Liza is 9 months!

Sweet baby girl,

• You are eating SO much better than you were a month ago. Bananas are clearly your favorite, but you'll eat any fruit. You don't care for vegetables, but we keep trying:) You are still nursing about 4 times a day, and you are now eating 2-3 servings of pureed food a day too.
• You are really interacting now! You squeal and babble a lot, like you're having a real conversation.
• Your hair is coming in! It seems to be growing so fast now!
• Your two bottom teeth have broken through! And it looks like your two top teeth will break through any day now.
• You are 16 pounds, 13 ounces, which is on the small side for 9 months (10-25%). I think it is because you were slow to start eating - now that you've started you'll probably gain weight fast!
• You are such a sweet, laid back, happy little girl and I love you to pieces!

I'm back! And some BIG news!!

SO much has happened since I last blogged, and I want to catch up, but first I want to share our good news...we are moving back to the town where Matt and I grew up - St. Simons Island, Georgia!! Matt found out around Thanksgiving that he would be able to keep his job and work remotely and we could move. It has always been our intention to move back down south, and our dream to move back to St. Simons, so we are beyond thrilled!

While we were there for Christmas we had one week to look for a house, and we found one! We will hopefully be closing on it in mid February and moving down there in late February!

Here are a few pics of the house...

The live oaks on the island are one of our favorite things about St. Simons, and partly what made us fall in love with this house. Another cool thing is that we'll be right down the street (literally) from Matt's brother Beau and his wife Kate and their baby Beau.

My goal is to regularly start blogging again. I'd like to (slowly probably) catch up on the last couple of months also. I'll back-date posts to when they actually happened, so look back occasionally to see pictures from our fall through Christmas! For now though, here is a picture of us on Christmas night taken with my phone...

Liza is 8 months!

My sweet Liza is 8 months old!

Sweet baby girl,

• You've just started sitting up this week without falling over AT ALL!
• You've tried several foods now, but you really don't care for it at all. The only thing we can get you to eat is bananas.
• Your hair is finally starting to come in a little bit!
• You grab things constantly now! You reach and stretch for anything within your reach - you've even knocked a glass of water over (on your mom's phone!) in a restaurant:)
• I LOVE your smile and I love to see you happy baby girl - you are my sunshine!

St. Simons

Here are a few more pictures from our week in St. Simons...

Will and Otto decorating a gingerbread house with Grandmama!

We had a great meal at Uncle Don's and Will spontaneously climbed into Grandmama's lap! It was so cute!

Lunch at Brogans (with all 6 of Will and Liza's aunts and uncles!)...

We flew back on New Year's Day and went from mild temps in St. Simons to FREEZING Chicago...but not for long!!!

Christmas Day!

We spent Christmas morning at my parent's house. Liza got a chair like her big brother did two years ago (where has the time gone?!)...

My sister is so creative. She had Will help her "make" wrapping paper with his handprints - I loved it!

Will kept asking for a Mickey rocket this year (he had no idea that one even existed - he just loves Mickey and rockets!) and his mama found one! He was one happy little boy!

He made ornaments this year and we wrapped them up for our families!

Liza got a rocking horse bear from her Aunt B!

And Will got a Thomas the Train tent! It fits on Will's bed at my parent's house and he loves it!

Will also got a stomp rocket...

My dad builds model trains as a hobby and built Will one for Christmas! He built it in the garage at just the right height for Will - it even had a building with a "Dart Lumbar Yard" sign on top! It was really cool and Will loved it! And Aunt B got him a conductor hat with his name on it and a train whistle! Will had a ball...

Liza was just learning to eat and after having peaches for lunch she got a Christmas bath in the kitchen sink!

We had Christmas dinner with Matt's family at Beau and Kate's new house! It was their first night in their new home and there wasn't furniture in there yet but it was still so much fun!

Will was excited to show his Mickey rocket to Cousin Otto!

Kate got these cute matching Bailey Boys outfits for Beau and Liza!

Of course this is what it looks like when you try to take a picture of all four cousins...

A little better...

These two boys were SO exhausted at the end of the night...

Here's a few videos of Christmas morning...