Updates

Gracie at Oscar Max's Birthday


Gracie eating Daddy's birthday cake


The dress Ellen finally had to let her keep to get her to leave :(

Gracie just read us "Brown Bear, Brown Bear." Maybe not read, but she went through the pages and told us the story. It was really neat. Last night she wrote something that looked very much like her name, so we told her to put it on the refridgerator. Not we have several papers she deemed were important enough to put on the refridgerator. She's so funny about some things.

I had planned for us to go to the game on Friday. She had gone to Maw-maw's and didn't want to go. I was pretty upset about that. It's not often that there are special things that we can go to together, but she can stay at Maw-maw's anytime. It probably won't come up again this year. Next week we're going to Arlington to see Scott's parents and to go to the Aggie v Arkansas game up there. It should be fun.

It's Sunday and I have a fever. I think I'm going to try to stay in bed most of today. We'll see how that goes. Scott volunteered to take Sunday School duty for me. It's sad that the prospect of spending all day in bed makes me so happy. Even if I have to feel bad while I'm here. I'll try some Tamiflu and see how I feel tomorrow.

I think I've been a little depressed lately. It seems like there isn't going to be another baby this year. I'm disappointed about that. I don't know if Gracie will be it for us or not. I do know that God's plans are not my plans and if He plans for us to have a baby, we will, planned or not. I just hate surprises. I'm looking forward to next summer, planning for the LWML convention in Austin; other things I didn't think (want) to plan because I thought I'd be having a baby. So we're just enjoying Gracie, trying to raise her the best way we can. I'm thinking of looking into baby ballet for her this year or next year. It's hard to tell at her age what she'll be interested in in the future. Will she be a dancer in drill team? A band nerd? A soccer player? Volleyball, Softball? I can't wait to find out. We'll start looking into things for her to do, give her some new experiences.

Running with Gracie

We've tried that a few times. She's really excited to go usually. She likes to run; I need to run, so we start off. It's fun for a while, chasing each other up and down the street. She likes to stop occassionally and pick up rocks and dawdle. We're going to keep at it because exercise is good. I got us a new yoga DVD that we're going to start one of these days. She'll like it - all of the bends and stretches.

We went to the Pecan Festival the other night. It was fun. We rode some rides - teacups, carosel - nothing exciting. I saw a lot of students there. Most of them even waved or said hi.

The school year is off to a good start. There are a lot of kids gone because of the flu/swine flu. We're going to see the Aggies play Arkansas at the new Cowboy stadium Oct. 3. I think it will be fun. Something different for us, certainly.

We had our Zone event yesterday. I was elected Christian Growth Chairman, which means I'm going to be planning the events for the next 2 years. I don't know why I was led to do this, but I will do it to the best of my ability. Trinity will be the next one, so that will be easier.

Gracie really seems to be enjoying school. She wants my camera to take pictures with. I let her have it and she went through a set of batteries. She likes taking pictures. Her potty training is pretty solid. She likes spending time with Maw-Maw. I still plan to take her to the rest of the games this year.

adventures in exercise

Well, our first excursion around the block didn't go so well. Gracie won't ride her tricycle on the side of the road. We went at 5, which was rush hour in our small neighborhood. We had finally gotten back on our street when Scott had to run ahead for the bathroom. Gracie wanted to run after him, only she also runs in the middle of the street. I'm hoping eventually we'll all be able to go bike riding together, but we might have to move for that to happen.

Otherwise it's been a good start to the year. My fish are funny. Earnest and sweet. We've had a good time the past few days. Tomorrow is the pep rally and football game.

Body Awareness

Amanda said G's going to be going through a stage of body awareness. And she is, which makes for some oddly uncomfortable moments.
G - I closed by booty so you can't spank me.

++++++

Me: (seeing G laying on the floor sucking in her stomach and releasing it) What are you doing?
G: Giving myself boobs.
Me: Baby, those aren't boobs, those are ribs. Come her let me show you.
She (as Thomasina the cat) crawled over and I went over her chest and ribs and belly again.
She insists that her heel isn't part of her foot.
G: These are my boobs. (pointing to her chest)
Me: Baby, you don't have boobs yet. You'll have them when you're older. Right now that's called your chest. We don't say boobs in front of people; we call it our chest.
G: (knowing that she can do a lot of things, like get into a hot tub when she's older) I'll have boobs when I can get in the hot tub.
Me: Yes, baby, you'll probably have boobs then.
G: (pointing at her nipple) This is my boob.
Me: (knowing if I tell her it's her nipple that will be her new favorite word) No, baby, that's just part of your chest.
G: It's a mole!
Me: No, baby, it's just part of your chest.
G: It's a mole!

+++

She calls bras "boob holders." We saw some small cup bras at Wal-mart and she said they were "baby boob holders." What a hoot!

Funny Baby

Gracie totally cracks me up. She comes up with the most random stuff. Right now she's a baby owl flying back to her tree. We still play Mama Duck and Baby Duck.
Yesterday she wanted to do the Yoga DVD. She tried really hard to convince me to do it too, but I was pretty content to watch her. She got a bath mat to be her Yoga mat, then worked some of the moves and breathing. Funny stuff.
It's fun to see what she comes up with to play. We can hear her bedroom door open and close loudly. When we hear it open, we just wait for her newest clothing combination. Yesterday she found her snowman tights from last winter and wore them to bed with a lime green t-shirt. You pick your battles, ya know?
She loves the Shrek song "All-star" and can almost sing the entire first verse. All the time.
Yesterday I was sitting on the couch and heard her rummaging around in the kitchen. She had gum she had found.
Me: Where did you find that gum?
G: In the gum holder/
Me: Where is the gum holder?
G: Above the ABC stairs (aka the baker's rack)

We had a major sprite fight yesterday. I had to pry the bottle out of her hands then listen to her cry that it wasn't good in a cup and that she would be careful with the bottle. I decided to let her have special drinks - sprite or Capri Sun- when she's eating something, but water all the other times. She doesn't drink enough water.
She's doing better with potty training as long as we make her go.

Last vacation

Scott had last week off, so we took 2 days and went back to Galveston. We were delayed a bit because G refused to pick up puzzle pieces she dropped on the floor. So we had to wait until she was more compliant with our requests. We got to Galveston late and went swimming in the hotel's pool instead of the beach. It was a pretty crappy pool. We ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. The food was so mediocre, but we enjoyed watching the volcano erupt outside. G was scared of the animals inside, which is the first time I've ever seen her afraid of anything. We walked on the beach afterward and G got soaked, forgetting she wasn't wearing her swim suit.

Wednesday we went to Schlitterbahn and had a blast. We decided G was big enough to ride the rapids in the kiddie seat, so we went through 3 times. She kept asking to go back, wanting to ride the "rabbits." We made fun of her for awhile, but she knows it's rapids now. Super cute. She had to wear a life jacket because SB didn't like her using floaties, but she thought it was fine. She also kept asking about the rides, and maybe next year or the year after she'll be big enough to ride, but really, we have the best time just floating on the river. There's the excitement of the waves, looking around at all the tattoos. We stop occassionally for her to play on different play grounds or go back to our table to put sunscreen on or to get a snack.It was a really fun day. We had dinner at Mario's, which was incredible. They have a Wed night buffet that was so good. Seafood soup, lots of different Italian dishes, pizza and delish desserts. We defnintely found our new favorite place to overeat.

Thursday we got moving slowly. We packed everything up, then went to the beach for an hour or so. G had fun. Then we went to lunch at Fisherman's Wharf, which was a little expensive, but we got to sit on the deck and see the Elissa beside us. It was lovely. We rode the ferry home and that was that. Lots of fun for us.

Not much to report

We're just kinda hanging. G's doing much better with potty training. Hopefully she'll be there in a few more weeks. We've been going to the library several times a week. She's branching out into Little Einstein movies.
I heard Scott tell her last night that she couldn't eat like a dog. Daddy doesn't eat like a dog.
I tried to work out with a yoga video yesterday. She wanted to help. She made me stop in the middle of the video (the video continued, we just stopped) to read her a story. Then she spent the rest of the video either climbing on me in the poses or trying to get me closer to the floor to lie down with her. She even went to get pillows and blankets.
She calls herself "mama duck" and me "baby duck." That's been going on for about a month and it comes and goes. It's amazing what she retains and brings back out.
We cleaned up parts of her room yesterday. She liked me playing in there with her. Dressing baby dolls.
Scott's off next week. Hopefully that will give me time to catch up on school stuff before school starts back. And other things.