October 20, 2010 - From One to the Next... Moving On

Turning one seems to bring to many changes. It's just one day from the next, but it seems like a step off a mountain of growth and change.

Georgia's one year check-up brought another big change into our lives - lose the formula and the B-O-T-T-L-E!

Today was Georgia's last bottle of formula... ever.

She doesn't really know what's coming. Me? I do and I'm terrified.

Let's raise our glass of milk and toast change!

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October 19, 2010 - Improvising.

Georgia found a new way to crawl.

She holds the balls from her new toy home and uses them to crawl on. It's really adorable.

Use of tongue for balance is obviously a requirement for this crawling technique.

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October 18, 2010 - We Had to Wait Until Now...

... to give Georgia her birthday presents from me and my husband. They were a little big to put in the overhead compartment on the plane.

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October 17, 2010 - Home Again

We are home from a week of celebrating! We left Omaha with an infant and returned with a toddler. She is already showing a new spunk and a new independence.

Our first day back she did something she had not really shown much interest in doing before - climbing.

Right up on the suitcase I was working on unpacking. She is the "queen of the world," or at least the princess of our home. And a princess who is growing up in a blink.

Enough of suitcases... time to tackle the high chair.

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October 16, 2010 - "Happy Birthday" Made Her Cry

After months of planning, ordering, organizing, addressing invitations, cutting out butterflies and just generally stressing that everything would work out - today has arrived. It's time for Georgia's birthday party. Yeah!

It wouldn't be an event though for any woman in my family without us running late, so yes, we were running late. The party was at my sister's house and we arrived an hour and a half later than I had wanted to. So that had me making sandwiches and arranging the food as the guests arrived.

Food that adorable little Roscoe was all too happy to beg for...

And Georgia's beautiful birthday cakes made an appearance too!

The main one for all of us...

... and Georgia's personal "smash" cake.

The presents started piling up too!

Friends and family filled the house making for a warm, loving and happy party.

My wonderful sister who let us use her house...

My cousin who drove up from Florida (here with my niece)...

And Georgia's wonderful grandmother who drove over from Alabama...

Even nieces who couldn't resist Georgia hugs...

We opened presents.

Then sang "Happy Birthday." Yes, that song made Georgia cry. Not quite the reaction I was going for with it.

And we discovered Georgia is too polite for a cake smash. It just doesn't seem to be her thing.

As the afternoon wound down, I believe this will go down as a successful first birthday party. The guests were fed, the cake eaten and the presents opened.

And my little girl was full of smiles most of the afternoon, as long as you don't sing "Happy Birthday."

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October 15, 2010 - Will These Cookies Fly?

Tomorrow is Georgia's party. I had this great idea of making favors for everyone. There are lots of butterflies at the party, so butterfly-shaped cookies seemed the obvious answer.

Hmmm, I started cooking at 9 p.m. I wonder what time I'll get to bed tonight. That's OK, my baby's party is going to have favors, lots and lots of favors.

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October 14, 2010 - Showing Her the Hood

It's funny how places look so different through eyes that have lived there, laughed there, cried there, learned there and loved there. I look upon a city called Helen, Georgia, through eyes that hated the place growing up. I lived nearby and worked in the town from age 16 through college. It is a town that relies almost entirely on tourist dollars for survival and the tourists do come. I still don't entirely know why, but again, that's looking at it through my jaded eyes, eyes that saw a lot of pain-in-the-butt people on vacation over the years.

So during our time in Georgia, my husband mentioned he wanted to walk through town. And with Helen being a town that strains to re-create Germany here in the good ole U-S-of-A, it's Oktoberfest there. I must admit I balked at first, but we ended up in town. And I guess it's good to take Georgia through one of the places that helped shape me and make me who I am today.

So off we went.

And to prove it touristy tackiness, in the middle of the fudge shops and blown glass shops and "stuff from Germany" shops and "can you believe we put that on a T-shirt" shops, there's a photo booth smack dab in the middle of downtown.

My husband, for some still unknown reason, gravitates toward photo booths - this one no exception.

It took horrible pictures of the three of us as we tried to cram three people into a seat big enough for one.

But I must admit, there are some beautiful parts of this town that I guess get erased from my younger day memories. They must have been pushed out by the memories of rip-roaring drunk old men yelling at me as I tried to kick them off the go-karts or women in the 40's/50's walking around the tourist trap shops in clothes meant for 20-year-olds. But yes, there is beauty here, and as I'm sure we'll come back here through the years, it's that beauty I'll point out to my daughter.

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