"Vote for 'Bama"

Okay, Gracie may not even be 3 yet, BUT she is already getting political! These aren't the best pictures I could have gotten ( I didn't notice the shadow until now). Her shirt says "I'm a Little Hope-apotamus... Obama 2008). She LOVES this shirt. If you ask her what it means she says " Vote Bama". If you ask her who we're going to vote for she'll shout "BAMA!" Granted of course she got this from me... but it doesn't make it any less cute. We are decked out here with Obama wear and even a really cool Obama tote. She's so proud of her shirt, probably because it has a hippo but hey, still no less cute.
Gracie is doing well. She is sooo excited for her cousins to visit. Since I'll be at school and interning the day they come she gets to go to the airport to pick them up. And she hasn't stopped talking about it since we told her last week. She is dying to have a sleepover with Leanna and Emily. She has never gotten to have anyone sleepover at our house.. so its kinda a big deal. Hopefully my little brother and sister will be comfortable enough to come for a sleepover soon!

Gracie's made lots of new friends at school. And she is doing well healthwise. We get to switch doctors in July so that's exciting. Her dr before was 30-40 min away before... now they're across the street, and speedy! We've been doing lots of swimming ( well the days we don't have anything to do and it is actually nice out). And I took her to "Concert in the Park" last week with my mom and stepdad for a picnic and the music. She loved it, but didn't last long because she was so tired ( she hasn't taken a nap at school yet... her teacher told me that they'll think she's asleep but she'll be faking)! Since she is used to getting a nap she has a hard time when she misses it.

I can't believe she'll be 3 so soon! The time has flied and I swear she is 2 going on 13. Sometimes the things she says are so grown up or teenager-y. If I'm nagging her about cleaning her room or something, she rolls her eyes and says " What-ever mom" ( I put the hyphen because she actually stresses the second syllable after a slight pause.. just like a teenager!) I'm very scared for the teenage years! But for now just enjoying every single second with her. We were cuddling in my bed watching a movie and she looked at me and said " Mom, I'm so glad you're here, You're my best friend I've ever had." I thought it was so cute and funny.

I also pointed out a rainbow to her for the first time. When she saw it her jaw dropped and she asked " Mommy, who did it?" I told her God did it. She was amazed. She asked me if God colored it with markers? Those are the moments I hope I'll always remember.....

Update

Okay, wow its been a long time! I've been wanting to post these pictures of Gracie and Noah since March! I took them to Chuck E. Cheese for Noah's birthday. It was the first time they had gotten to see each other since Christmas time and they really had a lot of fun!
Gracie was definitively diagnosed with NF1 a couple of months ago. NF1 stand for neurofibromatosis 1, right now her only symptoms are cafe au lait spots and freckling in her armpit and groin. The hardest part is not knowing what complications she will develop from it. At her age, most kids with NF1 don't exhibit much more than that. The geneticist said that she may only end up with spots but we won't know for sure until after puberty. Even after then she could still have more stuff pop up. But I'm trying not to think about that or worry about it... I am just very aware to keep an eye out for other symptoms.
She is doing very well developmentally. She talks up a storm. We have started to do articulation exercises to help with her speech ( she talks a lot its just not always clear!). She does talk in full sentences though. She is sooo imaginative and creative. She is constantly coming up with stories or games. She frequently will jump in my bed or on the couch with me and pull a blanket over us and say "Shhh.. a shark is coming!" She loves to play pretend. And frequently acts like a grown up. We were playing with her dolls yesterday and I made them do something silly and she put her hand up to her head, shook her head and said " Mommy, you're too much!" I thought it was pretty funny coming from a 2-almost- 3 year old!
I know they say all kids are like little sponges but I swear Gracie is extra sponge-y! She suddenly started saying "Gracias, De Nada, and Hola!" And using them appropriately... thanks Dora! She will hear or see something once and remember it long after and if its a new word she will not only remember it but use it appropriately.
So we have "stolen" my mom's dog, Bailey. We were just supposed to babysit him for one night, but we never really gave him back. Gracie LOVES having him around. He has really become part of our family. The pictures with her and Bailey in bed were his first night with us and she was so excited she was dancing! Then again, Gracie is constantly dancing and "shaking her booty."

In the past few months Gracie's hair has really started to grow.. thanks I think to new hair products. I have to special order them online.. and they aren't cheap but they are soooo worth it. I have been able to do much more with her hair. Including braids , puffy pigtails, regular ponytail, etc. And it all just looks better! Not to mention her hair always smells amazing now. Her braids below were a couple of days old but I just wanted to give an idea!
Last semester Gracie was going to the daycare at my school a couple of afternoons a week and LOVED it. When the semester ended she was saying " I want to go to school.... I NEED to go to school!" So, now that she is potty trained and almost three I signed her up for one full day of preschool a week. She LOVES it. She gets very excited and talks nonstop about it.
Gracie is sooo expressive and silly and very loving. I got the stomach flu a couple of months ago and I couldn't head into the bathroom without her following, and when there she was rubbing my back and telling me I'd be okay. ( In hindsight it was very sweet, at the time I of course just wanted some space!) She's always hugging me saying " MOmmy, I'm so glad you're here"
Last weekend we started going to the pool again. Gracie is a little fish, although when she's swimming she tells me that she's a mermaid! We hold hands and she kicks along... she's so proud of herself and it always really wears her out! She loves going to the movies. Last Sunday I took her swimming in the morning and in the afternoon we went and saw Kung Fu Panda. Now she can't wait to go see Wall-E. She also saw Horton Hears a Who when it came out and now has a stuffed Horton ( thanks to my aunt) that Gracie takes EVERYWHERE and cannot sleep without.

Potty Training!!!!!

To start, I don't know why but lately when I put Gracie down for a nap when I go in later to check on her she is sleeping in weird ways. In the picture below she looked like she was in the middle of playing and all of a sudden passed out with her head at the foot of the bed and her tiger right on top of her. A couple days ago I went in and she was sitting indian style slumped over fast asleep. Weird!
Publish PostGracie LOVES spaghetti! I don't have any pictures of her on the potty... so I included these and will have to add potty pictures later. Gracie is doing AWESOME with potty training. She has had very few accidents and now even just tells me when she has to go if she does not just go herself. I made her a potty chart with disney princess stickers as a reward. And if she gets a line of stickers filled up then she gets a prize of her choice. So far she's gotten the Aristocats dvd, and now she is working towards a Barbie. She has for the most part been going on a potty training potty but now is starting to use her cool step potty seat on the toilet in her bathroom. She even stays dry while we're out running around. She has overwhelmed me with how fast she picked it up. I'm so proud of her and even better she's sooo proud of herself!!!
Also, Gracie's language skills have been developing rapidly. She is using 3-4 word sentences. She is very articulate and talkative. Unfortunately she learned "poopyhead" ( I am guessing at school) but other than that her vocabulary is great and just increasing so quickly. She says " Can I please?" "Mommy, I have to go poopy, hurry up, lets go!" And she's just so funny, she says funny stuff constantly and is like a little mirror image. Now everyone's REALLY got to watch what they do and say in front of her because not only will she repeat/imitate it but she remembers EVERYTHING. I am constantly amazed at how good her memory is. She remembers things that happened months ago. It's crazy!

Sesame Street Live!

Waiting very patiently in her room to leave to see Elmo! We made up a song/chant and sang it all morning. When we were turning into my mom's neighborhood to pick her up Gracie started panicking that we were no longer seeing Elmo anymore.




Okay, so the funnest thing we've done to date this year has been Sesame Street Live! We went with Grandma. I was nervous that she wouldn't be old enough to really enjoy it or even sit through it... boy was I wrong. She sat through the show with a look of awe on her face. She was getting tired and cranky while we were waiting for it to start... but once it did all that melted away. She still talks about it. She got lots of cool souvenirs to remember the day by and went out to lunch afterwards. I'm so excited that she's old enough now for this kind of stuff! It seems like lately her growth has been on super drive!

More from December....

Gracie LOVES being around other kids and playing with her baby dolls, so she loves when her buddy Nadia comes over .


A couple of days after Christmas Gracie got really sick and a few days later I caught it. And we were both miserable ( pretty sure it was the flu.. even though we had flu shots) and stuck in the house for about a week and a half. So when we finally felt well enough to run some errands we went to the hardware store. Gracie saw a kids bike in there and started begging. Little did she know I had already bought her one for Christmas, but was holding onto it for a rainy day. So I told her to sit on the couch and close her eyes. She was holding them shut so tight that her whole face was scrunched up.. and when she opened them and saw the bike she was ecstatic. Her eyes got huge and she started jumping up and down, clapping her hands, squealing " Yes!Yes!Yes!!!!"
Now we just can't wait till we can ride it around the neighborhood!
Gracie got an awesome desk/easel for Christmas... and now when mommy is doing homework, she scurries over to her desk and does her "homework" too... she LOVES doing anything artsy. They told me at school the other day that they ended up doing art early that day because Gracie was begging for it!

Christmas (better late than never!)

Christmas this year with Gracie was really really fun. She for the most part got it and was so excited about everything. She still brings it up. Santa went a little overboard this year so near the end of opening presents she was just unwrapping them and throwing them down without even looking at them. She had a lot of fun though. And some presents were even put away and saved and have been given to her at different times since Christmas. I had put a gate up at her door so she wouldn't come out and see her big presents before I could get it on camera. And we waited for Grandma and Grandpa to come and then we opened presents. Somehow from her door, Gracie spotted her enormous doll house, knew what it was and started squealing!! Then she RAN out to it without even noticing the mound of all her other presents.... we took our time/.. and played with everything a little before opening more ( at least at first : )) Then we had orange cinnamon rolls and watched a movie before leaving for my brother's. We found out that we have another cousin to look forward to this summer! It'll be the first little boy (finally!).

Ummm VERY Belated Halloween Post!

Okay, so it has seriously been forever since my last post and I apologize. We have been VERY busy. We moved which was an enormous job, especially since it ended up happening during the week so I was busy with work and school. Gracie's Aunt Kristin came stayed with us for a few days. Which was super fun. Gracie and her Auntie became the best of friends. And then I've been really busy with school and work. Next semester I'm taking 18 credits so I won't be working any longer, but I'm sure we'll be just as busy!
So, I've been wanting to write about Halloween badly. At first Gracie wanted nothing to do with her costume. Even after she saw her "aunt" and "uncle" Chloe and Zach wearing their costumes.. I thought I would never get her in one ( I brought her two options) But at the last minute she finally submitted. And oh my goodness, the pictures don't do her justice. For whatever reason everytime I was taking her picture and I asked her to smile she would do this weird fake smile. She LOVED Halloween. She was running up to the doors saying "Treat! Treat!" She was really packing in the candy. She was even saying Happy Halloween to everyone! And for weeks and weeks and weeks I heard " Happy Halloween, Trick or Treat" I usually had no idea what she was saying at first because I just wasn't expecting that to be what she was saying. She had a really good time with my little brother and sister.




When we first moved Gracie would not sleep by herself through the night. And she wouldn't go to sleep unless I sat in her room until she fell asleep. Which sometimes would take forever. I gave her a big girl bed when we moved and it was all just a little too much for my lil munchkin I guess. But now she is back to sleeping in her own bed all night and going to sleep on her own. Sometimes she'll call me in there for various reasons, but for the most part she does it on her own. And she does sometimes keep calling out to me every few minutes " What are you doing Mommy??" Actually that is probably one of her most frequently used phrases now. " What are you doing?" and "What's That?" . She is extremely inquistive. She is very dramatic and stubborn as well. She huffs and puffs. Goes " Geez". Very bossy. Likes to tell everyone what to do, where to sit and what to say. She's still very affectionate. When's she's up to something and I call out for her she ALWAYS says " No mom, go away!" That's when I know its time to go running for her! She's very into retelling her experiences. She's very independent. And if she knows she's in trouble or doesn't like what she's being told she closes her eyes and pretends she's asleep or will tell me she's tired.

And as for Christmas. The day after Thanksgiving we put up all our Christmas decorations and Gracie just has been so excited ever since. I am taking her to see Santa this weekend ( hopefully I'll post pics of that sooner than I posted the Halloween ones!) and I was telling her about it and now she keeps talking about Santa's lap. She gets sooo excited whenever she sees Christmas lights or trees. And if she sees Santa she starts screaming his name till someone acknowledges her! Santa went a little overboard this year, but I think that this will be her first year that she really gets Christmas. She is already so excited! Which makes me so excited!!

Quite the Hand Full

Pretending to be asleep, using a pacifier ( which as you may know, she doesn't really use and never has) and waiting to get her diaper changed.... silly head...

Trying to hide from me behind the towels to avoid getting her teeth brushed..... Notice her look of angst : )

My silly willy giggling chef.....

Okay, as always Gracie is very funny and cute. She has definitely entered the terrible twos though. Full blown tantrums in parking lots and stores. Refusing to go to bed. Screaming at me to "Shut up!" and slamming her bedroom door when I tell her no( actually this makes me fear her teenage years!). She is REALLY asserting her independence. I am reading a parenting book about how to properly deal with this behavior and hopefully it will help. She is into EVERYTHING. Nothing is safe! But in between it all she makes jokes and is sweet with her kisses and cuddles. Thank goodness for that. Plus she is such a chatterbox. She just talks and talks... and is very animated when she does talk. She tells these long stories and everything she has to say is VERY important. I can't imagine where she gets her talkative-ness from.

We went to her two year check up last week. The doctor said she now has two of the criteria for neurofibromatosis... so a diagnosis looks eminent.