"Hatty Bertday!"

Happy Birthday Grampers!

Since Uncle John and Mike's birthday earlier this month, Grace loves to say/sing Happy Birthday, but it comes out sounding like Hatty Bertday! It's so cute.

Gracie and Grampers had a birthday jam session on the drums :)

Thankful on Thursday

Theresa and Bob came out to visit us yesterday. Theresa brought all the ingredients to make us a yummy supper using a recipe she wanted to show me (super easy, and tastes good!) and Bob let B drive his amazing new car. B was pretty excited. They also brought some new jammies for Grace. I miss living just a few blocks away from them so we had a really nice visit. Grace really enjoyed their company too!

Wordless Wednesday

21 Months (+ 11 days)

I just realized I didn't do a 21 month update post! So here's what's new with Grace:

She started sleeping in a big bed! It's going really well so far. 

She is still quite the chatterbox and has a pretty impressive vocabulary for her age.

She loves to play hide and seek lately. She has a favorite hiding spot in one of the kitchen cupboards.

She recognizes some letters, and knows a lot of colors and shapes. She can count to 5 very well, and to 10, but often skips the number 6.

B is trying to teach Grace a bit of French. She says "Bonjour" and when he asks "Comment ça va?" she will respond with "Ça va bien."

She loves playing outside, swinging, dancing, and doing puzzles. She likes to sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider and do the actions.

Friday Night Leftovers

• Grace is doing really well in her big girl bed!
• She fell out of bed on Wednesday night, poor thing. The bed is really low to the floor so she wasn't hurt, just startled, and she settled back down quickly and went back to sleep. 
• We don't have a rail on the bed, so we might get one this weekend. Last night we folded a blanket lengthwise and stuck it between the box spring and mattress on the side away from the wall, so the bed was on just a slight slant. This way, she'd have to roll up a bit to roll off the bed, but it wasn't enough to make the bed uncomfortable. 
• She had a great sleep last night and slept until 7:50 this morning! Much better than the 6:20 wake up yesterday. 
• Grace is really into Lego right now. We got a ton of it given to us, and a cool Lego table (thanks Barb!) It's the medium size, I guess. Not the small stuff for older kids, but not the huge Duplo blocks. 
• She also loves showing Elmo and her Dolly how to do puzzles. It's really cute. 
• B has softball playoffs this weekend, if they don't get rained out!
• We're hoping to see some of Grace's great aunts from both sides of the family this weekend, too!
• For more leftovers, go here. 

Wee Bears

Since we moved and I stopped working, I've been trying to get Grace and I involved in more things in our community. Grace loved the dayhome she was in and I want to give her as much interaction with other kids as possible.
We've been going to a weekly drop-in group, and today we started Wee Bears; an early learning parent & child interactive program. It's put on by our local family resource association and (bonus) it's free! Grace absolutely loved it! Lots of new toys to play with during the free play time, an activity or craft (today was coloring; they kept it low key for the first day but next week we're making puppets!) and circle time with stories and songs. The ladies who run it are lovely. They read Grace's favorite book: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and sang some songs that she knew. She likes songs with actions so she was hopping, clapping, and stomping along!
We came home and had lunch and she settled down for a nap really easily. She was tuckered out from all the excitement! I'm looking forward to going each week.

Wordless Wednesday (33 Weeks)

Big Girl Bed

Grace slept in her big girl bed for the first time last night! She looked so little; I really wanted to take a picture but I didn't want to risk waking her up.

We had bought a little toddler bed for her recently but she got really upset when tried to settle her into it for bedtime so she ended up back in her crib. My mom thought maybe Grace was associating it with a broken crib rather than an actual bed. It sounds funny, but when she mentioned it, it did make sense. We still have the crib in her room so the toddler bed looked so small next to it.
Zilla and Grampers brought a twin size bed over for Grace to use. We set it up and she was very excited to climb in! After she had her bath, we decided we'd read our bedtime stories in the bed and then see if she would sleep there. B laid with her for a little while after we turned the lights out, and she fell asleep shortly after. She slept through the whole night! I woke up this morning to hear "Mommy?" and I went in and she was just sitting in the middle of the bed. I asked if she liked sleeping in the big bed and she said "Yeah! Come in Mommy!" We snuggled in her bed for a little while before getting up for the day.

She is napping in the big bed as I type this. She took a little longer to settle, but I expected that because it's not as dark in her room. She tried to open the door a few times but she wasn't upset so I let her play in there for a bit; I could hear her talking to Dolly and Bear. I just went to check on her and she's asleep, in the bed! I won't consider this transition complete yet, of course, but we're off to a good start!

Happiness Is ...

Today at the playground I was pushing Grace on the swing. She loves swinging anyway, but today she was really enjoying the wind blowing through her hair and she put her head back, closed her eyes, and yelled "Weeeee!" with the biggest smile on her face. Pure joy!

Friday Night Leftovers

• We've been going to a parent/baby drop-in group once a week. Grace really enjoys it and it's great for us to connect with some other mom's in our community since we moved. There are usually two girls there that are a bit younger than Grace but she prefers to play with the 4 year old boy and loves doing whatever he does!
• We had some thunder and lightning last week. The first boom of thunder caused Grace to come running towards me, but then we had fun waiting for the next big bang!
• I went to Babies R Us to get a gift for a friend's baby shower. For the first time, Grace absolutely refused to get in the cart. She usually loves the shopping cart! 
• After she screamed, arched her back and kicked while I tried to put her in, she agreed to sit in the big part of the cart. 
• After a few times of me telling her to sit on her bum when she kept trying to stand up in the cart, she sat down and hit her chin on the side. 
• She ended up pushing the cart. 
• She was happy as a clam pushing the cart around, we got what we needed, and there was no big fuss about leaving the store so I guess it all worked out. 
• Happy Birthday Uncle Mike and Uncle Johnny! We'll be celebrating with them next week!
• Head over here for more leftovers. 

Telling Stories

I love that Grace is starting to tell stories about things she's done and recount experiences that she's had. She has a pretty good memory!

We live near a railway museum. We drive by it all the time, and Grace always points out the trains - "Trains! Another one! Choo choo!" About 2 weeks ago Uncle Johnny and I took Grace up to the museum and we went in one of the train cars. Grace thought it was pretty cool! We also had ice cream at the little ice cream stand beside the museum.
About 5 days later, as we were driving by the museum, Grace said "Trains! Johnny, ice cream! Yummy!"

We went to watch B play baseball the other week, and there was another little girl there a few months older than Grace. Her name is Abigail and she shared her toys with Grace, and they played together for a while. The following week when we got to the ball field for B's game, Grace started calling "Abigail! Where is she? Shobel!" (Abigail had a bucket and shovel that Grace used to play in the dirt). Unfortunately Abigail wasn't there and we didn't really bring any toys, but Grace still had a good time watching the game!

And, of course, she still hasn't forgotten the horses pooping on the road during the parade we saw at the beginning of August. Any time we see a horse or a picture of one she says "Horsie! Pooped!" and giggles.

Friday Night Leftovers

• Grace loves the rain. It was pouring when we went to my appointment on Wednesday, so I tried to carry her so we could get from the car to the office quickly. She insisted on walking. She was, however, very good about not walking in the puddles because I had put her sneakers on her instead of her boots. 
• We recently got a Magic Jack to use as our home phone. It was $80 but gives us unlimited calling within Canada and the US for a year. Much better than what we would pay for a regular home phone. It didn't like the old cordless phones we had, but is now working fine with a phone we borrowed from Uncle Johnny. 
• I'm planning to try some new recipes in the next week or two. I've been off work for over a month now and had planned to have all these lovely meals cooked for when B gets home from work. It hasn't happened. 
• I've cooked a few times, but with B's new shift he gets home around 3:30 and he is a much better cook than me, so he's been cooking and I've been doing the clean up. 
• I also need some new lunch ideas for Grace and I. 
• I enjoy baking much more than cooking. I made some raisin bran muffins today; Grace's favorite. 
• Head over here for more leftovers. 

Thankful on Thursday

I'm thankful that Grace is a happy, easy going toddler (99% of the time). Yesterday I had to bring her to my prenatal appointment. She was happy and sang along with me during the long car ride there (45 minutes), and was amazingly well behaved while we waited for my appointment. We had to wait about an hour! I love my doctor, but I hate when I can't get one of the early morning appointments because I always end up waiting a while if my appointment is any later than 9:30. Grace played with some toys, had a snack, and flirted with the guy sitting next to us. She was great when we went in to see the doctor too; she was fascinated when we listened to Baby 2.0's heartbeat!

Wordless Wednesday (Some End of Summer Photos)

What does a horse say?

I mentioned here that ever since seeing horses poop on the road, if you ask Grace what a horse says she will say "pooped"
Here she is working on one of her favorite puzzles and you can hear her answer. She knows it's silly!