March Madness

March...a necessary month in order to get closer to spring!! March is a pretty blah month here in Michigan, but we still had a lot of fun. Gabrielle had her first "friend birthday party" that in which she got invited. It was at the Kid's Clubhouse in Milford for her friend, Eden. She had a ball. She picked out Eden't gift at Meijer...a Beauty and the Beast "rubber dress" doll set. (Think Polly Pockets!) Gabrielle picked out this gift because she really wanted it for her birthday!

This month was also really fun because we had a 4D ultrasound, so we could see "Baby Brother." We figured it was a once in a lifetime experience, so we jumped at the chance. 4D ultrasounds are really neat. We got to see his chubby little cheeks and his little lips that look just like Gabrielle's did when she was born. Having a 4D ultrasound made me want to meet this little guy even more!

Here are a few funny things Gabrielle said this month...

Gabrielle called paczkis "punchies." (She ate an entire paczki! Yikes!)

Receptionist at mama's doctor: "How old are you?"
Gabrielle: "Gabrielle Sophia Sulkowski"

Mama: "What time is it?
Gabrielle" "26 degrees and windy"

"My knuckle-cap hurts!" (Refering to her knee cap--close enough!)

Until Next Month,
Colleen

BABY BOY!!




Polish Princess eating her "Punchie"


In Mommy & Poppy's Bed



Princess Gabrielle (I can't believe Grandma snapped this photo--Gabrielle loves the thought of dress-up but will not put anything on for me!)



Running full speed ahead in her cape from Jammie

February Fun

Mama turned the big 3-0 this month, so Gabrielle enjoyed celebrating at the birthday party. She was especially keen on her new outfit for the party. Hot pink shoes with a giant rhinestone, a hot pink ruffly tutu skirt, and a pair of jeggings! She wouldn't wear the glittery headband. I guess it was a bit over the top. HA! Gabrielle is so much more outgoing now...she loves to find kids and play with them. Especially older kids. Especially older boys...YIKES! I hope this is not an indication of her teenage tendencies!!

Adam, Gabrielle, and I made a trip to Columbus, OH, for Gabrielle's 1st concert. It was The Laurie Berkner Band. We booked a room and decided to make a weekend trip out of it. It was really funny because there was no pool at the hotel, and Adam could NOT believe that he actually booked a hotel without a pool. A major no-no for anyone with a child. He sweared there was a picture of a pool on the website and it was one of the many ammenities. No such luck. Too bad we constantly told Gabrielle about how much fun she would have swimming in the pool. We made the best of it and Gabrielle and Poppy put on their swim suits (and Gabrielle put her floaty on too) and they went swimming in the bath tub. At least it was warm. Kids will have fun with anything as long as you have a good attitude about it! Oh yeah, the concert was great, too. Laurie sang all the hits and all the kids were dancing in their seats. It was quite the show. We were glad we went!!

Sadly, at the end of the month, Gabrielle's Great-Grandfather, whom she called "Great Papa", passed away at the age of 84. Having never known my own great-grandfathers, she was lucky to have him for nearly 3 years of her life! He was the patriarch of the family and will be sorely missed by all.


Happy Bday, Mama!


Our Swimming Pool (Sorry Adam-couldn't resist!!)




@ the concert







Rest in Peace... Richard Wozniak-July 3, 1926-February 22, 2011

No Winter Blahs!

January is my least favorite month of the year. However, with a 2 1/2 year old I find it nearly impossible to experience any "winter doldrums." With the hustle and bustle of the holidays over, we have been enjoying the simple things over at our house. On January 17th, we found out some very, very exciting news. WE'RE HAVING A BOY!!!!!!!!! Adam, my mom, Gabrielle, and myself of course we to our ultra sound appointment together. I was one day shy of 19 weeks, but the ultrasound technician was able to see everything she wanted. He looks great, which was the most important thing. The night before the appointment I had a dream that we were having a boy, but I really didn't believe it until we saw the proof on the ultrasound screen. I figured we'd probably have a girl just because that's what I have! I think a boy will really balance out our family--that's for sure. I am hoping for less sibling rivalry, and the prospects of being able to enjoy "girl" activities and "boy" activties and of course lots of family activities. We are looking forward to family ski vacations and biking vacations and Disney World (well, in 5 years anyway!)

Another big thing that happened this month was that Gabrielle didn't have Grandma all month. Grandma and Grandpa Sexton went to Mexico for the 2nd half of January, so Gabrielle went to our next door neighbor's house. This meant that Gabrielle had to get up at 6:15 every morning, and had to be ready to leave the house with Mama at 7:00. She was a trouper, and there were very few tears (and none when I dropped her off!) Just a few in the kitchen before we left the house, which is totally understandable. She did awesome at the neighbor's! Sabrina is a "Super Mom" with 4 kids of her own and several that she watches during the week. Gabrielle got to play everyday with Lilliana who is only one year older than she is. Gabrielle took a nap everyday, ate well, didn't use a binky during nap time, AND used the potty everyday!! YAHOO! Poppy was able to take a day off and take her to preschool which was awesome, too.

Here are a few cute "Gabrielleisms" this month...
...at church while getting ready to go up for communion, Gabrielle said very loudly to the usher and others around us, "It's time for Mama's snack!"

...with her index finger raised, she said, "Speaking of which" when I asked her if she was hungry or needed a snack

..."Holy Moly Spicy Macaroni" (I have no idea where she came up with this one

..."You're way off target!"

..."You're absolutely right!"

That's about all I can think of at the moment---Until next month!

BABY BOY PICS!








Gabrielle pics!

Coloring in the kitchen w/ Poppy




Our first attempt at Candyland


Wearing Mama's Veil (She's very into weddings and wedding dresses and dresses/shoes in general!)

Christmas Greetings

December has to be my fourth favorite month besides June, July, and August! I just love the Christmas season--especially getting the house decorated, shopping for gifts, cookie baking, and spending time with family and friends! This is Gabrielle's first Christmas in which she really "gets it." (At least the part about Santa coming down the chimney and Rudolph...and the gifts!) We are working on celebrating the true meaning of Christmas too, and that is really fun as well. Gabrielle loves singing Christmas Carols. She knows all the words to Rudolph...She sings all words except for "red" so it's "Rudolph the Nose Reindeer."

We had a birthday party this month, a Christmas party at a friend's house, a snow day, we visited a new baby, baked cookies a few times, had our first dentist appointment, went to pre-school, skated with Santa at Rollerama, and made reindeer food with Aunt Laura, Cadyn, and Aili. We celebrated Christmas Eve Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Sextons, hosted Christmas Eve dinner at our house for a lot of family, celebrated Christmas morning at Jammie and Grandpops Sulkowski's, Christmas evening at Aunt Tui and Uncle Joe's, and Great Nana's birthday party at Aunt Pat's the day after Christmas. WHOA! Sound like a lot? It was! It took us all about 3 days just to recover from all the excitement. Gabrielle is one lucky little girl-she got so many cool gifts...I can't even begin to name them. (They deserve their own blog post!)

Gabrielle also got a new big girl bed and a new chest, night stand, blanket chest, and "princess" chair. She is making a slow transition from crib to bed which is totally fine. It's hard to say goodbye to your comfy crib. We won't need the crib for awhile anyway:) Overall, she really likes it--especially jumping on it.

Latest Gabrielleisms:
"I used to eat carrots when I was a little bunny."
"Poppy is frustrated, mad, and ticked." (As sweet as Gabrielle is, she does love to test even the most patient man I know:)

Thanks for reading. Wishing you a very happy and healthy 2011 from all of us!


Cookie Baking with Mama


Snow Tubing!!!




Cookie Baking with Mama (Round 3!)




Christmas Eve



Christmas Morning! (Mostly took DVD's of this!)




Pics from the last night in Gabrielle's Crib






BIG GIRL BED!!


Fishing with a new Christmas toy

Happy Thanksgiving!

During the first week of November, we went to the Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City. Adam had a bike race in TC, so we made a family trip out of it. Great Wolf Lodge was awesome. Gabrielle was still a touch too little to make the most fun out of the water park, but I think that she will have fun on more of the slides next year. The resort had lots to do, excellent food choices, and something fun for kids of all ages. Overall, I was sold on the place and told Adam I wouldn’t be leaving until we checked out!

Adam is planning on racing again next year. Poor guy didn’t have any preferential starting point, so he had to start with all the newbies. He ending up passing about 1,500 when his chain broke (in the snow I might add) so even though he didn’t come even close to the times he is used to, I still think he did pretty well all things considered. He will have a better starting position next year (with all the elite-HA!) and he plans to dominate. Lucky for us, that means another weekend trip to Great Wolf Lodge-Yahoo! Mark your calendars because it’s always the first weekend in November. I am looking for other interested families to go too—which leads me to my next fun announcement—we are expecting a BABY in June (we found out last month but were pretty mum about it)—and so I keep thinking that I will never be able to keep up with a 3 year old when I am toting around a 5 month old!) They have excellent lifeguards there, but it’s pretty much my worst nightmare, so keep it in mind:) You can hold the baby while I wrangle the kids!

November, overall, was a busy month. (Much busier than I like to keep myself!) I had countless meetings it seemed and evening conferences twice, so when I had 4 days off at Thanksgiving that was something to really be thankful for! We had Gabrielle’s cousins, Cadyn and Aili, over for cookie baking and gingerbread train decorating. We also had Aunt Laura, Aunt Bethany, and Uncle Anson over, too. It was some good old-fashioned fun let me tell you! Thursday of the week we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner over at Adam’s Aunt Pat and Uncle Tim’s house. We have so, so much to be thankful for—especially our little blessing that will be arriving in June. Thanksgiving is one of my most favorite holidays—Let the Christmas season begin!!

A Few "Gabrielleisms"
"I'm making a masterpiece!" (As she was coloring)
"Those horses eat out of an enormous bowl." (Watching the horses from our kitchen eating out of this giant hay dispenser thing)
"No Fair!" (As she was chasing me up the stairs and I was clearly winning the race!)

Gabrielle with the Great Wolf Lodge Mascot


Eating in a "tent" at the GWL


Ready for a long car ride!


Cookie Baking with the Fam!

Happy Halloween!!

I have to say that the month of October is one of my favorites. The weather was gorgeous this month, and I took a gazillion pictures of all of our adventures. We took a second trip to Spicer's so Gabrielle could get another pony ride, and so I could get the picture. We had to wait and wait and wait in line, so luckily it seemed like she got a few more rotations than last time. It was so hot that day--about 80 degrees! Gabrielle had fun on their big tube slides as you will see in the pics below. All of the apples came a few weeks early this year, so no picking for us. I staged the picture of her picking apples!

Gabrielle had so much fun playing in leaves. At our house, we don't have very many leaves due to our highly efficient and amazing lawn service that takes care of our leaves almost immediately! So, Gabrielle goes wild at Grandma and Grandpa Sexton's because they have leaves everywhere. The pics below were actually taken by Grandma when Gabrielle was playing at their house while Mommy and Poppy were at work. Mom and Bob said they have never seen her laugh so hard or have so much fun!

Gabrielle really got into "Mitchigan" State this month due to the big UM/MSU game and our giant blow-up Sparty that we had the front yard for several days. One night Gabrielle looked out her bedroom window at Sparty (who lit up!) and said, "That's a gorgeous guy!" Too funny. She really does like MSU though. Everytime there is a football game one she asks if it's Michigan State. Too bad she outgrew her MSU cheerleader uniform...Mommy is going to try to find one for her for Christmas!

Another fun thing we did this month was travel to Crystal Mountain for one of Adam's last races. (Adam and I also got to take Gabrielle to preschool before we left for our trip!) We had an excellent time at preschool and up north, of course. The colors were just past their peak but still beautiful. One of the highlights was riding the high-speed chairlift up and down the mountain. A first for both Adam and Gabrielle! Let me tell you, I held onto her for dear life. There are no seat belts, ya know! Another highlight: Adam won his age-class! Yahoo, Poppy! My mom and Bob coincidentally rented a house on Crystal Lake the same weekend. It was only 10 miles from our resort, so we had fun visiting them at an amazing beach-front rental. There are some pics of us in front of Crystal Lake.

Of course, October is a fun month because of Halloween. Even though she was absolutely TERRIFIED of all the scary Halloween decorations, we managed not to ever scare her too badly. We could barely walk into a drug store! Gabrielle was Ruby from the Nick Jr. show "Max & Ruby." It was a very appropriate costume for her seeing as how it's her favorite TV show, by far! She loved her little white bunny costume as you will see from the pics. She enjoyed trick-or-treating this year, and luckily had a chauffeur to carry her to a lot of houses, otherwise we would have been out all night! Every other night or so, Gabrielle will ask if she can go trick-or-treating. She didn't care too much about the candy, thank goodness. More for Poppy and Mommy!

Gabrielle's newest words that she likes to use are "comfortable" and "actually." She actually used the words correctly! She also told me that she broke her funny bone. While in the bathtub, she'll cover up with different colored wash cloths and say, "Let's have a fashion show!" and "How do you like my outfit?" She's too funny.

Enjoy the pics and the upcoming holiday season.
Until next month,
Colleen



"Apple Picking"










Good Old-Fashioned Fun!!









@ Crystal Mountain




@ Crystal Lake