First Haircut

Grace got her first haircut today! There is a cute new place that opened recently that caters to kids, so I figured let the professionals do it. I'd probably screw it up! They had a cute play station for the kids while they wait with a Thomas the Train set and even a movie board for the kids to choose what they watch while they get their hair cut. Grace had a tough time deciding between Handy Manny and Dora, so Mommy had to make the executive decision and go for Dora. Grace did great! You'd never know it was her first haircut! Miss Mary did a great job! There is a bit of length missing in the back, but it looks much better! Miss Mary even put a cute little bow clip in her hair after she blew it dry. Here are some pictures of our big girl:

Not so little anymore!

Grace spent this past weekend at Nana Lana and Grandpa Dave's while Mommy and Daddy went to the Lone Star Rally in Galveston with Grandma and Grandpa Slabaugh. She had a great time and even took time off from her busy play schedule to pose for this great picture!

Quick! Time to catch up while I have a free moment!

Yes, yes, I know, my updates have been missed. I apologize. For those of you who don't already know, Trey and I are expecting baby number two on May 4. This pregnancy has really kicked my butt. I don't remember feeling this miserable with Grace! Thankfully, the first trimester has finally passed and I'm feeling more like a human being again. Grace has been such a trooper! She pretty much entertained herself with her books and toys while Mommy took an after school cat nap. She made sure to wake me up when she was out of juice, though!

Trey is working harder than ever now, trying to provide for our growing family. He and Grace are starting to have phone conversations while he's on road, which, I have to say is hilarious to hear! Grace jabbers these long sentences, pauses, and then shouts, "Hi!" This repeats several times before she gets bored and says, "Bye!" She loves talking on the phone. EVERYTHING is a phone! Last weekend her lunchable was a phone the entire time we were at the grocery store. She loves HEB! She says hi to everyone. This past weekend she said hi to a lady and the lady responded, "Hi, how are you?" To which my social butterfly of a daughter responded, "I'm good." I looked at Grace and the woman looked at me like, did she just say that? Wow! She's only 19 months old!

Grace's Big Day

We had Grace baptized today at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Wimberley, Texas. I was quite a nervous parent to say the least. Not so much about the baptism part, but more about the toddler in a white dress that needed to say clean until the service part. She did great! I picked her up from the nursery five minutes into the sermon as instructed and wouldn't you know, it was right at the beginning of snack time. She wasn't exactly excited to leave the table. So, I picked up a few goldfish to go and off we went. I walked in as Rev. Jennifer was talking about my family and our Mennonite heritage. It was such a wonderful message!

We were so thankful to have Trey's parents, his Oma, Eric (Gray's Godfather) and his girlfriend, Laurie with us to witness this wonderful event.

Gray was watching Father Patrick and the water very closely. She was very curious about the whole thing.

After the first drops of water, Grace looked at Father Patrick like, "What do you think you're doing?" The drops that followed she thought were funny. THEN she saw the crowd of people standing around watching her and realized that this was all for her and she shot the crowd a huge smile!

She was perfectly content being rocked in Father Gahan's arms.

Posing for a picture with "Uncle" Eric, her Godfather.

I don't know why this crazy thing wouldn't let me move this picture into the correct order, but here we are after the service today.

Firsts!

Grace had her first lollipop yesterday! She LOVED it! I had to take it away after a bit as she was a sticky mess! HEB passes out balloons to the kids and weighs them down with little lollipops. MMM. . . thanks HEB!

Grace went down the slide today all by herself! She thought she was such big stuff!

She's growing up too fast!

Our little girl is almost a year and a half old! I can't believe how fast the year went! Last summer I was bored because all she did was sleep and now, now it's completely different story! Who has time to be bored when you're entertaining a toddler all day? Grace thinks she's such a big girl! She's walking up and down the stairs on her own, climbing on and off of the furniture on her own, trying to put her shoes on by herself, and knows EXACTLY what she wants and when she wants it. Whew! Boy, does she!

She's also taken to home decorating. Her favorite medium is toilet paper. I'd be happy to send her your way if you're interested!

Her vocabulary is expanding daily. It's so fun to listen to her jabber in the monitor when she wakes up. This morning she was practicing her inflection on the word NO. Her new words are:
Diaper
Bottle
Bye Bye
Up
Down
Yeah
No
Thank you
I'm sure I'm missing some, but that isn't too bad for a 15 month old! She's also been telling us when she's hungry by pushing the high-chair and saying up as well as heading up the stairs to her room when we ask her if she needs a diaper change (to which she also responds, "yeah!") She LOVES to read! I can't get over how long she'll sit and look through her books. She'll read to herself and make the correct animal noises on each page. She'll bring me a book and back up into me so I know she wants to sit on my lap. If I am distracted, she'll take my hand and make it hold the book. Like I said, she knows EXACTLY what she wants and when she wants it.



I've started hiding books that I'm tired of reading. I think last week "Goodnight Gorilla" at least 100 times. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this book, it doesn't have much of a story! UGH! She's now into "The Frog goes Ribbet Ribbet" and "The Sheep Says Baa." Those might have to go live at Grandma and Grandpa's for a while. I'm trying to keep her busy this summer. We have been walking to the park to play in the mornings before it gets too hot. It's been over 100 for the past 16 days. Then we've been going to the pool after her nap. It isn't exactly cold enough to be refreshing, but she loves to swim! I think I'm going to try to take her to story time at the library this week. It's pretty close to her nap time, so we'll see how it goes.

She sure loves her animals! Shadow is so patient with her!

Flags

There are 52 flags (American and Texan) between our house and school. I didn't even try to count the decorative flags at dealerships and housing developments!

My goodness! It's been a while since I posted! Sorry y'all! It's been crazy here! Trey continues to travel every other week. My student teacher's last day was May 1, and I've been getting back into the swing of teaching six classes per day instead of two. Whew! It's been challenging! I really missed by kiddos! I'm so happy to be back in my classroom.

Grace is amazing me all the time! She has learned quite a bit since she's moved up to the big kid class at school. She's in a class with mostly two year-olds and she has been picking up what they do. It's funny to watch her play with the other girl in her class. Grace will see her line the baby dolls up on the floor and cover them with blankets (like the teachers do with the kids at nap time) and she'll come home and do the same thing to her baby doll. Her vocabulary is amazing!

She has repeated:

"No, no, Ranger!"

"Don't do that!"

"Go potty"

She said mama for the first time this weekend. Granted, it was in her sleep when she said it, but she's saying it this week more frequently. She says deer, Nana, Ranger, Shadow, book, shoes, truck, tree, and necklace. (I'm sure I'm leaving something out) She's started saying flag and pointing out all of the flags we see on the way home from school. It's amazing! I would venture to guess that we see at least 20 flags on I-35 alone!

Here she is, our little girl, not so little anymore. Where has the time gone?

Sitting Pretty!

She's gonna kiss me! Run! Grace sure loves spending time with her Nana Lana and Grandpa Dave!

Grace has become fascinated with flowers. Here she is on Easter Sunday pointing out the pretty Blue Bonnet.

If this photo doesn't scream, "I have attitude, hear me roar!" I don't know what does!

Grace loves to hide and play in the dog crate.

She loves her Easter swing she got from Grandma and Grandpa Slabaugh!

Daddy was being silly! This was taken at her 1st birthday party.

So much for that bag!

Making a wish!

Are you talking to me?

Grace's 1st Birthday Cake

She loves the baby doll she got from Grandma Slabaugh. It makes kissing noises and says, "I love you!"

She's 1 and proud!

Happy driver in her Ipood onesie from Grandpa Dave.

Some fun

Here I am, trying to make Trey happy, watching Brothers and Sisters as I try to update the blog. The daycare emailed me around lunch time on Friday saying Grace was super- clingy and wasn't quite herself. She wasn't running a fever, but thought since she'd been coughing and congested, I might want to call the doctor to get her in. Every doctor was booked on Friday, so I ended up taking her to the NextCare clinic around the corner from the house. It was a good thing I went! Grace had bronchitis and was in the beginning stage of a double ear infection. That girl! I tell ya! She never acts sick, she just sleeps a little more and wants to be held more.

She's been sleeping more through the nights, coughing and all. She's been walking everywhere! She had to follow my dad everywhere he went on Saturday. I've had a hard time getting her to each solid foods. I have to catch her at exactly the right time for her to eat or she smacks the spoon away. Some days she wants to grab the food herself, some days she wants crunchy food, some days she just wants yogurt. I hope and pray that the eating thing changes as quickly as the sleeping thing changed. It was like someone flipped a switch.

It's amazing how much she's grown and changed. Last year this time I was moving into my parents and awaiting her birth. Wow! Where did the year go?

Almost a year

With Grace's one-year birthday coming up, I've been reflecting a lot on the past year (and then some). It's so hard for me to believe that this time last year I was waddling around in misery and wasn't even able to tie my own shoes or put my socks by myself. I'm still trying to figure out how I did it while teaching. This has been a TOUGH year! And to think I'm ready to do it all over again! Whew! I must be crazy!

Grace is still teasing us. She'll take a few steps on her own, but once she realizes what she's doing, she plops herself down. She took six steps across the front hall at my parent's house last night. She's SO close! She's experimenting with solid "people" food right now. She seems a bit sensitive to textures (like her mama), but is off to a good start. She is sleeping more during the night - Thank you Lord!!! She's only up once now and I'm trying to put a stop to that as well. She's putting herself to sleep at night - sometimes she talks herself to sleep, sometimes she sings. Which reminds me, she's taken to singing along with Father Gahan at church on Sundays. She doesn't quite realize that it isn't her turn. She sure loves music. She's quite talented too. How many one-year olds do you know who can play two pianos at once? She has a toy baby grand piano which she adores and a mini-piano on the front of one of her push cars. She loves playing them both at once. (Did I mention she dances all the while?)

Her vocabulary is as follows: dada, all done, up, down, don't touch, Ranger, kitty, kitty-cat, hi, bye, cracker, uh-oh, sit, get it, what's that, and awa (mama, I hope).

I'm totally lost as to what to do for her first birthday party. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

Christmas and New Years 2009

Well, it was a busy couple of weeks off, but we survived and didn't try to kill each other once! Yeah! With Trey working out of the house and Grace and I both at home, the house got a bit small at times, but we managed just fine.

Trey's brother and his boys, Max and Ben, were down for the holidays. We had a great time playing with Max's new Christmas gifts, riding scooters, watching Grace push her car, and watching the boys climb the rock wall behind our house. Here are a couple of videos: