365 Days of Everything Georgia: Holidays

Showing posts with label Holidays. Show all posts

Duh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh... duh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh...

>> November 6, 2013 – fun, Holidays, our home

... BATGIRL... and Robin (aka daddy)!!

Mommy made an appearance too... dressed as ::drumroll:: MOMMY!

Trick-or-treating happens on my dinner break every year, since Halloween falls on one of the sacred TV news days in the ratings period. But that's OK, we still have so much fun walking through our neighborhood, going door to door, and watching our shy little one get bolder and bolder with each doorbell she rings. She still whispers though when anyone asks her a question.

Shy or not, our Batgirl certainly came home with a lot of sweets!

I hope you all had a Happy Halloween!!

Month of May

>> July 20, 2013 – festivals, food, fun, Holidays, outdoors

Wow... has it really been more than two months since my last post? I knew when my sister texted me, telling me to update my blog, that I was behind, but I didn't realize I was THAT behind!

Time to play catch up, right? So here's a look at some of the highlights of May.

We went to a strawberry festival in one of the little towns (really little towns) near us, Vanceboro. Georgia loved the rides and slides and bouncy houses.

And at a strawberry festival, you have to have strawberries, right? We did our as strawberry shortcake! Mmmmmmm...

Georgia burned off that shortcake by chasing bubbles.

The other happening in May was Mother's Day. I must share Georgia's gift for me this year.

She drew a family portrait - me, her, and Ben - and she even wrote who was who. LOVE!! Her writing and spelling are coming along nicely.

Hunting for Eggs

>> April 2, 2013 – fun, Holidays, spring, the little things

We had a great Easter weekend, and better yet, it was a three-day weekend for our family. (that rarely happens)

Friday was spent doing a lot of work building our vegetable garden - more to come on that later. So Saturday, we had some fun finding rainbow-colored eggs.

What made it even better, one of Georgia's favorite friends also made it out to this egg hunt - Mia.

And just look at this smile..

You know this girl found a lot of eggs - I'm pretty sure more than anyone else in her age group and maybe the entire group. She is an egg hunting machine!

With a basket full of chocolate, who could wait to get home to start eating? Certainly not my little one.

What a great way to spend part of our holiday weekend - making memories.

"Love"

>> January 7, 2013 – Christmas, fun, Georgia Firsts, Holidays

I never did get a post up about our new visitor last month. A new friend showed up at our house on December first, and she stayed with us all the way through Christmas. It was Georgia's first visit from one of Santa's elves, and Georgia named her "Love."

Meet Love the Elf.

She wrapped Georgia's toilet..

She became "Spider-Love"...

She colored the water blue...

And she even turned Georgia into Rudolph...

Then she flew back to Santa on Christmas night...

She was fun, she was mischievous and she was kind. We missed Love when she went back Christmas night to spend the next 11 months with Santa. But we know we'll see her again next December.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

>> December 31, 2012 – Christmas, family, Holidays, new home town, toys

I don't have time to write separate blog posts for these two events, so I'm wrapping them together, tying them up with ribbon and sprinkling on some confetti.

I'm looking forward to 2013 - 13 is such a great number in our home. I was born on the 13th, married on the 13th and gave birth to my amazing daughter on the 13th. How can 2013 not be awesome for us?

And while it is already in the recent past (it came and went so quickly), I want to wish you all a belated Merry Christmas! We did not get to travel home to see any family as I had hoped we'd get to this year, I haven't spent Christmas with my family since 2005 and never with my hubby's family, but we did get to spend some great time with our new neighbors of six months.

Christmas Eve was spent with one set of neighbors and their four kids. Georgia played hard while my hubby and I enjoyed some adult conversation (and beverages!). The Sunday before Christmas we spent at church with our next-door neighbors and their three daughters. They also invited us to share Christmas dinner with them. It was a great time getting to know great neighbors.

And Georgia had a fabulous Christmas morning with way too many presents - a high she is still coming down from.

So here's to another year of wonderfulness. Happy New Year and many blessings!

My Baby's a Singer!!

>> December 23, 2012 – Christmas, daycare, Georgia Firsts, Holidays, making me laugh

OK, OK, actually Georgia likes to sing non-stop these days, especially now that's it's Christmas time and there are SOOOO many Christmas songs. But on this night, my little girl sat on a stage for the very first time and sang in front of a room full of people.

It's her first recital... I'm so proud!!!!!

And just like any true kid, she went from singing to looking around to being a ham.

I wish we would have arrived earlier so I would have been closer to take pictures (lesson learned for next year), but thank God for my Nikkor 70-200mm! It got me close enough.

And then in true Georgia-style, when her class was done, she couldn't let it end there. She proceeded to dance in the aisle to the other songs by the other classes. Always the center of attention, this one!

Here Comes Santa Claus... There Goes Georgia...

>> December 22, 2012 – Christmas, food, fun, Holidays

A couple weekends ago, we did what's becoming our annual trip to "Breakfast with Santa." OK, it's only our second year of doing it, but hey, it's only our second year living here. It's at our local convention center and it benefits our local hospital's foundation, and it's an all in all good time.

This year was no exception. After eating breakfast, in which Santa comes around to each table to say hi to the kids, it was then time to visit the big man himself up on the stage. This year, as opposed to last, Georgia was ready with her list of desires to relay to Santa when he asked.

But just like last year, when we walked Georgia up onto the stage where Santa sat, as soon as she saw Santa, she took off running to him.

She then proceeded to go through that well-rehearsed list.

After our visit with that jolly man, we made an ornament, beaded a bracelet, decorated a cookie and wrote a list to Santa so that he wouldn't forget what Georgia had told him just minutes before.

After breakfast, we went for a walk around downtown.

And Georgia found a poster in a store window with her name on it! She and I were leading a "Mistletoe March" through downtown a couple of weeks after this morning.

A great, Christmas-filled morning for all!

Georgia's Birth Story

The timing of Georgia's birth, in a way, came out of a journey to death. I'd like to think with every death comes new life, and for me, Georgia is that life. She is my saving grace and has kept me breathing when my lungs were screaming to stop, screaming to drown in my own self-pity.

My husband and I decided to try for Georgia just a few months after our walk down the aisle. You see, my mom had been diagnosed with incurable Ovarian Cancer, so I wanted a baby soon. I wanted a baby while there was still time to have my mother there as I brought a new being into the world, to see my mother hold her granddaughter, to ask my mom which of my baby features my daughter bore, to lean on my mother when I had those "new mom" questions and for so many other moments I had played out in my thoughts over and over again through the years.

My husband and I were thrilled to soon find out our little Georgia was growing inside of me, rounding out my belly day by day, pushing tiny feet into my sides, entertaining us with a neverending chorus of hiccups. We went to the doctor's appointments, the baby classes, took the hospital tour and had everything ready for the day we brought our darling home in Omaha, Nebraska.

It's funny though, life seems to fight our planning and always chooses its own course - and so it did. When my belly was just shy of 38 weeks round, the day came. After a 52-year-long life, which was as bright as they come, my mother faded away. She died on Sunday, October 11, 2009.

Early Monday morning, with my doctor's permission, my husband and I got on a plane to fly home to Georgia for my mom's funeral. We got off the plane in Atlanta around 3 p.m. Twelve hours later, at 3 a.m. on Tuesday, I was sleeping at my parents' house. As I lay in the home where my mom had been just days before, that journey toward life took a leap. My water broke and the contractions started coming within minutes. We were more than a thousand miles away from our doctor, our hospital and our house.

So off to the local hospital we went in the dark of night, my husband driving my mom's SUV and not having a clue where he was going. I had to give him directions between contractions. We arrived at the hospital and didn't even know what entrance to go to. We found locked doors twice before finding the right entrance, and yeah, I floundered up to both locked doors!

We checked in and by the time we got to a room, I turned around and there were my sister, brother and cousin in the room with my husband and I and my other sister and father were on the way. We had thought we'd be delivering in Omaha with just my husband and I and the calming classical CD's I'd burned. I guess my mom had other ideas.

So there we were, in the hospital where two years earlier they had cut cancer from my mother, in the hospital where my two nieces were born, in the hospital where my delivery nurse had also been my sister's bridesmaid - there surrounded by those who love me most and the memory of one who just couldn't stay long enough to make it. I delivered Georgia Katherine at 10:46 a.m. She weighed 7 lbs. and 8 ounces.

We left the hospital on Wednesday with a borrowed car seat, a bag full of borrowed baby clothes, a lot of flowers and hearts bursting with every emotion you can possibly imagine. We arrived at my parents' house to a borrowed crib, borrowed baby supplies and relatives arriving in town with funeral clothes and baby gifts packed in their suitcases. On Friday, my daughter and I looked down on my mother in her casket, and on Saturday we buried her. It's the only time my daughter every saw her grandmother.

My mother fought hard to live long enough to meet her granddaughter and in the end, she missed the date by two days. But life doesn't stop, and it's the beauty of my daughter's life that keeps me smiling. And oh how her life makes me smile. I like to believe whenever I'm holding my daughter and she's starring off into the distance, over my shoulder, that she's seeing my mom - a guardian angel for both of us - and that they are already the best of friends.

Linkbar