9 months

Loving the swings!

This month we've seen significant growth in Georgia's motor skills! She is growing up so quickly, its hard to believe.

Weight: 18 pounds, 3oz (done at home)
diaper size: 4
teeth count: 8
clothing size: some 6-9, mostly 9-12 or 12

Blackmail

It is so fun to see Georgia grow up, especially in two areas: social and physical. Socially, she is just like her daddy. She loves people - especially kids close in age to her and babies. She will spot them while she is in the stroller and will reach for them and "ooh" and "aah" until she gets close enough to touch them or they leave her sight. She will smile at strangers and loves getting the attention.

Most of the pictures I try to take now look like this. She could care less about "sitting still" or "looking at mommy!"

Physically, Georgia's motor coordination is amazing. She has great pincher grabs, able to pick up peas and teeny, tiny fuzzies off the floor. If you remember from last month, she had just learned how to sit. Well this month she learned how to go from her back to a sitting position, to crawling, and to standing up, couch surfing, and then to taking a couple of steps on her own. We've been busy, to say the least.

Showing off her crawling skills

Sleep:
Georgia is still a fairly good sleeper. We went through a rough patch when she was learning to stand up because all she wanted to do in her crib was stand. She would pull herself up, and be unsure of what to do next and so she'd cry and cry. If we laid her down again, she would cry even harder. It was taking about 1 hour for her to fall asleep for naps and bedtime. This lasted about a week. She has also dropped her third nap (sad for me!) but now takes two pretty solids naps a day. She wakes around 7:30 or 8 (!!!!) and takes her first nap around 10 and her second nap around 2 or 3. She then goes to bed around 7:30 or 8.

My still blue-eyed girl!

Eating:
She has become a champ at this! She eats pretty much anything we eat and her favorites are: lunch meat, eggs, cheese, meat (especially steak/ground beef) and humus. She is nursing really well, actually! She nurses a couple hours before she wakes up in the morning (around 6), either before or after her nap (depending on how much she ate at breakfast), before or after her 2nd nap, and then once or twice in the evening. She usually wakes up once or twice still at night to nurse.

wrestling with daddy

Fun stuff:
Georgia now knows that a doggie pants. And she can show you! She does get a bit confused because she has started panting when she sees any animal.... birds especially. Sometimes she confuses "daddy" with "doggie" and also starts panting when you say, "daddy's home" haha!
She loves books! Its so fun to have a reader in the house. She can spend lots and lots of time flipping through the pages, especially books that show pictures of animals.

Our trip to California, part 1

I know this will be a multiple-part series. I have probably over 1000 pictures from our trip. Don't worry... I won't subject you to that, but it does mean that a lot happened.

We left London on Thursday morning. Georgia was a bit grumpy in the car ride to the airport, and had been grumpy a couple of days previous, too. I think she was teething. The transit time is 17 hours, door to door (which is a very, very long time) and with the time change, its a 36 hour day. So. Long.

We had so much fun seeing our old friends. Georgia had some fun, too!

On the flight, we had two seats, and held Georgia in our lap. We do not travel lightly anymore and had three large carry-ons, plus the baby and stroller. Once on the plane, she did have a half hour nap right after we took off, and I breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't want to nurse at all. Not once. Thankfully I brought my pump, and it was a bit awkward with the business class people (who face backwards at those of us sitting in the first economy class seats) staring at me as I pumped (under a nursing cover).

We enjoyed the weather, walking to dinner on Friday night. Mmmm... American food!

Anyways, long story short, G did not eat or sleep. I put her in the Ergo and walked around and around the plane and she slept for about 30 minutes halfway through the flight. Once we landed and got in the car, she slept for about 30 minutes on the ride home. Needless to say, she was miserable. By the time we got to the Wallace house, she was crying. A lot. And she normally doesn't cry. We knew she was tired, so we tried to lay her down, and she just screamed.

The highlight of the trip was spending time with family.

She spent most of the night in our bed. She thought it was morning at 4am and spent an hour crawling between Dave and I, eventually falling back asleep curled up next to us. It took about 3 nights of this before she adjusted to the time change.

We had so much fun seeing everyone. We had a party on Saturday to see Dave's side of the family, and it was the first time all 7 great-grandchildren were together. Aren't they all so cute?!! Someday we'll move back here so all our kids can grow up together....

On Sunday, we went to our church and it was so good to worship with people and see everyone! After church, we headed down to the beach, because Dave's parents had rented a beach house for the rest of the week.Can I just say that there is nothing as relaxing as being at the beach?? Nothing! It was absolutely gorgeous. We went the perfect week. The week previous and the week after we were there it was about 10 degrees cooler and cloudy. We had sunshine and warm weather the whole week. Amazing!

More pictures from the beach to come....

this and that

• A "good" walk is now defined as one in which we see at least one doggie and chase a pigeon or two. Georgia loves seeing animals and will "ah" and "ah" until she can no longer see the doggie or birdie. She often sees them before I do, and I will know by her noises that she sees an animal (or another baby or kid close in age to her)
• I have FINALLY found a cheese here that I like!!! This is a huge step up in our quality of life. The cheddar cheese here does not taste like American cheddar cheese. But, there is a cheese called Red Leichester and its the only yellow cheese they have here. It is so yummy and tastes quite similar to Amerian cheddar.
• Oh yeah.. G took her first steps!  Isn't she too young for this? Where'd my baby go???   She still needs help getting into a standing position on her own, but once up, she can take one or two cautious steps before doing a head-dive. Yesterday was the first day she pulled herself up on her crib and the poor thing can't figure out yet how to sit. This is making nap times difficult!

ten months ago...

September 2010

Notice one baby and three pregnant ladies?? 

July 2011


Now there are 4 babies and one pregnant chica!

One of the highlights of our trip was seeing these wonderful people that we shared our lives with for 2 years. I'm not great at keeping in touch, but when we see them in person it feels like we never left. I love you guys!

ps - more vacation photos to come!

Rockin' it

Georgia is now rockin' 8 teeth. The first two broke through the end of June, two days before she turned 7 months. She has gotten one or two teeth every week or so since then.



I just thought you might want to celebrate with us and wish us many months until the teething starts up again ;-)

First time on swings

 This was Georgia's first time in a swing. As you can see, she loved it!

8 months

This post is a couple of days late, because I wanted to wait for our "official" weight and height from the appointment on today.

We had an extremely busy month. Grandpa Wallace was out in London for a work trip the very end of June, Dave had a work trip the beginning of July, then we went for 2 weeks to the States. We did a week with Dave's family (and our home church and friends) in California and then a week seeing my immediate and extended family in Wisconsin. 

It makes me so happy when Georgia gets to spend time with family ;-)

Weight: 18 pounds, 2 oz (50th percentile)

Height: 72.5 cm (28.5 in - above 90th percentile!)

Clothing size: some 6 months 6-9 months, and then mostly 9 or 12 month

Diaper size: 4 in the UK

bathtime beauty

Georgia has bloomed overnight. She has become a happy child (not that she wasn't before), and laughs a lot and smiles at everyone. It is so fun to see her personality! She tries to communicate with us by "talking" and fake-coughing, mimicking what Dave and I do. She also says something that sounds strangely like, "hi, dada!" She loves other kids, and will scream when she sees them, flaps her arms and tries to reach them. 

Georgia's first picture sitting, 4th of July weekend

That's right! She finally learned how to sit on her own!

This is a common face we see, it makes me anxious for her teenage years

Food:
She loves to eat! (solids, that is!). She loves American cheese (we haven't convinced her on the British stuff yet, but then again, we don't like it that much either), refried beans, rice (and she LOVED some spicy Indian rice she had the other night), bread and potatoes. When she's in the mood, she'll eat yogurt, baby food, raisins, bananas, and other fruit and veggies.




Nursing:
Still going, but unsure how much longer I can keep up. She has been unwilling to nurse during the day and instead wakes up 3 times to eat at night. I am tired, and she is hungry during the day. I'm not sure how to solve this problem, but hoping that as she gets older she'll need less nursing and more solids and it can take care of itself.

Sleep:
She is still loving her sleep! She takes 3 pretty regular naps a day, and goes to bed around 8pm, waking up between 7 and 8. She takes her first nap about two hours after she wakes up, her second one is around 12 or 1pm and her third one is around 3 or 4.
She loves making noise, so a metal bowl was perfect for banging on. She also had some spoons/measuring cups that she could play with.

She eats anything she can get her hands on, including pinecones at the park.


Her favorite thing in the world: walking

Activity: She loves playing with other kids. She watches them, yells at them, tries to touch them (or poke them), and is basically a big bully. She loves walking (with help), and this is her preferred method of transportation. She will roll and scoot her way around, and she also gets up on all fours, but can only rock back and forth. She loves playing peek-a-boo. She loves reading books. Her favorite books are a picture book I made that shows pictures of our family, and the other book is a Dr. Seuss book (for little kids). We read each of those books every day.





Picture in California, Grandma Wallace reading to Georgia before bed