Georgia is 1 3/4!

A new house, a new photographer (Daddy did the honors this month and did a fine job-he's such a good Daddy) and pictures to illustrate our girl's blooming personality featured this month. It's been three months of change as we sold our house, moved in with my Dad and started the process of building our new home. Georgia Grace has been a trooper through all the adversities and unfamiliar situations. God has outdone Himself with her.

Georgia-you are a year and 3/4! 

• I'm guessing you to be around 22 pounds and about 32-33 inches tall. You wear 18 month clothing and big girl panties during the day and a size 4 diaper at night. You are wearing a size 5/6 shoe.
• Since I already mentioned the big girl panties, the biggest accomplishment in the past three months is potty training! You went all day yesterday in panties without an accident!! You still wear a diaper to bed but I don't think it will be long before we make the switch to panties. You have woke up dry several times. You couldn't make me more proud if you tried sweet baby girl!
• You have a mouth full of teeth. I have truly lost count. One of your top lateral incisors ("second tooth") was really slow to come in and we were worried you didn't have it but it has finally appeared! Your teeth are cute and small and look like your Daddy's did at the same age.

• You are speaking in full sentences. You try to say every word you here. And I can already hear that thick southern drawl in your voice. Wonder who you get that from? :)
• The number 5 does still not exist to you. When we tell you to put a 5 between the 4 and 6 you say "No". Your teenage years are going to be fun :)
• You nap most days (that will soon be everyday when you start preschool) and sleep through the night. Some nights we still rock you and some nights you go on your own. Your schedule has been more relaxed this summer by staying and waking up later but that will soon change with the start of the new school year.
• You are very friendly and wave at everybody. You love men! And you remain such the Daddy's girl.
• You like to keep busy and rarely sit still. I don't think you have ever sit down and watched 30 straight minutes of TV. 
• You will officially be an AKK preschooler this fall. You love it and I think it's made you more confident and outgoing! I'm so thankful for the structure, manners, curriculum and friendships that it offers. You are in the best hands no doubt when Mommy and Daddy are at work.

• You have also inherited another personality trait from your mother of being bossy. It's your life and we're just living in it :) You love bossing Owen and repeating the commands I give him. You are first born through and through.
• We finally said goodbye to the bottle! You sometimes have a sippy of milk before bed (trying to bump that up so we can do the nightime panty thing) but no bottle at all! It was an easy transition actually despite my fears. You fussed a few mornings for one but quickly accepted your beverages in a sippy or cup or through a straw and moved on with life. You make my job easy GGH!
• You eat three meals a day but you are such a grazer. You want to be snacking on something all day long. This must be the reason for your high metabolism! Your favorite foods are corn, cheese, peaches, rice and strawberries. You love Mexican food! 

Twenty one months went fast. Super fast. Faster than I even expected despite the warnings from fellow mommy friends. Even though time does move swiftly we wouldn't want to spend our time any other way. You are the best of both of us Georgia Grace and I'm super proud everyday to call you mine. 

Happy 1 3/4 years to my little dolly! I love you forever!

-Mommy 

And happiest of birthdays (#26) to our favorite guy in the whole world! We are celebrating tonight with dinner and they have both tagged along with me to a work conference at our state capitol so it's a nice little getaway for us. We love you MPH!

List Bliss

Happy Friday y'all! My life is not functioning in long, narrative thoughts but rather short lists right now so I'm not going to fight it. We've been doing a lot of "hurry up and wait" here lately and as exhausting as it can be I know there is a reason for it. I have been reminded several times this week to just simply trust His plan. His plan is good. His plan is sovereign. There's a lot of peace and freedom in those words for me.

One

Last week (July 14th) was my two year blogiversary. Some days it feels like I just started and some days I feel like I have been a blogger forever. Even though my plate has more on it than it did two summers ago when I was halfway through my first pregnancy and wasn't wrangling a toddler I still try to make time to chronicle our lives. These days are fleeting and I want to remember them as vividly as I can while still living in the moment each and every day. Blogging has a beautiful way of allowing you to do both. Thank you to my readers (over 83,000 page views say what?!? Y'all rock.) for motivating me without even knowing you do. It's been a fun journey that I hope continues for a long time.

Two
 Potty training. So much to say about that. Since I last posted exclaiming we were 90% there I jinxed us and she decided she wasn't interested in the potty. But then Wednesday night I had the idea to store a bin of toys right by her potty so that she can play while she sits and that seemed to do the trick. She wore panties all afternoon and night without any accidents! Maybe just maybe we will have it whipped by the end of summer.

Three

Can we talk about how big this child has been acting here lately? She speaks in full sentences ("I want more corn", "I want to see my Dada", "Get up Eliza, Callyn; Go pee!" Ha!), drinks from a cup, pees in the potty and wears big girl panties. But no matter how big she acts during the day you can bet she wants her nighttime milk and cuddles to soothe her to sleep. We're hanging on to that as long as we can.

Four

Naptime yesterday equaled studying our plans (I feel so official since they are in blueprint form now!). The builder said how impressed he was with the detailed list of materials, finishes, etc. that we provided during the bidding process. He hasn't learned how Type A I am yet obviously ;) Things are moving right along and we are on track to break ground by the end of summer-yeehaw!

Five

Sunday we were greeted at Mamaw's with the sweetest gifts from my baby cousin. She asked Georgia Grace and me to stand by her on her wedding day.

This is the third flower girl gig she has landed! And technically her fourth wedding if you count when I was 38 weeks pregnant with her as the Matron of Honor in my sister-in-law's wedding :) She will be 2 1/2 for the wedding which should be a good age. Time will tell the tale. 

She was so excited she did the "cheese" grin! She loves her Payton so very much. These two are an inseparable pair.

She will be the most beautiful bride. I'm so thankful we get to share the day with her.

Have a great weekend friends!

Harrison Happenings

It's times like now when I have a full plate and no time left in my day to devote to blogging that I'm tempted to throw in the towel. And then I read a comment that I have inspired someone to start a personal blog and I'm motivated all over again (Yay Meredith!). Thanks to all of my readers for tuning in and supporting me. It's getting ready to get really exciting in the next few months as I blog about our building process. I hope I can be a resource to others who plan on building in the future. I know the bloggers I follow that have recently built homes have helped inspire me.

Here's what our week/weekend looked like from an iPhone lens. My camera lens has still not turned up since we moved. Am I really going to have to go through every box of storage?? :(

Georgia Grace in her Pa's '77 Camaro. She loves going to the garage with him and "riding" the car and motorcycle. Sixteen years is going to go by way too quickly.

This week was full of pool parties. We were able to make two out of three and she had the best time once she warmed up to the ginormous pool. Lola P was a great swim partner since Mommy had already put her clothes back on!

Another sweet one of GGH with the birthday girl. The grins say it all! 

Two-thirds of us smiling with our eyes open is a win :)

Aiden's birthday party was two nights later and although it was an unseasonably cool July day they still had a lot of fun. She has always been rather fond of Aiden. I think this picture depicts that ;)

Thursday we had a family day just hanging around the house and enjoying the pleasant non-July weather. We went on a family picnic and I captured a sweet moment of Georgia Grace eating her favorite food-corn. This child wants corn with every meal. And for snack. It's a good thing we have so many fresh corn growers in our area, I keep us well stocked.

Friday night was a big night. We met with our architect to pick up our finalized house plans! Two long months of planning, changing, adding, changing back to the original, and adding some more finally yielded the house of our dreams. It's going to be perfectly us. Can't wait to share the details with you soon.

On our way home we stopped at Cracker Barrel to celebrate with some southern comfort food. As we were leaving we had to try out the rocking chairs I took this picture which definitely tells a story. Notice the silhouette of the young man in the background, thus the cause of the dreamy expression. And also note her big toe peeping out of her baby Jacks ha! [baby Jacks from Gymboree but it appears they have been discontinued :(]

Yesterday we worked the church nursery and came home and rocked babies in our own nursery. She loves her "babies" which yesterday included a UK cheerleader doll, a wiener dog beanie baby, a build-a-bear bear and a tub baby. She's the best little mommy.

And then we spent some of the afternoon outside running and playing. I put her in dog ears just to try something different and they were an instant hit. She loved them too. This may be our 'do for the summer :)

Wifi is coming to my Dad's this week so maybe I will blog more regularly or maybe not. Everything else comes first and then if I have a spare 30 minutes I will crank out a post.

Happy Monday friends!

The house that built us

We have been moved for three weeks now and are slowly getting every box emptied and every closet stuffed full of our things. The transition to our temporary home has been seamless and we are enjoying the extra space, huge yard and panoramic views. I think I had forgot how much I enjoyed the outdoors.

Even though we are elated to build a larger home to grow our family into and to make new memories in our very first home will always hold a little place in my heart and remind me of home when I pass by. It holds the history of a sweet love story in between those walls.

We bought the house while we were engaged five years ago. It was the second house we had looked at and I was sold on the first house because it was more of a fixer upper and I thought since we were young and able it would be fun to take on. Thank you to everyone who kindly told me different :)

It didn't take long before I fell in love with the house too. Marcus moved in on New Years Day and I moved in after our wedding. Those days of making our house our home will be forever etched into my memory. Besides a dorm room neither of us had lived outside of our parent's homes so we didn't have much to fill up the space but we didn't realize that at the time nor did it matter. For our bedroom suite we used one that has been passed down in my family. Our dining room table was from Marcus' family. The recliner in the living room was handed down to us from my grandparents. It was like a patchwork quilt of all of our families in the form of a little, cozy, furnished house. 

We celebrated four Christmases, gave treats to over 1,000 trick-or-treaters, watched hometown parades from the front yard, brought home our first born, and entertained lots of family and friends (lots of outdoor grilling ha!). There was laughing, there was fighting, there were tears, and there were trials. We built our marriage and our family while living in that home.

It's with an anxious and humbled heart that we say our final goodbye to the place that holds endless memories. Even though there were several days I spent more time ready to be done with it than enjoying it for what it was I will always remember it for the love and happiness it brought. But I know that the people inside the house are what the memories are made around and home to me will always be wherever they are.

I'm thankful for this home and the new home I will share with them soon. We are closing one chapter of the story and beginning a new one.

Weekend Wrap Up

It is mid July and I feel like Summer just began. This is definitely one of the fastest seasons I can remember. We only have three weekends left to savor these lazy, fun days until the new school year begins and Daddy is back to the daily grind. I hope they are all as enjoyable as this one!

I worked Thursday (I earned a three day weekend so I gladly did it!) and Georgia Grace took a trip to the orchard with Marcus, Aunt Shanna, Ma and Pa. They were all on vacation last week so it was the perfect time for a family outing for the original Harrison four + the new addition to the lineage :)

She fed the farm animals, went down the big slide with Aunt Shanna and ate some yummy peach ice cream. She loves animals so this day trip was right up her alley.

While she was doing that I was doing this. Two other local dietitians and myself hosted a "MyPlate Grocery Tour" at a local grocery store.

This was my first time ever doing a nutritional grocery tour and it was a lot of fun! This is the rewarding part of my job and I'm thankful for this opportunity. 

Our three day weekend started off Friday with a trip to the orthodontist (bent my bottom permanent retainer and had to have it replaced) and the Depot to look at house pretties. She had fun the first 30 minutes we were in the store but then she started taking her dress off and standing up in the cart and other on-the-cusp of two years of age activities :) We wrapped up our shopping and headed out for lunch.

Friday night was one of the most fun nights of the summer in my book. Chaney's Dairy Barn hosted their "Ice Cream & A Moo-vie" night and it was Frozen night. It was a nobrainer that we had to attend this night. We met Aunt Paigey and Uncle Eric there and packed a cooler full of nostalgic drive-in snacks. There was so many people, it was the largest crowd they had ever had. We found a small opening on the far right side, threw down our quilt and enjoyed the show. This will be a summer tradition for us!

Saturday was another fishing trip for Marcus. They caught over 200 fish! I seriously don't know how there are any fish left in Lake Malone.

My girl and I found another body of water to entertain us. She became super brave this weekend and was jumping in like a fish and "swimming" with us. We have to be careful to not get her ears wet but that doesn't stop us from having fun!

Sunday was church and a pool party for our sweet friends Lola and Eli. This was Georgia Grace's first trip to the Morgantown City Pool. It's a huge pool and it took her a little while to warm up but once she did she didn't want to leave. All her AKK friends were so excited to see her. They have been on vacation for two weeks so it will be a sweet reunion today when she goes to visit :)

Happy Monday! We've got a busy week ahead of us so I'm just taking it day by day and living up summertime!

Georgiaisms

It's been a while since I posted about the latest Georgiaisms. This summer we have watched her change in so many ways. She is baby turned little girl in just a matter of months. It's a beautiful thing to see her learn new skills and possess certain mannerisms and take on a young girl look. She really feels like such a big girl. Thank goodness she's not as big as she acts sometimes :) 

Here are some of the new, awesome, funny things our Georgia Grace is conquering:

The biggest, most awesome new thing is that she is 90% potty trained! She wears panties through the day and a diaper if we are going somewhere and for bedtime. She has woke up several mornings with a dry diaper! So far potty training has been really easy with this child. She started showing interest back in May and has just continued to want to be a big girl. What's funny is she is so young that she doesn't value panties really. We make a big deal out of them and buy her new ones and give her the option between the diaper or panty and she could care less. Guess that comes with a potty training 20 month old :) Hopefully we will be 100% by the start of the new school year. So so so proud of her! 

Something funny she just started doing this week is she calls my Mom (who wishes to be called Gammy) Tammy! She is not a fan of the G sound and has refused to say Gammy up until now which is actually Tammy. Mom is just thrilled she has a name :) Tammy it is.

When she counts it goes "One, Two, Free, Fo-a, Sich..." Five does not exist to her no matter how many times we say it the correct way. And they way she pronounces those numbers is to die for cute.

When we tell her we love her, she says "Love me". She understands there is a possessive pronoun change but hasn't quite mastered the correct one. I love it though.

She loves ending words with the "e" sound. Pooie, Owie (Owen), diapie, Shannie...the list goes on.

Marcus was hollering for me from downstairs and GGH heard him and said "Kate" (what Marcus calls me mostly). We weren't sure if that's what she said so we asked her to say it again and sure enough it was "Kate". It was so strange to hear her say anything but Mommy. I quickly corrected her :)

Her vocabulary grows everyday. She has started saying that she "needs" things ("I need to see my Dadda") and can carry on a small conversation rather well. Her annunication of words has really improved in the last few months. It does appear she has inherited her mother's talking gene.

We are right smack dab in the middle of taking away the bottle. We are down to just a night bottle. It's completely a comfort thing for her because she can use a sippy, straw, and a regular cup with no problem. This morning she really wanted her bobble. Parenting is hard sometimes. I'm thankful this is really the only thing we have had to wean from her. It's enough though.

She has loved playing with her AKK friends this summer when her and Daddy go over to Grandmomma's to visit. They love the days "baby Georgia" comes over to play with them.

Her uniform this summer has been a swimsuit. Between three pools in the family and a watertable we are constantly doing something in the water.

She has taken a recent interest in dressing herself. She doesn't like to have her clothes changed but for some reason she finds amusement when she does it herself. She loves to wear other people's shoes and clothes as well.
Since moving to my Dad's house they have become so close. Every night when he gets home from work she says "Poppa, Poppa, Poppa" and sticks her little hand out motioning him to come to the playroom with her. It's precious. They are best buddies!

These days are really special. I wish I could bottle them up special. We are definitely on the wee part of the ride.

The Fourth

I feel like summertime is unofficially the time to take a little break from blogging. At least it has been for me as I find myself doing weekly recaps as opposed to my usual 3-4 times a week check-in. And I'm totally ok with that. We are doing a lot of fun, memory-making things that we enjoy doing and then I just blog about it early Monday morning. It works :) 

We had a big, busy week celebrating the Fourth. Independence Day is definitely one of my favorite holidays. Between the fireworks, food, our county fair, swimming and music there's so much to love about this time of the year.

We went over to my sister-in-law's for a crawfish boil midweek. So much fun! I don't think there was one crawfish left when we were finished.

Last week Georgia Grace's Ma, Aunt Shanna and Grandmomma made patriotic shirts using her handprint and I thought they turned out so cute! Nope, not one bit spoiled ;)

While we were there GGH took a trip to the garden with Aunt Shanna and picked a wild onion. She thought she was big stuff!

While she was doing that I was taking a ride on the gator with my brother-in-law and all I kept saying was "I think I'm going to throw-up" ha! I said that being squeals. He is a maniac. Seriously crazy. And I guess I'm even crazier that I knew this and rode anyway-I survived!

We celebrated the 4th at the Catfish Festival (our county fair) as we do every year. Don't we have the best county fair name??? I mean seriously who wouldn't want to be known as the catfish capital of the world? :) This wild woman took to the dance floor with the square dancers. She had the best night.

Our best buddy "Ro-Ro" (as GGH has renamed him) was there and I just love this picture of our two babies. Two Julys ago we had no kids at CFF (GGH was on the way) and now we have two! Such blessings these two are.

We watched a spectacular fireworks show. She loved them (unlike her Daddy who use to have his ears covered and be cuddled when he was little...:)).

The night ended on this sweet note. Her "boyfriend" Ace was there and they danced together and it was the sweetest thing I've ever seen. Abby (Ace's mom) took a video of the dance and sent it to me to save to our hard drive to keep. We think maybe we can use it in their wedding video someday...:)

Saturday we pulled out the watertable to try for the first time. It was a hit of course. Anything that involves water and being outside is a winner in her book.

She wasn't content just standing and playing in the water like most kids and had to climb in it to see the top. Sheesh!

We went back to the festival Saturday night for the one last night of fun. We stole Miss Butler County Catfish for a quick picture. We love McKinzey! She was so sweet to love on our girl (she even included her in an instagram collage :)), she will be a great representative!

We weren't done with our patriotic celebrations just yet and headed to "Thunder Over Grancer" Sunday night. This is a get together our good friends have every year around the 4th at their house and it is so much fun. Swimming, a fish fry, pickin' and grinnin', and fireworks. I took these pictures in my Dad's garage as we were headed out the door-the perfect backdrop!

We got to see Aunt Paigey and Uncle Eric while we were there which was a sweet treat. We had a lot of family and friends time this week and it was wonderful.

This is what my girl thinks about the 4th of July! She has had the best week. Our bedtime schedule may be even more skewed but we will worry about that tomorrow :)

Hope y'all had a great 4th as well! Definitely sad to see this weekend come to a close but thankful for all the memories we made.