I have been babysitting quite a bit since Amy and Brad have a pretty noisy, busy house right now.  Gia is just as sweet and cute as can be.  She really does remind me of Amy as a baby.  She loves to have someone talk to her and is trying very hard to respond.  When she gets a goo or coo out, she is so proud of herself.  She likes to hear Brown Bear, Brown Bear and focuses intently on the pictures.  

Can’t remember if I reported already but we are renovating again – putting stairs up form the back of the den into the mother-in-law house. We were just going to put in stairs but you know how peeling the onion is. Might as well replace the carpet in the new office upstairs, Oh! Well since the carpet is up we should pull up all the plywood and put lights down in the den. Oh! well the plywood is up so we should take this opportunity to run Cat 5 cable through the floor beams to the walls where we want them, Oh! Well… and so on. It is exciting though I don’t dare say we’ve finished again because there seems to ALWAYS be one more major project we can take on.

We are going to Orange, Texas, Brad’s home town, this weekend – our first long distance trip with the baby – to plant a tree in Brad’s Mother Ann’s memory in the Shangri La botanical gardens. We are staying with Brad’s brother in Houston Friday night and heading to Orange on Saturday. Brad’s Step mother Bonnie is going to get to see the baby for the first time which she is very excited about. The whole family is going to do an hour and ½ swamp tour, which I would really like to do but am hesitant in case Giada freaks out in the middle of the swamp.

She was funny today. She was so tired but didn’t want to go to sleep. Poor exhausted little thing.

Grandma Canterbury's Blanket

Wow, it has been snowing here all morning. It is almost noon and still going strong. The roads still look ok though so alas we can’t really call it a snow day.

This is a picture of Giada with the blanket my Grandmother Canterbury crocheted her. Giada loves to look at the contrasting pink and white. We usually have it draped over the sofa where she sleeps in the corner and cover her with it when she is asleep.

Isn’t this outfit so cute? I think it will probably be about the last time she can wear it as she is about to get too big. I love it though. My friend Lori Potter gave it to me at the baby shower we had at Jennifer’s. Sooooo in fashion!

I still have Giada in a bassinette next to our bed and she sleeps from midnight to 7 am every night, eats at 7 and goes back to sleep usually until 10 am – which is great! But it makes for a long evening – she is so fussy and Brad and I don’t get a lot of time togeather.

This Saturday has FLOWN by. I can’t believe it is 5pm already. It feels like I just woke up! Giada was up at 4:40 this morning and there was no putting her back to sleep. I know it was because we started trying to put her down earlier than midnight. Fairly successful but the results were tough – since we DID stay up until midnight, the 4am wake up call was hard (for me!).  

For anyone looking for a good series to watch and who has any interest in Sci- Fi run to your tivo and program it to record Caprica on the SyFy channel. It is AWESOME! Hopefully any sci fi lover has already watched the entire new Battle Star Galactica, it is sooooo good! (Caprica was in our final 10 name picks for Giada. My Mom hates Giada’s name – I wonder if she would have liked Caprica better)”Cap-Rih-ka”) Maybe the next kid will get it.

I have been immersed in baby care books but have gone to the new library near us and got 2 new books: Shantaram By Gregory David Roberts, a 920 page turner about Bombay that I have been assured I will love more than Diana Galbadon’s Outlander series (doubt it- but we’ll see) And finally a return to my beloved Patrick O’Brian Master and Commander series! I am on the 3^rd or 4^th last book in the series – The Commordore.  Sooo good. I love it when I find an author that has more than 3 books in a series that are good.

Brad Giada and I are doing fine. We are having a very lazy Saturday. Giada desperately needs a bath so I think we will get to that here quickly. She has a purple outfit on that has birds all over it and says Happy Flappy on it. I’ve been walking around all morning fixated on saying “You’re a Happy Flappy Dirty Bird” is a ridiculous high voice. She is fat, happy and very squiggly.