My, my, how time flies!!!

OK folks, it has been a little while since the last entry, so this one is a bit longer than usual. A lot has happened since the beginning of May. The house is a mess, but Gabriel is flourishing!!!

Gabriel just turned 6 months old on the 17th of this month and we can hardly believe that that much time has gone by already.
Gabriel is now 16lbs 8.5 ozs and is 26 inches long. (Born at 7lbs and 21 inches)
He has chuncker munker legs and very frequently grabs things with his feet. He pretty much uses his feet as an extra set of hands!
He squeals in delight as well as in frustration. Gabriel has already mastered the whine and uses it pretty darn frequently. He enjoys spending time with mommy and daddy, so when we leave him to play by himself, he doesn't exactly last very long without starting this very funny whine/squeal combination. With all that noise and that look on his face, it is REALLY hard not to laugh at him when he does this!!
He will look around for an object that he sees disappear from his direct sight. He is reaching for objects that are out of reach, passing them from one hand to the other, and has a grip stronger than I thought a baby could possibly have! And believe me, he loves to grab hair!!! So I chopped mine off! But I am sure it doesn't surprise anyone to hear that he still manages to find a good size clump of hair and applies the death grip! He finds his pacifier in his crib, reaches to grab it, and puts it back into his mouth!!! Of coarse this doesn't ALWAYS happen, but we are just amazed that he is able to do this already! This could be completely normal for his age....we don't know any better! :-)

He can now sit and play completely unsupported. Although he still looses his balance at times, he is able to for the most part, catch himself by extending his arm down. He is also showing interest in standing from sitting while holding onto our hands or something else. He often tries this while in his baby tub....not the best place to do so!!

He is playing with the idea of crawling. He will do a kind of creep forward while on his hands and knees.

From Crawling

We are having the darnedest time with getting him to drink water. Bottle...forget about it. He is expecting something else with his bottle and isn't happy to find that it isn't what he had in mind. Sippy cup is coming along OK, but he isn't crazy about it. One day, Daddy just put him up to his CamelBak water bottle and the little guy went sucking away!!! He loves it!!! If you have ever used one of these bottles before, then you will know that it isn't exactly easy to pull water from these things, but he seems to do just fine. Hey....what ever works!!!

From Drinking water

He is working on his ahh-goos, he has his vowels down pretty well and is working on his consonants (da's and ga's mostly).

First word, or not.....that is the question. Is it really considered their first word if they don't really know what they are saying? Daddy and I don't think so, but GranmA seem to! So, for those who believe that it doesn't matter if they know what they are saying, then Gabriel has been practicing his first word.....Dada! For those who have the same belief as us, then he is in the process of perfecting what will likely be his first word!!! :-)

From DaDa!

He LOVES to make his wet razzing sound as well. And this is especially fun now that he is doing it with food in his mouth!

From Rasberries!

Happy 6 month birthday little G!!!!