The weeks are flying by! How do you like our first Christmas fabric? I have one for every week in December... it was so fun picking them out! I love Christmas! My pictures have been so horribly blurry lately, because the natural light in our house is way less than stellar and definitely not ideal for taking pictures. Boo. But I thought this profile shot of G sucking her thumb was pretty cute. We went to the doctor this week for a weight check and a shot. She gained 9 ounces and is now 14 pounds, 1.6 ounces. She's still 25.5 inches long. I'm glad she gained, and hope that she will just continue to gain weight. Her reflux has been really bad this week. Last night, after I fed her around 4 a.m., she gagged and just kept gagging. Poor thing. We wound up putting her in the swing where she slept great until morning. Earlier this week, though, Gia slept for almost 6 hours straight ! Uh-mazing! Its been forever since she did that. I am really praying that her reflux will go away (most say it goes away by 6 months... she's almost 7) and she will start sleeping at night better. She coughs a lot during the day, which can be part of the reflux, too. However, I think she's learned that when she coughs, she gets a reaction out of me, because sometimes she will cough, then wait for my response. Its really quite hilarious! She is so much fun-- crawling, blowing raspberries, squealing with delight and giggling. I think she's getting close to another tooth, because she's been in some pain and chewing her fingers like crazy! This week, she also tried sweet potatoes (loves them!) and apples (loves them, too!). I've had to get sneaky about giving her the reflux medicine by mixing it into her morning oatmeal... and even then, its still pretty nasty. Poor girl... pray with us the reflux goes away!!
We drove to KC to spend Thanksgiving with my family. Gianna was pretty much AWESOME the whole drive. We rented a van, which was SO NICE. Not gonna lie... vans are the way to ride when you have a baby. Gia and I got in the back where she could roll around and I could nurse her. We only had to stop a couple times for her, and she slept almost the whole 9 hours!
It was awesome to spend time with my family. I miss my parents so much! Aren't they so cute here?? Love them!
I got to spend time with my sister and nieces... they are the cutest thing in the world! Momma Suzie was an incredible host, as always. I just love being at her house! Such warm memories.
Gianna learned to crawl while we were there... she had lots of teachers and finally got the hang of it! She's a total cruiser now!!!
My niece, Emmalia and my second cousin, Gavin were quite the pair that week. They are pretty close in age, and one day-- just before family pictures-- they decided to paint each others' faces with markers! Emmalia even colored Gavin's eyelids! Pretty creative! Good thing they were washable markers!
THE game was this weekend, also. As cute as Gia looked in her Ohio State jersey, our boys still couldn't pull out a victory. *sad face*
We played lots of games and introduced our family to Killer Bunnies. I think they liked it! Oh, and look at this game table! Is it not amazing!?!? I think everyone needs a proper game table. I know I do!
I bought a NoseFrida for Li'l G. Poor thing was so stuffy and the blue bulb just wasn't cutting it. This thing was amazing- and gross. But it worked, so whatever.
We took family pictures- there were lots of us. Not all are related, as my Uncle's girlfriend had 4 of the teenagers in this pic. But everyone else is, and it is amazing how much our families have grown over the years! My mom did a great job ordering all these shirts... the kids are in the dark green, the grandkids in tan, and the great grandkids in orange! My grandparents are in the red.
Here's my family and a pic of us girls. Dad's back in Egypt now and mom will join him again soon... oh, how I miss them already! It was so wonderful to spend time together. I can't even remember when the last time my whole family was together! 
Daddy took us down to the Plaza one night, while Nana watched Gia. It was so nice... the lights were beautiful and it was freezing cold. We waited in line at the crazy Starbucks and it was just perfect... like I remember it always being!
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!
