Presents a little early

For Christmas this year Gracie's big gift from Mommy and Daddy is a new big girl bed! We bought the bed last week and put it together today. Gracie could not be more excited about it! She left the house today with Gran while we were finishing the bed and came home to an updated big girl room tonight. If I had it to do all over again I wouldn't wait until 8:30ish to show her the new bed. She was already a little wired when we got home tonight, but seeing her new room just added to the excitement. It's now 9:55 and she's still awake. The other adjustment in her room is that the glider is no longer in there. This is a pretty big deal to Gracie and I think may be part of the reason she's still awake. She still LOVES to be rocked at bedtime. She doesn't fall asleep, but that's just been part of our bedtime routine her whole life. When we walked in the room tonight she ran to her bed and hugged it and then said "where's my rocking chair?". I told her it was in the guest room (will soon be the nursery) and she then stated that she needed it so she could be rocked so she could go to sleep. We were hoping that reading to her in bed and even laying there with her for a few minutes would make the transition easier, but that's not the case tonight. We'll see how she's doing in a few days =) My Mom gave Gracie her new sheets and comforter for Christmas. Gracie's Christmas sheets are on the bed, so we'll put her new ones on after Christmas. She liked the new bedding so much that she wanted to sleep on the pillow with the sham on it and not her regular pillow. She also didn't want her sheet on, but instead just pushed the sheet down and pulled the comforter up. She's a mess =)

Gracie went bowling this morning for the first time and had a blast. I'll post some pictures after I get them. I forgot my camera, but thankfully both of my friends that we went with had theirs.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

She's asleep now =)

tagged

I've been tagged! My friend Hannah tagged me (I think Tawnya might have tagged me too, but that was a while ago and I never did it). This post is a bit late, but it's getting done =) The instructions for this tag are to pick the 4th picture folder on my computer; choose and post the 4th picture; explain the picture; and tag 4 other people to participate. Here it goes:



This is a picture from Jan. 5, 2007. We were in Mobile at the time. This was right before Gracie turned 1. Jason and Gracie were in the backyard walking around. She was not walking independently yet, but loved walking around holding one of our hands.

So now I tag:
1. Tammy Eanes
2. Amelia Nolen
3. Kathy Rowland
4. Janelle Hite

(ok, so now I'll just wait and see if any of you read my blog =))

Cook/Warren Christmas

You can click on a picture and it will pull up the slide website if you want to see the pictures bigger and individually.

On Saturday we celebrated Christmas a little early with the Warren family for Cook/Warren Christmas. We had it during Thanksgiving break this year because most of us were in town. We missed the Bratcher's, but are really excited that they will be here for Christmas! We met and exchanged gifts, the children do the exchanging, and then went to lunch at Johny Ray's. We had a great time visiting with everyone and Gracie loved have Emma there. Before we got there she kept telling me that Emma was a girl like her =) I think she was excited that there would be another girl there. I think Emma enjoyed having another girl there too. All four of the Cook/Warren "daughters" are pregnant, so it was kind of fun having 3 of the 4 together yesterday. After lunch we went back to Bill and Suzanne's house to watch the game and eat dinner. Gracie took a great nap and the first thing she asked when she got up was "Can I play with my new toys?". She was really excited and quickly got into her make-up from Friend and Pops (Jim and Betty W.). She had a blast putting on her own nail polish and lipstick. I think she especially enjoyed putting eye shadow on the rest of us! It was a great day. We're really looking forward to getting our tree up (hopefully today). I know Gracie will love having the lights up and helping put the ornaments on the tree. I'll try to do a better job of updating with pictures over the next few weeks =)

a little update

Today is Jason's birthday!!! Happy Birthday, Jason!! We went to dinner tonight at Stix with Jason's parents and my mom. This was Gracie's first time going to a Japanese restaurant and she LOVED it. She really liked the onion soup and was disappointed when we came back from the bathroom and they had taken her bowl. Suzanne shared the rest of hers with Gracie and she almost finished it off. She loved eating with the chopsticks. She's played with chopsticks before, but they gave her the children's kind that have the rubberband at the end and she did great with them. She ate most of her meal with them and greatly enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun watching her face during the cooking time. She even said at one point "This is really fun!". Jason had the great birthday song with the banging drum and that was entertaining, especially the hat. There was another family at the table with us and their son was celebrating his 13th birthday, so after Jason's song they came back and sang to him. Gracie enjoyed clapping along with the drum both times.

One day soon I hope to update with more pictures. We went to Disney on Ice a few weeks ago and Gracie had a blast. She was really looking forward to the princesses, but enjoyed the whole show too. We have a few pictures from that, so I hope to get those up here soon.

Our other news is that we're expecting baby #2! I'm 16 weeks and due in early May. We're really excited and Gracie loves to talk about the baby. We'll find out next month the gender of the baby, so be sure to check back mid December for that new info!

Gracie and her little pumpkin
Gracie on the hayride
Mommy and Gracie on the hayride
Gracie and Logan picking out a pumpkin

Gracie and Logan

Owen, Logan, Gracie, and Katelyn
We went to the Great Pumpkin Patch this morning with playgroup. It was rainy the drive up, but the rain stopped right before we got there. The kids (and Moms) had a great time looking at all the pumpkins and different activities. It was pretty cold, but the kids didn't seem to mind a bit. We made the tie-dye pumpkin shirts last week at playgroup and they all turned out really well. Janelle gets the "Super Mom" award for keeping Gracie awake on the drive home! Gracie loves to sleep in the car, but I needed her to stay awake so she would nap after we got home. Janelle did an awesome job entertaining Logan and Gracie for the last 15 minutes or so of the drive.

More to post later...we went to the zoo a couple of weeks ago and we've moved! Lots to post about later!

Roll Tide!!! What a great game today!and she'll be cheering for AU tonight, too.Jason taught her how to wash/rinse her hair under the faucet.
She's taking our order...this is one of her favorite things to do. She'll ask "What do you want?" over and over and over again...

Gracie in her cute new monkey pj's from Gran.
This is what happens when Daddy and Gracie have too much fun with the yogurt!I can't remember what she was doing here, but I think it looks funny.

It's been a while

Gracie playing with her doll house.

Gracie sitting on the potty imitating her Daddy (hand on chin). Gracie is almost totally potty trained. She's done really well with it and enjoys wearing big girl panties!

My high school 10 year reunion was at the beginning of August. We went to the picnic at Homewood park Saturday and then went to an evening event at Iz the Place (I think that's what the new name is). We had fun getting dressed up and going out for a bit. Thanks, Mom for taking our picture and staying with Gracie while we went out!

Ok, so after the crib recall Gracie slept in the pack and play for a couple of weeks. We finally got our voucher in the mail, but we weren't able to find anything in stock that we liked. So, we just put her mattress on the floor. She didn't mind at all. The only problem was that she would roll off of the bed, onto the body pillow and then onto the floor. Most mornings I would find her half on and half off. She really seemed to enjoy sleeping out of the crib and developed a new love of reading in bed. She had to have at least one book (most nights two) in bed with her and she would read for a while and then just go to sleep. For a couple of weeks she wanted her Bible in bed with her.
Then, at a consignment sale I went to last weekend I found this great toddler bed for Gracie for $15!!! I was so excited! I didn't want to pay much for a toddler bed because I didn't think she would be in it that long, so I was thrilled to find one in great condition for such a great deal. Again, she has done great in it. We do put the little gate at her door, but she doesn't get out of bed much at all (I'm more concerned about her walking to the stairs than anything). She will call me if she's ready to get up or if she needs to go the the potty. She loves her "big girl bed" and I couldn't be happier with the transition!

Gracie just being cute.

We went to Wald Park one Sunday afternoon after naps and an open house. Suzanne came and took some pictures for us (Thanks, Suzanne!!!). We had a great time playing and eating ice cream. The picture below is of Gracie "serving" ice cream.

Our FamilyVisit with Julie, Ryan and Noah

one more beach picture

I'm not sure why I didn't post this picture before. I guess I was only looking at Gracie pictures. I love this picture of us with Julie and Ryan.

Be sure to check out the new post below.

Props to Dr. Cook

Who knew that glass could hide under skin for almost four years??!! Ever since our wreck in NC almost four years ago Jason has had a little bump on the top of his head. A few weeks ago the tip of a piece of glass finally worked its way through the surface. Jason noticed it and picked at it a bit and asked me to look at it. Long story short, I couldn't get the glass out. There was only a tiny point sticking out and I couldn't get a grip on it. Earlier this week when we were at Bill and Suzanne's house, Bill took a look at it. With a little help from tweezers and a needle, he got the glass out! Thanks Bill! The glass looks tiny in Jason's hand, but it was much bigger than the little point sticking out of his head. We think Jason's head is finally glass free! He still has a habit of running his hand through his hair and feeling for the bump that is no longer there (he just did it again as I wrote that). He said he had done it for so long that it feels weird to no longer have the bump on his head. Here are a few pictures of the glass and Jason's healing head. I wanted to post a picture of Jason's head after the wreck, but I think it's a little gross, so I'll just post a picture of him with his bandage on. I've also posted a picture of the car-Jason was driving. For those of you that don't know our wreck story, my Mom was visiting us and she was in the backseat and I was in the front passenger seat (and the wreck wasn't our fault). I think it is a gift from God that we walked away with as few injuries as we did.

Now

Then

The Honda

cheese

This picture was taken May 14, but I never posted it. Notice the cheese squares in between the buttons on the cd player. Funny girl. Gracie is still just as silly. She has developed a new love for singing and dancing. Her friend Claire Ellen gave her a little purple tu-tu and she has loved dancing around in it (I'll try to get some pictures soon). She loves to sing and does so all the time. The other day I was in the kitchen and I heard Gracie singing. I peeked into her room and she was sitting on the floor looking at her books and singing. I guess she was singing about the pictures, but I couldn't understand her. She loves to sing "Jesus Loves Me", "ABCs", "Twinkle, Twinkle", and a few others. In the car last night after church Gracie was talking about how her baby doll was crying. I told her to sing the baby a goodnight song, thinking she might sing "Jesus Loves Me", but instead she started singing "goodnight, goodnight song..." over and over and even a little to the "ABC" tune. It was pretty cute.

Crib recall

One day I will update the links area on the blog with blogs that I visit (I frequently visit great money saving/frugal living websites). One blog that I love is http://www.freebies4mom.blogspot.com/. While reading through the last few entries tonight I saw her entry on her crib being recalled. I thought it was the same brand as Gracie's crib and quickly went to her room to check the model number. Sure enough, Gracie's crib is being recalled. Here are the links for the Jardine recall info and press release. http://www.jardinecribrecall.com/ and www.jardinecribrecall.com/press_release.php. There are clear directions and phone numbers on both sites. There is a link to fill out a recall form and then they will mail you a kit and directions on how to get the voucher to BRU for a new crib.

Gracie is 2 1/2 and still in a crib and I love it! She hasn't tried to climb out yet and we didn't want to move her until she did. Part of the deal with getting the voucher is sending back a part of the crib. Here is step two from the directions after you receive your packet: Remove mattress support hardware and identification label using the enclosed instructions and Allen key that is provided. Some of the readers posted comments on the freebies4mom website about what to do with your child while you are waiting for your new crib and one reader wrote in and suggested that the child sleep in a pack and play. Since we are not ready for Gracie to move to a big girl bed yet she'll be sleeping in a pack and play until we get a new crib!

The final beach pics.

This white dress has been Gracie's beach dress for the last three years. I think the armholes are getting a little small, but maybe next year it can be a cute shirt...we'll see. I can't believe it still fits her! The Strasburg dress must have been sized wrong because it is sized at 6 months! Gracie got the dress from our friends the Holley's in NC. What a great gift!