Summer Fun

Here's some photos from the last month or so of fun summertime things we've been up to.

Our neighbors gave us a new play structure for our yard.  Grace loves the slide!

We made homemade play-doh.  Grace helped stir and then had a great time playing with it.

Our city just put in a new water fountain for kids to play in just 5 minutes from our house.  We've been there lots during this hot weather!

At the Children's Museum.

Looking at clouds with Daddy!

Grace loves to have friends over to play.  She is one social girl!

Reading books with Daddy.

We've also been making good use of our zoo pass.  This was one of the first times I've actually seen the petting zoo open and after a few minutes of being shy, Grace finally got brave enough to pet the goats.

Birthday Videos

Waking Grace up the morning of her birthday:

New toys to play with:

She LOVES her new Thomas the Train:

Cake time!

Grace's Birthday!

I can't believe she's already 2! 

Two of Grace's friends have birthdays the same week as her, so last week we had a party in the park with friends.  Here are the pictures: 

Digging in to cupcakes!

She was even able to get on and off this toy all by herself!

This was the best shot I could get of all three birthday girls.  At least Gracie's smiling!

On her actual birthday, we went into her room after we heard her awake singing Happy Birthday to You and had all her presents out in her room.  She was excited! 

She especially loved the Thomas pillow pet, which I knew she would.  We have a Thomas the Train book that she loves to read.  The Fred Meyer that we go to a lot always has all their pillow pets piled up at the end of the cash registers and every time we go she has to stop and give Thomas a hug.  She was always so sad to have to leave them there.   Normally they are $30, so I really was not planning on getting her one, but a couple of weeks ago a friend told me she had seen them at Rite Aid for 75% off!  Woo hoo!  I was so excited to get it for her birthday, and she LOVED it!

She's also loving the play kitchen.  Her grandparents got her some pretend food and shopping baskets and things to go with it.

That day we decided to do all the things that Grace loves.  After her favorite breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, she played with her new toys for awhile and then we went to the park.  She loves the swings:

After lunch and a nap we headed to the zoo with her cousins and Grandma:

She was even brave and fed the lorikeets:

Later that night we had cake.

Listening to everyone sing Happy Birthday:

Blowing out the candles.  She did pretty well with one, but needed some help on the other!

Helping Daddy cut the cake:

Today after lunch I let her have a piece of left over cake.  She begged me for "Happy Birthday!" and when I started singing she wanted "fire on it" meaning a candle!  So so funny.  So, I indulged her and lit one candle and sang "Happy Birthday."  Funny girl.

We had a full and fun day.  We would have squeezed in swimming too if there were more hours in the day because she LOVES swimming.  We are going to try to go this weekend.

I'll post some of the videos of the day next so you can see how adorable she is!

Grace counting and singing

I finally figured out how to get Grace to perform on camera! I just had to turn the screen around so she could watch herself like in a mirror. That's the reason the picture is a little off-center, I couldn't see exactly what I was filming! But it was worth it because I finally captured her cute counting and singing on camera!

Grace Lately

Grace is such fun lately. She has the most hilarious expressions and is such a joy to be around. Here are some recent photos.

Some friends gave us a kid-sized table and chairs set last week and Grace loves it! Whenever we go into her room she says, "Sit table!" sits down and then pats the other seat and tells Mommy or Daddy to sit down to. Then she passes out the books and we read. :)



One of her favorite toys lately are her little animal figurines. She loves lining them up all over the house. She was so proud when she got them all lined up on the bed and said, "Mommy, look!"


Here she is, just being cute. She loves glasses of all kinds. (And unfortunately has broken a pair of Nathan's glasses!)


All wrapped up after the bath. She was so cute and hilarious walking around in her towel!


Some friends also gave us a little Elmo potty. She's still a long ways off from potty training, but she loves Elmo and she loves to sit on the potty and pretend. She always asks for some toilet paper, pretend wipes and then throws it in the toilet. Maybe she won't be so hard to potty train in a few months. :)



She also loves to "help" in the kitchen. Whenever we are working on something at the stove, she pushes a chair over and asks to help stir or pour things in a bowl. Daddy is always very patient and lets her help.

On a visit to the zoo with her friend, Anna.

Sure love this girl!

Christmas!

Here's a picture overload, all about December!

Our little town had a Christmas parade, tree lighting and Santa. Grace was happy the whole time waiting for Santa, even in the cold. But once it was her turn to actually sit on his lap....well, she wasn't too happy about it.





We spent Christmas in Utah, so before we left on the 23rd, we let Grace open one present. (Mostly because we didn't have room for it in the suitcases with everything else for Christmas!)

A new baby stroller! She loves pushing her dolls and stuffed animals around now!

We went and spent a week in Utah with Nathan's family for Christmas this year. Grace did really well on the plane ride, she slept most of the way there.

As soon as we got there, we bundled up and went with the family to go look at Christmas lights. Here's Grace all ready to go:
Grace had a great time getting to know her aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents better. There were 17 people all staying at Nathan's parents house, so there was always something fun going on!

Here she is with her aunt Crista:
She loved her grandparent's big love sacs:
When everyone was playing Mario Kart on the Wii, she wanted to join in, so she got to play with the old controller and loved feeling like a big kid!


The worst part about our vacation was that we all got sick! Grace had an ear infection and the early signs of strep throat. We were all feeling pretty terrible Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and finally decided to go to an urgent care the day after Christmas. I (Emily) had a really high fever and ended up having strep throat. They tested Grace and Nathan too and their tests came back negative, but they both had the early signs of it and Grace's ears looked bad so we all got put on antibiotics. Pretty crummy timing. Grace had been doing pretty well during the days, but was sleeping terribly at night. Once the antibiotics kicked in though, we all felt MUCH better and were able to have more fun the last few days of our trip.

These next pictures are on Christmas morning and you can tell poor Grace does not feel well. She slept really badly the night before, too.






Grace is really into Elmo lately. She got Elmo pajamas and an Elmo puzzle from some of her aunts.



Somehow, despite feeling sick, we managed to get dressed up to go to church on Christmas:


Then, we went and had dessert at Nathan's grandparents' house.


We flew home a few days before New Year's so that we could go to Emily's brother's wedding that was held here in Portland.

Here's Grace and all of her cousins on Emily's side of the family:


We are so glad to finally be done with sickness in this house! It feels like Grace has had a cold since Thanksgiving, but she's been snot-free for over a week now! :) She's been doing great since we've been home and back in our old routine.

Some of her favorite things lately are:

• Elmo

• Pushing her stroller around

• Storytime at the library

• Milk (she's always loved milk, but I really have to limit her or she'd drink it all day long!)

• Church; at our church they have a nursery class for 18 month to 3 year olds to play in so their parents can attend the regular meetings and Sunday School. She started going in November and she LOVES it. It's 2 hours every Sunday and they play with toys, sing songs, have a snack, play with play-doh and bubbles. It is really her favorite thing. Almost everyday she asks, "Nursery day?" (If I tell her no, we don't go to nursery today she next asks, "Storytime?" I think storytime is her next favorite place to go!)

• Play-doh, which Santa so nicely left in her stocking.

• Reading books, she has about 5 that she asks for over and over. I pretty much have them memorized :)

• Listening to music and dancing. During December when we had Christmas music playing a lot, she got really attached to the song Jingle Bell Rock. It's now one of her favorite songs and she asks for "Jingle Rock!" all the time. Which was fine in December, but now that Christmas is over, it's getting a little old ;)

She is talking so much now and is starting to string short sentences together. She is really good at communicating and understanding, it is so fun to watch her personality develop.