Too much sun, too much dirt...

Here is another typical day when daddy and grandpa is around, just plop the baby in the dirt! We have some great photos of Gabriel between the sweet peas and tomato plants.

Swinging

Here we are on one of our trips to Montclair park, as you can see he doesn't really know what to make of being in the swing!
He is not very good on the slide since he tries to brace himself, so I had him on my lap going down the slide, he seems okay with that.
The problem with the park is we can't let him crawl around in the sand, he tries to put sand, leaves and twigs into his mouth.
Just this morning at the tennis courts I pulled out half a dead worm from his mouth!!! Yuck...

Daddy's attempt at feeding

Well, we all know how messy babies can get when eating, here is what happens when it's daddy's turn to feed the baby. Not only is baby a mess, but he's also not happy about having food smeared all over his face. Wish we had caught this on video, the baby actually headbutted the spoon hence the smear between the eyes.

Hanging out at Bancheros

I think we have discovered that Gabriel really likes to climb, he likes to crawl and clamber over everything and anything, and given the opportunity likes being high up! Here we are in a restaurant and Gabriel decides that the high chair was just not "high" enough...he wants a better view of what was going on in the kitchen. As usual daddy is there to be supportive and encouraging in all of Gabriel's pursuits.

Family Meeting

Finally, Gabriel gets to meet his Uncle Marty and cousins Kaitlyn and Nicholas.

Swimming with mommy this time!

Got into the water with Gabriel this time. There was a lot of people in the pool and all the splashing which scared him, once the pool emptied and the toys came out he was calm again.

I like this one of Gabriel hanging on to the side all by himself!

Camping

Over the weekend we took Gabriel on his first camping trip, which was incidentally our first camping trip with 2 Volkswagen Westfalia Syncro vans. We brought along some people to put in the vans and had a great time. Pictured from left to right: Me (Jonah), Jessie Misha, Khanh, Gabriel, Jose, Annie, Jason, Renee, and my dad - David Hartenstein.
Gabriel loves the outdoors and had a great time...

eating rocks by the river...

and riding Grandpa through the forest.

Goin' for a walk

Gabriel and Grandpa David cruising through Chinatown (after some excellent dumplings at Shanghai Dumpling King)

Gabriel's playdates

I finally figured out where all the playdate photos are, we have been attending these playdates with little Chloe, she's got lots of toys to share with all the little kids.
We like these playdates, they're very low key and is held at someone's house, so the times are reasonably flexible. So far these are the only ones we attend and the Baby Bounce class at the library which is also fun too.
Gabriel is certainly not as outgoing or as sociable as other babies, he's quite stingy about who he smiles at! I've started to notice some clear characteristics, he seems to consider and size people up, he also seems quite focused and can spend a lot of time persistently pursuing something once he sets his mind to it and it's usually something we don't want him to get into. He also has a knack for picking the most difficult or rather challenging situation to get into, for example he likes to crawl through the smallest gaps possible, or over obstacles rather than around them!