• something blue
• at least 4 brads
• handwriting (can be only one word and it doesn't have to be yours, it can even be a font)
• a heart
• at least 3 types of ribbon

Friday night invited two nasty colds inside. Georgia and I have been under the weather ever since. I guess I'm glad it happened this weekend and not next, but it was def. miserable. Stuffed up noses are bad, but when you are trying to fall asleep next to a little someone who also has a stuffed up nose? And you need to blow your nose and it wakes (and scares) that little one next to you...well. you get the idea. rough nights.

And days. Poor baby spent most of the weekend screaming and continued into today. I fed her lunch at 10:50am and she went down for her nap just before noon...we could have a very long afternoon ahead of us.

A year ago - almost to the day - Iwas sick as well. I remember becuase 1., I had a ton of work to do before G turned up and since I expected her a few weeks later than she actually came, I thought it would be okay to give in to my cold and rest. Oops. and 2., I spent my time in the hospital blowing tons and tons of snot out of my nose and worrying I would startle the babies. Colds suck.

And because I have nothing of interest to report, let's play: A Year Ago Today.

So, 37 Weeks, according to my calculations, 38 according to the doctor's. Yes, I'm still sticking to my own, will make it much less painful when I go over!

Um. Yah. well - so much for going over, eh?

Moving right along - news, news, news! First, because it is ever so slightly less exciting, I woke up to an Email today announcing that a layout about Miss G had been chosen for publishing! It'll appear in January I believe online. Believe you me, I will link to it when it shows up becuase it is only the second layout of G that will have been chosen by chance (the first will be in the Jan. issue of BHG Scrapbooks Etc)! Happy Morning, although the Email was a bit cryptic!

The super-amazing-even-more-exciting news is actually old. I've known about it for a few months, but wasn't sure when I could throw it out there. If you haven't yet, check THIS out: My Creative Companion 2

What's so big about that you ask? Just that Miss G will be featured no less than FIVE times within those pages!!! I'm so excited about this. This is truly her first appearance in print, but it was an assignment so I could have chosen any topic and it (most likely) would have been approved. I loved the MCC. My friend Carol gave me her copy way back when I had first started scrapping and she still lived in Passau. She claimed that she couldn't use it becuase she didn't care for sketches, she liked actual layouts. I am so grateful to her for giving me that little book - I still use it! And now a second one is coming out and again, i get a copy of it for free and Miss G is in it. Now, is that not exciting news? Oh, and yes, you will see six layouts of mine in there, one of them does not Feature G - well, I suppose she is there, but has not made her appearance outside my belly yet!

So. My happy news today. And can you believe that G will be turning 1 in a matter of weeks? or maybe week? Ack! Her present is bought, her cake is in planning. I was talking to Kereth yesterday (they picked me up and drove me out to her house to take pics of Freya-Jane who is the most beautifully calm and patient baby I have ever, ever, seen. that baby did not cry once or fuss at all - some people have all the luck!) and she said that the german food coloring is terrible and not meant for making any color other than the actual color. So my visions of a lovely pink and peach flower cake for G , or even a pink cake, might be going down the tubes. And mom already sent her bday package so I can't beg for food coloring from her either.

As for G - separation anxiety to the max. But I'm okay with that - it's frustrating, sure, but THE BOOK (the one i swear by because it reaffirms all of the things I was doing automatically) says that SA is a good sign and leads to a very independant and confident baby. Just got to get through it first! That baby has started to cross her ankles as if she wanted to sit pretzel-style (but she doesn't get her legs quite bent enough at the knee) and knows that socks go on her feet and tries to put them on (she has not been successful). I think there was something else, but dumb me forgot to write it down and it's gone and flown out of my head. So I guess I'm done for now becuase G should be awake soon and we are going to Aldi for toast and a belt...

Getting a little sniffly over here. Ellen had a link to a set of photos on flickr featuring MUDD Library. So of course I ran over to have a peek. And the weird thing? Just yesterday I 'ran into' a scrapbooker who graduated from Oberlin. Now I know of what, three of us?! Anyway. I loved MUDD. I never studied there because everytime I wandered in and found a nice comfy spot, I was asleep within minutes. Okay, that's not entirely true, even if I sat down at a desk or TABLE, I was asleep within minutes, forehead flat on my book on the table in front of me. There was something about the AIR of MUDD...

Just look at those couches though. Don't you just long to curl up in them and drift off to dreamland? Forget papers and exams!

One more look, just before you go - check out the WOMB CHAIRS. It was nearly impossible to get your hands on one - those things are HOT and always full. You have to choose your time of day if you want to actually sit in one (or sleep in one).

Off to Kereth's in an hour or so. I am a card and never got her a baby-present, so I'm taking photos of Freya-Jane for her to make up for it. We've got sun, let's hope for cooperative baby(s) as I have no experience with this sort of thing and am basically (still) terrified of the little boogers!!

Thank you Ellen, for pointing out those photos. I was searching Oberlin bloggers yesterday, but it never ocurred to me to do a tag search on flickr!

Okay, for any and all blog-readers I may have left: I need frosting recipes. I think I have a cake for G's first birthday, no it's not the gorgeous one on the right, that is the one I would love to try my hand on, but it needs circle cutters and as far as I know, I can't get those here, and I don't have a 13-by-9-by-2-inch cake pan. It's gorgeous though, isn't it? I would love to make my baby a flower cake for her birthday!!!

So should I steal Martha's recipe for Meringue Buttercream frosting when I make my End of the Rainbow cake? Or does anyone have a different suggestion on a yummy frosting, preferably not chocolate?

So that's my please: frosting recipes to me, to me!

Since he has asked me at least three times whether this picture has been blogged yet...here I am at quarter to eleven, when I'd much rather be in bed, blogging our daytrip to Starnbergersee.

It started with Georgia swallowing bits of boiled egg whole. Like pills, or black-eyed peas, then walking from the bathroom tub into the kitchen, all the way to the sink by way of walls, back to me to get shoes on and then off we went. A bit of fussing in the car before falling asleep despite the nasty curves and HORRIBLE driving her Daddy did (her head was thrown from side to side of the carseat constantly).

A loud sneeze from Daddy woke her up shortly before we arrived and as it was ten to twelve, I thought she should have some lunch. I maybe should have held off. I bibbed her and got out the pumpkin - something she normally loves, even cold. She ate half the jar before turning her head away. I should have seen the signs, if she is turning her head away from pumpkin and has only eaten half a jar...then just stop feeding. But I forced the issue. dumb me. Very shortly thereafter the complete half-jar of pumpkin she had just swallowed was back out again, covering her from chin to lap. thankfully she still had on her bib, so the mess was minimal.

We arrived, packed G in the stroller, gave her a sippy cup to play with and were on our way. She was amazingly well behaved. We walked around a bit and finally stopped on a little bit of water to see a swan. Pulled out our pretzels and G got a fruitbar. That's when the duck showed up. Sven made the mistake of giving the duck one bite of pretzel to make her stay. Then he pulled G out of the stroller so she could see the duck that she had been ignoring. So far so good.

Then we realized why you aren't supposed to feed the ducks. That duck was nearly stepping on our FEET to get our pretzels. Picture taking opportunities galore. (CLICK HERE) Unfortunately, while Sven had the camera and I was not paying 100% attention, the duck, who had been elsewhere, popped up and snatched G's bite of fruitbar right out of her fingers. G sat there and looked slightly stunned. She had no idea what had happened (the duck waddled off FAST after getting her prize). Her fruitbar was gone, and the duck was gone. After we stopped laughing...we shooed the duck away and started back to the car. The plan was to drive a bit further and stop at another part of the lake (well, this was Sven's plan) but about 2 mins after we had gotten into the car, G proceeded to empty her stomach of the fruitbar and pretzel she had eaten since the pumpkin fiasco. This time, she had no bib on and she looked miserable (she fell asleep shortly after and stayed that way until we got home) so I said: HOME with us, and we didn't stop.

She continued to be fairly cranky the rest of the day and was out like a light by 7:30pm and I haven't heard a peep from her since. So there ya go: Saturday in Starnberg with ducks.

For the Scrap Ac' Challenge Nr. 2: use 3 (no more, no less) different patterned papers. Bonus points for different manufaturers/designers. The papers I used are by: Ams Digi Scraps (green) Iron Orchid Design (yellow) & Tracy Ann Designs (red).

BABY NEWS:

Kindergruppe today. Stefan was not there (and I knew he wouldn't be and was relieved after how awful he was to G last week) but Benny was back. Benny used to be such a sweetie, flirting with G and 'playing' with her. Well, with age grows violence - or something. It is probably just a poor guy too used to defending himself against two older brothers, but that boy pounded on my little G today! He didn't pound on anyone else, just G. I don't know why - does she let out an aura of helplessness? Does something about her scream: come pound on me - I'm helpless!!! and if so, HOW do I get rid of it so that she isn't pounded on her whole life. My poor G. Benny greeted her today with a slap (his mom missed that one) and later on proceeded to pound her head. Possibly, that was his way of being sweet and nice and friendly. Possibly not. Later, he came up to G with a plastic saw in hand and started swinging it at her. Thankfully, Momma was right next to us and she yelled at him and pulled him away. Unfortunately, not far enough as he started pounding wildly with that saw and SMACKED G in the head with the edge. Screamage insued. Again. My poor G.

When we got home, after she slept all the way, I thought we'd never go down for a nap and for some reason I was EXHAUSTED, therefore not looking forward to fighting a nap. It only took her 30 mins. She crawled to the end of the bed, I pulled her back, she head out again, I pulled her in again. She sat up. She got back down. She crawled again. I held her so she couldn't move. She fussed. She fell asleep. So did I. this was around 2pm. Sometime later she woke up. I thought that was it - nap's over! But she fell back alseep. So did I. at 4pm I woke up and got up. at 5pm, she finally woke up!!! Of course, that mean trouble gettinh er to sleep this evening. I got up and convinced Sven that he wanted to go in and lie with her until she fell alseep. It worked. I got to do my layout for Cara and finish up a deadline. Things are good!

I'm on to rereading Jasper Fforde. I'm not allowed to buy any books. Have to wait for Christmas when I can sneak in and steal (ahem, borrow) some of Mom and Kylene's...

I just have to close with this: I am amazed again and again and again, how freaking adorable my little girl is. Yah I know, I'm her mommy, I'm allowed to say it. But just look at her and see if she doesn't make you catch your breath with her adorableness!

more pictures HERE

Yesterday Georgia mastered sitting up. Today she got down, got up, got down, got up all morning long. We went on a walk and she did not sleep. We came back and she practiced some more, then we had lunch. Where am I going with this? After her nap this afternoon, she stopped going back down. She got up, realized she wanted something and got back down - as far as her knees - and stopped. Rocked back and forth, back and forth, slid a bit forward on one leg and then fell back on her bum and complained. Cried. Yelled. Tried again. Then spent a very long time refusing to move forward at all. In fact, she refused point blank to move at all for the rest of the day. Obviously, she wants to crawl, but to give up mobility completely? Seems to me it would make more sense to practice staying up on her knees, but when it absolutely did not work, to at least take off on her belly before screaming! But then, she has a mind of her own, that little one.

New photos here: September Flickr Set.

In other news: I've run out of books. Well, easy-reading not too heavy books that I can read while putting Georgia to sleep without falling asleep myself. I did pull out Madame Bovary the other day. Fell asleep almost immediately. Today, I tried 'Portrait of a Woman'. Had no idea what I was reading, so put it down. All I have left that I have not read: Anne Karenina, Gulliver's Travels, Jacob's Room, Dorian Grey, Madame Bovary...and the much much much too heavy to read in bed lying down with a baby: A Breath of Snow and Ashes. Looks like I'll be pulling out books I've read a hundred times already...

TV: the german 'Fall Line-up' has started. LOST on Mondays, Desparate Housewives, Gilmore Girls and Grey's Anatomy on Tuesdays. Unfortunately, GG and DH were on at the same time. Lucky me, Cara sent me the first disc of Season 2 and it arrived yesterday on the dot. GG it was. That Rory is an idiot. What I want to know? Why is it that we get all the American shows, albeit a year behind instead of the Germans thinking up some decent stuff of their own? Not that I'm complaining!! I love my American TV, even if it is dubbed in German! Maybe the country is just too small for thinking up all these dramas. How many shows can you watch with the same actors in the same cities right? Of the new lineup, my favorite was by far Grey's Anatomy. LOST will have to give me something to chew on to beat GA!

Okay, break's over. Back to work.

Guess who started waving? Yup, Georgia, that's who. Okay, so she's only mimicking others when they wave, but hey, a month ago, she wasn't even bothering to do that. It was like: "oh, you're waving your hand in my face - that's annoying..." Now she puts her hand up and makes a sort of wave-motion. It's pretty hilarious.

Went to Leiberheim on Sunday afternoon. Nothing exciting, Sven loves the Biergarten and I'd suggested it on Saturday but it didn't pan out (don't ask) so we went on Sunday after G's nap. We didn't stay long because we needed to get G home and in bed, but we chose a table with real chairs instead of benches and after she'd eaten her fill of pretzel and got tired of sitting in my lap (and after I was tired of holding her out of reach of everything...) we moved her to the ground and she walked from chair to chair to chair...

Before we left, Sven took her into the play-area and sat her on an elephant. He also let her walk around - which is probably why she was such a little beast yesterday, but that's beside the point. She loved the play area and watched all the kids with big eyes.

A week ago, Kereth came by and picked up her Baby Björn and I gave her the hiking backpack as well (G didn't like it) becuase her little girl was due on Tuesday (exactly a week ago today). So we've been without the Björn for a while and G has learned to tolerate the stroller. Happy Day! Okay, I miss carrying her, and know it will always be easier when travelling, but it sure is nice to take her in the stroller to Kindergruppe and to the grocery store!

Yesterday, as I mentioned, she was an absolute beast. She screamed bloody murder all day long. She was not really upset as far as I could tell, just being stubborn and throwing tantrums because she couldn't get what she wanted. We have started taking morning walks to replace the morning nap she refuses. She falls asleep about half-way through the walk and gets some shut-eye in that way. However, if we don't leave by 9:30am, then it's a hopeless cause, as she proved to me yesterday when I tried to get her out just after 10am. She was such a wreck by then that the only thing I could do was go lay her down and stay with her for her 20-something-minute nap. That helped some and she was good after lunch, but then refused to take her afternoon nap as well. FRUSTRATING. I mean, fine, if she doesn't want to sleep and all, but not if it means screaming-baby all day long!

So about 45mins into her nap, she's awake and crying, so I go in and lie down with her and try to convince her to go back to sleep. Nothing doing. She cried, fussed, moved around and made a lot of noise and I had my back to her. Suddenly, the noise stopped, the thrashing stopped. I turned around and she was SITTING, calm as can be, playing with one of her little metal cars. I watched her, absolutely amazed and thinking I must be dreaming, wasn't she just lying?! and then she looked right at me and THREW herself backwards. Like, as if to say: "nuh uh, you didn't see me, I wasn't sitting..." and proceeded to scream.

The day continued more or less in this way, though after we both had a good hard wail and sob, she calmed down and played nicely. Well okay, I admit to turning on the TV to 'Sabrina' and she just loved that horribly ugly talking cat puppet...Later she proceeded to astound me by getting up on her knees again and again and again. I thought: she is so close to crawling, SO close. But it turns out, she was so close to sitting, because today she proved to me again and again that she has figured it out. This morning first thing, I watched her sit up. Then again later this morning she sat up and got down, sat up and got down, all the while whining because that isn't want she really wanted to be doing. I'm amazed. Finally, after 11.5 months, my baby has conquered the steps to sitting up!

The other thing we did this weekend was visit the pumpkin 'patch'. When we drove out to Pep on Saturday, we saw that they are harvesting the pumpkins. They do this every year and dump them in big piles on the side of the road with a big metal money box. You stop in, pick a pumpkin or four, drop your cash in the box, and drive off again. Nope, no one is looking to see whether you pay or not...it appears to all be on the honor system. Weird. Well anyway, they do this every year and every year I want to go down and get pictures of all those pumpkins and squashes in their glorious fall colored splendor - and of course, every year I put it off until the weather gets bad or the pumpkins are gone. Not this year. On Sunday I got G dressed - changed her about 4 times trying to find the right 'outfit' for the occasion (ha!) and dragged Sven out and off we went to get pics of the pumpkins and G with them.

Here are a few of way too many. You can see a few more at my September Flickr Set.

In the process of creating something for G's birthday, I realized that I have not been keeping up with the blog in more ways than one. I'd been using it as a record of G's first year - writing down most of her happenings HERE, and tending to forget to write them down in her actual baby book... Only recently, I've stopped writing anything down at all and instead have been telling Sven. Well, my telling Sven doesn't help me remember, and considering how often he actually listens to me...well the stories are just going to get lost in the shuffle. So I'm back for good, with stories, hopefully as soon as they happen.

Balloons: Georgie loves them - we thought. Everytime we were somewhere where she could get her hands on one, she was in heaven. So when we went shopping for birthday balloons, I blew one up for her to play with in the car and she freaked out. She fussed and cried until I hid the balloon. Huh? Sven decided he wanted to play with the balloons the next day at home. Blew one up in front of her - she freaked. He then played with it, let it squeak, let the air out so it flew through the air, blew it up again, and again, and again. And everytime he blew, the more freaked she got until she was lunging for me, her face all crumpled up and miserable. Hopefully, she just has a problem with balloon blowing, and not actual balloons, in which case, we'll blow up the balloons out of her eyesight (and earshot) and hide them for a bit before hanging them up for her birthday (which is only weeks away!).

The Corpse Bride: We rented this ages ago now, but got a bad copy, the DVD wouldn't play past the first song of the movie. Bummer. We sent it back and requested another. When it arrived one afternoon, I popped it in and skipped to the song-scene to see if this one worked. I was happy to see that it did, and ready to sit back and watch it while G played next to me when I happened to look down at her. TERRIFIED. She was wimpering and reaching for me. Now how in the world that little baby, who has never known fear or skeletons halloween horrors knew to be frightened of a few singing skeletons is beyond me!

And we're out!

For the Scrap Ac' Challenge Nr. 1. Here ya go, Cara, super-big so you can see the journaling. And at the same time, I am, as promised, showing proof of my blurry baby, who is at the moment, bouncing herself up and down in my lap with the aid of my arm...and laughing at my freckles.