Thursday, July 12, 2012

Grace turns 3!

Sufficient words are hard to come by as  I sit here trying to think about what to write about my wonderful daughter Grace.  How can I even convey to you the amount of love I have for her.  The amount of times she melts me in a day with the things that she says and does.  The sincerity of her hugs and kisses.  I love seeing life through her eyes. 

I will start by how we celebrated her birthday.  I often go on walks though Henry Cowell with my little ones, and next to it is Roaring Camp where we hear the train whistles blowing throughout our excursions.  She has always loved to go see them, and has always wanted to ride one...So that is what we did, We took the whole family on a train ride, where everyone had a smile on their face by the end.

Here she is, eager to climb one!



Posing with Auntie Chrissy who joined us for the excursion!  (Super genuine happiness going on here folks!)

The girls getting ready to take off!

Stephen and myself saying "I'm so glad we did this!"


We followed the train ride with a picnic lunch at the river.  Grace is VERY into picnics, and loves the river... so it seemed so fitting to do on her birthday!

Jamuna and Grace in the river.


Later that night, family and God family came to celebrate with us!  Sometimes I have a warped sense of humor and decided it would be a good idea to put trick candles on her cake.... There was a lot of spit on those cupcakes, and one very confused little girl.  (maybe a little early)

Mommy giving my angel a kiss!

Satisfied!  Licked the frosting off of at least 5 cupcakes!  Love this picture!

Monica and Amy gave Gracie her very own tea set and then a couple days later her own TEA PARTY!!!  Dress up hats and all! 
  Monica reading to Grace and Avery who decided to join us for tea:)
 Gracie modeling some of the fine jewelery that could be worn!


Lets talk about her now.

Every morning she wakes up in the best mood,  makes me not care so much that it can be as early as 6:30:)  Often she wakes up next to me, being that somehow every night she ends up going to sleep with us, or ends up there around 3 am or so. 

Her favorite food is pancakes, followed closely by Life cereal, which she calls "mouse" cereal for some reason:)

She loves being a big sister and is so good with Charlotte.  She helps her walk, reads her stories, plays with her and always gives her hugs whether Char wants them or not.

Right now she is VERY into being a doctor and giving us "checkas" which is a check-up.  There is this show on Disney Junior called Doc McStuffins, and it is about this little girl who is a doctor for all toys, super cute show, and so much better than her old favorite Cailou!  So, Auntie Aimee gave her her own doctors kit for her birthday and about 20 times a day she checks our heart beat which is "normal" checks our eyes and ears which always "looks good" and then our blood pressure which is a "little high right now, you should rest mamma"

Grace loves to cuddle, which melts me.  When you ask her a question she puts her finger to her cheek, tilts her head, looks up like she is in deep contemplation.  A lot of times she answers any questions with "maybe tomorrow"

She loves to have books read to her, and in turn reads to us, and I love to hear the stories that she makes up.  She always asks us what does C-O-O spell.... (When the big girls read they always ask us what this spells, or what that spells... so she does too, but it is always the same letters!)

This year we watched a lot of Toy Story, but that is dying out now with anything on Disney Junior especially Doc McStuffins.  (we give her our phone on car rides with the Disney Junior App and she watches a lot on that)

Loves to dig in dirt and sand, all day everyday.  Loves to be naked. I always dress her in the morning, but throughout the day her clothes fall off...

Loves the trampoline, loves when daddy comes home from work, runs to him, gives him a big hug and kiss then asks him to play blocks with her, without fail.  Hates it when we leave without her.

She always has "a great idea" that makes things easier or for doing something fun, loves love loves to help me cook, and I encourage it, as well as clean... heck ya!

She has the sweetest of temperaments most of the time, but can for sure can be a brat sometimes too.  (no one is perfect you know)

She gets so excited to see her friends, mostly Adessa, Eliana and Olivia.

Bottom line, we all love our Grace.  I am a better person with her near me.  I love being her mom, and am so proud of her.

Happy 4th of July!

This year we went to a parade for the first time, and though it was hard getting out the door in a timely matter (as always) it was worth it!!!  We gave Grace a new wagon for her birthday, so we opened it a few days early for the parade... And though you can't tell in the picture below, they both loved it!

 Here is Charlotte showing her patriotism! 
 Always hard posing for a pic, but here we all are!! 

It was so fun to see Grace get so excited for all the Fire Trucks and horses etc... I wish I could say it was just because they looked cool... but the candy everyone was throwing from the street got her all giddy! 

Later that night we went to our friend Hanks house in Aptos for a BBQ and fireworks on the beach.  IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!  It is hard for us to go somewhere and to have everyone have a good time, but all of our girls of all ages had fun. 

Below is Grace, Anthony and Alex (Hanks boys) and a girl ( I totally forgot her name) watching Hank light some firecrackers on his patio.  Grace cracks me up here.




And our big girls lighting sparklers!

We were only at the beach for a short time for fireworks because of Charlotte needing to go to bed, but we enjoyed our time!