Happy Halloween!

Friday Night Leftovers

• The Halloween party we were going to go to this weekend has been cancelled. Our friends two boys are sick. Kind of a bummer, but B is sick too and was thinking of staying home anyway. 
• Now B has no excuse not to trim his beard. He was letting it grow for his Halloween costume and it is way too long. 
• I went out this afternoon to pick up a few pumpkins and some groceries. I forgot to get the pumpkins. 
• We're hoping to get some good photos of Grace in her Halloween costume tomorrow. I need to go pick up pumpkins in the morning (and actually get some this time). 
• It will soon be time to start planning Grace's first birthday party. Seriously? Almost one already? 
• I have started my Christmas shopping! I have never started Christmas shopping this early. I'm not an extreme last minute shopper, but I usually don't start until December. 
• Grace apparently hates eggs. We started out just giving her the yolks, which she didn't like. We've since tried whole eggs cooked many different ways: scrambled, fried, in an omelette, hard boiled. The girl just doesn't like them. 
• We tried French toast recently and it was a hit!
• I've been slacking on signing consistently to Grace. I'm planning to focus more on it again from now on!
• Looking for more leftovers? Over here!

Wordless Wednesday (Fall Photos)

Weekend Update

    We have new windows! Both bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen. It was a two day job so we were out of the house all weekend. We headed up to the camp bright and early Saturday morning to spend the day there with Zilla and Grampers. Auntie Murr and Uncle Mike came up too, and Great Uncle Shawn came up to help Grampers work on the camp. 

    It was a beautiful day! We spent most of it outside; we took Grace for a walk and she fell asleep and had a great stroller nap on the deck, all bundled up with the breeze from the lake on her face. She loves sleeping outside. 

    We went back to Zilla and Grampers' house for supper and to spend the night. When Grace woke up through the night and had a hard time settling, I brought her in bed with me. She slept, I didn't. It's hard to sleep with a baby nudging and kicking you all night. I love having Gracie snuggle in bed with us, but I could never do the co-sleeping thing on a regular basis!

    We went to the little Farmer's Market on Sunday morning, then spent the day hanging out in Zilla's yard. We got some beautiful pictures of Grace in the leaf pile!

Snoozin' on the deck at the camp.

Happy girl with messy hair ;)

Gracie and Grampers supervising.

Leaves!

50 Rules for Dads of Daughters

Check this out: 

50 Rules for Dads of Daughters

I loved reading this so much! B showed this to me and said he plans on doing #44. :)

Thankful on Thursday

I'm thankful for the rain today. Apparently rainy days make Grace sleepy too. She slept in 45 minutes later than usual, and had a 2.5 hour morning nap. She just woke up and I'm about to go get her out of her crib. I think I might do some baking while Grace empties out the tupperware cupboard in the kitchen.

Wordless Wednesday

Teething

I knew it couldn't last.

One of Grace's bottom teeth starting poking through last week. For the first couple days it didn't seem to bother her at all. She was still sleeping through the night, she wasn't fussy, she was drooling a little bit but nothing major. Several times I thought "wow, even teething doesn't bug our easy-going girl!"

Last night she was up for about two hours, screaming and crying. We tried some cold teething toys and brought her in bed with us to snuggle but she was obviously uncomfortable and in pain so we didn't wait too long to give her some Tylenol. It still took a while to kick in. After a diaper change, bottle, and more snuggles she was finally back to sleep around 1:30am. She woke up crying at 6:00 this morning, and this girl never wakes up crying.

Poor baby.
And poor Daddy is going to be tired at work today!

Friday Night Leftovers

• The walking trail near our house is so beautiful right now! I love all the gorgeous fall colors. 
• I mentioned yesterday that Grace has a tooth coming in. I was a little worried that it might keep her up at night but she slept right through, as usual. Fingers crossed she does the same tonight!
• Grace has been blowing raspberries like it's going out of style lately. Maybe it feels good on her gums?
• We went out for lunch today with Great Aunt Nancy and Amy. Grace was awesome and had a great time snacking on cheese, Cheerios, and a banana. She kept flirting with the little boy at the table beside us. 
• Auntie Murr gave Grace a wedge of lemon while we were out. She made some hilarious faces but kept going back for more!
• We had some friends over for supper tonight. We all had spaghetti and garlic bread, Grace included! She seemed to enjoy it even more this time around. 
• If this talk of spaghetti is making you hungry for more leftovers, head over here!

10 Months

Our 10 month old girl has a tooth poking through! It's not all the way out yet, but we can see it and feel it. It doesn't seem to be bothering her too much; she's been a little clingy lately and wants to be held a lot but hasn't been overly fussy (fingers crossed that continues!).

Grace has moved on from an army crawl to a good old fashioned crawl on her hands and knees. She learned that she can get around even faster that way and generally only reverts back to the army crawl on slippery floors.  She is pulling herself up on everything, and is getting more graceful at letting herself down. She has started to cruise around the ottoman but hasn't yet tried to move from one piece of furniture to another.

She rarely signs 'milk' anymore, but obviously understands it. She seems to understand the signs for 'more' and 'all done' but hasn't signed either of them yet. I must admit, I've been slacking lately on signing to her. Must get back into it.

Grace isn't eating many purees anymore, she would much rather feed herself. She's been doing quite well with finger foods. Pears are still a favorite and she loves yogurt and cheese. She loves to drink water from her sippy cup but drinking from Mom or Dad's glass is even better. Uncle Mike taught her to say "ahhh" after taking a drink and now she does it without us even prompting her.

She loves playing outside and going for walks. Her favorite toys are her Leapfrog learning table and the Smartville 1-2-3 Treehouse. Pulling her books off the shelves makes her happy and she loves turning the pages when we read a book. She also likes playing with her blocks and loves knocking down the towers that we build.

She is wearing 6-12 month size pants, 12-18 month size shirts, and will very soon be wearing 18-24 month size sleepers. She is not a fan of wearing socks and shoes after getting used to going barefoot all summer, but she fits into some size 3 and some size 4 shoes. She wears size 3 diapers.

Grace has the cutest laugh and the most beautiful little smile. She is always happy when she wakes up and we love walking into her room in the morning to see her standing up in her crib with a big smile on her face.

I can't believe it will soon be time to plan a birthday party!

Wordless Wednesday (Corn Maze Edition)

Grace's First Thanksgiving

Playing in the yard with Cuda. And eating leaves.

Loving being outside on such a warm October day.

Sitting pretty.

She didn't eat much of her turkey dinner.

Family

A classic 'everybody laugh' photo.

It's tradition. Any time we do a family photo, we have to do one where we all look tough. Gramma is thinking we are crazy.

Give Thanks

Grace had a sleep-over at Zilla and Grampers' house last night. B and I are heading there soon to spend the day with family and enjoy a delicious turkey dinner. We're celebrating Thanksgiving, the September birthdays (Uncle John, Uncle Mike, and Grampers) and the October birthdays (me!).

I have so much to be thankful for. I'm thankful for my healthy, happy, beautiful baby. I'm thankful that I have such a great husband, and that he is an amazing father. I'm thankful for my incredible parents and my crazy siblings. I'm thankful for all of my wonderful extended family and awesome friends too!

Happy Thanksgiving!
 

Look What I Can Do!

This was at the beginning of the week. She can stand up even quicker and smoother now!

Friday Night Leftovers

• It's been exactly a week since Grace pulled herself up to standing for the first time! I put off posting about it because I was trying to get a video. I got one yesterday and just didn't find the time to post it. 
• She's an old pro at pulling up to standing now. 
• Watching her get down from standing is funny. She's not the most graceful thing. 
• We had to turn the heat on yesterday morning. I love a cool, fall morning with a hot cup of tea!
• I finally rearranged the bookcase so that I don't have to keep pulling Grace away from it. I've been meaning to do it for a while now. The bottom two shelves are full of her board books and she loves sitting there and pulling books off the shelf. 
• It would seem that Grace has yet to learn how to get down from standing in her crib. Yesterday's nap time involved one tired baby standing in her crib yelling, and one mama going in several times to lay her back down so she could go to sleep. 
• Over this past week, we've seen Grace crawl on her hands and knees a few times, only for very short periods of time (she usually does the army crawl). This morning she boogied across the living room on her hands and knees, and she was fast! We were starting to think that she might skip the traditional crawl. 
• I am really looking forward to turkey dinner this weekend!
• Find more leftovers here!

Wordless Wednesday - The Spaghetti Experience

Meal Time

When we first started giving Grace solid foods, we went the traditional route - rice cereal as baby's first food. She loved the different types of cereal (rice, oat, barley), all of the fruit and most of the veggie purees we gave her.

She has been eating some finger foods as snacks for a while now, like Nutrios and puffed wheat. A few weeks ago we tried giving her chunkier purees and some mashed foods. She was not interested. She really enjoys feeding herself so we've been gradually giving her more and more finger foods. We still give her pureed fruit mixed with cereal for breakfast, but she feeds herself at lunch and supper. Some of her current favorites include cheese, toast and any chunks of fruit that she can feed herself.

I love that we're getting to the point where she eats what we eat. Today the three of us had spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread for supper! Grace really enjoyed the spaghetti and I gave her a crust of the garlic bread, which she gnawed on for a while, smiling away.