Lately

Grace has FINALLY mastered climbing up on top of the subwoffer. She has been trying for weeks to get up there, particularly to play with her buddy Scotty, and last week she did it! She was so proud of herself and luckily I had the camera handy to capture her huge grin...priceless.

Gracie's Nana & Grandpa here visiting and she is in heaven. She loves it when any of her grandparents are here to spoil her and last Saturday she had her Mama & Papa here too - what a lucky girl! Grandpa has had so much fun with his girl and they take a turn on the swing daily. I just LOVE this picture, I think it captures her adoration just perfectly. :)

Grace & Truman's Birthday Party

Grace's cousin Truman's birthday is Jan 19, so we decided to have a joint family party for the 2 of them over Christmas.  I had been sick and even had a fever the day before so I didn't have much energy to prep, but I got the cupcakes made and they had their super cute Birthday shirts on and much of the family was together.  What I didn't know was that my Aunt Reta had planned to have Scooby Doo make an appearance to wish the kids a happy birthday!  I actually jumped when Scooby walked in.  At first the kids weren't so sure, but then they warmed up a little.  Grace even let Scooby hold her.

Jenn & I with the kids and Scooby.  Maggie & Truman still weren't 100% sure about him...

The Bilbos & Scooby - I LOVE Grace's face!

My Mom & Uncle Wally with Scooby

Grandma wasn't too sure about Scooby...she doesn't like having dogs in her house, especially big dogs.  

David & Scooby being silly

After Scooby gave farewell hugs, we plopped the kids down in their chairs and let them go to town on their cupcakes.  Grace was on her 3rd cupcake (as we celebrated her birthday for over a month with multiple mini-gatherings trying to include all the family) so she was quite the pro.  It was so fun to watch she & Truman interact, it was like they were having their own private conversations - I wonder what they were saying!

Happy Birthday Grace & Truman!  What a special day!  :)

Random Cuteness

Grace has "new to me" shoes from her cousin Maggie and they are black dress shoes.  She LOVES them.  This morning when we came downstairs she found them and brought them to me and wanted to put them on over her frog footed PJs.  I did and she walked the lap on our main floor 8 times grinning the entire time. Here she is during a lap:

A little while later I walked around the corner and saw that she put her kitty in the cat bed and brought the cat bed over to the living room (so one can only assume she could "keep an eye on her".)  LOL - she is the funniest little girl on the planet...she always keeps me on my toes!

My Big Girl Chair

Ok, so these posts are going to be out of order, but they are all late so who cares, right?  :)

Ever since we got home from Christmas, Grace has been trying to sit on anything she can find that is the "right height".  She gets on all 4's and crawls backwards until her bottom hits whatever she is currently using as her chair and she sits up, it is hysterical!  Well David & I figured we should find the girl a chair, easy right?  Um no, we went to 7, yes 7, stores looking for a freaking chair for a toddler and nothing.  We did find one $13 plastic chair that would have fallen over at the slightest pressure and we found alot of chairs over $50 (seriously?!?) but nothing that would work.  A friend suggested we hit Ikea and we hit the jackpot.  I was a little nervous about this chair since it was so big, but it was only $30 and she'll be able to use it for years.  She LOVES it!  It took a few days for her to learn how to climb back out, but now she takes a few toys or books, climbs up and relaxes.  It's really quite precious.

First time in my new chair - I love it!!

I love to relax and play in my chair.  :)

This face just cracks me up!

Mommy's Little Helper

I am finally starting to feel better - Praise God!  I think 14 weeks was my magic number as I've been feeling progressively better over the last week (I'll be 15 weeks tomorrow).  We saw the baby again last week and heard the heartbeat - our little peanut is doing just great.  I was so excited to get to see the baby again, even if just for a few seconds.

Anyway, what's the nicest thing about feeling better, besides actually getting to enjoy my husband and sweet girl?  Being able to clean!  I have completely sorted through the entire contents of our attic and cut it down by half.  There will be a huge yard sale in our near future.   While I did that David ran electrical in the attic and installed lighting, what a difference.  Now that everything is organized up there it looks really nice!  It always feels so good to de-clutter.  :)

Once I got that project done, it was time to deep clean the upstairs.  I am embarrassed to say the upstairs bathrooms hadn't been cleaned since before we left for Christmas.  They were disgusting!  Sure, we'd done minor touch ups as needed, but an all out clean...hadn't happened.  David was so busy keeping up with the day to day (toys, dishes, laundry, trash, playing with Grace) and keeping the living spaces clean while I was laid up so it just wasn't a priority.  I think in the last 2 days I've walked into my bathroom at least 10 times just to see those sparkling counter tops...I'm such a nerd.

I've also done every morsel of laundry, even the things that don't need washed often just to have everything clean.  This is Grace's favorite chore (next to vacuuming, she LOVES to help vacuum  :)  She can not only push the buttons to start the machine, but she can help load too.  The other day we were doing laundry and I had to run in the kitchen to answer the phone.  When I came back into the living room, here is what I found...

Somehow she had gotten completely into David's undershirt - it was so cute!  She couldn't really walk since it's so long, but she sure looked sweet and had a blast in Daddy's shirt.  She obviously wasn't feeling well in these pictures - her rosy cheeks are a dead giveaway that she is sick.  She's still super cute though!

I finally got all the pictures and videos loaded off the memory cards last night, so next step is to sort and catch up this blog.  I'll be working on that over the next few weeks.  :)