Gia bug is 7 months!

 

This little squirt is 7 months! Part if me is so excited watching all the things she is doing and exploring. The other part of me is whining her her to stay small and not grow up so fast!! Secretly, I wonder if I held her more and fed her less if she would still be figuring all this out!! 

She crawls, she pulls up on EVERYTHING, she is feeding herself! She eats rice cereal ( which is crazy because the bigs never got into that much) the fruit and veggie pouches, the rice poofs and cereal like kix and Cheerios. She likes the yogurt melts, too! I've been offering her water in a sippy cup. She likes that! She's pretty good at maneuvering it, although it ends up on the ground a fair amount!

In this picture she has figured out how to open the big kids CD player and took out the cd. Robb text me a sequence of photos of this transpiring. This being when she was complete and noticed she was being watched! Love her goofy, sideways grin and scrunched up nose!

She sleep is good any where from 7-12 hours overnight. Depends on how much she wore herself out and how much she ate. Then a couple naps during the day. She's getting a little routine! Still nursing. She's busy! Life's busy! So incredibly thankful for healthy, busy kids! 

Fountain Hills, AZ

My late Grandma Georgie, my baby's namesake, has a dear sister that lives in Fountain Hills, AZ. Usually my amazing aunties make a pilgrimage in the name of art to Fountain Hills every November. It's really a guise to spend some quality time with the outstanding little lady whom we lovely dearly, who makes 93 look great and who reminds us and help channel the lady we miss so much! In 2004 I had the privilege to be the first if my generation to go and spend time with these family members! It was such a great experience! Now 9 years later, I went with my baby Georgia for my 3 visit! The Morris clan are such generous hosts! My first time I learned the legends of Auntie Mary's Fudge! This time I enjoyed the company of 3 out of 4 aunties, my sweet cousin Meg, who is a bride in waiting and the Dear Mary! It's such a blessed time! Georgia loved every moment.. Let me clarify, ...every moment NOT in a car seat! It was so fun to have special time with the baby. And auntie Mary has 2 kids in FH that we saw and some great friends! Here us my photo roll!

Great aunt Nanc!

Great aunt Barbie

Auntie Marys infamous autograph 

Wall! Georgia was measured way down here at the bottom!

Auntie view !

Mary and Georgie!

Fountain Hills art fair, the fountain and Meg, Nanc and Cher!

I so hope to return to make more memories with the fantastic Morris', my aunties and cousins! 

Halloween 2013

Okay, I'm archiving a bit but better late than never, right?!?! 

It was a Thursday and I was off! 

Max has Prek on Tuesdays and Thursdays so it was super fun to get him all ready in his costume so that on arrival  they could do their Halloween parade! Stinking cute!! He's the fireman!

Then Grace and I had ECFE that we arrived a bit late for. They couldn't dress up so not as much fun! 

Gia and I stayed home to pass out the treats to the cute trick or treaters of Parkside trail and Robb took the two big kids out with the neighbors! I think our kids might have been dressed, ready and waiting before our neighbors even got home! 

Gia's first Halloween!! I enjoyed picking out her costume because I still can! We made Gracie's owl! And my friend at work Traci crocheted the hat! Here is each child individually!

Here's one with the neighbors- probably talking strategy! ;-)

Let's do this ! Getting pumped up !!

My first customers ! 

And the spread!

Crawling

Sometime in early January my baby started crawling. She has been gaining speed. Just 6 months old! She seems like such a peanut! I guess for my standards she is! At her 6 month check she was where the older two were at at 4 months old! So to see her pulling herself up which has become our new norm. She can pull herself up on everything, windows, peoples legs, couches, tables and stools! If she can grip it she will figure out how to stand! Then just on Monday we were in the basement and Gracecran upstairs and asked for help so I asked Max to keep Gia safe while I helped Grace. I must have taken too long so Max came up to see what was going on and I was like "oh no" Gia by herself... Ran over to the steps..it was like 10 feet away and that little stinker was climbing the stairs !!! I am perplexed by this! I'm excited by the things she is doing but I want to keep my little...well...little ! I guess it's time to stop feeding her and hold her all the time! Lol! I didn't get a picture but I will when I get one! ;-)

Max at 5!

IAt 5 Max is really an awesome human being!!! He loves building Legos, he wants to learn to read ( which I wish I knew how to help him), he still loves his stuffed animal puppies and he still loves playing with cars. He has started having play dates and sleepovers! 

He can count to about 30, maybe more if I pushed him. He knows his letters and can write his full name. 

He loves listen to books! All kinds of book! Books From the library, when dad read box car children, dr Seuss and so many more!

He loves anything to build and create. When asked what he wants to be when he grows up he said " a fixer but I'm not really thinking about that right now"

His best friends are the neighbor guys and Adam and Ryan, his cousins! He feeds the dogs and is especially good at making breakfast! His specialty is washed berries, raisins, some sort of cracker and yogurt! 

He is a first born, people pleaser! He is very sweet to both of his sisters and only occasionally gets grumpy with them. He is a good helper. He learned to ride his bike this year with out training wheels, passed his swim lessons and played soccer and t- ball. He has run a few 5ks with intermittent stroller breakers !

He attends pre school at Zion Pre Kthis year he is in the 4's class with Mrs Spiess and Mrs Hartle. He school gave him a special birthday ribbon and birthday book ! He also got to bring snack that day and be the class helper.

Xc skiing with my boy!

Yesterday Sunday Jan. 19th it was so nice outside! I think the news said. 37 or 39 for a high! We wanted to get out and take advantage of it being a weekend when we are all home together and well, the weather!! At first we thought maybe snow shoeing since we could all try it! They rent snow shoes over at the Eastman nature center so we headed out but on the way Robb suggested cross country skiing which I couldn't turn down! It's been 6 years since I been! I've been a little busy producing a little family! :-) that last time was right before we got pregnant with Max! And I was taking Robb for the first time! 

During the week I had been proding Max to see if he wanted to try any winter sports and listed a few.. He tried to say cross country ski and I was excited! I told him how I was a skier in high school! 

He did really well! I didn't really know what to do to teach him so I winged it! Rented skis, got it on him and we just went! 

He had plenty of falls but no injuries! I think he liked it! Best part was we laughed so much!! Every fall and then some! We skied at Elm creek where they have the downhill skiing and snow tubing hill. The tubing is quite popular and fun! We went last year! My favorite part was when the loud speaker would announce that the next tubers could now start tubing . Max would stop and say. "What did they say?!"  "Oh, for the tubers" after awhile all he'd say was "attention tubers !!!" And we'd giggle! It was so fun to have that time with my boy! He is growing up so fast! So fun to pair him with being on the trails again!

Grace is 2.5, and then some!

Ill open like this!

There is a cute video of Gracie singing happy half birthday to herself with the cupcakes she picked out to bring to daycare! 

Grace at 2.5 is a joy and a challenge. She is sweet and loving. She is also headstrong and full steam ahead. 

She loves her brother and they have started to play so well together. She definitely looks up to him and tries to do everything he does. Most of the time he doesn't even notice. She keeps up really well. Grace loves her baby sister as she has and wants to be literally VERY hands on! I think it's only partially reciprocated. Gia loves her with a little distance away. She is very living just wants to hold Gia and get right up in her face. Sometimes I have to remind myself that she's only 2.5! She is very tall for her age and dare I say 3t's are fitting just right, soon to be 4's?! 

We had a hard time for 5-6 weeks at ECFE where she didn't want to separate at the designated time, or anytime for that matter. We got through it! I am very pleases to say that! It was hard on me. It coinsided with me going back to work. I guess that was one of the only kinks though! That and Georgia not wanting to bottle!

She is the one that I don't come naturally to parenting. Not sure if we are too much alike or too different. Probably, too alike, and I digress. I just need to learn about raising this spirited kiddo so that I harness her energy and thoughts to mold them into something that will do well for her. Not hinder her. That is my goal. 

More about Gracie bug or Gracie varmit as grandpa Jerry calls her.. She's smart! Can count to. 9, sings her abc's kind of (a b c d e f g h I j klmmop e f g, q r s t lmnop, y z and now sing with me! ). She seems to like art: painting and coloring for sure. 

More recently, maybe since being 2.5 she has started to use princess and friends from her "school" names for her babies and herself. Sometimes she is Gracie Ariel and sometimes she is Mary. She's been Scarlett and Gracie Cinderella. It's breaking wide open now.. I was wondering when all her babies would have different names. It's now! 

And speaking of princess' she loves them all! And Daniel tiger and Calliou. Her/our most recent discovery is princess Sofia whom she has been infatuated with. It's very cute how she's been listening to the CDs and trying to learn the words. She got some generic yet color appropriate tinker bell, princess Sofia and sleeping beauty dresses that she is living dressing up in!

I am sure I will add more but the more I invest in this blog post the more I realize I have so So many other posts to do!

Thanks for checking in!

6months!

Okay so she's currently closer to 7 months but I'm going to try to remember back ! On December 22nd our baby was half a year! I am so enjoying the moments with this baby! She is so smiley and bouncy! We celebrated Christmas with Nana Mary and Grandpa Craig on the 22nd ! We also got to meet Logan Schneider for the first time! It was a very great day!

As for this past month, Ms Gia has learned to crawl, mastered sitting, eating more rice cereal and veggies and fruits. Started to take some table food that is cut up real small. The world is really her oyster! She got to celebrate her first Thanksgiving!

And helped complete not one but 2. 5k races! Both the turkey day 5 k and the ugly sweater 5k 2 days later! She's really getting her miles in! Good thing she goes with the flow so well!

She is becoming extremely mobile and "talking" much more! Her hair is staying brown and is starting to come in a bit more, although she is very much still a fuzzy duck! Especially after a bath! Now that sitting is established she loves the bath and splashing as much as possible! 

We are starting to get a routine down. And while I believe that she is probably in steep competition to be our easiest baby, her daddy might have other feelings! She has been know to hold out drinking her bottles until I get home from work, mostly the weekends and then wants to nurse most of the night! But evenings she drinks better but as I understand it, needs to be held more. Still she has a smile for everyone and when she truly is excited she bounces and turns her head away as if she can't even stand it !

She is a joy and we feel so blessed! Happy 1/2 year my baby!