So we're in Seattle, right? Have a very long int'l flight behind us. How  did Georgia do? Apparently very well (says everyone else). Of course, being her mother and responsible for keeping her quiet and not bothering the rest of the plane, I was stressed and feeling like she was doing very poorly, but then, it's not easy being almost 11 weeks and having to fly         int'ly! She slept most of the first half of the trip to Dulles, like she does everyday, and then she wouldn't sleep. AT ALL. She got more and more tired and we still had to get from Dulles to Seattle. We boarded late, and then the plane sat. And sat. And sat. and she was exhausted, and cried and cried and cried, and the plane was sitting so it wasn't very loud yet and she was getting hysterical, poor baby. Once the plane FINALLY took off, we were right over the engines, so it was very loud, and the bad weather in D.C. made it very turbulent and she conked out and stayed out until we got to Seattle. The poor thing just exuded exhaustion (she         wasn't the only one).

She seems to be feeling the jet lag and the difference as well. She fussed most of the day yesterday and then got real calm and happy last evening. Total opposite of her normal routine...but at least she is mostly sleeping at night when it is dark, although I'm not...and she did the funniest thing last night. Usually I lay her down, get her on her side, support         her back with a blanket so she can't roll over, and while I'm still up on my elbow, get her head to my breast and then I lay down. Last night,  I was half-down and still getting blankets situated. she saw my breast and without waiting for a guiding hand lunged for it. She got it too.         It was pretty funny...

Anyway, the bad news of the trip:

Yup, I just reached for them after a nap yesterday, opened them and pop, the         side just came right off. Broke, I should say, thus the Harry Potter tape.  Just goes to show that these glasses were not meant to hold up 4 years and are especially not newborn proof. In other words, I shouldn't have been sleeping in them. Too bad I am blind without and couldn't see a thing at night when she woke me without them...nevermind the pure exhaustion         tha tcuased me to fall asleep before removing them time and time again.  So that's what I get. broken glasses on vacation and how do we fix it?

In  other news...I hear again and again that Georgia must have red hair, just         look at all the pictures of her with that red tint. She honestly has the brownest hair ever, I swear. And then I see a picture like this (please excuse exhausted Mommy, straight off the plane):

And  omigosh, does she not have the same color hair as me in that photo?! But         she doesn't. Not really. and not only that, people she has dark skin. So pictures don't tell the whole truth, not all of it!

Speaking  of which, how about some new pics for your viewing pleasure?

click on the photo to see the new pictures!

So for all those who were waiting impatiently, *little* Georgia is now considered a 'Big Baby'. Yup. after measuring her and finding out that she is 60cm long (23 inches) the doctor called her a big baby. Wow. She was so tiny two months ago. And her weight? 5130 gram = 11.3097141 lbs!!!!! ELEVEN pounds! no wonder she feels so heavy!! No shots. We could have as she never had a really bad fever, but we decided to wait until after the trip to Seattle. She got a prescription for some nose drops to help clear her nose for take offs and landings. That made Daddy happy. And that was it. 11 lbs!

...and one day I looked at her and not only knew that she had gotten bigger, I could see that she was bigger and I no longer remembered how small she used to be...

No, seriously. I knew she had grown because she was heavier and those newborn clothes didn't fit her anymore and the size 56 german clothes DO (which, by the way, must mean she's 56cm long now, we'll know for sure tomorrow), but she still seemed the same teeny weeny baby, you know? And then suddenly I looked at her, looked at her head while she was eating (the ratio of head to breast was suddenly even), looked at her hands, her BIG hands as they pounded me, saw her thicker ears that the light no longer shines so readily through, and saw that the point on the left ear has rounded out. I saw her big pouty lips, and realized I can no longer comfortably hold her with one arm because she is now longer than my arm, and that was it. She is big. I can't remember how small she was. How strange.

Tomorrow she goes in for her U4, which would normally mean her first vaccination-shots, but Ines informed me that she has to have been healthy (no colds) for two weeks before the shots, or she won't get them. So I guess it'll be next year before she gets poked at and we have to endure her heartrending screams.

Oh, and can i say: POOH on the stupid construction workers who are pounding and drilling like crazy downstairs. What a way to NOT keep a baby asleep... I had to give up trying to put her down and now have her in my lap - asleep, yes, but still in my lap.

Last note: her nose sucker died this morning and her cold isn't 100% over yet. Urg. So now I'm torturing her by sticking wadded issues up her nose to get the snot out. I think the sucker was better - quicker at least. I dunno, she screams either way.

That's right, it's your birthday!!! So a big happy birthday from all of us over here in Germany. Can you tell life is getting easier (knock on wood). I actually had time to make you a card and get a blog entry up for just for you!

For the scrappers amongst you - the papers on the card are by the awesome TracyAnn Robinson from her Peppermint & Raspberry Leaf kit at scrapbook-bytes.

Two months old yesterday. I would love to do a rundown on behavior and attitude, what has changed, what she's doing etc., but am totally afraid of jinxing it...hm. well here goes anyway:

At 2 months, Georgia is:

• smiling daily
• almost laughing
• making more non-crying noises (almost coos)
• looking directly at her Mommy and Daddy
• following her mobile deliberately with her eyes and loving it
• loving her mobile even when it isn't moving!
• lying under her gym and liking it, as long as someone is with her making things move
• sleeping between 4 & 6 hours at night (more often 4 than 6)
• still oblivious to her arms and legs
• out of newborn jumpers
• in 0-3 month clothing
• sometimes falling asleep in her bed on her own (but rarely)
• almost living a routine
• sometimes letting me put her down for naps
• recovering from her first cold
• abso-freaking-lutely adorable

I can't add her new weight and height yet - she goes to the ped. on the 8th for shots and weighing, so I'll update then.

This meant to be a quick photo update (I uploaded new pictures to flickr) but now I have to add the bad news: Georgia is sick. Poor baby. she kept me up most of the night because she couldn't breathe, too much gunk caught up in the back of her throat (I know exactly how that is as I have the same problem). Finally got up at 7 this morning and got some breastmilk in her nose. Shortly after she sneezed and cleared out a ton of gunk and then spit up a ton more. She's still breathing difficult though, and she has a slight fever, 37.6°C. I called Andrea immeidately and she said: breastfeed her, put milk in her nose, take her outside for fresh air, keep her bundled up warm and if her fever gets worse, go to the doctor.

The worst thing is that Sven (who probably gave it to her in the first place as he's been sick) has a Christmas party at work today and probably won't be home until 3am or so, and when he does arrive, he'll be so drunk he's not allowed in the bedroom (dangerous to have a drunk in bed with a baby). Such bad, bad timing. I hope Georgia can sleep most of the day and that her nose eventually clears up and we don't have to go to the doctor.

I leave you with this:

clicking on the photo will take you to the updated set at flickr.

Friday was a good mail day. Sometime before 1:30 that afternoon (therefore before G and I went down for a nap) the bell rang. The DHL man had brought us not one, but two packages! One came from Oregon and had a gorgeous hand-knit hat for Georgia (and some fabulous Ribbon Jar ribbons for me - thanks Amber!) and one was from Baby Walz and had G's new baby gym in it:

The gym is pretty cool, it plays mozart or funny animal sounds, has tons of hanging things and a mirror and noisy spots on the blanket. I put it together and stuck Georgia under it and....she screamed at me until I picked her back up. But hey, we had a tough week last week and she actually stayed under the gym today and almost smiled...so there is hope yet!

Check out this hat - is it not fabulous? so bright and orange and fun! It totally makes me laugh. I can't wait until Georgia's head is big enough for it - which seems like forever away, but considering I thought the same thing about most of the hats that have been waiting for her to grow for months now suddenly FIT, it might not be that long before the fun orange hat fits after all (was that a run-on or what? cut me some slack, I'm having to type with one finger and a baby and it takes forever. by the time i finish half a sentence, my brain has raced ahead and totally forgotten what my finger is typing...)!

On Saturday (yesterday) I got a day away from home, first time since Georgia was born, and first time I'd been away from her for more than 2 hours! I met Liz at Stacchus at noon, we wanted a few hours before the movie (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) started to eat lunch and shop. The movie was supposed to start at 2pm, but when we got there, we found out it didn't start until 3:15pm!!! So we had even more time to kill. We had lunch then went shopping and finally headed over to the theater. The movie is LONG, but the stupid theater had a half hour of commercials - commercials, not previes, commercials - before the movie even started. Anyway, the movie went until 6pm! You can imagine how much in pain I was before I finally got to feed Georgia. I went from 11am to 8:30pm without feeding her and I was wet from top to bottom. The day was worth it though - it was fabulous getting away, and as you know from my last post, necessary. Today was much more bearable after a complete day away from my angel. Okay, the sunshine helped as well!

And now, today is the first day of Advent, a very big deal here in Germany. In fact, Advent is almost more fun than Christmas itself over here - yes, I've even done a whole layout about Advent here in Germany - and all the Christmas markets opened and it's cold and snowy and just very cool. So first of all:

No, normally I wouldn't bother wishing everyone a happy first day of advent, but we had this adorable christmas jumper for Georgia from her Grandma, right? Unfortunately, the jumper is a size newborn, which just a week ago, was the size she needed. However, she literally grew overnight and the newborn size no longer fits. I have proof:

Here she is in her jumper. See the bit of white peeking out? That white onesie beneath the jumper? Yup, that's the first snap that didn't snap. The other is the top snap at the back of her neck. And in all honesty, it was a tight squeeze getting her in the jumper at all. I usually put socks on her inside the jumper, but her feet were not going on this one with socks on... So there you have it, official proof that Georgia has truly grown and no longer fits the newborn size. She has moved up to 0-3 months!! And just in time too, as she was 8 weeks old yesterday and I guess in a few more days she'll be 2 months!

I mentioned we had sunshine today? Gorgeous lighting, we took over 200 pictures of Georgia. I haven't had time to edit them yet, so can't share many more with you, but click HERE to see a few I got to and be looking for more in the near future.

After taking all the photos (Georgia was an angel, hardly a peep, but plenty of smiles) she didn't want to nap, so we decided to take her on a walk. Luckily, Sybille dropped the snowsuit off yesterday while I was movie-watchin' so I bundled Miss Mae up good and warm and then put her down in her crib while waiting for Sven to get ready (he's very sick) and she fell asleep. Crazy girl. She's all crying and unhappy about being awake and being stuffed in a snowsuit and then BAM, she's out like a light.

Anyway, snowsuit is very warm (though big) and she slept nicley insulated while we walked down to the Putzbrunn City Hall to check out the little Christmas Market. Not much going on (Putzbrunn is not big) but we got some 'gebrannte mandel' and giggled at the live nativity, which had a donkey and a bunch of kids playing Mary and Joseph andthe shepherds, all dressed in their warmest BAVARIAN attire...

if you were debating whether to click on the link I mentioned above (with a few of today's edited shots) then let me just leave you with this sneak peek of what today's shoot was all about. Awwww, what an adorable little elf, eh?!

One last word: thank-you to everyone who called or emailed or responded to my last blog entry. I appreciate it more than you can imagine. I am doing better, but I honestly think it is because I took off yesterday and got a day to myself. It really freshens your whole outlook and lets you start new on the following day, ready to face the world. Oh, and if you were wondering how Georgia and Sven got on while I was gone - fabulously. That's right. She didn't give him a hard time at all, she took her bottles when he gave them to her, only cried when she was hungry, and went down for a nap with him, without needing to suckle on a boob. So not fair. He'll never have a clue how freaking hard it is to be home day after day with a crying baby if she doesn't give him as hard a time as she always gives me!

Ah well. Happy first day of advent everyone.

A few things. I realized wth a start today, that november is more than half-over and I didn't have nearly as many photos of Georgia, although she has gone through more milestones this month than last. Oops. I didn't do anything about it at first, the light is bad and I rarely have her off my lap in a new and interesting position to photograph...but then I put her down this afternoon, in her crib after changing her diaper and turned on her Winnie the Pooh mobile.

We've been doing this pretty much since day one, though I'm not sure how much attention she paid it. Recently however, she's been intently watching as the stuffed tigger, piglet, pooh and eeyore go round and round, I mean, really following them with her eyes (yup, milestone!). Today, I saw her doing it and thought it was time to grab the camera and record it. It was pure luck that I not only got her watching the mobile, but I also got her smiling at it. I'd just taken a number of shots with her watching it and then the mobile stopped and what did she do? She suddenly got this huge grin on her face, waved her hands in the air and if she could have, would have laughed for joy at the mobile!

So woo hoo - here you go, two milestones captured on film (well, digital film anyway!), eye movement and smiling. She's actually been smiling since about her 2nd week (or first?) but unconsiously, mostly in her sleep. For a week or so though, she's started doing it consciously, but fleeting. She'll do it if she is in a VERY good mood and looking right at you and you grin as big as you possibly can at her. So I didn't think I'd be getting smiles on film yet. However, she surprised us by grinning like a crazy lady at Tanja and Markus this weekend as well. She was in fact, very well behaved for their visit.

Click HERE to see the newest shots of Georgia.