Gymnastics & Marbles

What a week! The Little Gym, Grace's gymnastics place actually offers a "practice" time for her age group on Wed. at 3:30. Mommy is tutoring then, but Daddy is home, so he gets to take Grace to gymnastics too! It is fun for Daddy to be able to see what Grace is doing in class and how capable she is. It was also fun because the other kids were there with their Daddies too so it was like a little Daddy & me class!

Fall is almost here and Mommy made pretty baskets to hang on the front porch! We also bought a new fall wreath. Grace helped pick it out!

Mommy is still trying to keep up with doing one sensory tub a week. This week we did Grits (pre cooked) red peppers and celery. Grace was not sure about the texture of the grits, which was surprising because it was very similar to sand. Mommy had to show her how to pick up the grits and let it fall out of your fingers slowly. It was so cute when Grace tried to imitate what Mommy did.

Pretty much what some days look like around here. Grace is actually getting ice cream and all the dogs want in on the dessert! Bean has become best friends with Grace at meal time and we actually work on having Bean leave the kitchen so Grace doesn't spend the whole time feeding Bean and not eating herself! In these pictures you can also see our new table. We have officially rearranged our house to be toddler proof and part of the rearranging included buying a new, smaller table that would fit in the kitchen for eating meals. Mommy LOVES the new set up and the new table.

Miss piggy tails loves her monkey blanket and whats more you can see her standing on her own. This was the longest she stood without holding on, probably 30 seconds. I think she was so involved in sucking her thumb and snuggling with "monkey" that she forgot to hold on. I think we still have a little while before she starts walking, and I am ok with that!

We try to get together with our Bethesda friends twice a month. It is so great to watch all the kiddos as they are growing and changing and really starting to interact. There are quite a few of them in the 6 months to 1.5 year age range which makes playing time great! Here is Grace with Mia and Nate. You would think that we matched Grace and Nate just for pictures! Grace had a great time playing and then eating lunch over there.

Friday night was family date night and we all went to Marbles Children Museum. It was actually wonderful to be there in the evening because there were a LOT less children. We usually spend a lot of time in the under 3 area, but this time we got to explore the whole thing! Grace loves exploring but when there are a lot of children running around and she is still crawling it becomes a safety concern! This day she got to explore wherever she wanted to. We are going to try and make the first Friday each  month into family date night here and enjoy the museum together!

 

 

 

 

We gave Grace eggs for the first time this week. She did not have an allergic reaction, so we are good to go. They generally tell you to wait until a year for allergy reasons, but I realized I feed her stuff with egg in it... so I thought it would be ok. Funny enough this kid really did NOT like them. Her facial expressions were hilarious! I am not sure if it was the texture or the taste... but she requested never to have them again! haha

 

We still love hanging out in our playroom. This week we made sound bottles but putting different things in empty 2 liters. They are fun to shake... and suck on.

 

 

 

Sweet Grace,

I added the picture above so you could see you really do have teeth! You look like you may be upset, but you were in the middle of telling me a LONG story that went something like ah ah ah ba du ya ya ah ba ya du a ba mama ya ya no no ya mama ba da and so on and so on. You actually have 5 teeth now!! The forth one on the bottom has popped up as well so you have 4 on the bottom and 1 on top. We can see the 2nd top tooth pressing against the surface so it will be here any day now too.

Now that you have more freedom in the house you love crawling ALL over. Your favorite place in your new kingdom is standing at the front door looking out. You often tell me what you are seeing (similar to the above listed story) and I have to clean the glass regularly because now there is not only dog nose prints, but Grace drool!

You continue to amaze us. I ask Daddy almost every day when did you get so big? I can't believe how much you are looking more and more like a little kid. Your legs are getting longer and you are now 18 lbs! WOW

We love you sweet girl, all the teeth you will get times all the balls at the marbles museum times all the kisses and hugs I got this week. You make my heart sing.

xoxo
Mommy & Daddy

Butterfly Kisses

This week we took Daddy back to the new park we discovered. Daddy had as much fun as Grace did! We still find that we really only need about 20 minutes at the park to get our full enjoyment and then decide its time to leave. Grace is not walking, but not sitting still anymore and that means the ground is rough on our knees! I try to remember pants, but as you can see, I often forget. 

 

There are so many times now when I look at my baby and I see a little girl instead. She is just amazing me this week with all the things she is figuring out how to do. Grace now STARTS a game of peek-a-boo with us. She will hold a blanket, bucket, book in front of her face then move it down quickly look at us laugh and then put it back over her face. Of course the first time she did this we were like, what is going on?? Then we realized and now we say "peek a boo Grace" which only makes her laugh harder. Here we are at a different park with Grace's friend Liam on his actual birthday. We played for a little bit and then had a picnic lunch, so much fun!

 

Eating, eating, eating. Grace is now eating 3 meals a day, breakfast at 7, lunch at 11 and dinner at 5:30. After she gets up from her long nap (12-3) we do have a quick snack. During each meal she drinks a bottle, has either some oatmeal or Plum Squeeze Pouches and then a lot of finger food! We are still working on getting the food into our mouth and not under our bottom or on the floor but we have noticed more of the food disappearing lately. Grace still has her three bottom teeth, the two in the middle and then one on her right side, left if you are looking at her. She has also cut through her first top tooth! The middle left one, right if you are looking at her. It only has a little point through but it is definitely there!

 

 

Summer is starting to wind down and Mommy is getting back on the healthy train. This means morning runs with Grace! Each morning after Grace has breakfast we head out for a jog at one of the local green ways. The hope is that Grace will eventually sleep during the runs or at least she will have some quiet time if she wants to give up her morning nap, but so far she is having trouble sleeping and wants to go to bed once we get home. This morning she was going "night night" with out the T sound when we drove home, but that makes me excited too that she knows when she is tired and she can communicate that she wants sleep!

 

Learning and teaching is such a big part of our family and we have started trying to do more structured exploration times with Grace. This past week we did our first sensory tub. We had cheerios, shapes, and a hammer. Daddy taught Grace how to use the hammer and it was very cute as she imitated his movements.

We also got up to Durham this week to visit Uncle Taylor and go swimming. Grace got to wear her very cute green with pink flamingo bathing suit! We actually got this bathing suit for NEXT summer because Grace still seemed to be on the small side, however she has just grown like a weed these last few months and so it fits! Glad we at least got one wearing out of it, because by next summer I do not think it is going to fit! Grace is now in mostly 12 month clothes. There are still a couple 6-9 month and 9-12 month outfits that fit her well, but mostly 12 month clothes are perfect. I can't believe she will be 11 months next Tuesday!

 

 

Grace is trying to get a butterfly in the second picture. Can you see it??

 

Sweet Grace,

You ate off of a plate this week for the first time! You did so good for about the first 2 minutes. Then you realized you could pick up the plate and bang it onto the table and not only did it make an awesome sound, but food also went flying!!! What could be more fun? You also got a new baby doll this week. She looks like you with blue eyes and everything. You love to hold her and smile at her and Daddy even taught you how to rock her, which is sooo sweet. You will be a great mama, in about... 25 years at the earliest. I love you all of the splashes in the pool times all of the butterflies you will every chase times all the pieces of food I have cut up this week.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are grey. You'll never know dear, how much I love you so please don't take my sunshine away.

xoxo
Mommy & Daddy