Go Gators

With the start of Gabi's first college football season, we needed to welcome her to the Gator Nation appropriately. She may not have the cheers and songs down yet, but she certainly knows how to dress in style!

Everything All at Once

As of August 29, we had officially closed on our house in Austin! We had a lot of work to do to get it ready to move in. As of August  31, we got to celebrate JON's birthday! Then we got our apartment moved over, our stuff delivered from storage, new windows estimates... THEN, we got to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and THEN we got DEBBIE's birthday on September 6th.

We were pretty stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed for a while there, but we made it! We had some really amazing helpers in Alyssa, Craig, and Becca (yay new Austin friend!) as we couldn't do everything ourselves.  We continue to be extremely grateful for the amazing baby that Gabi is! Even though having an infant for the move adds its challenges (less hands for sure!), Gabi is so easy-going and flexible, thank goodness!

With all hands in, we had great help with cleaning, cutting shelf liner, and most certainly taking turns with the Gabi. (I think Gabi was the preferred job...)

Alyssa takes one for the team as she cleans the cabinets above the fridge. How else do you reach them?

Gabi FINALLY gets to eat like a big girl in her new house in her brand new high chair!

CAUSE...?

...and EFFECT?

Like stated earlier, all hands were helping, even the little ones:

But of course we could not ignore Jon's birthday in all the chaos. Alyssa and Debbie plotted a birthday surprise for both husbands (as Craig's birthday is less than a short month away), and we arranged for Team Cohen and Team Gilden to conveniently show up at the same time at a park where the birthday boys were presented with their very own tennis rackets. A fun birthday experience was had by all. Happy Birthday to JON and CRAIG! (And thank you to Craig's parents, Jay and Jan, for watching Gabi during the tennis "match"...meaning Jon and Craig hit the ball back and forth with relatively good aim while Alyssa and Debbie felt successful when they actually hit the ball...)

And a HUGE thank you to Aunt Syssa and Uncle Craig for watching Gabi that night so we could enjoy a stress-free, baby-free birthday dinner out! :)

Celebrating the Jewish New Year didn't stop us from celebrating my last birthday in my 20s! Thank you to Jon for arranging some fun at "Main Event," a great entertainment destination where we all enjoyed some glow golf (!), cosmic bowling, and a Happy Hour drink to kick the night off!

The interesting thing to me is that even with a drink in our system, the whole group still managed to arrange ourselves in the exact same formation for both pictures (baby and all). I didn't notice it at the time.

girl's gotta play

"the Aunt Syssa shot"

We then went out to a lovely dinner where we enjoyed yummy food and Gabi got to try her very first pickle. She didn't seem to mind it as much as we anticipated.

...thinking about it...

...not too bad!

Back at the ranch, Becca (and Seth and Nora) came over to the house and brought some yummy cupcakes for us all to enjoy for dessert. Thanks to all for helping me celebrate a great birthday.

7 Months Old

This year will be slipping away from us in no time. For now, this beautiful girl is 7 months old and just as happy and friendly as always. I was reading over posts of blog-past, and I saw my claim that I might regret claiming how wonderful, easy, and pleasant she is...No regrets yet - she smiles at everyone, laughs happily, and smiles cheerfully.

In her 7th month, Gabi has mastered the art of sitting up, tried fruits and vegetables for the first time, met lots and lots of new baby friends, and started to give some amazing kisses! 

When on her stomach, she has started some "pre-crawling" strategies as she twists herself using her arms. I am making a prediction that she'll be closer to crawling this time next month. (I just want her to let me get semi-settled into the new house before she decides to start moving on me. We'll be in our new home next week! Shanah Tovah! It's amazing to realize this is THE house that Gabi really will grow up in.)

chewing on a shaker at music class

Mommy-Baby selfie!

(How can you not take obsessive sleeping baby pictures??)

"I'm 200 days old, and look what I can do!"

Eating solids like a champ!

Who knew hiccuping could be so funny?

.

Gabi LOVES her jumperoo!

Now that we're sitting up and SO big, we've started facing forward in a big girl stroller! Gabi loves being able to look around and see all the sights!

Mommy and Gabi at one of our meetups

This month, in addition to trying the fantastic store-bought pureed baby foods, we have given her a couple of real fruits for her to hold, munch on, and check out. She was really interested in sucking on the watermelon. The banana was slippery.

close up on some watermelon yummies

All that watermelon really got this baby tuckered out.

And the monthly photo shoot that you've come to know, (hopefully) love, and (probably) expect. They're getting more difficult to take now that she wants everything in her mouth, but I got it! I also captured some shots to show all of Gabi's fans her new favorite face to make with her tongue out (...not as challenging).

The destruction of the sign...

When the sign is gone, the blanket is the only thing left to play with. Happy 7 months to me!

And as always - the pitiful kittens:

See you next month!