GOBBLE, GOBBLE!!!
This was Georgie's first Thanksgiving!!! She had lots of fun playing with her brothers and eating snacks. She wasn't too interested in the actual dinner meal prefering instead to eat only biscuits. Whatever!!! Mommy didn't care too much. I was just very thankful to have her here with us.





She loved wearing her little turkey day outfit. Every once in awhile she'd point to her tummy and say "turkey, turkey" but mostly I think that she liked the fact that the skirt had pockets. G loves pockets!!!



I absolutely loved the turkey applique on the booty!!! Too funny!!


Reaching into her pocket


No turkey day outfit would be complete without a giant turkey bow :-)


and socks!!


Hanging out with Brett


and grandma


Casey took the opportunity to chill out since he was planning on working a 12 hour shift on black friday and saturday


Silly goof


The star of the show!

So many animals, so many people
Bobby and I both had Veteran's Day off work so we thought it would be fun to take G to the zoo, the LA Zoo, in fact. Apparantly, a LOT of other people had the exact same idea. Let's just say it was a bit crowded. Luckily, we got there early (so did a LOT of other people) and were in the zoo within 20 mins of it opening. The great thing about the zoo though is that it can be pretty crowded and its still fine. There are just a lot more people looking at the animals at the same time. Its been about 15 yrs since I've been to the LA Zoo and, to tell you the truth, I recalled it being somewhat shabby and old fashioned chain linky. But, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the majority of the animal habitats were fairly modern and pretty nice.

The good news was the weather was absolutely perfect for the zoo and the animals. It was cool and overcast so the animals were quite a bit more active than they often are. G loved looking at the hippo "hippo swimming!!" the snow leopards "big kitty" the giraffes "g'waf, loooong neck" and the monkeys "swinging, ooh, ooh, ee, ee." Super cute!!!

Even with the crowd, it was a really nice day and I think we got out just in time. When we were walking out, there were HUGE crowds of people walking in. G crashed as soon as we got in the car. I guess looking at animals is really hard work for a little girl.

Here are some pix of the day. G is her normal cutie patootie self wearing one of my all time favorite Naartjie outfits and tights. And, again, yes she wore her little beret all day. She's so funny.


G was definitely happiest riding on Daddy's shoulders!







G loved this gorilla sculpture. I had to practically drag her away from it because there was quite a line of people forming who wanted to take pix by it also.

Georgiana's day out with Thomas!
G loves trains. I mean really truly loves them. Somehow I came across the Day out with Thomas thing and bought the tix some time ago. Of course, G needed a super cute Thomas themed outfit to wear for the event :-) Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a girly Thomas outfit?? I'll tell you, its tough. I was lucky to find someone on etsy to make it. Then I ran across the crown!! Yeah, so fun!


G was such a little trooper waiting patiently for the train to come. The Thomas thing is really cute but, honestly, once you get on the train and its starts moving, its kind of like being on a bus. G didn't care. She smiled for the entire 25 mins of the train ride while bopping her little head along to the Thomas music they had piped in. She was in heaven.


The train museum where they hold the event is very clever. When we got off the train we were forced to walk through the retail tent in order to get back to the stroller parking area. G was so funny. When she walked into the tent and saw the rows and rows of Thomas stuff she went a bit nuts. She started grabbing the stuff and shaking and hugging it and laughing and laughing. OMG I thought I was going to die it was so funny. I've never seen her respond to a retail experience in such a way!


I was also surprised that G was willing to stand by the character guy Mr. Topham Hat. He's pretty big and kindy creepy. But she liked him. We looked at him from a distance for awhile and I asked her if she'd like to shake his hand and she said "yes." She saw that painted on smile and proclaimed him to be "happy"

It was really a fun day. And, because I know you're wondering, the answer is yes, G wore the hat ALL day. She wouldn't take it off! My girl does love her accessories! So, so cute.

All decked out with in her Thomas gear and shades and ready to go!

They had this little fake train and G just loved sitting in it. I think even if we hadn't taken a ride on the real train she would have been just as happy.

Here she is holding hands with Mr. Topham Hat

Luckily we were well prepared and brought our own whistle with us. G pretty much blew that thing for the entire 25 min trip.

G inspecting the available wares. She's a very discriminating shopper apparantly :-)

Waiting for pix with Thomas. She's such a little cutie!

Daddy and G with Thomas

Mommy's turn!

G in front of a very old rust train something or other.

In the petting zoo. The tent top must have been red causing the pix to have this overall red tint. Before I print them I'll have to figure out if I can get rid of some of that. Hmmm, photo shop.



Ahhh, she had a tough day. Sweet little Thomas the Train princess.

22 mos old!
I meant to post this the other day, on the 7th, when G was exactly 22 mos old but I've been really under the weather. I haven't had to miss work or anything but by the time we get G to bed in the evening I've been EXHAUSTED and crashing out without having energy to post. So, here we are just a few days late.

22 mos is a huge milestone for us because as you may or may not recall, we met G when she was exactly 11 mos old. Until this month, we'd always missed more of her life than not which I accept as just being the way it is but still, it was kind of sad to me. 22 mos old marks the crossover. We've now known her more than half her life! She is such a beautiful, precious girl. I cannot even imagine living my life without her in it.

G's personality continues to develop. I remember when we first placed in her daycare I was sooo worried that she'd be squished because she seemed so timid. Well, that timid girl is a thing of the past --I'm not even completely sure she ever existed. She's not pushy but she definitely seems able to hold her own.

G is funny and fairly outgoing although naturally a little suspicious of new people. She can also be a bit mischievious. G really enjoys her little friends from daycare and has begun telling us things about her day in the evening. For instance, a few weeks ago at dinner G said "Preston, time out" so we started asking her about it and she repeated it several times telling us "Preston, naughty." The following day I asked our babysitter about it and, sure enough, Preston had gotten a timeout the day before! Too funny.

G's language has been steadily improving. She now regularly uses 3 word sentences and will often use as many as 6 words to convey her thoughts. "Georgie doesn't want to do it, mama!" is a fav of hers :-) Her pronunciation has REALLY improved which is nice. Last month I had written that G would say "grink" for drink but just a day or so later she figured it out and withing just a few days her overall speech became at least 50% more clear! Its been super helpful for us obviously.

G can count up to 11 now but for some reason often skips over 6 and says 7 as "second" which cracks me up. She's been getting a little more successful on her attempts to sing along to the songs I sing with her like "hush little baby," the abc song, etc. Her favorite song is still "The Muffin Man" which she likes for me to replay in the car over and over and over. I think our record was like 13 times in a row before she stopped saying "Muffin please" as soon as the song would end--uh, yes, I counted cuz I was wondering when the agony would come to an end.

G's been cutting her last 4 teeth which has been really tough on her. Three of them have finally broken through but there were several weeks there when she had a fever, chewed on one of her fingers until the skin started to peel, and drooled like crazy. Yuck right?

Anyway, that's a little summary on G right now. She's so darned cute, I could just go on and on about her but I'll stop now and we can get to some pix!

Like most moms, I love gymboree clothes. I really love their new Holiday Panda line especially the panda shoes. I couldn't quite rationalize spending $30 on a pair of panda shoes though. I mean, how many times can a girl wear panda shoes, right? But then, gymbo had their 30% off sale and I could no longer resist. G loved the shoes so much she put them on right away and didn't want to take them off. She wore them all day in the house occasionally breaking out into a little jig and saying "panda shoes." She even took a nap in them!!! When she woke up she saw my camera and said "picture, please" which sounds more like "pichur peese" --never one to pass up a photo opportunity, out the front door we went to get pix of G in her new shoes.

I love this picture!!!


G's in constant motion:




Close up of the uber cute "panda shoes"


My beautiful happy girl!

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?