Ready to Ride

Georgia had a big weekend, not only does she have three loose teeth, in the last two days she has learned to ride her bike without training wheels!  Thanks to daddy for his patience and persistence, I think Georgia finally believes that it is as fun as you said it would be!

Thanksgiving 2015

We enjoyed a great Handsaker Thanksgiving at Nana and Bawdy's house.  It was a beautiful day and if you're Georgia and Leo, nothing is better than playing with your cousins and ending the day with pie!

  Georgia, Leo, Landon & Holden

The Handsaker Gang

Strong Against Cancer

This summer Georgia was invited to participate in a Strong Against Cancer video, thanking donors for their support which has raised money to fund ground breaking clinical trials.

A few weeks ago I got a sneak peek of the video and the day before Thanksgiving it was shared on social media.

Thank you Strong Against Cancer, you are moving mountains!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKCxYGtLMXA

Kicking Off Christmas

The day after Georgia's party we headed to Seattle to check out the beautifully decorated Christmas trees in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel with Grammy, Grandpa and the Pittmans.  Each tree is elaborately decorated and sold, the money benefits a few charities, one of them being Children's Hospital.  We couldn't afford a $4,000 tree but enjoyed hot coco and french fries and a surprise appearance by Santa!  There was a tree lighting in the main part of the lobby and a teddy bear suite decorated like a child's dream.  It was a great way to kick off the Christmas season.

The Unxepected

I spent a lot of Georgia's birthday racing around, making sure her birthday breakfast and presents were done in time to get to the bus, running Leo to school, then picking him up and racing to pick up the cupcakes that I would deliver to Georgia's class.  Dropping off Leo then getting over to Georgia's school and passing out cupcakes before the kids came back from recess.  I wanted to make sure her day was special, turning six is a really big deal.

After I'd dropped the cupcakes and watched her class sing to her I walked out of her school feeling so happy for her, that she was enjoying her day without a care in the world.

I got in my car, ready to race off to the next thing, then glanced at my phone, my screen had just lit up telling me that Manuel Essig had posted something on my Facebook page.  I opened it, read the message and looked at the photo, I immediately welled up with tears, good tears.

In the photo Manuel was holding two signs, wishing Georgia happy birthday in both German and English.  The message read, 

I was overwhelmed with gratitude and amazement, how lucky we are that he is who he is.  If you know anything about Facebook then you know you can comment or "like" a post.  I commented on the post but not before a few friends did. By the end of the evening, 115 people "liked" the post and all in all there were 21 comments, saying things like, Heros are among us, God Bless you, Thank you Manuel, we love you.. and more.  Hopefully he knows how highly he is regarded, truly an incredible human being.

Dog Pawty

Georgia decided that this year she'd like to have a dog themed party, this is ironic because she's always been afraid of dogs.  She was full of ideas and helped me plan the whole thing.  We lucked out and had a beautiful (but cold) day where kids came and adopted (stuffed) dogs complete with adoption certificates and all.  There was pin the tail on the dog and of course a dog themed cake.  The birthday girl was happy, watching her buzz around with friends and cousins was the best part of the day.

 Adopt a dog today!

 Adoption Certificates & collars 

 Grammy & Grandpa came all the way from Montana to celebrate

 Georgia with her best school buddy, Olivia

 Pin the tail on the dog 

 Proud new dog owners

Celebrations

Georgia's birthday was filled with celebrations.  That morning, she woke up to presents from our family and enjoyed eggnog french toast with whipped cream before heading off to school.

 Hard to believe there are SIX candles!

 When you're two, everyone should get to blow out the candles.

Later that day, I brought cupcakes to her class and got to watch her bask in the attention of her classmates while her teacher interviewed her, they gave her six cheers and sang happy birthday.

We finished off the evening dinner, Georgia's choice, sushi and menchies (frozen yogurt) for dessert.
The whole day was a fabulous way to kick off her sixth year!