have braved C-sections before me have not been surprised. Apparently the body is not supposed to magically be healed because 6 weeks has passed. Silly me! So, Brie and I have been taking it easy this week while Danny has also been trying to recover from the nightmare 14 hour shifts he had to work over last week and weekend. The worst issue was on Friday night. I picked Gabrielle up from the Cobb's house after drill and headed home. I started packing to head to Mom and Dad's ( so Danny could get uninterrupted sleep for his 5am shift) and noticed our pillows on our bed were covered in fireants! They were everywhere and then while I was feeding Brie I saw that they had started to take on the futon in her room. I was irate and clueless...I mean...what do ants want with the bed?!?!?! There wasn't a single ant anywhere near food, just in the bedrooms! I stripped the beds and loaded all the ant infested linens in the washer and then when Danny got home I took Brie and left so she wouldn't get bit by any rogue fireants while Danny was doing cleanup. He vacuumed the beds and the walls and floor and then Dad came with industrial ant poison (yay NaturChem!). What a way to spend a Friday night....especially when all Danny wanted to do was crash since he'd been working 13 hours starting at 5am. Thank God for parents to the rescue:)

We have begun our transition to cloth diapers. I like them so far! They don't leave red marks on her legs and they are soo soft. Today we have also begun to play peekaboo and Brie loves it! I know anyday now she will start to laugh. So far she already sucks in her breath real fast and makes squealy noises...I know it won't be long before she figures out the whole giggle thing:) I'm posting the ultimate turtle girl picture...you can't look at this one and question how she got that nickname:) Also, she and Danny enjoy their time together in the evenings. Mom just doesn't do her upside down hold the way Dad does! She will sit quietly with him for hours...and apparently its a pretty good arm workout for him, who needs the gym anyway:) Plus, we had a little photo shoot after church on Sunday. And I had to add in a Harding onesie shot just for Kristen.

We're hoping to have house guests this weekend. The inlaws, Nancy and Kelci and possibly Mick, are talking about coming down for a visit. Nancy was sick and on antibiotics for a while, so she has stayed away, but she has been dying to get down here to visit her new grandbaby. We hope they can make it and I look forward to posting some great pics next week!

Sayonara for now.

Mad Dog

Grandpas always bring out the best in us.....

But a little swaddling makes it all better

MILESTONE!

Well, I'm not sure it was worth it, but Gabrielle slept through the night last night! She never got a full nap yesterday with so much activity going on...we have busy Sundays. So, after much wailing and gnashing of teeth she finally went to sleep around 1130 last night and didn't wake up until 630 this morning! To go along with this, I want to post some nap pictures of her from last week. She smiles in her sleep even and it's hilarious!

On another note, she's actually taking a pacifier now too! She can't always keep it in her mouth by herself, but she does okay. That will certainly make road trips or even just random around town trips in the car much easier to deal with.