8 Months Old

Georgia is 8 months old now!! How crazy!! She is getting so big!! She has lost some weight recently because of being sick, so she's only 17 pounds 8 ounces right now but she has grown another 1/2 inch, which brings her up to 27 1/2 inches long. She crawls so fast now, and is even using couches/other furniture to pull herself up into a standing position and play. She has taken a couple steps to walk along the couch but falls fast and hard and isn't really up for trying again for a while after that. She loves all her fruits and veggies (some only after feeding it to her over and over again) and is trying to get used to a sippy cup. She also got her second tooth this past Sunday and is teething again!! She is so happy and accepting of everyone (but needs mommy when she's tired and upset...she won't even go to Robbie if I am in the room). I miss how small she used to be but I love how big she is getting and how much she is learning. We are betting that she will be walking on her own by Thanksgiving...we will see. I lover her so much and I can't wait to see how much more she progresses by the end of the year...only 4 more months till she's a year old!!

A Sunday At The Memorial

This Labor Day weekend we spent down in Rutland with Robbie's parents and our friends Josh, Lacey and Sarah Price, who came up from New Jersey (where they are doing an internship) to spend the long weekend with us. We did a lot of fun things. One thing we did while down there was to take a trip to the Joseph Smith memorial in South Royalton, Vermont on Sunday afternoon after church. What a wonderful place to go!! Robbie and I have been there multiple times for church activities and even to talk about marriage (before getting engaged). My parents, while doing our family history work, found that we are related to Joseph's mother, Lucy Mack, so visiting the memorial is even more special to me. You can read a bit about the memorial at http://www.lds.org/placestovisit/location/0,10634,1813-1-1-1,00.html.

Besides the pillar that is located on a hill there to honor Joseph Smith, they also have the cornerstones of the home he was born in, the original hearthstone from his home and a rocking chair made by Joseph. Also located nearby are the foundations of the homes of Daniel Mack (Lucy Mack Smith's brother), Solomon Mack (Joseph's grandfather and Lucy's father) and an old stone bridge that they believe was there before Joseph Smith's family moved there. Every year they put lights up at Christmas and they used to do a live Nativity scene, which we were lucky to participate in one year while I was in high school. The visitors center is a wonderful place to learn more about the site and Joseph's life.

The memorial has such a wonderful spirit there and it was so needed. I have been struggling so much with us being unemployed and with what else we need to be doing in order to find a job. I want so badly to be able to move on with our lives and to do what we should be doing in order to progress and grow and to continue to let our family grow. All the stress and sadness over our situation has been taking its toll on me...mostly spiritually. To go to the memorial and feel the Spirit so very strongly was so wonderful and so needed. It's so peaceful there and I am so glad we had that opportunity.

While there Robbie took some wonderful pictures of the girls. He really does a wonderful job getting some good shots of the girls. It was a wonderful way to end our time there.

Standing Up Is So Hard To Do

Georgia has been trying and trying to pull herself up into a standing postion using anything she can find (tables, chairs, couches, etc.) but hasn't been getting very far. She has just mastered how to crawl and I guess decided to move onto something else. So she's been grabbing onto the edge of things (mainly couches) and pulling herself up onto her knees but can never figure out how to get further than that. Well this afternoon while I was unpacking all our stuff from our trip to Robbie's parents this weekend, I had left our suitcase laying on the floor of our little "family room" in my parents basement, and went into the bedroom to unpack a backpack. When I came out less than a minute later to put something in our bathroom Georgia had used the suitcase to stand up!! Yes, she finally did it!! She pulled herself into a standing position for the first time today!! It won't be long now...she may turn out to be just like her sisters and learn to walk by 10 months. We shall see...I am so proud of my baby!!

Gwenyth's First Day Of Preschool

So Gwen's first day of preschool was last Thursday the 3rd. I am such a slacker for not posting about this sooner, but this weekend was a busy one and lots of things have been happening. Gwen has so been looking forward to preschoo. After we had our meet and greet with her teachers preschool is all she has talked about.

Gwen goes to the Town of Essex Parks and Recreation Preschool. It is a certified preschool that works closely with the local school district and combines outdoor/nature exploration with hands on and curriculum learning. Gwen goes every Tuesday and Thursday from 7:30 am to 5 pm (it's open till 5:30 but pick up begins at 5). It's a long day but she does very very well with it. She has so much fun with all of her new friends and loves all of her new teachers (she has 4). So far I have heard so much about all the fun stuff that she does and you can tell she loves it. She gets so excited every morning to go and while she gets excited to see me when I pick her up she still gets sad that she's leaving.

And speaking of sad, I almost cried on her first day multiple times. I really missed her a lot. I didn't know what to do with myself all day, especially when Grace and Georgia took their afternoon nap at the same time. Gracie missed her a lot too. She kept asking me where her Gwen was. It's getting better though and I'm sure it will get easier as time goes on.

So here's some pictures of her first day. The first is how she looked for most of the pictures-very unhappy because she did not want to waste any more time...she just wanted to go to preschool. The second is her fake smile...what a goober. My baby is so big!!

Happy Birthday Aidan!!

My nephew Aidan turned 6 on the 4th and had his birthday party this past Saturday. Unfortunately we were not able to be here for it so I wanted to say Happy Birthday Aidan. We love you very much and we are so glad we are close by now and able to see you often. Hopefully we can make up our abscense at your party when you come down to Nana and Papa's this weekend. You're turning into such a smart and loving little gentleman and we are so glad we are part of your life!! Love you buddy!!

First Fruits, Veggies and Tooth!!

I decided to stop slacking yesterday and finally start feeding Georgia fruits and veggies. We started off with Applesauce. Boy did she love it. She still gets gassy when eating so it's hard to feed her more than one small container of food at a time without her building up a huge gas bubble but she really enjoyed it. We also tried Peas yesterday. She really liked them as well. It was kind of like she was ready to start eating these things but I had been such a slacker that I just didn't get around to it and liked the convenience of feeding her a bottle all the time. Well that will not happen any more. She gets baby cereal, juice, fruits and veggies along with bottles for meals now. She seems really happy with that. Hopefully she'll be just like her sisters and like everything that we feed her.

Another first is her first tooth. We noticed that she was sleeping a lot more yesterday than usual, and she was chewing on everything!! I didn't really think to look in her mouth though to see if a tooth had popped through because the last time she teethed like this the tooth moved up in the gums but stopped before it broke through. However, while she was crying last night before bed I caught a glimpse of white on her bottom gums and I thought that it was just her gums all swollen and white and thought I would check to see how bad it was. Instead I found a tooth!! So she now has her bottom right tooth...hooray!!

Other firsts have been a regular crawl instead of army crawling all the time and her first visit to see animals at the fair. She's getting so big!!

Oh, and Robbie heard about that ski resort job and he didn't get it...the job search continues...

Preschool Meet And Greet

Last night we had my family watch Grace and Georgia so Robbie and I could spend some one on one time with Gwen and take her to meet her preschool teacher(s). She is so stinkin excited!! When we got there she was a bit shy at first but she went to color and from there she was fine. She did playdough next, and then roamed around the room looking at all the toys they had: many different sets of blocks; legos; cars/trucks and a car mat (one of those little mats with roads and buildings on the mat and the kids drive the cars over them) for the floor; baby dolls/dress up; a kitchen area with tons of toy dishes, food and a toy kitchen; a mini table in the kitchen area to eat pretend meals; puppets puppets and more puppets; a reading area with a reading mat on the floor to sit on, a rocking chair for the teacher and so many books; water work areas; art areas; places to review days of the week, time, colors, shapes, etc.; and a cubby that while shared with another child (Gwen only goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays so we're thinking that the person she shares with goes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays since there were still empty cubbies open) with her name spelled out on a purple puzzle piece as a name tag. She just loved all of it and went from one toy to the next, just exploring. She has one main teacher named Christina and then there are 3 other "teachers" that are there to help teach and watch the kids. They all seemed really nice and I got a bit of a laugh when I realized that I had actually gone to high school with her main teacher Christina (and I recognized her). She was a year or two ahead of me but I still knew her. It made me feel a lot better to meet everyone and get an idea of who they were and how things were laid out.

Gwen was the tiniest one there. There were other tiny kids but she was the smallest by far. It made my heart ache to see how much she differed from the other kids because I have never really noticed it before but I am sure that it will not keep her from doing anything with the rest of her classmates. Her preschool program is through the town's Parks and Recreation system and is located in a park with a fenced in public pool right next door. So during the summer they get water time (there is something like the splash park in rexburg there) and at all times during the year there is a huge park right out back. We took Gwen out to look at everything in the park and let her play for a bit so she wouldn't throw a fit when leaving the preschool room. She keeps asking when we are going back to preschool and is disappointed that she doesn't go back until the 3rd. We are going to try to sit down and have a talk with her about right and wrong; listening to her teacher; temper tantrums; and the oh so important stranger/special places on our body talk before she starts preschool. The class is small and with all those teachers I don't think it'll be an issue keeping an eye on all of them but since she'll be gone all day long 2 days a week I think that it's important to talk about things with her. I am also going to have Robbie give her a blessing the night before her first day just like my dad did with all of us on the night before our first day of school each year. I think it will help her and hopefully help me be at peace when she is gone (am I being a bit paranoid...worrying too much?).

So I will post photos on her first day of school, but she is oh so excited!! We have the backpack (which I guess she really doesn't need, but might to tote things back and forth since she's only there two days a week), the lunchbox, the sleeping bag (for naps) and change of clothes. She's all ready to go!!