I'm not dead, I swear

I just really suck at blogging now. Its quite atrocious actually. I have been meaning to update for a while now and seem to never get to it.

Lets start with the basics. We're all great. My collar bone is all healed and dandy with my lovely metal plate. This should be interesting when we travel in 2 days. I have been able to resume normal activity (since the end of October) so that's been lovely. I dyed my hair a very warm, rich brown and I love it. And I know, I know, this post is worthless without pictures but I have none of the new hair-do. I will take some while away this weekend I'm sure and will try and post. DH is fine too - he was sick and you know how men are when they are sick. Effin babies. I don't think I need to elaborate on this one.

Gabriella is great. She is developing her speech rapidly. I am keeping a list of all her words and thus far I'd say she's got about 20. Most are in English, some are in Croatian. I feel like she's throwing a tantrum every 5 minutes so that's boding well for my nerves. She officially transitioned to 1 nap about a month ago. I am very thankful for that. Her naps on the weekends suck major ass, but she naps great during the week at daycare which is all that really matters.

We're going to DC for thanksgiving to see my bestie and her hubs - I am so freaking excited!

Here's are 2 G pics to hold you over till the next time:

Two years ago...

I found out I was pregnant with Gabriella. What a day it was...I was so happy and so scared at the same time. Little did I know then that this little girl would completely steal my heart in such a way that I find it hard to breathe without her. My life is so much better with her in it. And although we do want more kids, our life feels so complete and whole with her. Love you baby girl....

In Gabriella updates, well she is totally hilarious. She's repeating everything, Croatian and English. Dh was swearing and she repeated stupid and while I was pissed at him, it was freaking hysterical to hear her say "stupee." Oh, and also, she thinks everything is a phone. Anything that is flat and fits in her hand gets put up to her ear with an enthusiastic "hey," which is then followed by the most hilarious babble I've ever heard.

She's in that transition nap period where she only takes a super short AM nap, but then takes a 1.5 to 2 hr nap. If I make her take only one nap, its total garbage at like 45min to an our. Then she's a total pill by the late afternoon.

And OMFG, she's doing this body banging/slamming thing where she sits in her crib, with her back against the rails, and slam slam slam slam. She does it before she goes to sleep and when she wakes up. I hate it!

15 month appt

15 month appt today - Gabriella is 26lbs 6oz and 32 inches long. She's 90th percentile for both! Aside from her perpetually runny/stuffy nose, she's perfectly healthy! She walks, she talks, she throws tantrums...all the fun things a 15 month old does. She had 3 shots: MMR, Chicken Pox, and the seasonal flu one. She cried for a bit, but once she got some cuddles she was all better.

As far as my recovery, I'm still doing well and recovering very quickly. My physical therapist is hoping to have my lifting restriction lifted a week to two early since I'm doing so well. Fingers crossed!

Here's the little chunky monkey the other morning:

I'm the worst blogger EVA!

Hello blog readers, if there are any of even left out there! Clearly I suck at blogging, but I have good reason for being away for so long.

So, we went on our 1st family vacation to Croatia for pretty much all of August. It was a wonderful vacation. To be able to spend so much time with my family and to have Gabriella dotes on every moment was just more precious than I could ever put into words. I was super nervous about traveling with her so far, but she did great. Things would get a little hairy trying to fall asleep, but for the most part she was in that frazzled overtired state most of the time and there were WAY too many things to check out on the 3 planes we went on to get there. She was a total trooper though.

While we were there Gabriella became a full time walker. I was so excited that this got to happen in Croatia. She had no problems with the time change and became adapted to island lifestyle right away. The last week we were there she got sick and shit literally fell apart. Her sleep went to hell and then we got a trickle down effect from there. She was still in OK spirits most of the time, but man the tantrums and meltdowns were epic. As brokenhearted as I was to leave my family, who I know I won't see for 2 years, I was happy to get home and get Gabriella back into her element. We had to re-sleep train and it took about 4-5 days and now all is well again. She is still taking 2 naps, but her morning nap is only about 40-45 minutes and then she takes a 2 hour afternoon nap. She's also got one molar all the way broken through, one that's partial, and 2 (the bottom ones) that are about to emerge.

She's chatting up a storm and says words in both English and Croatian. Its super cute. I'm so glad that I almost exclusively speak to her in Croatian and that she was submerged in just that for 3 weeks. So, now an update on me...

About 5 days after we came back from Croatia I fainted in my bathroom and broke my right collar bone. I was sleeping on the couch and H woke me up to go to bed. I got up, went straight upstairs to take out my contacts, and as I was taking out my contacts I fainted. Woke up moments later on the floor with a broken clavicle. Passed out again momentarily trying to get up. We had to have an ambulance come and get me b/c I couldn't get off the floor. To make a long story short, there was nothing they could find in all their testing to attribute the fainting to. I'm very healthy and all my tests indicate that. They attributed it to getting up too suddenly from sleeping, being jetlagged, and exhaustion. I had surgery to repair my badly broken clavicle a week ago and am now in physical therapy. All in all, things are healing great. I am at home now on disability and will be for a few more weeks. I can pretty much use my right arm for anything except heavy lifting, which most importantly means that I can't pick Gabriella up for another 5 weeks. That is BY FAR the worst thing about this. I could deal with pain every day, but not being able to be a functioning mother to my own child is slowly killing me.

Oh yeah, and my MIL has to pick her up everyday at daycare b/c I can't. Rock on, this is so extremely fair and just. But alas, I can't do anything about it. Here's one pic of the munchkin on vacay. I promise to post an update next week after her 15 month appt and to post more pics later today!

Pictures, finally!

Happy 1st Birthday!

Well, I can't believe it. My baby is 1 today. I have approached this day with many mixed emotions. Today has been about the same. We were supposed to have Gabriella's 1st birthday party on Saturday but she had a nasty fever virus last week. She was also recently the flower girl in my BFF's wedding over memorial day weekend. I need to post pics of that STAT. She looked so cute. We have her 1 year appt on Thursday and I'll update with her new stats then.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my sweet baby girl who I cannot imagine my life without. Thank you for making me a mother and thank you for bringing so much joy and happiness into my life!

I suck at blogging....

Looks like I've been neglecting my blog! I can't say that its entirely without reason. I normally update my blog at work and have been so insanely busy that I just don't have the time. When I get home I don't even want to look at the computer.

As you can see from the ticker up top, we are approaching Gabriella's 1st birthday. I have mixed emotions about it. I am of course so excited with every new phase in her life, but the fact that my baby is already almost a year old is unfathomable. Her latest and greatest:

-Crawling like a pro. She was full-time army crawling about a month ago (so right at about 10.5 months). Then about 2 weeks ago she decided she was faster if she actually got up off her stomach. She is ridiculously fast now!
-Pulls up on everything. She will find the tiniest ledge on anything above her an pull up on it.
-Eating lots more table food. I'd say were at about 60% table food to 40% baby food.
-Dropped her 4th bottle. We are now at 3. One 1st thing in the AM (but I think she could hold out till mid-morning if I waited), one with lunch, and one before bed. She's averaging about 15-18oz per day.
-Getting more familiar with her sippy. She usually just likes to play with it, but is making more sip attempts actually leaning her head back.
-She loves Leo and the fridge and will bolt to either at any given moment. The fridge specifically if she sees its being opened .
-Likes to cuddle and be cute. She loves to crawl up to me (if I'm on the floor with her) and then either roll onto me or wrap her arms around my neck and babble "mamamamamama"

I think that's about it. We'll be having Gabriella's 2nd plane trip on memorial day weekend for my BFF's wedding. Yes, she is the flower girl :)

I leave with a few new pics: