potty time!

I'm behind on documenting a lot, but I figured I had better get this one on the page since I have been putting it off for so long. We are officially out of diapers at our house. Yesterday when I was on my potty training supplies trip at Babies R Us Gracie had one big stinky diaper. I didn't have any diapers with me (bad mommy I know) and I was determined to never buy her another pack of diapers, so I took her in the changing room and squeezed her into a free size 1 diaper that the store gives you. Below is a picture of all our supplies: LOTS of juice - Gracie picked all of it out especially the blue kind, her favorite color right now.

Timer

Potty books

Dora potty sticker chart

To-go potty seat with bag

A couple packs of diapers, she picked these out too

Chocolate for pee

Sucker for poo

Day one: after my church meeting this morning we started. 2 1/2 hours of trying every 10 minutes and she finally did it! Her first pee. She had closed the door on me so I sat in the hallway and heard it, I started yelling with glee and opened the door, she jumped off and ran over to hug me and she kept saying, "all by myself". I don't know who was happier. She kept her pull dry though her nap and had one more successful pee. I'm going to ignore the poo in her panties that happened later because that is a harder one to do right? I am pretty happy about day one.

routines

after many weeks of candice being on maternity leave we are back in our routine again. gracie is so lucky to have levi and piper come over every other week to play all day. levi and gracie think they are siblings they love each other and fight with each other just like brother and sister. gracie wakes up each morning asking if levi is coming and if i say yes it results in both hands in the air jumping up and down yelling "evi yeah evi!" they are both so patient with waiting for me when i am feeding piper. they love to get right in piper's face and say, "baby baby baby" and kiss her a million times (gracie) and grab her nose (levi).
levi takes his naps in my bed and they thought it would be really fun to take naps together. the first day didn't work out because there was too much excitement about being in a big bed together, but day two was success and i snapped this picture. ahh nap time - definitely a blessing!

4th of July

This year we were in Huntington Beach for the 4th of July. The parade went right in front of the house we rented. For the first hour of the parade Gracie sat quietly and watched, but she broke out and started dancing for the rest of it. The beach was really fun this year. Candice was good about documenting it, at least for the first half of the week - check it out here: http://candicestewart.typepad.com

hair cuts

the weather starts to get warm and everybody want to get their hair cut short right? well mine can't get any shorter so I moved onto Gracie's. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned to Paul that I thought it would be cute if Gracie had a short hair cut not realizing that I would be making her a mini-me of well me. He thought it would be cute too so I called my friend Michelle to chop it off. As you can see she thought it was the worst thing ever. On the way there she kept saying over and over, "no Gracie hair cut". Levi got his hair cut first and even though he gets it cut all the time and never cries, he decided to today. So that didn't help Gracie's panic attack about it. The first few minutes she screamed and I am sorry to anybody who was trying to relax in that salon! She finally calmed down when she realized it didn't hurt, but she still didn't like sitting there.

The after shot. I say it is a short and sassy cut for a short and sassy girl!

This was her actual first hair cut that I did on our porch about a month ago.

choo choo

a couple of months ago my mom organized a trip for all of us to boulder city for a picnic cand train ride. my mom said it was for levi, but there is a debate going on right now of who loves trains more - levi or mom. it was so much fun and thanks mom for your organization skills!

after the train ride papa bought the 2 footers trains. super cute!

6

I was tagged for this one - you go to your picture file, pick the sixth file and the sixth picture in that file and post it.... I actually miss that hair!

happy easter!

gingerbread in the spring

who says gingerbread houses are only for christmas time? not me! especially when we have a kit left over that is dying to be put together. the two different sides crack me up because levi was very methodically putting all the candy on his side while gracie was eating as much frosting and candy that she could before i took it away.

it's warming up!

i took thes pictures back on st. particks day. i love when the weather starts to get warmer and we can play outside and paint with water (our favorite game that grandma taught us). i also love sundresses and sandles. gracies feet are complete with stamps from gymboree music class that morning. i think she can't wait for the class to be over just to get the stamps on her feet, hands and tummy.

free stuff

ever since i had gracie i have become obsessed with coupons. i have always like deals (who doesn't) but i guess i finally had time to be organized enough to use them. now i heard about this new money saving thing and i am ALL ABOUT IT! i have been saving a lot of money lately, but i had to post this one because it was the first time that i was paid to buy something, not a lot, but still i got these 4 boxes of wipes for free and then they paid me 50 cents after i used my coupons and store deals! check this website out if you want more info it has the codes for las vegas and st. george: http://www.shopsmartinvegas.blogspot.com

i'm 2!

this week was my birthday week. my daddy didn't go to work all week! i got to go to st george and play with my cousins and aunt and uncle and their new doggy. these are some of my favorite things about the week:

1. swimming at the coolest pool ever!



2. chasing gunner around the house and him chasing me, until he would bark at me.



3. my new trampoline papa and grandma got for me. i don't think my mommy and daddy knew it was that big! where are they going to put it?



4. opening presents and sharing my birthday party with papa.



5. going to all my favorite parks in st. george and my mommy letting me get REALLY dirty!
   

toys

gracie LOVES her kitchen we bought her for christmas so much! i'm being facetious here. she plays with very few of her MANY toys. she prefers my oven and a variety of items from the pantry. i have trained myself to look in the oven before i turn it on, but i know that one day i will forget and have a sweet little melted present.
just a little note: today we were in the optometrist's office with paul and she spread bunch of brochures all of the floor. with one word of clean up from paul she proceeded to sing the entire clean up song by herself with her version of all the words. i don't know if i have said it before, but she loves to clean up! she has for quite a while been able to hum the tune, but today was the first time she sang all the words. too cute!

valentines

tonight (valentines night 2009) gracie and i sat on the ground at the coffee table and at nachos from taco bell. no tv, just a lively conversation about her favorite things: levi, daddy, dora, monsters (monsters inc. movie). she would take a bite of a chip and then say, "mmmmm, deliciouso!". we watch too much dora! i loved tonight - might be on the top of my valentines evening favorites.

just in case you are wondering about paul, we celebrated last saturday in anticipation of the difficulty of getting a babysitter on valentines (thanks robyn!). he work 85 hours this week and needed a movie night. paul's movie nights consist of him going to his parents house and watching a movie as loud as he wants and raiding their kitchen.

too big

I'm getting the "my baby is too big and she isn't a baby anymore blues". Unfortunately for Gracie who is obsessed with real babies and baby dolls (see the one on the ground behind her) I have not forgotten what it was like to be pregnant. So for those of you who care and those of you who don't I guess this is my announcement that I need another year to forget the 9 months of stomach flu that you call pregnancy. I have Levi a couple of days a week and the 3 of us get a little bored inside sometimes since the weather doesn't let us go outside to the park. My new favorite place is "Pump it up". Its an entire warehouse of inflatable slides and toys. I am amazed that these two don't get scared when they are climbing up the ladder, but they do really good.

This is Gracie's first shirt she picked out by herself. We were at Target and since she refuses to stay in the cart, so she was wandering about in the clothing section. I turned around to see her run around the corner with this shirt. She was so proud of it and said, "gracie shirt". I looked and it was her size so how could I resist?

Big girls get their own new pink bedroom right? After 2 years of tip toeing around and whispering and not watching TV when Gracie was asleep because her bedroom was in the center of all activity, I finally got sick enough of it to move her downstairs. It was a little scary at first because our bedroom is upstairs, but after one night I got over it. Gracie did really good too, it only took her 5 nights to sleep through the night again. The blue stripes are tape. I will post a picture of the finished room, but I am waiting for her big girl bed and that isn't going to go in the room until she can climb out of her crib.

Another picture of 'G' and 'beeps'. This was one day that they were really getting along good (doesn't always happen). Levi came and scooted in next to Gracie for a little lunch. She didn't mind her personal space invaded and Levi didn't mind that he was going to fall off any second,

One happy thing for me is that since Gracie's room was moved downstairs then I get an office! Paul & Brian moved my new desk upstairs last weekend. They were both grunting like the guys on the strongest man competition because it was so heavy. Thanks guys! For the last year I have been standing at the kitchen counter on the computer. Maybe this will help me blog more, maybe not.

christmas

better late then never on a christmas post right? it was really fun this year although gracie didn't completely understand what was going on she did get excited about things. she helped paul set up the christmas tree while intently watching frosty the snowman on tv. paul is really good about setting up the tree every year even though he isn't home much he will bust it out in an hour or so one day when he sneaks home early from work.

she was more than helpful putting the ornaments on the tree. one glass ball had to be sacrificed to show her what happens when you throw them down the stairs onto the tile. eventually all the ornaments were on the top half of the tree.

paul doesn't do ANYTHING in the morning until he has a shower. christmas is not excluded from this rule. i didn't do it on purpose but the clock is in the background of this picture showing 9:00. we all showered and dressed before we opened any presents.

i took this one christmas morning before paul woke up.

levi came over and gave gracie her traditional winter hat (it is sooo cute) and looked around at what toys he was going to get to share.

there is a lot of thought going into opening this present, so much that it is making her tounge hang out. she opened her first present - an elmo dvd about how he goes on the potty - and she didn't care about the rest of her presents so we had to take a 30min break and whatch elmo.

santa did come to our house - what little girl doesn't need a little pink quad?

it was really fun this year to try to start our own family traditions. the holidays are a lot more fun with gracie around. for years i didn't know if i would have any kids so i really appreciate having her in our little family even more when the holidays come around.