HAPPY THANKSGIVING! This post is a little late and the picture is quite blurry, but its the best I could do. I'm so frustrated with my point and shoot camera! Its so annoying to take 100 pictures and not have one turn out good! Oh, well... on to miss Gia. This has been a HUGE week for our little girl! On Tuesday, her first tooth decided to *finally* make an appearance! Yay!! She also had her first cold this week, and started actually legit crawling. She is a pro at crawling now!! She can be across the room in no time- flat! We had a great time in Kansas City with all of my family. At first, it was overwhelming for her with all the people, but after about 3 days, she had warmed up to almost all of them. Sean and I were able to get away for several hours at a time while Nana watched her. It was wonderful! I can't believe how big our baby is getting. Oh, and she traveled like a pro! She slept almost the entire 9 or 10 hours we were driving!

Its been another tough week here at our house. Week 4 of very little sleep and lots of sickness. I've been super sick with the second cold in 3 weeks... I had about 2 days where I felt good before I got sick again. Gia is still congested and waking up every 2-3 hours at night. She never sleeps more than an hour during the day. I. Am. Exhausted. One fun thing this week, though, my friend Heather came over and helped me make a ton of baby food for Gia. Our freezer is stocked with yummy, fresh food for her now! We are so blessed by the good friends we are making here. We'd greatly appreciate prayers for our family that we can all be healthy again, and that we will figure out why in the heck Gia is having so many sleep issues. I keep saying I can't do this another night, but somehow we do...

Random Tuesday update just because:

* I cannot believe Thanksgiving is little more than a week away!
* One week from today, Gia will meet her cousins for the first time!!!
* Anyone else watching Homeland on Showtime? Holy cow, good show.
* And of course, there's always Dexter. Best. Serial Killer. Ever.
* I still think its weird and the writing is genius to make audiences 'pull' for a serial killer.
* Have you been watching any of the GOP debates? I enjoy watching them but have missed the past two.
* This morning, Gia turned on her music in her crib, and it gave me an extra 20 minutes of rest!
* Gia is practically crawling now. Its crazy how fast this girl moves.
* My poor girl has had Hand Foot Mouth, a GI bug and is now teething. Add in just starting solids and the major milestone of crawling, and it has been a rough couple of weeks. Hoping my baby girl can catch a break for a bit after her teeth cut through!
* I am ALMOST finished with my scrapbook from Egypt. A year and a half later. But I've been a little busy, ok? I am going to use a Groupon from Mixbook. I love the program- lots of options for backgrounds and embellishments. I'll let you know what I think of the finished product.
* Never underestimate the power of an encouraging email. I got the sweetest email from a friend last night that really lifted my spirits. Just sayin... :)

Here we are at week 27 already! This week has flown by super fast. And last night, we had our very first snow of the season... Gia's first snow of her life! So to remember that, I chose this fabric from some that my friend, Katy, sent us. It kind of reminds me of a Charlie Brown snow. :) Gia is feeling better this week... some days she is totally back to her usual self, but some days she's still a bit fussy. She had her 6 month check up yesterday, and the doctor said that her throat was still a little bit red. So maybe that is the problem. We are trying to get better about "parenting" her to sleep, too... for the past 6 months, every time she's cried, I rush right into her room to feed her. That helps all of us get back to sleep faster, but it doesn't help Li'l G learn to soothe herself back to dreamland when she wakes in the middle of the night. So, if she wakes any less than 3 hours in between feedings, we let her cry a little, then try to soothe her by rubbing her back. Its been working ok. She still wakes up between 11-12pm and 2-4 am then again around 7 or 8 am. But I'm thankful its not every 1.5 hours like it has been. We're also working on more nap during the day, too. Today she took a 2 hour nap in the morning! As far as solid foods go, she's still not loving anything but the rice cereal. We've tried sweet potatoes, peas and this week, pears. She's just not a fan. I'm hoping she will continue to eat the rice cereal, though. Whew! What a week!

I cannot believe we are at Gia's half birthday already! 26 weeks... half of 52 weeks! Half way to a year! Well, this has been our most difficult week with Gia yet. I don't want to say its been the worst week, because there have still been smiles, giggles and heart-bursting joy because of our little girl, but she has also been really sick. It started over a week ago with Gia crying and waking up a lot at night. Two weekends ago she was just miserable so we took her to the pediatrician last Monday and found out she had Hand Foot Mouth disease. SO PAINFUL! Poor baby. No wonder she was screaming and couldn't sleep. Well, just this past weekend, on Friday, we were in the ER with her because she was throwing up and wouldn't stop. It was so scary. Keep in mind that all through the week in between, she did not sleep more than an hour or hour and a half at a time. We are all exhausted here, to say the least. :( We got a little more sleep last night, and are praying that it will continue to get better. Today, Gia has been much better. Its just so hard to see our baby suffer. Plus, I think we have a little bit of a chip on our shoulder when it comes to babies being sick... As we were driving to the ER, we were both afraid that she would never be coming home with us. I guess that's not really normal, but when the only other experience you have with a sick baby ended in just that way, well... its just the way it is. But, thankfully Gia is getting healthy again. We are praying Sean doesn't get sick, though his throat is a bit sore tonight. :( Hoping week 27 is better!

Length: 25 inches, maybe 26
Weight: 13 pounds 4 ounces.... she's a slow gainer, so I am looking forward to talking to her doctor about it this week.
Clothing Size: She is in 3-6 month clothing right now, though a few of her 0-3's still fit.
Fave Toy: I got a steal of a deal on an Einstein Baby exersaucer at a garage sale a few weeks back. She does so good playing in it! She also LOVES looking in the mirror. She gives the baby in the mirror "kisses." SO CUTE!
Fave Outfit: By far my favorite outfit this month was the apple sweater she wore to the Apple Orchard. SO CUTE! Lately though, we've been staying in our jam-jams most of the day, since its getting COLD here!
New Moves: She is sitting up by herself for longer periods of time, though still a little wobbly, and just today she has mastered the art of crawling backwards. She pushes up on all fours and rocks back and forth, too. She also like to roll to get places. SHE IS MOBILE!
Teething: None have popped through but I'm hoping we're close... still nothing.
Eating: We tried rice cereal a few weeks ago and sweet potatoes, when my mom was here. She was a pro for a couple days, then decided she didn't like it anymore. So we waited a week and just started rice cereal again yesterday. She's been sick this week, so I'm hoping that's the deal. She's also not been nursing as well. Again, it could be from being sick but she just doesn't act hungry much at all.
Sleeping: This has been the most difficult month so far, sleep-wise. Now that she is pretty much over her sickies, she is still waking up every 2-3 hours at night. I'm not even sure that its because she's hungry, because she falls asleep while I'm feeding her!
Talking: She's not been babbling as much as she was at the end of last month but she does get going some times. I love her sweet little voice. I think she's going to have a beautiful singing voice. :)
Fave Pic: Here's one from when she had her first meal of rice cereal. Taking a que from DeDad and licking the bowl!