Found it!

Today I had to return overdue books to the library. Ugh. I'm totally blaming it on the library's computer system that didn't tell me the books were overdue until they were 3 days late.  (and they didn't even send me the "warning you have books due in a couple days email")

Anyways, while Georgia was eating breakfast, I was trying to collect the books and get everything organized so we could get out the door. I could NOT find one book. I looked twice in Georgia's bookshelf. I looked in our bookshelf and in her toy bins around the house, trying to find it.

I hadn't seen it in a couple days. I know it was a book Georgia had enjoyed, so I asked her about it. She said she didn't know. She finished eating and I got her out of her chair. I started getting dressed and finished getting everything together.  All of a sudden she comes out of her room saying, "Fount it!" Sure enough it was the correct book. I still don't know where it was, but I am just amazed that she understood the title of the book I was looking for, and knew where it was (or remembered what it looked like!)

There's a lot going on in this little fashionista's brain!

2-years old!

Georgia's first wedding

This is obviously quite late. Georgia has been two for over a week now. The reason I am hesitating to post this is that I want to do a "photo-shoot" with her, and haven't gotten to that yet. Oh well! I will try to write about her being two and when I get to taking pictures, I will post them.

She loves being like mommy

Height: 36.5 inches
Weight: 30 pounds
Shoes: 8

Helping mommy make some cookies - probably eating more marshmallows than we used in the cookies 

Speaking: It is amazing the transformation that has happened over the last couple months. Georgia has always had a high vocabulary, but just recently has started putting words together to make sentences. Now, most of the time she speaks in 3+ word sentences. She learns words so quickly, some new ones are "snowman" and "Christmas trees" and "playground", "jamies" and so on. I am guessing she has a vocabulary of 500+ words.

Georgia and her friend Sadie walking in the Christmas "stroll"

Sleeping: Her sleeping still isn't where I want it to be. She wakes up once a night, I think mostly because her diaper is soaking wet. She sleeps from 8pm to 7 or 8am, and then wakes up once from 4:30-6:30 and will go back to sleep after that. Her naps have been a struggle, with her sleeping only 1.5 hours most days - and taking up to an hour to fall asleep.

playing in the rain

Loves: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, stuffed animals, playing pretend, naked time, coloring and painting, nail polish, McDonalds playplace, whatever she can do to be like mommy (pushing a shopping cart around, putting on makeup, nail polish and wearing my shoes)

Hates: bugs, spiders, bees 

She LOVES the beach and asks that we go almost every day

Breakfast the day of her birthday - notice her Mickey Mouse balloon ;)

Daddy come back!

I have not been very good about updating my blog.... I'm going to try to do more often, shorter posts, especially now that Georgia is talking a lot more! She sure says some cute things that I'd like to remember.

Georgia snuggling with Dave just a couple minutes after she woke up from a nap.

Dave left for a short business trip on Sunday. He was just driving an hour away or so, and came back today (Tuesday). We told Georgia that he was leaving during lunch, a half an hour or so before he left. The first thing she said, (looking straight at Dave), was, "Daddy, come back!" And of course he reassured her that he would be coming back. She repeated it maybe 10 times throughout that half hour, and gave him a kiss goodbye before he left ;)

She just loves her daddy so much!

Almost 2....

Aunt Kate visited us in London while Dave was on a business trip.... we went hunting for some Autumn colors.

Well, our little one is not so little. In one month she's going to be two! Where have the last two years gone? This month has been very busy around here. We started the month in London, Kate came to visit us as Dave was on a business trip. We had about a week then after Dave returned in which the movers came and we packed out belongings and said goodbye. We flew across the ocean and spent a week living in Dave's parents house while we found a rental and took our belongings out of storage. We have now been living in our new house for a little over a week. I'll try to post some more about our new place on the blog (eventually). All in all, Georgia did really well. The jet lag was again terrible. The flight was probably the best one yet! (Thanks to the iPad). She has remained upbeat, and is finally back to herself, after a couple weeks of craziness and sleep deprivation.

The Baby Ballet class that Georgia loved attending in London

Weight: 28.2 pounds (lost a pound... either due to an inaccurate scale or the fact we haven't been having as regular meal times yet due to our move)
Height: 36 or 36.5 inches

This has been a month of sitting on the potty! Lots of successes this month

Diapers: potty training! Woohoo! This has been a month-long process, started by the little bugger a week before our move. I have had a potty in our house since March or so, and with plenty of naked time around here, she just decided to start using it one day. We go diaper-less around the house, and wear diapers for bedtime. We just started leaving the house for short increments of time with underpants on. So far, so good! She does both businesses in there, although seeing poop in the toilet the first couple times was traumatic.

We took Georgia to the children's zoo in London before we left

Sleep: Georgia seems to be sleeping really well. Now that we're done with the jet lag, she has been going to bed from 8pm to 8am ish. She does wake up once anywhere from 4:30am-5:30am. Now that we're more in a routine and eating good dinners again, I'm going to be working to eliminate this middle of the night wake-up. She has been taking long naps! I think this new house wears her out a little more as it is bigger with more room to run and play. She has been napping most days for 3 hours.

Georgia's new best friend, French Fry

Activity: Our new home is right by a cute downtown area. We have been walking down there to get ice cream or coffee. We have been running lots of errands - buying things for our home and trying to fill our fridge. Georgia is getting used to being in a car seat and does really well. We went to the beach once, and now Georgia is asking to go again. We have several friends her age that we've seen a couple of times. We see our family quite often - Dave's brother and his wife live in the house directly behind us. We have joined Puggles - part of the Awana program - at our church. We have many things to do and people to see, and our schedule is actually quite busy already. I think Georgia is enjoying seeing people and places, but we do need to fall into our rhythm soon.

Georgia's favorite tree at Grandma & Grandpa's house: the orange tree that always has oranges on it for her to eat!

22 months!

Well, having an almost-2-year-old just keeps getting better and better! Georgia is so much fun, and we just love having her around. This month she has started using the potty (she has gone 3 times the last couple days!) and she is talking up a storm. Its so fun to be able to communicate with her, and she is very able to tell me what she's thinking about.

Weight: 29.2 pounds
Height: 36.5 inches
Still waiting on the 2-year molars
Size 7 shoes

Sleep: We had an up and down month. The first part of the month, she slept great! Sleeping through the night, we had a growth spurt that included 4-hour long naps. Life was great! The last half of the month, she's had a lingering cough that was waking her up at night. Poor thing, coughing fits that would go on and on and I just imagine her throat was pretty sore. Anyways, she was waking up twice (or more) at night. Its only been the last two days or so that her cough has gone away, and her sleeping habits are slowly improving.

Eating: We've figured out that the more she eats, the better she sleeps. She is all-in-all a fairly good eater, but we've been trying to get her nice and full at night. So, after Dave and I are done eating, we sit at the table and read books to her and shovel more food in her mouth. She still absolutely loves corn and asparagus.

Nursing: Still going strong. She now clarifies that she wants "mama's milk".  I think that we will probably end this period of our lives after our move next month. Not sure how that really is going to happen because she doesn't seem to want to quit.

Activity: We started baby ballet again this fall (we did it for a month in the spring). Its amazing to see how much better she is at following directions and being able to do all the moves - walking on tip toes, jumping, twirling around, etc.

Memory/Understanding: We have started telling her that we are going to move back to the US. I really don't know how much she can understand, but she tells me at least twice a day (while pointing up to the sky), "plane! Nana, Baba, Fry!" I have to tell you the emphasis is on French Fry. She will say this whenever she sees a plane in the sky, or if I mention Nana or Baba.

Talking: Her word explosion continues! She talks about her friends, what she did that day, tells me what she wants to do, what she wants to eat, and so on. She still mostly talks in one and two word "sentences" but occasionally she'll put more words together. One phrase she says a lot: "Georgia do it!" She knows colors (but mixes up blue and purple), numbers - and can actually read them (if she sees a 5 will say, "five"), and most of her shapes. She doesn't know how to count in order yet - she still often says, "five, eight, nine".

TV/Ipad - she has too much screen time. Right now, in this time in our lives, I have rationalized it because of the difficulty of playing with her due to moving and cleaning. The weather is cold and rainy much of the time now, and it is difficult to send her outside to play. She absolutely loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and most of the time I live with the "hot dog" song stuck in my head. The other show she likes is Shaun the Sheep - a little kid version of Wallace & Gromit.

Big day!

The last couple days have been just a lot of fun. The days that its easy to be a mom. Georgia is happy (although not sleeping great), she is talking up a storm. She is getting to the age where she is learning so many new words that sometimes I don't even know what she is saying! Her personality just is shining through, and she is so goofy and curious and stubborn all at the same time.

Right before her nap, Dave and Georgia and I were all upstairs, and I was about to change her diaper and put her in bed. She started yelling, "badaba out-ide!, badaba, badaba!" Dave and I were just giving each other inquisitive looks, trying to figure out what she was saying. "Do you want to go outside?" "No." And all of a sudden she just leaves the room and goes downstairs, yelling, "badaba!" and then I remember. Spiders. She usually calls spiders "spadaba". When she comes back upstairs we ask her, "are there spiders outside?" "Yes!" She has inherited her moms hatred of those 8-legged creatures.

I have been preparing her for our move back to California. Pretty much all I've told her is that we're going to go on a plane in a couple weeks and live nearby Grandma, Grandpa and French Fry. I didn't really think she caught on until the last couple of days. She will see an airplane and will immediately shout out, "Fry! Nana! Baba! Plane!" And I reassure her that yes, we will see French Fry in a couple weeks ;)

This morning she was running around naked. She actually does this quite a bit. (don't all kids like to be naked?) I had gone upstairs to change and she was calling me and I went back downstairs to find that she had peed (just a little) on the couch, and now was sitting on her little potty. I reminded her gently that next time she needs to pee in the potty, and I went back upstairs. Well, two minutes later I hear her yelling, "poop!" and I come running downstairs. She is in the kitchen. No poop. Thankfully. She then tells me, "potty!" and I go with her to her potty. And its full! She had actually peed in her potty. This is the first time its happened, although we've had lots of naked time the last month or so. She seems to have the worlds biggest bladder (no joke - will only pee once a day, during her nap). Ok... now that you know way more about her bladder than you need to, isn't it just fun? A little girl that is learning to pee on the potty. We got to call (and wake up) her Aunt Kate to share the good news. I'm sure Kate was thrilled with her 1am wakeup call.

Lastly, a video from last night. In order to get her to eat a little more (short attention span and doesn't want to sit at the table for more than 10 minutes), we read books to her after Dave and I are done eating. She can read her numbers, and knows all her animal names. And her colors. I know I'm her mom, but isn't she just cute?

Answers

A while ago, I posted that we were trying to figure out what comes next after our stint here, in London. Dave had originally signed a 2-year contract. We have honestly been thinking about our options since probably January. We have talked about them. We have turned down opportunities. And we finally know what we are doing next. We still don't know all the details - like where we'll be living a month from now... haha!

We do know that Dave is taking a job at Pomona College in Claremont, overseeing their endowment. He accepted their offer last week and turned in his resignation at World Vision. Please continue to pray for us as this month is going to be absolutely crazy! We have some last minute shenanigans planned with our friends (going to Wales for 4 days), Dave has a week-long trip to the Caribbean (and yes, I am extremely jealous, but one of us has to stay here and do some actual work!), then we have a week to pack/clean and we leave! We have movers coming the second week of October and will fly home to the US sometime around the 14th or 15th of October. Dave will start his new job the following week.

Please pray for us as we begin this new transition - selling and packing items in the UK, saying goodbye to friends, finding a house, figuring out how to furnish the house, waiting for our shipment from the UK (probably won't get all our things until the beginning of December), figuring out cars, staying in hotels and short-term housing until we find a place to live, flights, dealing with jet lag once again and on and on. Now... to take picture and list the items we need to sell!

Adventures of travling with a toddler

Georgia has now been on 8 trans-Atlantic flights (the shortest of which is 8 hours long). She has been on 21 flights altogether (I hope I'm counting right) and has visited 4 countries. She is also an expert train/bus/tube traveler as we live in London and don't have a car.

Honestly, she does pretty good. She does. The hardest thing about traveling with her is the jet lag. When we finally get to where we're going - 17 hours door to door when we fly from London to Los Angeles - then we have an 8 hour time difference, meaning that our little angel wakes up at 3 in the morning for the first few mornings we're in our new time zone. And on the way home, we have just the opposite - a tired toddler who refuses to sleep until 3am.

Some things that make airline flights more do-able:
1) have a seat for Georgia. She is not yet 2, meaning that she does not need her own seat on the plane. We have not yet bought her a seat. Although - when flying internationally, we have to pay taxes for her. It ends up costing about 10% of an adult ticket. We have gotten very lucky when flying though, and often ask when we check in and when we get to the gate if there is an extra seat on the plane and try to rearrange our seats so that we can have three seats for the three of us. This works for us more than half of the time. Other times, the plane is full, so we just have to live with having Georgia on our laps.

2) we take the car seat with us. Part of this is because we will need it when we arrive in our destination. But, it is also nice to have on the plane. Poor Dave lugs it through the airport (it probably weighs 30 pounds), and we can set it up on the plane if we have an extra seat. We bought a car seat that was very narrow so that it fits on the plane seats. We can use it when we need to just have a break. Put her in the carseat, give her a book or the ipod and she is ready to go!

3) We fly economy plus. More legroom is a bonus

4) We try to strategically plan which seats we have. When flying from Chicago to Los Angeles, our flight was supposed to be at 7pm. It left late - around 9 or 10, meaning we didn't get into LA until close to midnight. I was really worried about how that was going to be with Georgia, but it ended up being one of the best flights we've taken with her! The reason for that was we were in the very front of the plane. No one was in front of us. We had a good 3 feet between our seats and the wall. Georgia fell asleep in my arms and I was able to make a bed for her using the pillows and blankets and she slept on the floor for over an hour of the flight.

5) Lots of toys/books/electronics. When flying I bring the biggest bag possible. I have to admit its a pain. But, it makes the flight much easier. I brought little tubs of playdough. Coloring books, crayons, magic markers (the ones that only work on the specific paper), sticker books, books, ipod, ipad, and Georgia's baby doll. And lots of food. Because Georgia doesn't have a seat, they don't give her food. And on an 8+ hour flight, that is a long time to go without eating! So I pack yogurts, cereal, fruit, a cup for milk (flight attendants will give you milk before take off if you ask them!), and lots of snack type things. Pretty much, the more things I have with me, the better! It is sure a hassle to try to take things in and out of the bag, and keep it organized, but having lots of things to play with makes for a happier toddler.

6) Walking the aisles. When all else fails, Dave and I take turns walking up and down the aisles with her. I doubt the other passengers like this - Georgia is so social that she loves tapping on everyone's legs and saying "Hi!" to them, even when they're sleeping. But, you have to admit that people would prefer to have a happy child on the plane with them, rather than one that is crying.

7) Dealing with jet lag: Pretty much nothing I can do about it! It just sucks. There are those miracle children who sleep whenever and wherever. I don't have one of them! Georgia has a very good body clock and it wakes her up at 8am, British time. That means that even if it is 3am in California, and she only slept 6 hours that night and is exhausted from traveling the day before.... well.... she's up anyways! Honestly I don't know how to deal with jet lag other than realizing that it will not last forever. We try to put her down for naps when she is tired, and we try to encourage sleep by keeping the room dark and quiet. We've even tried to drug her (benedryl) which I honestly couldn't tell if it worked or not. The other tip is to sleep when your child is sleeping! When we landed in Chicago and I put Georgia to bed at 6pm, I also went straight to bed because I assumed she would be up bright and early. Well, I was correct, and we all woke up at 4am. The only way I survived those first few days was by going to bed right around the time that Georgia fell asleep.

8) certain ages are easier to deal with than others. When your child is an infant 0-5 months, travel is relatively easy. The child sleeps relatively easily, just drinks milk, and doesn't need any entertaining. We found the most difficult trip with Georgia when she was 11 months old. She was just starting to walk, hated to be confined, and her attention span didn't last more than 1 or 2 minutes. She didn't quite understand TV or ipads yet, so had a lot of trouble entertaining her. This last trip, at 18 months was the easiest one we've had yet. Georgia was easily entertained by the ipad and the TV on the flight. She also understands that she is tired and doesn't fight sleep quite as much. Honestly, I cannot wait until she is 5 or 6! I will be so excited to just sit back and relax while she reads a book or watches a movie on her own. Now that will be the life!

21 months

I have to say that this month has just flown by. Surprising! Coming back from a month of vacations, I expected this month to drag by, but the weather has been nice and warmish, and we have been able to enjoy the Olympics and be outside quite a bit.

I'm smiling just like Georgia... when she does her goofy smile

Weight: 27.2 pounds
Height: Somewhere between 35 and 36 inches. Measured by myself at home.... doesn't work too great with a wiggly toddler!
Shoes: size 7

This month was a little unusual for us - Georgia had a lot of babysitters! Dave and I went to two Olympic events, and we left Georgia one day for 8 hours, and the other day for 5 or so. Another day, Dave and I ventured into the city and left Georgia with another friend for 4 hours. She actually has done amazingly - according to our friends she doesn't cry at all (okay, only when one of them put her in bed.... and that was only for a minute or two!).

Georgia and Annabelle at the park

We also started doing some night weaning. We had a couple nights in a row where I was gone in the evening and Dave put her in bed using a cup of warm milk. She actually did great and started sleeping through the night! We have been putting her in bed now with milk (instead of nursing) for about 3 weeks. She seems to be doing great and actually sleeps a whole lot better (my favorite part about this month!)

Her favorite word this last week has been "NO!" which is usually directed at some unknowing child on the playground. Sharing is not one of her strengths. That "No!" has come in handy though, for example, when an older kid was trying to give her an unwanted hug.

So proud of how full her mouth is (well, it isn't really, in this picture....) 

Georgia had her first sentence this month! She said, "More peach" and I started jumping up and down with joy! Since then she has been using a lot of two words together, and even a couple times has used three words together. Her vocabulary is growing by 5+ words a day and will often try to say any words that Dave or I use. Another phrase she said this morning was, "Bee! hold me!" when she saw a gnat flying around the kitchen. (She is terrified of bugs). I estimate her vocabulary to be at 150 words right now.

Tantrums are right around the corner for us. Georgia is quickly becoming very opinionated (did I mention she is strong-willed?) and will either shout "No" at us when we want her to do something she doesn't want to do, or will break down and cry. Its very difficult for her to sit in her highchair for all of dinner and she had a couple minute cry during the middle of dinner last night when we wouldn't let her get down.

She has been using her own name tons! She uses it when she wants to do something by herself (with no help from mom or dad) or when she wants to play with a toy that someone else is playing with. She will go up to the child and wait for a minute, then say, "Georgia" and then try to take the toy. Its like she's asking if they can share with her. I'm thankful she is nice about it, but most of the time the other child isn't too happy to share with her.

An example of a tantrum. She wanted to go walk to see the ducks and mom wanted to take a picture. 

Georgia knows about four shapes by name (heart, oval, circle and triangle) and more often than not she can name the correct colors of things (she knows yellow things, sometimes gets the other colors right). She also knows probably 4 letters: M, K, T, D. She doesn't know those by name, but rather the M is for Mommy and the K for Kate or Ky, likewise the T for Teresa or Tim.

Singing Songs

Georgia has a love of music, which is really fun for everyone who spends time with her because she will often break out in song.  One of her favorite songs is "The Wheels on the Bus". She inserts people/animals/things into the song. 

For example: "The Matt on the bus goes talk, talk, talk," or she might say "The baby on the bus goes eat, eat, eat". She is very peculiar about what it is we're singing about and the action they're doing. Some of her more unusual ones include, "The neck on the bus goes tickle, tickle, tickle" and "The oatmeal on the bus goes eat, eat, eat" It is a fun song to sing because most of the verses include people: Matt, Kyan, Nana, Baba, Kate, Avery, Annabelle, Nathan, Georgia, Mama, Dada, and the list can go on and on.

She is also getting really good at her ABCs. She has always loved the tune - she started singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star many months ago. Most of the time there weren't words in it.... just the tune. And then she substituted one word in the song: Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, etc (sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle). And then she did the same with Daddy. Now she sings the ABCs. Here is a video of that. Its a little noisy. I took it in the car, and I couldn't let her see my phone otherwise she would stop singing. This was taken about a month ago, and you can imagine how much better she is at it now!

Immediate differences

After living in the UK for almost 2 years now, whenever we travel back to the US, I find the differences in culture glaring. Here's a few differences that I noticed this last trip.

1. I was shocked when I paid for something in US dollars and received 10 bills back and hardly any coins. In the UK, most of the time you get coins back when you pay in cash because the smallest bill they have is a 5. Coins in the UK are worth quite a bit, and although they are big, I can use them often. In the US, I had bills filling up my wallet!

2. One of the first things we noticed were how large the people were in the US. There are fewer overweight people in the UK (probably because of lifestyle differences and smaller portion sizes), although I would say most everyone in the UK is "normal". Most people wear little or no makeup and wear normal (yet European) clothing. There are of course the party/youth crowd which is a little different.

3. Wow did we travel.  I know that we don't have a car in the UK, but still I don't think we walked anywhere while we were in the US! We brought Georgia's stroller, but we didn't use it at all the entire time we were in the US. It was really nice to have it for the airports though. Seriously we drove everywhere and everyday several times. Everything is so spread out - church is 10 miles away, the grocery store is 1 mile, the mall is 10 miles, the park is 2 miles. The lifestyle in the US is just completely opposite to the one we have in the UK. In the UK, I rarely go outside of my 1-mile circle. There are 5 grocery stores within a 1-mile radius (although two of them are the size of a 7-11). Our church is literally across the street from our house.

4. Sizes! Sizes of everything are different. We were shocked more than once on the size of drinks, the size of food portions at restaurants, the size of cars, the size of the roads, the size of houses, and on and on. Honestly when we came back to the UK, I felt like a giant living in a small house. I know I've talked about how small our home is here in comparison, but I should do a post on houses sometime ;)

20 months

Sorry this is a couple days late. We have had a month of vacations and only got back home a couple days ago. I have to say that Georgia is a wonderful traveler - she completed her 4th round trip international flight! Honesty, I don't think we could ask any more of her. I will have to have a blog post soon about traveling (especially flights) with her.

Georgia loves dogs!

Weight: 27 pounds
Height: 34.5 or 35 inches (95% still)
Clothing: 24 months or 2T, some 3T (but they're big on her)
Teeth: still waiting on 2-year molars. I think they're beginning to bother her as she's been chewing on her hands, and has seemed to have a bit of trouble sleeping on occasion (although it could be travel-related, too).

Sleep: This one has been all over the place because of traveling. Most nights she was waking up 3-4 times.  I really hate jet lag. Georgia really suffers from it and has trouble sleeping at night when we travel. Naps though are usually quite long.

She loves climbing! Daddy said he didn't help her very much... he only worked as a spotter

Nursing: I am so glad that I am still nursing Georgia. Really, I have no clue what I'd do if I wasn't. We mostly nurse at night, and it helps calm her down and put her back to sleep when she is jet lagged. I mean, what else are you supposed to do when your child is waking up at midnight, 2am, 3am, 5am and you're staying in a hotel in a random city? Once she settles back to the right time zone, I am going to start the process of weaning her.

Her first time wearing a life vest! We went on a boat while in Wisconsin this month

Talking: It is amazing the changes she has made this past month. It is so fun seeing her grow in this area. When she is getting ready for bed, she has started to talk more and more to me (as we nurse). She often says peoples names as if she is remembering her day - who she saw, what she did. She is quite funny and we're starting to have conversations. For example, she'll fart and then say "diaper" (her word to tell us that something is going on down there) and I'll say "that's okay! everyone farts". Then she'll say, "daddy?" and I will reply, "yes, daddy farts." She'll think for a minute then say, "nana?" and I'll say, "yes, nana farts". This goes on and on until she lists everyone she knows.

Georgia kept asking Kyan to jump with her

Memory: I am continually shocked at how good Georgia's memory is. She remembers her friend Avery who used her potty seat way back the beginning of June. In the Wallaces neighborhood, there is a house that has a few goats. There are two different ways to get to the Wallaces house, and she knew when we were on the street with the goats and would ask about them.

We had a lot of pool time in California

Favorite things: Georgia is still a people person. She loves making new friends and now learns names quickly. In the morning when she wakes up she asks about her friends. When she draws pictures, she tells us she is drawing specific people. The other thing she just absolutely loves right now is climbing and jumping. She jumps off stairs, jumps off couches and chairs. She can climb into her highchair. She knows how to use the cargo net at the park.

playing in the water in California

19 months

Well, another month has crept up on me. This month was crazy busy, Dave being on a work trip, Jon & Gail visiting, and my brother visiting. Georgia is talking up a storm and testing every limit possible.

Weight: 26.4 pounds
Height: 34.5 inches (I think.... I'll have to double-check this later)
Shoe size: She has mostly outgrown the 6's that she has and is wearing 7s now.

Language: Her word development continues to explode! She now tries to say anything you ask her to say. She is very good with names - making names for people she meets and remembering their names at a later time. Some new words this month: sugar, turkey, rock, up, down, boat, stop, go, milk, ice cream. Estimated words: 75

Eating/Sleeping: She is loving fruit! Watermelon, peaches, and raspberries are always a hit with her! Sleeping: She has slept through the night a handful of times this month. The other nights, she is usually up once around 4am. Still not quite sure why.... I usually end up changing her diaper and giving her just a little bit of milk. She will then sleep until 7:30 or later (8:30 this morning!). She does 1-nap a day, for anywhere from 1.5 hours to 3 hours long.

Activity: She is learning to run very fast! Now she bolts the opposite direction when we're on walks. She loves TV (unfortunately...) and will occasionally watch it while I do some cleaning up or showering. Her favorite toys are puzzles, and she loves going to the park. Usually her first words when she wakes up are "walk?" or "Park!". She also knows the directions to the park and will get upset if we go the wrong way or towards the park that doesn't have a playground. She has learned how to climb into her highchair by herself.

Memory: I am amazed at how much she remembers. For example: a little friend of hers used her potty about a month ago, and for about 3 weeks every time she saw the potty she said her friends name as if to remind me that her friend used her potty. She also knows that tomorrow, Gail, Jon, Matt and Kyan are coming to visit. I told her about a week ago and everyday she asks about them. She can also name all four of them if you were to ask her who will come visit us.

Other stuff: We had our first experience with a poopy diaper off in her crib... fun...
Speaking of diapers, she doesn't leave them on anymore. I have to put pants or underpants on over her diaper. She likes trying to up and down our stairs without help.

Weather in London

Honestly, if I could change one thing about this country, it would probably be the weather. Having lived through 2 winters here, I have discovered that I have seasonal depression. And unfortunately, that seasonal depression can hit at any time, because the weather here is rarely "good".

Last year, we had three warm weeks that I remember: one in April, one in June and this photo was from October

Do you think I'm exaggerating? Well, according to this (and I read it in other places, too), London gets 1461 hours of sunlight a year. That would be, on average, 4 hours of sun a day! This is 35% less than Seattle, at 2174. Chicago gets almost double the amount of sun we get, and Los Angeles gets maybe 2.5 times as much as us. Still, you have to understand what London is like to understand how bad it is during the winter. During the winter, our daylight hours are around 8. The sun will "rise" at 8am and sets at 4pm. Many of those days are completely overcast and gloomy. We can go days without seeing the sun at all. The days the sun is out, it is astounding how early it gets dark. Even though the sun sets around 4, because the sun just skims our horizon, it'll start setting closer to 3.

Georgia not looking too happy with being outside in April. We had a long 6-week cold/rain spell. Temperatures in the 40s and rainy. Not fun.

Now one of the reasons that the amount of sunlight is so high is because of the summer. The summer is the exact opposite of the winter. The sun is currently rising around 4:45am (and we still have a month to go until the longest day of the year) and will set around 9 tonight. That is easily 15 hours of sunlight on a day that it is not cloudy. Several days in a row of sunshine and warmth quickly add up to 100 or 200 hours of sunlight. Also, quite often in the spring and fall, we will wake up to gloomy, cloudy skies and around 4 or 5pm the sun will finally come out, giving us 3-4 hours of "sunlight".

Georgia all ready to go out to the grocery store in January

Besides sunlight, our temperatures are nothing to envy. During the winter, the temperatures are from 20s Fahrenheit to maybe low 40s. Some mornings, it will be quite cold, but usually during the day the temperature gets above freezing. Spring will be more in the 40s-50s and summer is usually in the 60s and can get up to 80 on the warmest days. Combine that with high humidity levels (usually around 80 or 90% in the morning and will be more like 40% in the evening), and you have a cold that feels very cold, and a warm that feels very hot and sticky. I know these all sound very temperate, but you have to remember that no one has air conditioning, and traveling on public transportation can be quite hot. On the tube, there are temperatures 100+ during the summer. Windows do not open very far (ours go about 3 inches), so it is difficult to cool off a house on a hot day.

The snowstorm in February

I know there are probably quite a few places that have worse weather - hello?! Arizona, Alaska? But, I would say that living in those places is made much easier given that most people have larger houses and a car. If I had either one of those, living in this climate would be much easier. The need to get out of our house is so strong, that I will take Georgia on usually 2 walks a day - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. You try living in 700sq ft with an 18 month old!