Bumble BOO!!!
Georgie had a fantastic first Halloween! This was not without planning on our part. She hasn't been napping the greatest the last few weeks. I can attest that a no nap Georgie is not a happy Georgie by about 5 pm. Even with daylight savings time ending, it doesn't get dark until around 6. The last thing I wanted to do was have G whine her way around the block being a grouch. So the plan was to get her up and out and good and tired so she'd be ready for a nice long nap. And it worked!!!

We did an early morning trial play class at My Gym which is kind of like Gymboree, I guess. Even though is was parent participation, G was a little apprehensive being in a new place. She loved the trampoline and the ball pit which was a first for her. We got kind of a hard sell to sign up at the end. I'm still thinking about it but having to commit to every saturday morning is a little limiting.

Anyway, then we hit the local Chick-Fil-a which G calls "the play place." She played and played. Plus, they were having games and crafts for Halloween so she enjoyed that. By the time we left, she was bushed! We got lucky and she took a fantastic nap!!!

G loved trick or treating! We'd been practicing door knocking and "trick or treat" for a week or so and it seemed like she really had the hang of it. Each house we'd go to we'd say "knock on the door" and she'd say "nooooo" --mommy would knock. When people answered the door we'd say "say trick or treat" and G would just provide the homeowners a mute stare! She was really good at grabbing the candy out of the treat bowls and stuffing it into her bumble bee candy basket though! After she was forced to stop taking handfulls of candy we'd tell her "say thank you" --again mute stare. Mommy and daddy would say thank you, the door would close, we'd turn toward the sidewalk and G would say "trick or treat, thank you!" Cracked me up each and every time she did it!

We had to skip any houses that anything even remotely scary. G is a complete fraidy cat. If she saw something that didn't look right to her she'd say "scary, nooooo" and shake her little head back and forth as hard and fast as she could until we got past the scary house. She's truly a little chicken.

We just did our street so we were pretty much done in about an hour which was right about the time that the big groups of kids were really hitting the neighborhood. G then spent the next hour and a half or so helping to pass out candy which she LOVED!!! G wore her costume and every time the doorbell would ring she would get this HUGE look of surprise and excitement on her face and run to the door as fast as her little legs would carry her. So cute!!!

In between groups, G sat on the floor and rearranged the candy by taking it out of the bag and putting it into the bowl, then from the bowl to another container, then stacking it on the floor, etc. At the end of the evening she was so tired and so happy. Yeah, success!!!

Happy little bee

Getting ready to go out

G loved wearing her costume

I loved the wings. The black maribou was so fun!

G playing with the candy

See the tongue?

BUZZ, BUZZ...
Today was October picture day. G looked as cute as can be in her little bumble bee outfit. She's still pretty uncooperative at the photo studio but we were able to successfully bribe her with some mini marshmallows. It was kind of a frustrating experience since they had no record of my appt which I made 3 weeks ago and the 15 mins that they quoted for printing the pix turned out to be over 40. But, I guess it was pretty worth it.

Yesterday we celebrated Casey's 19th birthday. It was a very low key affair, just family dinner out which is what he wanted. Its hard to believe he's 19, it doesn't seem possible.

Then tonight, my mom and I went to the first of our 2009/2010 season musicals. It was a tribute to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers with music and dancing from the 30s and 40s. Honestly, I wasn't looking forward to it much but it turned out to be very nice. I found myself singing along a bit to "Someone to Watch Over Me" which is one of my all time oldie fav's. Plus, its always nice to spend a little mom/daughter time.

Here are some of the proofs from our studio visit. Again, sorry for the watermark. The real ones always look so much better but you get the idea.

Little Miss Bossy Boots
Let me just say, Georgiana is a beautiful and sweet little girl. For the most part she's very kind to other kids and very gentle with pets. However, she can be a bit bossy when she's sees someone stepping out of line.

Bobby had to work yesterday morning so G and I had a mommy and daughter shopping trip to the mall! We hit all our fav's including Baby Gap, Naartjie, Gymboree and Children's Place and got G some super cute things for the fall season including a pair of silver shoes she latched on to and wouldn't let go! My girl loves the bling!!!

Anyway, G likes going to the Gymboree store the best because they have the TV area which she loves. I always let her sit there but keep a close eye just in case there's a bratty kid. But guess who's kid was the bratty one yesterday??? Yes, my dear sweet little thing that's who. Another little boy, about 2 or 3 was very nicely sitting in one of the chairs when G decided she didn't want him sitting in that chair or something and she started telling him "NO, NO" and pointing her finger at him. I made her stop. Then she was standing up in front of the TV and the little boy was saying "I can't see, I can't see" to which G responded by laughing. I told her to sit down and then had her say "sorry" to the boy which she did but only in a whisper.

This isn't her first attempt at controlling others. A few weeks ago we were in a shop and G was looking at things. She started to go back by the dressing rooms and I said "no, no honey" stay with me. A few minutes later another little girl, perhaps 3 or so, started walking back there and G said "NO, NO!" while pointing her finger at her.

That finger pointing thing I've seen before, she does it to the cats when they touch her toys and she doesn't want them to!!!! I'm not sure where she gets that. It can't be me, can it??

Maybe I can just blame it on all on the babysitter. ;-)

Here are some pix from this last week. Bobby picked up this cheapie tiara and wand set at the store for like $2 cuz he thought she'd like it. He was right! She points to it and says "crown please" and then has us put it on her head. Let me repeat, I'm not sure where G is getting this princessy type behavior from??? hmmmm. ;-)

21 mos, seriously??
I can't believe that today G is 21 mos old. Where does the time go?? Our little girl continues to grow by leaps and bounds. She uses lots of simple 3 word sentences now "I'll get it" "Thank you momma" stuff like that. Her pronunciation is pretty good for some things and not so good for others. She always says "grink" for drink. We've tried practicing "duh, duh, duh, drink" but she always replies "duh, duh, duh, grink!!"

She's still a great eater with her favorite foods being grapes, scrambled eggs and lasagna. Honestly though, she eats most things and is constantly hungry. She generally has a ziplock bag filled with cereal, gold fish crackers and craisins. Georgie's been off the bottle completely for about a month or so. She didn't really miss it too much.

She continues to make progress on the potty training. She's been doing really great for a little over 3 weeks or so with very few accidents. She has her last 4 teeth coming in and has been teething like crazy. Can you say DROOL!!!?? Yuck!

She's still a fantastic sleeper. We have developed a nice bedtime routine that she loves: vitamins, bath, brush teeth, lotion and comb hair, story time (usually 3 board books of her choosing), songs (Hush Little Baby, I Love You So Much, etc), then sleep! She likes her routine a lot! She's in bed asleep by 8 pm every night and starts to wake up anywhere between 6:45 and 7:30 am. She also takes a nap from about 1-3 most days.

G's growing steadily. She wears mostly 18 mos or 18-24 mos sized clothing and a size 5.5 or 6 shoe. She still loves choo choos and has been dragging around a picture of Thomas the Train she got in a video for the last 2 days. She's started trying to sing along with me when I do the ABC song, she counts ahead of me to 5 and knows some letter sounds. We've been working on colors which she's getting pretty good at. She always knows green, pink and yellow but she's not quite as consistent on most other colors. She knows her right and left everything foot, hand, ear, eye, etc. She likes to say rhyming words: dog, frog, wog. Her favorite song is Do You Know the Muffin Man.

Georgie loves to help! She helps by taking the cats their food plates and bringing them to me to wash when they're done. She helps daddy take out the trash and really enjoys helping to shake the bag open to put a new one in. She likes to wipe things and pick up while we sing "clean up, clean up."

She still loves the Ni Hao Kai Lan cartoon (she watches an episode almost every day). She's not terribly interested in most toys but does like her books and puzzles, kicking a ball, going for walks to collect rocks, leaves and seed pods (which she stuffs into her pockets) and playing with her stuffies. Her favorite lovey is her stuffed frog which she drags around the house with her pretty much all the time. G loves to smell flowers, splash in her bath and search for bugs in the yard with daddy.

She's just awesome!!! She's happy, talkative, noisy as can be and in non-stop climbing, giggling, screaming, jumping motion!!!

Here are some of the many faces of Georgie

This was the first day we got her hair into a pony tail!! She loved it and kept walking around saying "pony, pony" over and over and over again.

On a ride with Daddy at Skandia. She loves to wear her "gasses"

With her new dolly. She's stuffing a rock into her pocket so it doesn't get lost, too funny!

This is what G looks like when she laughs which is pretty much all the time... unless she's made. Then, its kind of the same face except, you know, angry :-)

Pumpkin patch!!!
I've been so excited about Georgie's first Halloween. We didn't meet her until December so we missed Halloween last year. I got her an uber cute pair of spooky overalls and a matching hairbow and went in search of a pumpkin patch to take her to. There was a neat one we used to go to when the boys were small but, alas, they built houses there and now its gone. We thought we would try the Irvine Regional Park. It was GREAT! They had a nice pumpkin patch, lots of photo stands, a straw bale maze, a not so scary haunted house, and a pony ride. And because all of Georgie's destinations require it, a choo choo!

It was a long day and Georgie had so much fun!!! She was the star of the pumpkin patch in her little overalls. Cute, cute, cute!! Georgie started out kind of whiney and clingy. I'm not really sure why but she didn't seem to have a lot of interest in the pumpkins and if she got even five feet away from me, she'd start whining and grab my leg. Ugh. So, we pressed on and rode the train andthe ponies, which she loved!! There's also a really nice little zoo inside the park with some bears, a coyote, several owls, and a wonderful petting zoo with lots of nice, calm goats for Georgie to pet and brush. Later in the day, when she was tired and a little silly, we went back to the pumpkins and then, she really liked them and had lots of fun!!! She's such a fickle little pickle my Baby G.

G checking out the train:

In the straw bale maze. The bird is fake but G liked to pretend it was biting her! Too funny!











G really liked the giant pumpkin!

She liked scratching the pumpkin which I really shouldn't have let her do. But on our first attempt at the pumpkin patch it was nice that something made her happy.



Georgie at the petting zoo. The goats were so nice. They had a no feeding rule which seemed to cut down on them attacking the kids.







Pumpkins, part 2: look how much happier she is!

A series of unfortunate events...
Ugh. You ever know you're going to have one of those days, the day before the actual day in question?

So, anyway... Casey calls last night. As soon as I saw his name pop up on the caller ID I knew something was wrong. He fell skateboarding and hurt his foot. He didn't think it was broken but he couldn't walk and had to be carried to his room. Apparantly he's gotten "really good at skateboarding" uhhh, yeah, that's why you fell, right??? OK, just kidding. Anyone can fall. It was late and he thought he might be feeling better so I told him I'd call him at 6:15 in the morning and if he still felt bad, I'd take him to the ER to make sure nothing was broken.

Of course, I couldn't sleep and started waking up around 5 am and then again every 5 mins until 6:15. I called, he didn't answer. I called, he didn't answer. Finally I get ahold of him and he says he thinks he needs to go. OK, there starts the day. from. hell.

I get there to pick him up and the security guy, James, tells us he's having a wheelchair brought around. I thought "oh my gosh, how helpful." We wait, and wait, and wait, nearly 30 mins. Finally security guard James comes walking by and says "sorry" can't help us, his supervisor said he couldn't and I need to go talk to someone else. So, I walk 10 mins through the campus to talk to his "supervisor" who turns out to be a couple of students behind a counter. Yeah, they can't help me either but are ever so helpful (NOT!!) and tell me I can go talk to another guy parked in a student services van across the way. Yeah, he couldn't help me either. Back to counter girls I go who still can't help me but provide me with a map to the building I need to go to to get the wheelchair myself. I'm pretty sure this is where I started swearing at people.

OK. So, now armed with my trusty map, I hike back to the car and drive 5 mins or so to the other side of the campus and park in Lot B like I'd been told. I hop out and walk 10 mins in search of the freaking building where they supposedly house the wheelchairs. I make it, check out a wheelchair (with just a signature BTW, which was weird in and of itself), roll the wheelchair 10 mins back to the car and then began considering "how the hell am I going to get this freaking wheelchair in my car???" First of all, its heavy as hell, second, its huge! So I pop the trunk and began unloading all my assorted crappola (stroller, blankets, a folding chair) into the back of the car, fold up the huge chair and eventually am able to maneuver it into my trunk. I jump in the car finally feeling pretty good about things and notice, I GOT A FREAKING PARKING TICKET!!!

Now I'm really pissed. Egads.

I drove back to the other side of the campus, hoisted the heavy-ass wheelchair out of the trunk and finally was able to pick up Casey. Fantastic, success!!!

Off we go to the ER where things actually improved. Things went relatively quickly (2 hours), xray came back OK, no break and away we went with a RX for some pain meds and a brand new pair of crutches.

Lets just say it was a LONG day and it didn't end there. I still had to go to work. Can you spell e.x.h.a.u.s.t.e.d?

One year ago... (part 1--DOR)
It was a crazy day. I'd been on RQ pretty much 24/7 for weeks looking for info and finally the day had arrived!! Referral day!!! I couldn't believe it. I was so nervous and excited I thought I was going to burst. About 11:30 in the morning, we saw G's face for the first time! I couldn't believe our good fortune. We received referral for the perfect little girl for us!!! On that day, we became a family of five.

A few weeks ago we had family pix done. During the 3 yrs we waited, I used to imagine having family pictures taken with the boys and my imaginary girl. Its weird the things I focused on sometimes. Anyway, it was fun to get pix of the 3 kids together plus its been years since I've gotten pix of Brett and Casey that were the crummy school variety.

They printed them in a finish they call "retro" --I tried to duplicate the look in photobucket with a little success but I think you can still get the idea.

Introducing the new and improved Crowells...