Happy 1st Birthday to Gabriel!

I cant believe it has been a year, a whole year! This time last year I was sitting in my hospital room with a brand new little baby and Billy was getting called from the Principal about Brayden's behavior- which started the path to where we are now... Now I have a busy 1 yr old constantly trying to escape into the laundry room and splash in the dog water or eat a little dog food (don't worry, I always get him before he eats some lol)...and Brayden is home schooled now. Oh how much can change in a year!

I don't want to make this an excessively long post (although I know it will end up being long anyway hah!), but I would just like to post a little memory from Gabriel's birth day and then post pictures of him from every month the last twelve months. :)

Two days old - home from the hospital:

One month old - Blessing day

Two months old:

My smiley guy - Three months old:

Four months old:

Five months old:

Six months old:

Seven months old:

Tigger Gabriel - 8 months old (that is actually his bath robe!)

Uggh couldn't find another photo, 9 months old - when he got stung/bit by an insect at the boys' soccer game!

Sitting in his jungle room - 10 months old

Found a stray brownie and made a mess - 11 months old

Here is the birthday boy! 12 months old...

So Gabriel's birth was probably the most different out of all of my boys. He sure likes to be different! lol A quick summary, I was having nightly contractions at 38 weeks pregnant (two weeks before my due date) and asked my Dr. to induce me because I worried about having someone there with the boys. The Dr. said she couldn't, unless I was having those nightly contractions again - then to just come in and she'd "help" me along. I had my mom come over and we waited and waited for those constractions so that we could go to the hospital, but nada. We all went to bed and I woke up with a surprise at 2am. My water was breaking on its own! Talk about good timing! I wanted to wait a bit to go to the hospital, like I did with all my boys. Usually I have 5-6 hr labors so I thought I could hang out at home for at least a couple hours. Billy and my mom said NO, they wanted me to go to the hospital right away. My contractions hadn't even started yet.
We were in the car within 15 min and at the hospital in 30 min. The contractions were starting now and quickly. The rest I'm not going to go into detail by detail, although I love sharing my baby delivery stories. :) I will say though, that Gabriel was born at 4:...something AM (bad I can't remember the minutes? LOL). It was only 2 hours from when I woke up until he was born. I am very lucky that I had someone already at the house with the boys and that I listened to Billy and went right away to the hospital.
He was 9 lbs 2 oz and I forget the length (horrible!).

Now onto tonight's birthday party- we celebrated with Gabriel's favorite dinner which is mac n cheese. He had three helpings I think! Then we cleaned up and let him open his present. He had already opened the other present last night. oops. haha He got a little toddler driving wheel electronic toy thing and a playscool busy ball popper. I don't know how much he got to enjoy his new toy because all the big brothers were fighting over playing with the ball popper thing. haha!
Then we had carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. yummm He tried to grab the candle, naturally, and dove right into the cake. He loved his cake and had two helpings of cake also. Yikes! Billy jr didn't quite get what was going on because he kept asking for his birthday too. I thought he wanted cake so I got him a slice and he said "NO! Birthday. Birthday. Birthday" and pointing at the candle. He wanted to blow out the candle too. Instead I sung happy birthday to him and then gave him his cake. He was happy with that. Only one more month until his birthday anyway!

Now we're off to sleep and the house is picked up and quiet...shhhhh

Birthday photos:

Opening his present:

This is fun!

Dad showing him his new toy, as he eats the wrapping paper...

Dad set up the new toy, finally getting to play with it:

Big brothers are faster then he is! Trying to get the candle with no luck:

First bite.."Is this really for ME?"

YUMMY!!!

The aftermath!