Gotcha!

Hello! It has been awhile since my last post! Hope this finds you all doing well...everything is great here!

We celebrated Gabriela's 2nd Gotcha Day today...it has been 2 years already since she officially joined our family! What a wonderful 2 years they have been!

We celebrated by having a Guatemalan dinner and taking a family picture. She was being her usual silly self tonight!

We gave Gabi a little dog backpack that we bought while we were in Guatemala. She gave her "nana" a ride in it and thought it was pretty cute. She named the dog, "Jackson"...how original! ;-) I had a snow day yesterday! Gabi & I had lots of fun building this snowman, but she did not want to get her picture taken with him AT ALL! So, being my stubborn self, I took one anyways and think it tells the story well...yes, yes, I did make her hold his hand. What a mean mom I am! ;-)
We went to Buffalo last week and had a great time! Joe drove up Tuesday for some business meetings and I flew up with the girls on Wednesday evening. Flying by myself with both girls was a bit of a challenge, but I managed okay. Going through security was kinda crazy, but both of them did great on the plane ride. It was great to see everyone...we played lots with Gio & Marco, died some Easter eggs, and visited the new calves. Gabi got to see her first calf being born and is still talking about it! She says, "after the baby calf was born, his mama wicked (licked) him. That's nice." She loved getting to pet a new calf as well.
Other than that, we have just been hanging out, doing some hiking and running, took a trip to the zoo, and are enjoying every minute with the girls. Here's a picture of Maya on one of our hikes:
Maya has been changing lots lately...she has 1 tooth now! We didn't even realize that she was getting one, it just appeared while we were in Buffalo. I think the 2nd one is on its way now because her nose is a little runny. She has also started to army crawl. The video below shows it pretty well. She gets faster and more efficient every day. I guess this is what my brother did and he never ended up really crawling. He went from army crawling straight to walking. They called him "the linoleum lizard." We don't have any linoleum in our house, so we will have to come up with a fitting name for Maya.

She did have her 9 month check-up a few weeks ago. She weighed in at 19 lbs 1.5oz (49%ile), 27 inches (46%ile), and had a head circumfrence of 18 inches (91%ile). I was just amazed that she didn't even cry when she got a shot! Silly girl!

We are looking forward to Spring Break next week (an entire week hanging out with my girls!!!) My parents and Grandma Dorothy are coming for Easter. My brother may be as well. Hope you all are enjoying these beautiful days of Spring and have a joyous Easter with your family!

Lots of love,

Joe, Tara, Gabriela, & Maya

9 Months Old!

Hi everyone, Hard to believe that Maya is 9 months old already! She is becoming quite the character -- trying to follow in her sister's silly ways. She is pretty laid back and happy as can be. She has made us as happy as can be as well -- what a joy!


Maya is a giggle bug and easy to please. Just like with Gabi, we love how simple things can crack her up!

This is what she does after every bite of food now...guess it means she thinks it is lip-smacking good! ;-)

We won't go in for her 9 month check-up until next week, so I don't have her official stats yet! She is definitely still a roly poly! She gets around by rolling and pushing herself in circles and backwards. She gets up in the crawling position, but it may be awhile yet. Her favorite word is, "dada" and she has said, "cat" a couple of times. She likes to wave "hi" and give high fives. She love music and watching her sister (and mom!) dance. She eats and WANTS to eat anything and everything. She doesn't have any teeth yet. She still gets mommy milk, but prefers it from a bottle now. I still get my snuggle time in the morning before I leave for work! :) The best words I can think of to describe her are "chill" and "daddy's girl" -- she adores Joe. I'm okay with that -- I adore him too! :)

A respiratory virus made its way into our household. I definitely took (and am still taking) the brunt of it. Gabi and Maya fought it off really well. Joe escaped it completely. Knock on wood. I haven't been sick in years, so I'm frustrated that it has slowed me down, but that is probably a good thing every once in awhile.

In other news, I am the only one in my extended family in the country right now. My brother is in Africa for almost a month (Malawai, Zaire, Zimbabwe) visiting and touring with a friend of his working in the Peace Corps. My parents are on a Carribean Cruise (they deserve it -- Iowa has had a horrible winter this year.) I'm sure they're soaking up the sun.

Hope you all are doing well! Take care and thanks for checking in on us!

Love, Joe, Tara, Gabi, & Maya

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here are some pictures of our two little bundles of love. I believe it is close to impossible to get a "perfect" picture of an 8 month old and 2 year old together, but here are some of my efforts. Hope you enjoy all the outtakes! :) Silly Girls!Here are a few more...we are all doing great!

I wish I had some pictures of our trip to Steamboat last weekend, but my computer "ate" them. We met a bunch of our great friends from college for a few days of skiing, stories, and the SuperBowl. Go Saints! (Joe has been a lifetime Saints fan, so he was pumped with their victory.) Gabi was able to ski quite a bit and loved every second. We are amazed at what good balance she has. She really liked riding the magic carpet. She thinks that the Olympic skiers on TV ride magic carpets as well! Steamboat was having their Winter Carnival while we were there, so we were able to see some ski jumping, ski races, and horses pulling skiers down Lincoln Ave, The girls (minus Maya) attended a night celebration complete with the "lighted man" sking down Howelson Hill and some outstanding fireworks. Here is a picture that Ashley took that night.

Lots of love,

Joe, Tara, Gabi, & Maya

"G" is for GABI; "M" is for MAYA

Our view from the front of our house (stands for Golden High School)

What our view would be from the back of our house if our huge neighborhood trees were not in the way (stands for Colorado School of Mines)

It is a coincidence that Golden has a "G" for Gabi and an "M" for Maya. I don't even remember how we discovered it, but I love how Gabi thinks the "G" is up there especially for her! She points it out a lot out our front window and says, "G is for Gabi!" If we ever decide to have more kids, we will either have to move or do some major vandalism! :-)

Things have been quiet around here; finally getting back into the routine of things after the holiday season. Here are a few pictures of the girls from the past few weeks.

Dancing

Some of Maya's favorite things to do:

• clap!
• eat little finger foods -- she can inhale those little puffs like you wouldn't believe!
• watch us dance
• Rocky, our cat (she giggles every time she sees him)
• flip her tongue over -- it is the craziest thing and I'll try to get a picture of it!
• have her curly-on-top "fauxhawk" hairstyle (I'm thinking we'll have one girl with straight hair and one with curly!)
• just chill and be happy!

Some of Gabi's favorite things to do:

• dance!
• read any and all Cat in the Hat/Dr. Seuss or Fancy Nancy books
• feed Jackson (who says she is too young for chores!?)
• ask "Why?" and "Why NOT?" a lot
• count in English and in Spanish (she can get to 16 in both languages)
• SING! She has quite a repertoire -- "Twinkle Twinkle," "Days of the Week," "Personal Penguin," "Itsy Bitsy Spider," "Who Stole the Cookie?," and the "ABCs"

We hope this finds everyone doing well! Thanks for checking in on us!
Joe, Tara, Gabi, & Maya

Our "S Vacation"

Hello everyone! I thought I'd share some pictures from our Christmas week in Breckenridge. Gabi referred to it as our "s vacation -- snow, snowshoeing, skiing, swimming, santa, stockings, and scrumptious food!"

A QUICK family picture -- it was cold!!

Grandpa's prodigy -- she loved it when he played Jingle Bells!

Grammy Mary & Maya

We took Gabi skiing for the first time and SHE LOVED IT! She giggled the entire way down the hill, as you can see in the video. I can't wait to take her again!

Even Maya was taking notes about how to ski -- she's next! ;-)


We spent quite a bit of time at the lodge's swimming pool. It was Maya's 1st time swimming and she thought it was just great! She has always loved baths, so we knew she would!

Just Lounging

Santa did find us in Breckenridge!

Gabi received a cowgirl set-up --

hat, boots, and a stick pony. She immediately named her pony, "Buddy."

Joe received some "muck boots" for Christmas, a little bigger than the cowboy boots Gabi received, but still fun for her.

Our "s vacation" also added some big words to Gabi's vocabulary -- "cappuccino" and "delicious". If you know my parents, you will know why "cappuccino" is so fitting. And if your family ate like ours did that week, then "delicious" makes sense too! We had a great time with my parents and brother!

We spent New Years up in Buffalo, but unfortunately didn't take too many pictures, but we had a great time there as well!

Happy New Year!

Love, Joe, Tara, Gabi, & Maya

Merry Christmas!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and were surrounded by family and friends!

"Pretty Lights"

We have really been getting into the Holiday spirit lately. It is so fun now that Gabi is understanding most things. She loves the tree and all of the lights that she sees around town -- "pretty lights!" She also enjoys decorating Christmas cookies, getting a treat from her Advent calendar each day, and singing Christmas carols! She is actually pretty good at "Jingle Bells" -- we will try to get her on video one of these days! We also took a trip to Zoo Lights at the Denver Zoo -- it was actually really cool!



Maya is doing well sitting by herself now. She loves it when Gabi sits next to her to play. Maya has started to say some syllables -- mostly "lalalala, wawawa, dadadada" She has always been very vocal, but it is still kind of fun to hear her starting to understand the beginnings of speech.

Maya is also really into eating lately!

We all know that this time of year...THIS....

leads to....THIS....Thunder Thighs! Gotta love it!

(She is going to kill me when she is older!)

Have a good week! Gabi is counting down the days until Grammy Mary, Papa Gary, and Tom get here. We're headed up to Breckenridge for a week over Christmas! Happy Holidays to you all!

All our love,

Joe, Tara, Gabi, & Maya