Go Dawgs!

Our Little Georgia Bulldawg!

Cheering with Daddy for the Dawgs!

Playing with Uga!

11 months

11 Months with Buster Bear! Our little girl is growing up so fast!

At 11 months, she loves to walk everywhere, all by herself. She can pick up things and bring them with her wherever she goes. She loves to read books - independently or with us. She has started playing "babies" where she will take a doll, put it up on her shoulder and pat it on the back. She loves balls - throwing balls over and over and over. She is talking lots and will have conversations with herself on her play phone. She loves to slide and can almost get up the stairs all by herself. She now has 7 teeth with one more on the way. She is eating more and more table food. She's showing a little bit of stranger anxiety when I leave her in her MDO class or when I leave from visiting her room in Sunday School. She has started coloring with crayons and stacking one block on top of another, though she still mostly prefers to knock down our towers. She can identify her nose, eyes, mouth, and tongue. She loves to dance anytime she hears music. She enjoys being outside and playing in the yard. She lights up any room she's in and wows people everywhere we go with her delightful personality. In the last two days she has brightened people's days at the funeral home, Hobby Lobby, Walmart, a Japanese restaurant, church, and of course ours at home! People have stopped us at every single one of those places to say she is the cutest baby they've ever seen! We know we're biased, but we have to agree!

Pig Tails!

Nadia's 1st pigtails!

Playing with Gamma at Andy's birthday dinner.

Lovin' Auntie Step

Today she wore pigtails with bows all day and everyone at church thought she was toooo cute!

Wearing her shades with Andy on the boat from vacation.

Vacation Video

Walking in our cabin on the ship

Walking in the ocean! She wanted to do it herself and did not want us to pick her up. She walked and walked and walked.

Our big walker! Last Thursday she just decided she'd rather walk than crawl and did! She's gotten steadier and steadier as the week has gone by. It's still kind of suprising to see this little girl walk around the corner to see you! She's so grown up!

Our big talker! She has several new words this week - "moo", "cluck", duck, dog and she can squench up her nose and snort like a bull. She regularly says "bye bye" now and mama and dada with an occassional "hey" and "hi". We tried to capture all these words in one short video... this is the best we got.

Hilariously laughing! She was soo tickled - we love her laugh!

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

Nadia's 1st Plane Ride. She was a fantastic traveler. I had new books and new toys for the plane ride, so she was busy the whole way there. Coming home she was a little more restless but all in all was an excellent flyer.

Looking out the plane window

Snoozing with her legs crossed in our stateroom.

Ready for dinner on Monday night.

Tuesday we went on a Caves and Beaches excursion in Freeport. We went to two caves - she slept through the first one...

but woke up for the 2nd one!

Then we walked across the street and went to the beach.

She especially liked walking in the water and sand. She didn't want us to pick her up - she wanted to walk herself. Luckily at this beach there were feet and feet of very shallow water for her to walk in.

She had no fear of the waves and walked and walked!

She played in and ate the sand.

She was covered in sand from head to toe!

This was the view at the 2nd beach where we ate lunch. Looks like a postcard doesn't it?

A puppet show over conch fritters for lunch.

Check out that girl in her hat and shades! On Wednesday in Nassau, we got off the boat long enough to walk around the block and get back on. She napped through the whole thing. Then we blew up her little pool, filled it with water and hung out on the pool deck for the afternoon. She played in the shade and we took turns laying in the sun/reading/working crosswords and watching her.

On Thursday we went to Great Stirrup Cay, Norweigan Cruise Line's private island. It was a wonderful, relaxing day at the beach! Nadia loved playing in the water's edge with the sand and waves crashing on her. We took turns relaxing and playing with Nadia. Andy got to play in a volleyball tournament and I got to lay in a chair in the edge of the water and read! So relaxing!

She was fascinated with how she "sunk" down in the sand.

We kept her covered up, lathered up in sun screen and mostly in the shade and she made it the entire day without getting the least bit burned.

Our GA girl riding the tender back to the boat from the private island.

Dinner on Thursday night. She did great at all the meals, except Tuesday night when we made the mistake of going too late in the evening. We had to leave after the appetizers and head back to the room. Andy got a lid for our lobsters and brought them back to the room where she could play. The rest of the nights we had a wonderful experience and kept her busy with all kinds of food from chicken cordon bleu to kids meal hot dogs, fruit plates and fruit loops. Nadia became quite well known around the ship. Many of the serving crew knew her by name from day to day and dining room to buffet. She made lots of friends throughout the week!

We missed the sun set... so these pics are a little dark, but at least we remembered to pull out the camera! We had a wonderful, relaxing week with no thought of work or cleaning or cooking! We've always known we had the best baby in the world, but it was confirmed over and over again as she is so adaptable and so friendly and such a great girl in all circumstances!

Nadia's Fort

Andy built Nadia a fort using the 15 pillows and cushions from our sofa and love seat. She had a ball playing in the fort with Daddy!

Reading books in the fort

Playing in a fort can really wear you out!

This was Nadia's cracker from supper - it has 4 Nadia sized bites taken out of it! At last she can "bite" into a cracker with top and bottom teeth!

Today Nadia has continued to babble streams of syllables together all day. She also picked up a rubber ducky and said "duck" as plain as could be. She repeated it several more times when we asked what she was holding. Later on she identified a duck in a book.

Growing up - 10 months updates

Auntie Al and Uncle Pat came to visit from Texas and we got to spend the weekend with them at our house and in NC at Nana and Granddaddy's. Uncle Jor rode up with Nadia and me and was great help since Andy had to stay home for a youth retreat. Kisses from Granddaddy

Uncle Pat is tall! Nadia and Auntie Al are about the same height here...

Auntie Al got in the inflatable with Nadia to play!

Rather than getting up at 4 AM when Nadia thought she was ready to be awake, we put her in the bed with us. This is how they looked after I got up. I was prompted to get up sooner than they were b/c my space was where the red pillow is now.... it didn't allow for ANY movement or comfort... but I love my sweet bed buddies!

Sweet girl was so tired she fell sound asleep during supper!

I got in the ball pit inflatable to play too!

Nadia is growing up so very much every day!

• She now walks across the room when she wants to (which isn't all the time b/c crawling is still more realiable) but she can do it when she sets her mind to it.
• She can say "go" "ball" "bye bye" and "MAMA" (finally!).
• She has learned to put objects back into their container this week. Before this point she has only been willing to take them out but never to put them back in. She loves to get the animals and put them back in the ark and close the door.
• She has two new teeth on the top! She continues to love to eat everything we offer her.
• She loves plopping down on pillows and putting her head on a pillow to play. She still eats once in the night and gets up a second time most nights just for some quick cuddling and then goes right back to sleep.
• She will read books by herself now (well at least she will look through the pictures and turn the pages all by herself). When she has the choice, she chooses books more than any other toy.
• She has adapted well to her new M/W nanny and likes her alot. She's also had fun with her new class at "school."
• She was an awesome nursing home and homebound member visitor with me this week. The seniors always LOVE when a baby comes to visit and it's usually pretty easy to take her to the nursing home. I took her to our first homebound member's house and it was filled with breakables galore. Nadia sat perfectly still beside me on the couch and played with some plastic coasters the lady gave her while we chatted. At one point she got down, crawled over to the lady and said "hey", waved and blew kisses. She never even tried to touch the porcelain tea cup collection on the coffee table or the glass bells or vase collection on the end tables! My 10 month old is the perfect house guest!
• She blows kisses and says bye consistently when we leave somewhere.
• When we read one particular book that has one object per page, she anticipates the page turn to the page with a "ball" and shouts out "BALL" as soon as she sees it (and sometimes before b/c she's too excited to wait for it!).

Every day is such a total joy with her! She wakes up happy and makes us smile all day long. She is the best hugger ever and gives us cuddles and hugs all throughout the day. We feel like the luckiest parents in the world!