Finally catching up on some of the video shot over the past few months. I still need to do all the pictures... but that will happen some day.

Gwendolyn had seen the Christmas tree by itself without any decoration. Then after she went to sleep Crystal and I decorated the tree. This is the morning after when Gwendolyn is first discovering the Christmas tree in its full Christmas glory. :]

Got to watch Gwendolyn have her first "romantic encounter" yesterday and it was adorable. A 2 yr old boy in the play area was infatuated with her. The other parents tried to stop him at first, but we all just ended up laughing in the end. The little boy kept following her around, trying to tickle and touch her, and even grabbed her shirt and pulled her back once when she was going to wander off. Every time Gwendolyn would go down the little slide the boy would rush over and try to pick her up off the floor. This backfired once though as Gwendolyn was too quick getting up and whacked his chin with the top of her head. After a few moments of comforting by mommy the little boy was back in action chasing Gwendolyn.

For her part Gwendolyn seemed mostly oblivious.

As we were leaving we told Gwendolyn to give the little boy a hug and she added a kiss to go with it. The little boy walked around for a few seconds holding his cheek where she had kissed him and then started clapping his hands.


In other news: Many pictures need to be posted... none of them of the romantic encounter though. :]

Gwendolyn enjoying the music in the hotel rooms on our recent trip to the Pacific NW.

So she's learned how to make the water bottle go... and enjoys it rather thoroughly!

So I just realize that I passed these around to a couple of people as did Crystal, but I forgot to post these videos to the blog... so here they are...

Just thought I'd share a random update of some Gwendolyn Pics.

Enjoy!

So it's been a little while and Gwendolyn has been rather busy growing, learning, and enchanting all those she comes into contact with. She eats everything we put in front of her (well, aside from her own birthday cake :]) including tofu, grilled vegetables, hummus, radishes, onions, cheese, more cheese, black beans and rice, fruits, Cheerios, okra, and so on.

Aside from rare moments such as when she was cutting 4 molars simultaneously and had an ear infection she's also a real joy to be around. Gwendolyn is silly, playful, inventive, inquisitive, and VERY verbal. On average a child her age says between 3-5 words. Below is a list of words that Gwendolyn says and signs (we've probably forgotten a few):

-- Says -- (55 words)

all done, baa, baby, ball, bird, book, bubbles, bunny, bye-bye, car, cat, cheese, choo-choo, cool, Daddy, duck, ear, eat, Elmo, eye, fish, good girl, hi, it's you, Mama, moo, "nana" (for banana), nine, no (actually "nononononononono"), nose, out, Papa, pat, peek-a-boo, please, potty, pretty, puppy, quack, ROAR!, Sean, shake-shake, shoes, silly, skettios, socks, star, teeth, thank you, tick-tock, two, uh-oh, woah, wow, yeah!

-- Signs -- (19 signs)

all done, ball, bird, book, brush teeth, car, cat, drink, eat, fish, frog, hat, milk, more, please, potty, shoes, sleep, thank you

At this point she's picking up a new word every day or two. Her most recent word is actually "doo-doo-djat!" which she repeats over and over as she points at whatever it is that she wants us to give her. Not sure exactly where this word came from, but she seems to like it. :]

In the past 3 months Gwendolyn has also made the transition from crawling & cruising to walking and now running. In addition she enjoys other activities including blowing kisses, blowing raspberries on Mommy's cheek, dancing, giving hi-fives, playing "peek-a-boo" & "patty cake", singing, and using the world as one large drum set.

And now... for a little film of pictures and video clips from the past 3 months. It's best to watch in High Quality as the pictures suffer from the additional compression of normal quality. It may take a little while longer to load. It is well worth it though. (You have to start the video playing before the "HQ" button will appear)

I am so far behind in posting that I'll probably never catch up at this point, but I had to post these two vids. You may notice that the pictures from the site are pretty much gone for right now. I'm having issues with the photo hosting I'm using and am working (in my loads of extra time) to move it over to some place like Photobucket. :-P

But for now... videos... enjoy! :]


First a milestone:



And... then some fun with her Elmo doll:

Poor defenseless Gwendolyn is attacked repeatedly with kisses by her Daddy while her Mommy sits idly by. What is this world coming to?

As promised a new video! It covers the past 2 1/2 months or so... :]

Enjoy!

Ok, so it's been way too long (almost 2 months at this point)... but here are a few pics to enjoy.

I must run now... Gwendolyn has decided that she no longer wishes to be asleep... :]

The three of us recently went *blubbing* around in the Western Carribean on a cruise and had a wonderful time. Gwendolyn certainly was a hit with everyone she met, especially one of the ship's crew named Buhran who would call her "Cutie Pootie" in his Turkish accent. Gwendolyn herself had a wonderful time seeing all the sights and delights! :]

On a totally unrelated note today was a very good day for Gwendolyn. We have been working hard to teach her that the stereo equipment is a "No!". At first she would just smile at us when we would tell her "No!", not really understanding what we were saying. Then she would get frustrated with us and try to go under, over, or around us to get to what she wanted. Today she went near the stereo 8 or 9 times but never actually touched it!! YEAAAH! I, of course, told her she was a very good girl every time she would go crawling towards it and then divert herself at the last moment. YEAAH for GWENDOLYN! :]

Exciting news! Gwendolyn has begun *ZCHOOOOOOOOOOOM*ing about the place finding all kinds of neat things! So far her favorites are the stereo equipment and some oldish somewhat corroded heating register! Yeah for discovery!

And we have the video to prove it!

But first, a couple of pictures from a recent bathtime!

Enjoy... and enjoy the hair!









And now the video:

Ok, so we haven't gotten to talking per se, but she has begun babbling. :]

And now a vid of Gwendolyn OM NOM NOM NOMing Crystal.

Enjoy! :]

Just a couple of pics from the past couple of weeks... Enjoy!

(In the first laundry pic you can see her two little teeth quite well)

And now... the third update in the past few days... the video!

It's a bit long (6 minutes) but it covers a couple of months... so ENJOY! :]

So yeah forgot to mention in the last post... but Gwendolyn is now officially famous.

Yup... that's her pic being used at the local Picture People as a "cute smiley baby" pic to show off their framing choices.

Whoo haa! :]

Ok, so it's been a little bit since I posted anything... so now I'm just going to cram this one full of pics! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHH! :]

We start off with pics from Aunt Susie's Graduation. Then we move on to her recent trip with Crystal to California. We also have a couple of pics of carrots and her first baseball game thrown in there as well.

We've also been collecting video, but that's gonna take a bit to put together into something coherent... so that will have to wait for the next update.

Overall... Gwendolyn is growing (28 inches / 18 1/2 lbs @ 6 Months), learning, entertaining, and spreading her happiness wherever she goes.

She now gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth too so crawling is just around the corner (and then we'll chase her around many corners).

We also just ordered a couple of baby sign language videos so we can start teaching her how to communicate important things to her such as "eat", "more", "done", "diaper", and "This computer needs more ram"

Ok, without further ado...