I have been getting a lot of comments lately about my blog, and well people wondering if I forgot I had one. I remembered...once I was reminded. In the past couple of months we have:

1. Moved to a new house. That says it all right? Can I just say that there are not many things that I really hate, but moving is one of them. Since we moved out of our ward boundaries I was released from my calling as RS President so you would think I would have tons of time to organize and clean, but we still can't park our cars in our garage. I think I will blame my lack of time on #2...
2. We survived Christmas. I love to see Christmas come and I love to see it go. One month of craziness is good for me. We didn't get our usual family pictures taken because of our wonderfully timed move, but I did take Gracie to get her own (the picture above).

I would like to put a disclaimer out there that I don't have a working camera right now and it is really hard to blog without one. I will be back when I get a new camera!

Daddy's Little Girl

A conversation Paul and Gracie had the other day in the car:
G: Daddy why does......?
P: I don't know Gracie
G: But Daddy, you know everything!

Paul for the life of him can't remember the exact question because he said there were too many questions happening one after the other so he just started answering ok, yes and I don't know. Just as a side note, she is wrapped around his little finger and he worries about her all day everyday. He has come around to loving her so much that he doesn't care if we have only girls.

First Day of School

Today was Gracie's first day of pre-school. She has been looking forward to this for month's!

All the way there she was singing 'Sweet Caroline' (her favorite song right now) at the top of her lungs. It takes 6 Sweet Caroline's to get to school.

She is so lucky to have her aunt as her teacher. She didn't even say bye to me, she just ran in to see who was there. That is huge for anybody who knew Gracie 2 years ago she would just cry if you tried to talk to her. When we went to the orientation last week she tried to get me to leave and kept telling me she would be fine.

When I asked her what she did at school this was her reply:

• i hopped
• do the wheels on the bus
• i made a crocodile, ohhh i forgot it at la la's house, can we go get it? (it was really an alligator and it was in her backpack)
• i played
• i didn't play outside cause it raining

A little side note about Robyn: She was somehow named lala by Garrett and ever other niece and nephew since then have called her that. I told Gracie when she was at school to call lala Mrs. Robyn. When I picked her up Robyn told me she called her Mrs. Robyn, lala and just Robyn. I'm sure it's not easy for a 3 year old to keep all those names straight!

Day 18 & 19

Is it cheating on 'everyday in May' if I blog every-other-day? I'm laughing at myself because I feel my blog dedication wearing down. The only thing noteworthy on 'Day 18' was me making a mental note 30 minutes into my spin class that I needed to get my will finished because I was about to die! I can only do so many up hill city sprints Mr. spin teacher! Today was Gracie's activity day...literally! As if dance and soccer on the same day were not enough we just added swim to our Wednesday line-up. Candice signed Gracie & Levi up for swim and the only day they could have class at the same time was today (Levi is way advanced swimmer so they are in different classes). On the way to swim we made a quick stop at Target because we hadn't been there yet this week and we were going through withdrawals. Gracie picked out these sporty pink glasses that squeeze her cheeks quite nicely!

Half way through her class her goggles were falling off but she really tried to keep them on. My zoom is broken on my camera or I would have gotten closer, but I think they are making her look a little like droopy the dog. She told me after swim, "This was the best day EVER!" I'm sure it was!

Day 16 & 17

Day 16:
At church on Sunday I sat in the pew and kept turning around in hopes of seeing our favorite bench buddies. After a while I realized that they are gone... Candice, Levi & Piper have moved on from our Ward. I will miss Piper's extravagant Sunday outfits, Levi's little man ensemble, Candice's latest snack container purchase (2 of them of course), Piper cuddles during Sacrament meeting and Candice being on my Enrichment Committee. I will miss everything about her moving especially her house walking distance from mine.

Day 17:
We had our first freezer meal exchange today. It is funny to get so excited about frozen food, but it is more the excitement that I don't have to cook for 12 days! Here is our groups blog if you want recipes or there are tips and guidelines if you want to start your own group: http://myfreezermeals.wordpress.com/

I seriously need my OWN truck!

Today I wanted to plant something new in my yard since I was fixing the drippers anyways. So I drove over and got this wonderful smelling honeysuckle from a generous friend who has too many plants :). I kept waiting and waiting for Paul to get home from work with his truck, but I had a hole dug for this little guy and the sun was going to go down soon. So I put it on the back of my freshly washed car and drove 1/2 mile on a main road with my flashers on.
***Can I make a little side note that it is Saturday and my husband does have a M-F job, but he left at 7:00am and I sit here alone on Saturday night at 10:00pm and he is still not here! They work him crazy hours and a ton of hours. Did I mention he is salary so no overtime? Ok I'm done complaining, I always tell myself that at least he has a job! There is a little ray of hope in his future, but I will post about that tomorrow because this is getting really long!***
Well I hope my little plant lives, it smells wonderful in my front yard!

Today Robyn's neighborhood was having a garage sell and I was riding Stewart's bike around the neighborhood (which I bought from him and I am totally excited to go on bike rides with Gracie) and happened on this steal of an art desk for $5. Gracie was in LOVE with it. She begged me to keep it in the kitchen. I'm not sure how that would have worked. I wanted it in the playroom. We compromised by putting it in her bedroom. She sat at it for 45 minutes creating and not saying a word (if you know Gracie very well this is unheard of). I cleaned the kitchen and made dinner without a helper. I love a good buy and this is one of them! I also bought at little picnic table for $3 from the same person!

My Girly Girl with a Gun

Gracie had some friends over to play today. She is the most girly girl, she will tell you all about her pink dress and braided hair and painted nails until you compliment her on them. Bring a couple boys in the house though and she is in full boy playing mode. Don't get me wrong... when they are playing knights nobody in uninformed that she is the princess. All of her friends but 1 are boys. It is a good thing Levi is with us everyday to train her on what funny little things boys do. Yesterday she had 2 others boys over to play and they all came running upstairs with weapons (Mom, you might want to stop reading now). It was so funny, Levi had a sword, Carter and Devin had guns and Gracie had a little bubble maker gun. She had the smallest weapon, but she was definitely in charge of all 3 of them!
By the way the game they are playing in the picture is great! It is the pac-man plug in game and they have no idea that they are not playing it the right way because the car just keeps on moving, love it!

Goodbye Crib

Warning, this one is wordy with no pictures:
The day after I'm sick I always want to clean something really good. Probably because I was laying down the whole day before. I decided to tackle Gracie's room. She has had a 'big girl bed' for over a year, but I have never taken her crib down. It was a really good place for time outs. I would also put her in there at nap time if she wouldn't stay in her bed. Recently she decided that she only wanted to sleep in her crib...totally annoying to wake up at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning and go downstairs to get her out of her crib. I liked it better when she would just quietly show up in my face and ask for milk. So that was my project today, deep clean her room and take her crib down. I had her and Levi take their nap in my bed and took it down while she was sleeping. I made a big deal of it when she woke up so she seemed excited about it. Then bed time came and she told me she wanted to sleep in her crib. She was fine though, it just took her a little longer to fall asleep.

Sick

Today we are sick...ALL of us! A nice little throwing up bug hit all of us with-in an hour of each other (1:30am). I don't think that has ever happened to us, we are usually separated by days. It isn't lasting too long, we should be up and running tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to when Gracie feels good enough to remember that dance and soccer were today.

Birds & Buses

Today we went to the Bird Viewing Preserve in Henderson. It was fun there were birds and ducks and we even saw a rabbit.

Piper came with us (Levi was at school). It was so windy, but she was a good sport. Her hair is cracking me up because of the wind.

When we were leaving a school bus of kids pulled up for a field trip. Gracie is a little obsessed with school buses and yells when ever she see's one. We asked the bus driver if Gracie & her friend Garren could get on for a minute. They were in heaven! I asked Gracie what her favorite thing about the bird park was and she said, "The Skoo Bus!"

Taco Lunch

Paul has a couple days off. I love when that happens since he on average works 12-15 hours a day 5 days a week. He is the ward mission leader and we have the missionaries over every Saturday morning for breakfast so we get to know them pretty well. One of our Elder's has been in our ward for 8 months and is getting transferred tomorrow. His favorite meal is Stewart taco's so we had them over for lunch. These pictures are Gracie helping make the taco's. She started throwing a fit about me taking her picture so I couldn't help documenting one of those 3 year old fits. She doesn't have a shirt on because she was helping wash dishes right before and got soaked.

Are 3 year old suppose to touch raw meat?

We will miss our Canadian friend! Once during a Stewart Taco dinner he ate 18 yes 18 taco's.

We finished the day off with a visit at Great-Grandma Stewart's house and dinner at IHOP.

Mother's Day

Can I just say how happy I am to be a mother? Gracie is the happiest little girl (with the daily 3 year old fits thrown in). Every mother's day I am reminded of Mother's Day 4 years ago when I found out the day before that my first round of in-vitro didn't work. It was a sad day wondering if I would ever celebrate Mother's Day. I remember getting up and leaving Sacrament meeting early so I didn't have to stand for the Mother's Day present the young men would pass out. I'm so happy to be out of that feeling in my life. I never knew being a mother would give me so much joy.
Today was great:

• I slept in for an extra 11 minutes until Gracie absolutely demanded that I wake up.
• Paul got Gracie dressed for church and took charge of all temper tantrums for the whole day.
• Neither Paul or I had any extra church meetings.
• I came home from church and ate cookie dough and took a nap.
• Paul & his Dad made dutch oven chicken & potatoes for dinner!
• I took full advantage of the day off!

Paul took this picture of me and Gracie at 10:00 last night. We didn't get home from his parents house until 9:30 and then Gracie needed a bath so bad that I couldn't ignore it. I asked her to give me a kiss and this is how she always kisses me: Squeezes my cheeks and kisses to hard that it makes my nose bend.

moving, moving, moving

Today was Candice's moving day. We spent the whole day moving and when I told Gracie this morning that was what we were going to do she was very excited and this conversation followed:
Gracie: Are goin take levi's jammies and bed to his new house?
Me: Yep
Gracie: That's goin be so awesome...and we can take my bed and my jammies too.
Me: I would miss you so much if you didn't live with me anymore
Gracie: That's ok mom maybe probably you could just go to your friends house and eat some food.

*That does make me feel better sometimes, but I have been laughing that she came up with that idea.*

May 7th

This morning Gracie had pictures for her dance class. All the girls have little ballerina outfits with teddy bears that have the exact same outfit. She has been begging me for a month to put "My pretty dalerina dress on". So cute! Nothing better then a bunch of 3 year old ballerina's! After naps Levi & Piper came over to play. I'm not sure why today, but I decided I wanted to pull out the tree stump in our front yard. The tree died a couple of months ago so to avoid the HOA getting after us we did a quick cover-up and had Andrew cut it off. I guess my Dad saw me go in Candice's back yard to borrow a shovel and felt pity for me because not long after that he showed up to help. It was a good thing too because I couldn't have done it by myself. It is a huge hole and my Dad only broke one shovel!

Levi & Gracie played with our beautiful rock landscaping like it was sand and built sand castles. I told Gracie I wanted to take a picture of her in front of her sand castle... can you see it? Me neither, but she kept patting a small pile of rocks saying it was so beautiful.

Piper sat patiently in the stroller watching. When my Dad and I were done wrestling the tree stump I turned around to see piper had pulled out her piggy tails. I think she looks like a Who! She is such a happy little girl.

Day Trip

Gracie and I took a quick trip to St. George today with my Mom. We made the usual stop at Lazy Daisy so I can add another quilt project to my 9 already spread out in the office (I'm really good at starting projects, but not so much at finishing them). Then we went over to see my Grandma Obray. She had back surgery last week and is staying at a rehabilitation center. It only took Gracie 1 hour to warm up to Great-Grandma to take this picture. She is usually shy, but even more so today because it was a new place. She was spoiled by rides by Apple (April) and Grandma in the wheel chair to go get cups of water and ice for everyone.

Then Jeff and Garrett joined us at Smashburger. Loved it! One of my favorite cheeseburgers, even better then Fudruckers!

And we rolled into town at 10:45 so to stay true to 'Everyday in May' I did this quick post!

Everyday in May...5 days late

Ok so I am jumping on Jen's everyday in May project. Kind of laughing at myself now...not sure I will finish this one out (I have to be honest with myself!)
Today:
Gracie had dance class. They are practicing for their recital next month and the teacher has them do the dance once with her and then all the parents are invited in to watch. She does great, not perfect, but cute then when all the parents come in she freezes and stares at all the adults. I'm sure she is going to be killer at the recital!
Then to pack all her activities in one day we went to soccer class for the first time. She loved it! I told her last night for the first time that she was going and all she could do was yell, "Am I big now Mom? Am I big?" with some "this is gonna be so awesome" thrown in there. And it didn't disappoint! My favorite 2 things were:
1. While they were stretching she yelled to the other side of the line to Levi, "Your doing a great job Levi!"
2. The teacher was going down the line giving hi-5 and after her hi-5 she picked up her dot she is suppose to stand on and ran it down to the end of the line to get another hi-5.
Since I was a bad Mom and didn't take my camera to the first day of soccer here is her 3 year birthday pictures (60 days late)

L & G

Can these two be any cuter together?

I love when the belly laugh with each other.

I love when they sing together.

I love how Gracie wakes up every morning and asks for Levi.

I love their little conversations when they don't think I'm listening.

I love my little babies... who want to be big kids.

buddy

On Friday our very much loved dog named Buddy died. He is Paul's parents dog and even though Gracie only see's him every other Sunday, she talks about him on a daily basis. Paul and I were discussing how we would tell her and my Mom sent me a text saying, "Tell Gracie Buddy loved you very much but Heavenly Father needed him to bless heaven". So Sunday morning I decided to tell her while she was cuddling with me in bed. It went like this:

Heidi: Gracie, Buddy isn't going to live with Grandma and Papa anymore, he went to live with Heavenly Father.

Gracie: . . . (thinking for a minute) And Jesus too?

Heidi: Yep, and Jesus too.

Gracie: Ahhh (happy tone in voice) He is sooo happy!

And that was it, she was off to watch more Dora. Oh how I wish that was my reaction! I think she can teach me a lot more then I can teach her! We will miss our little Buddy.