MIA and Allergies

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been
posting blogs like I normally do. It's been
a little chaotic around here. Sometimes I'm just
so tired that I don't feel like sitting at
the computer. I'm sure some of you know how
that is. On top of that, Grace has been dealing with
the seasonal allergies. Poor baby. I hoped that she
wouldn't get allergies like her daddy, but
it seems that she has. Runny nose, sneezing,
watery eyes. You name it she's got it. So she's
been a bit on the cranky side lately. She's
been lounging a little too. Reading some of her
favorite books in her favorite little lounging spot....

.....the bouncer that I use for Lily. Grace never
used this when she was little, but when it's not
being occupied by Lily, Grace will take over to keep
it warm. Haha! It cracks me up. She's so silly.
I have to prop it up against the couch because
Grace is a bit too heavy for it and she would be laying
on the floor if I didn't.


You can see the darkness a little bit around her
eyes in this one. Poor girl!

But she sure did enjoy her lounging time
with her book. She loves to read and prop her
feet while she's doing it. Haha!

Hopefully everything will calm down soon and
I can get back to my usual routine.

Have a great day everyone!

A Simple Question

"Grace, Where does baby powder go?"




"Very good!"

Such a smart girl!

Potty Training? Maybe!?

Okay well I'm not going to share any
pictures that have to do with this story.
It would be kinda......well....ewww.

But I do think it's time to at least try
potty training.

For the past couple of weeks or maybe even
longer, we have been finding Grace in bed.....naked.
It doesn't matter if it's first thing in the morning or at nap time,
she just loves it. And leaves some good messes
for mommy to clean up. Yay me! I find her like this
4-5 times out of the week. What is a mother to do?

She's just always fidgeting with her diaper like
it's bothering her or something. It's made me
wonder if she wants something different.
I don't know, maybe it's just a stage that she's
going through. A stage that I hope will end very very soon.

On a better note, I will not leave you without a picture
at all. That would be crazy of me to do. I hope that
everyone has a good night and weekend.

A couple of sweet photos of my precious baby.
She is amazing and absolutely GORGEOUS!

P.S.- What do you think of my new background and family picture?

Do You Ever Wonder......

.......why the simplest of things fascinate a child before
their very own toys? Like a cardboard box, it's no where near
as colorful as some of the toys that Grace has. It looks
dull and boring. Why is it so much more interesting
than everything else she has?

Whenever we have gone through a box of diapers or
wipees, Grace always has to play with it before it
gets thrown away. A favorite game that she likes to
do with the box is hide and seek.

So I guess this is what I'm pondering today. Or almost
everyday. What do your kids like to play with other than
their toys?

French Toast : To Like or Not To Like

You might consider that I've neglected my child. I promise I haven't meant to in any shape or form. And the reason why you might consider this is because I finally let her try french toast for the first time. She's 16 months old and she is just now trying it out. In my defense, I haven't made it for her yet because she has been quite the picky eater lately. So I was a little skeptical about making this for her, but I thought that it would be a winner. Might I add that I'm a health freak when it comes to eating. But I do know that a little junk food doesn't hurt every once in a while.

So far so good. She was actually picking it up and exploring what it was. Sometimes she takes one look at her food and doesn't even want to try it. Other times she'll look at it and start gagging before it's even hit her mouth. Especially when it comes to peas she'll do that. I thought that this was going to work out because what kid doesn't like french toast?!

Now I start getting my hopes up. She has taken a bite! Yay! Woohoo! She likes it!

SIKE!!!!

Unfortunately, she did not like french toast. See what I mean! This girl has drove me crazy trying to find the foods that she likes. But I will never stop trying! Anything to make her happy. Grace, you're such a silly girl to not like french toast. I think french toast is my favorite breakfast. It has been since I was a kid. I'm sure that she'll eventually like it. But for now I guess I'll stick with what I know she really likes.

Better luck next time! :)

Have a good night everyone!

Monkeying Around

Grace and her little sock monkey that she got
for an Easter gift. The monkey is highly appropriate
for Grace because she acts like one. She walks around
making monkey noises and putting her hands under
her arm pits just like one. She's a goofball alright.

On this nice sunny day that seems like so long ago,
Grace and I went outside to play and take pictures of
her with her new monkey. She really got attached to it.
The first night she got it we put it in bed with her and she
wrapped her arms around it like it was her new friend.
This one especially makes me smile because of
how she is reaching to the sky. I can't think of a
good caption to go with it, but I just think it's
very sweet indeed!

This is another favorite. Her cute chunky legs and
how she is standing makes me want to squeeze her
to pieces.

She always has bursts of excitement. She's such
a happy girl!

This one is kind of random, but I like her expression.

Thank you Grandma Sue and Grandpa Nathan for
Grace's little sock monkey. She loves it very, very much.

Our Little Newcomer

No I'm not pregnant! Haha!

But what I am is kind of working again.
In the comfort of my own home and still spending
time with Grace and her new little friend is
not really work. Getting to see Grace interact
with a newborn is really fun to watch.

About two months ago some of our good friends
were expecting their first child. And just like any other mom
and dad, they were wondering who was going to take care
of their precious baby. What came as a big surprise to me
is that they were wanting me to do it. It was a good
surprise to say the least. They felt so comfortable
with the way I take care of Grace that they wanted
the same care for their child.

I was and still am very happy that they asked
me to do it. This past Monday was my official first day
to start watching Lily. She will become like a little
sister to Grace. Grace already tries her best at helping
with whatever she can. It's the sweetest thing! It
really amazes me on how much Grace is aware
that Lily is a newborn and that she is to be
very gentle with her. And when Lily isn't here
Grace is looking all over the house for her. When
Lily cries Grace is right there making sure that
she is okay. She's going to be a great big sister
one of these days!
So meet Lily! She looks like every bit of her mother.
These piercing blue eyes! And whenever she makes
little noises it reminds me of chipmunk! It's the sweetest
little noises and brings back so many memories of
when Grace was this age. She just stares at both
Grace and I with those big eyes. She has become another
part of our family. Her dad and Brad went to school together,
and so it's really cool that her and Grace will grow up together.
.....again with those big blue eyes!
Grace and Lily getting to know one another!
I love this and I wish I had a picture to show you
how Grace's little face lights up when she sees Lily.
And the little angel fast asleep. This is
exactly how she fell asleep. Hands and all.
You know I had to snatch the camera up
in a heartbeat to get this sweet memory.

I want to share this video with all of you to let
you see how Grace is with her. It's very short and
only shows a very tiny fraction of what Grace
is like when Lily is around. But it's enough
to give you an idea!

I'm so proud of my little Grace. She
has been such a sweet girl with Lily. I'm so
blessed to have her. And I'm blessed
to be given this opportunity. Thanks Matt and Lisa!

My Big Bro

This past week was my big brother's birthday.

On April 8th to be exact.

He turned 27!

We are four years apart, and it just doesn't
seem right that he is 27 and that I'm 23.

Cory definitely doesn't act like he is 27. I think
that he will always be young at heart. But not in
a bad way. I mean in a very good way. It's part
of his charm I guess you could say. Cory and I
are quite different, but similar in many ways.
We get along very good now that we are
older, but if you would have known us about 10
or more years ago, I would say that we had that
brotherly/sisterly love for each other. Another words
we would pick on each other. Haha! Oh the good ol' days!
It makes me laugh just thinking about it!

We had a lot of fun this weekend celebrating
on Saturday and Sunday for his birthday.
Two weekends in a row with a lot of family lovin'!

This was Colton's first time to celebrate a birthday
with his daddy. Here he is helping with the presents.
He's getting ready for when he turns one.
....and of course helping with the cake!
And I had to add this one in of our
cousin Jacob with Colton because he always
hides from the camera! Plus it's just cute anyways.
Cory, I hope that you had an awesome birthday
with all of your family. Here's to many, many more years
of picking on each other! Haha! Love you!

.....and isn't he just so cute!

Spaghetti Slurpin' & Straw Suckin'

A few favorite foods that Grace likes to eat are
broccoli with cheese, yogurt, and
of course spaghetti! I think that's every
kids favorite thing to eat.

And with Grace being Miss Independent these
days, this is just how messy we get. It's usually
worse than this. That wall behind her usually
has food splattered on it.

We also got her some new cups with straws.
She loooves them. Grace is a milk-a-holic and
thinks that drinking milk out of them is the
best thing in the world. She goes bananas when
she spies her cup of milk. We actually have to sit
the cup below her high chair to get her to eat.
If we sit it on the table, she's practically climbing
out of her chair just to reach it. See how she's
admiring the cup below? So funny!

..... just a few more pictures of how much she loves
this new cup along with her love of spaghetti!

We're talking finger lickin', lip smackin', putting
the bowl over her face good! And on her head!
I don't think there is any other food that Grace
would rather roll in besides spaghetti. She takes
after her daddy so much it's not even funny.

That's why we love her though! Silly Grace!

Happy Easter pt. 2

First off I just want to mention that
I'm really sorry that it has taken me this
long to post the second half. I've been having
problems with internet connection, getting
the settings correct on the slideshow, and whatever
else there was to slow me down on the post. It's been
highly frustrating, but here I am ready to
continue with the Easter post. Yay!

So to continue with the second half I want to start by
showing the family that we got to spend it with. I think
I already mentioned in the first half that we had such a
blast. But I'll say it again. We had a blast!
We love you all so very much, and couldn't be more happy
for getting to spend this wonderful day with you! The kids
had so much fun playing together as always. We couldn't
imagine spending it any other way. Thank you all for
being there.

That morning we let Grace go through her little goodies
in her Easter basket that we got for her. Oh....I mean.....
that the Easter Bunny got for her. Haha!

And here is a picture of our beautiful girl in her gorgeous
little Easter dress! Oh how precious she looked in it.
She did so good at the egg hunt. She and I had been practicing
at home with some of her toys. We would take them and hide
them around the house and then go hunt for them. It didn't
take her long to pick up the concept of what to do. Or what
we were searching for. And after every time of finding an egg
she would say in her little voice, "Alright!". It was so cute!

These are all of the decorated eggs that she found minus
all of the candy filled plastic eggs. Let's just say that Grace
shared those with mommy and daddy. Hehe! Shhhh! But she
didn't share all of them with us!
Last, but never the least, are the rest of the pictures
in a slideshow. If you all would like for me to post the
pictures individually just let me know. I know that some
of you save them and use them as desktop pictures. You
know who you are! Anyway, enjoy the show and again my
apologies for the hold back! I'm glad that I'm finally able to
get it posted. One down and all the rest that I'm now
wayyy behind on.


P.S. - I owe a special thanks to Libby and Josh for
helping me solve my video issues. Without your help
I'd still be pulling my hair out! Thank you oh so much!!

Happy Easter Pt. 1

We started out our Easter weekend with some fun Easter egg decorating. This was Grace's first time to help with the egg decorating. This is what I love about her being at this age. She now gets to help with all the fun holiday decorating. I'm already thinking about Christmas and decorating cookies. Okay I gotta slow down a little bit.

Last year little Grace was only 4 months old. She was quite the pudgy little thing now that I look back at the old pictures. It makes me laugh because of what I did with her last Easter. Our whole family loved it, but Grace did not enjoy quite as much.

That's right, I stuffed that chunky little monkey into her Easter basket. Poor baby! She won't like me for that when she gets older. Haha!

So here are her and daddy starting off with coloring the eggs. She kept trying to pull the cup closer to get a better look inside. Brad had to keep his hands over hers so that we wouldn't have coloring all over the place.

Partners in crime! Look at those faces! Haha!
This was Grace's first egg! (and I must apologize for Brad's very dirty fingers, they were stained from car grease)
And we let her scribble on some too. She had so much fun. Although we were a little limited on what we could let her do, we all had such a blast. (and again sorry for the dirty fingers)
And here is my sweet baby this year. Wow! A whole year makes a very big difference.

So I'll continue the rest of this tomorrow. I hope that you have all enjoyed the first part.

Good night!

Scrub-a-Dub-Dub in the Tub

I'm a couple of days behind on blogging, so you will have to hang in there with me. I think we've all had those weeks whether we're a few days behind or a few days ahead, it just happens.

I can definitely say that we had an amazing Easter with our family. It was so much fun having everyone together. Normally on the holidays we have a few places to go in one day. It's very hard having a little one on our hands that has to stop in the middle of the day to take a couple of naps, and then try to get everywhere on time. So yesterday it was very nice when we could all join together at one place. No rushing, no stopping for naps, and no chaos. It was very nice and I wish that all of the holidays could consist of this. Right?! But about the Easter post, I will have to come back to this another time to share all of the photos. Right now we are playing catch up. But rest assured that those photos will be up very, very soon. Like this week soon.

Okay, so about a week ago I received a very sweet invitation to a friend's son's birthday party. I think you have all heard me mention this wonderful lady only a few times in conversation. Oh who am I kidding, I talk about Chriselda a lot. She inspires me so much with her work. Go on, click on the link and check out her stuff. You'll be amazed as well. I was very excited to get this invite because it was a swimming party, and it's been too long since we've seen Chriselda. Grace has never been in a big pool before. So I had to get her and I all fixed up with a swimsuit. We even went and bought her some floaties too!!! I couldn't wait! Well that party was just this past weekend. We, unfortunately, had to cancel our plans so that Grace could catch up on some much needed sleep. And if you recall from my previous post you know what I'm talking about.

However, I still used the floaties that night in Grace's bath. She loves playing in the water in her baths and even when we wash her hands water is flying everywhere. She's just like her mommy.

Here she is trying to get used to it being in the tub with her. The big floaty has leg holes in it to let your feet dangle. She kept trying to take her legs in and out and getting herself tangled in them.
.....and then a few more cute photos of her playing around. The arm floaties is what makes me laugh so hard because Grace was trying to do everything like normal, but those ginormous things on her arms wouldn't let her. Haha! The package said the size was small, but they are huge.



Even though we didn't get to go to the birthday party, we still had a bunch a fun in the tub that night. And Grace is feeling much better. Yay!

We really do need to make plans this spring/summer to let Grace go play in a big pool. I know that she'll have a blast. Especially with her fun pool toys. If anyone wants to join you know how to reach us!

Have a good night!

A Rough Week, but Sweet Photos

It's been a rough week, but I think it's finally calming down. Oh how much I hate to see my poor little Grace in the pain that she's been going through. She's a tough little girl, but one can only handle so much. I have to say that it's partially my own fault. For one thing, I thought that Grace was ready to drop a nap. I had been letting her skip her morning nap and let her take just one afternoon nap. Boy was I ever wrong! And how frustrating it was to finally figure out that that's why she's been so cranky! So on top of her molars coming in, she has been a little tired. She had started waking up in the middle of the night, and let me tell you that she has slept through the night since she was only 2 months old. I just knew that something wasn't right. I knew that her molars were not the only culprit. But that mommy, me, the person that should know best, was indeed part of the problem as well. In my defense, this child is so hard to tell when she is getting tired sometimes. She would just play and play and play non-stop!

Yesterday I started putting her back down for a morning nap again, and it's been quite nice. It's been nice to not see her in so much pain from the molars. It's been nice to know that my little girl is happy again. And it's been nice to walk around without the burden on my shoulders, constantly trying to figure out what is going on. The answer was sitting right in front of me, and I was searching too hard to find it. I have to give a special thanks to my mom for getting me through this rough patch, and for listening to me for the past week about what has been going on. Also, I appreciate my loving husband for sticking by my side even when I was in the crankiest of moods.

And even though it's been rough, I still grab my camera to capture everything because it's my passion and where I often find comfort in a hard situation. So here are some lovely little photos of my sweet baby with some awfully cute Lady Bug shades.






You never would have known that anything was wrong by taking a look at these photos. I can't decide which one is my favorite. I really like the 3rd, 5th, and 6th photos. She's absolutely amazing in every way.

So now I can breath, I can have a sigh of relief. I'm so excited for tomorrow, and I'm so happy that my baby is happy. Tonight we are going to decorate the eggs. I'll have a lot to share on the next couple of days.

.......and tell me which one is your favorite??

Have a good day everyone!