A Long Post about Gabriella

Gabriella has been quite the traveler lately. It began in August when she and I went to visit her new cousin Madeline. The thought of flying with her made my palms sweat, but on the way there, she proved to be quite entertaining to the bored business travelers behind us. On the way back, she persistently tossed a granola bar onto the leg of the gentleman sleeping in the seat beside us. Incidentally, there is nothing quite as weird as fishing a granola bar out of a stranger's lap. Anyway, we had a terrific time with Caleb and Christina, and that seemed to be when Gabriella turned the corner from the squalling infant in the backseat to an easygoing baby.

There was a hiccup in this journey, however. On a visit to Will's parents, we stopped at a McDonald's for a lunch break. Will went inside with the boys while I got Gabriella out of the van. When I picked her up, I noticed her leg was wet, which seemed strange. That's when I saw it--the worst blow-out diaper I have ever, ever seen. I had to stop a woman in the parking lot and ask her to find "the man inside with two little boys" so Will could come out and help me get her clothes off. There was, um, poo everywhere--in the car seat, all over my clothes and hers, on the trash can, on the van floor, and (by the time Graham was done climbing around) on the front seats of the van. We used an entire container of brand-new wipes. And all of this was done in full view of the long line of the drive-thru, which I'm sure made more than a few people rethink their menu selections. When clothes were finally changed and lunch was over, we came back outside to find that a police officer had stopped a car behind our vehicle. We sat in the parking lot for 15 more minutes. We are never stopping at that McDonald's again.

In November, the kids and I accompanied Will on his way to a conference in Charleston, SC. When he went on to the conference, we stayed with our friends Matt & Leigh Ann and their girls Kaelyn & Evie. It was so good to see them again (since we usually see them for few hours a year) and they were very patient and gracious hosts. Gabriella turned 1 on November 10 and Leigh Ann did a wonderful job of planning a fun day and then documenting it for us.



Here they are at a museum...








That night, we took a cake to the local Chick-Fil-A and had a mini party.





Everything was going fine until Graham decided to copy something he had seen in a Veggie Tales movie. See the guy behind me in the red shirt? Graham threw a ketchup packet and hit him square in the head with it.

Gabriella had several firsts while Will was at his conference. She got another tooth, she took a few steps on her own, and she said a few new words. None of those was quite as impressive as her last feat, though. That night in the Chick-fil-a, she climbed to the top of the indoor playgym all by herself. I finally noticed and ran up after her as fast as I could, only to see her at the top of the slide with about 6 kids in between us. I ran back down to the bottom in time to see her slide down, unaided. She did it 2 more times by herself before we left.

We had a party for Gabriella at home the following weekend. Lots of friends and family were able to join us, which made it a lot of fun.






We love you, Gabriella! You are a sweet, sweet little girl!