Flower Girl and my big crawler

A joyous occasion! Yesterday 2 dear friends of mine got married! When I say "dear" I mean it! I lived with them both in San Jose, Chad for over 4 years and Jen for over 1. They were not together at that time, it wasn't till after I moved out that they called and said that they were dating... 4 months later they were engaged... and here we are! Chad is Grace's Godfather, which makes Jen her honorary one. We are so blessed to have them in our lives, I love them dearly, and can't imagine them marrying anyone else. They have such a strong walk with the Lord, it is inspiring. Grace was one of the flower girls, and I was honored to be a bridesmaid.

Here is the bride getting ready in the kitchen.... I love the fact that she wore green converse under her dress... sticking to being her self... no picture of that though... she looked AMAZING!!!

Chad looking at his beautiful bride walking down the aisle.
Gracie posing for the camera
My lovely family!
Grace, Karina (jens daughter) and the other flower girls doting on her!
Grace has been cuter than cute of late!! She loves to be mobile and will just crawl everywhere she can. She is talking up a storm, smiling, laughing, giving great bear hugs... she is my love of loves! I cannot imagine loving someone more than I love her. I know every mom says it, and it is true, the love you have for a child is just so pure and beautiful. She gets so excited and flaps her arms all around, and when you come after her she gets this huge smile, shrieks and then turns to try to get away from you.... and when you catch her it's all laughs.... She is talking and babbling and getting up on furniture to walk around.... When you open the door to go outside she just smiles and gets all happy, even if it's just to get the laundry!

It is utterly amazing that something this cute came from me! I give the credit to her daddy though. WE ARE BLESSED BEYOND MEASURE!

What did you find on my daughter?!?!

**Warning about to describe a lot of female anatomy in detail*****

We went to Gracie's 9 month check-up the other day and everything seemed great until she took Gracie's diaper off... She did a thorough check of her parts "down there" and noticed there was an extra piece of skin that kinda looks like a little tab or something. When she looked further she realized that her labia is fused together. That's right, you read correctly, her LABIA IS FUSED TOGETHER!!""" What the heck!? My poor baby. So pretty much that means for those of you who never took anatomy (like me) or never really knew what all of our own parts are called, the "hole" that makes a woman a woman is fused together. So, if we were to find this out later... say when she started her period (which is crazy to think that far in the future) there would be no place for her blood to come out, not to mention sex... which I really don't want to think about!!! Ok, so what happens now? My doctor prescribed premorin, which is an estrogen cream that is usually used on menopausal women (hence the pharmacist was asking me a lot of questions on why a 9 month old would need this).... I got the cream and was reading the side effects cancer this, cancer that, increased breast size (yes in infants as well) vaginal bleeding... and the list goes on. I DO NOT WANT TO PUT THIS ON MY CHILD!! So I called my doctor after I read all this and expressed my concerns, and she said other than surgery, this is the only way to help her open that hole, they get such a small amount of the cream that the side effects aren't as strong and that she would put it on her child. That made me feel better, but not all the way. I "googled" this condition as well which I don't really suggest because you will always get the worst case scenario whenever you look up something.... which I did.... This could mean more than just fused skin... it could mean hormone deficiencies, lack of all female organs and so on. Are you kidding me!?

Right now I am supposed to apply this cream after every bath while spreading her labia... sounds fun. Hopefully it should clear up, but it needs to be checked regularly because this condition usually come backs... great.

This could cause bladder infections as well as a whole host of other infections as well. How did I not catch this??? I guess I really don't look all the much at her down there. I wipe well, make sure everything is out, then just put the diaper on, trusting she has all her parts. In reality, even when my doctor showed me, looking at it, I still wouldn't have said "Oh yeah, something is terribly wrong" So we have another appointment in 6 weeks, and we will see from there. Hopefully this is not too much to put on a blog, I am honestly just scared and needed to get this all out!

9 MONTHS!

Grace is now officially 9 months, and this last month has been very big for her!

• She officially became a crawler this month, so cute to see her go everywhere! The smile on her face when she peeks around a door or can come to you on her own accord is priceless. She started off slow, she could crawl for a while, but didn't really seem like she wanted to... Then one day at church she just went everywhere, and that was it... she is a mover and a shaker.
• She can now pull herself up on furniture which makes her so proud, she gets up, looks around for someone to look at her, makes eye contact with us, gives us a big smile and then turns back around. She can also walk along the furniture as well...
• She is talking more than ever, now obviously not words in the English language, but you can tell her little mind is going. It started with ba ba ba... and now can do many other consonants and just acts like she is having a conversation with you, my big girl.
• She waves and claps, though mostly to herself in the mirror:) She loves kids, so whenever she sees herself in the mirror she gets all happy and gosh, that cute little girl in the mirror always waves back!
• She loves playing with small stuffed animals
• She finally learned to jump on the johnny jump up! Before she would just hang out and chill.... but now she cracks herself up on that thing going "bouncy, bouncy, bouncy"
• We went to the beach for the first time yesterday**thus she discovered sand for the first time as well. She was so fascinated with it, of course trying to eat it, but we did our best keeping it out of her mouth, though it comes to a point where we just shrugged our shoulders and went "eh, let her play" She loved the seagulls and all the dogs, and was not a fan of the cold water (we just put her toes in)

***We went to the beach because Stephen proceeded to get poison oak all over his body and has been miserable!!!!! So I took him to the beach so he can get into that freezing cold saltwater and help dry that stuff out. It helped, he swam for 30 minutes and everyone thought he was crazy! It was freezing, windy and almost dark! Gotta love him.

I am sure there is more, but she has been a little bundle of joy lately. Sure, we have had our moments, she now loves to scream at the top of her lungs for no reason... makes me a little more short that I normally am... She sleeps a lot less then ever and has major separation anxiety... other than that we are all good!

I love her, and wouldn't trade her for the world, she fills our heart with joy!

Sunshine and Guitar

Just few pics from the fab weather we have been having! Gracie finally gets to spend time outside!

She is officially a crawler now!!!

Love this one! Daddy and his guitar!! So sexy