Silly Face

The many silly faces of Gracie!

Ok, maybe one of them was more of an unhappy child face, but it's still pretty silly to me!

Mantra

I love Pinterest, because I stole all of the following Mantras from other people!

My mantra this weekend, as I ran the Oktoberfest 5K:

 

This is now one of my favorite mantras from a book. It almost makes me cry just thinking about it. What a great book! I hope Gracie grows up knowing she is kind, smart and important.

And a few more mantras that I hope to instill in Grace:

Favorite Picture of All Time

Ugh! How can I possibly pick just one picture that is my favorite?!? There are so many great memories in photos from throughout the years, and I just don't have the time or will to pick just one moment.

But one of my favorites has to be our first family picture with Grace. It's not a pretty picture. I've been up for over 24 hours and am barely in the picture, and half of Trinity's face is covered with a mask. Yep, we're one lovely bunch right there.

But seeing this picture takes me back to Grace's birth day. The longest day of my life, but also the absolute best! I will never forget the emotions that rushed through me when they poked little Gracie's head over the curtain, and Trinity told me our first born was a girl.

Nothing about that day was as I expected, but looking back, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Addiction

It seems that this election season, our nation has an addiction to the division and drama between the two parties. It is sad to see this country torn apart because of the different opinions.

Our pastor gave a wonderful message today in church. It was not meant to support either the blue or red. In fact, he did not speak either candidate's name or any platforms they support. He spoke about Paul's message on politics throughout the Bible. He talked about Paul's fear that politics would divide the church.

It seems that is where we are today. Instead of showing love to both sides, we are supporting one while beating down the other. Why do we feel that we can't choose one candidate without putting down the other? Why do we immediately judge those that don't agree with our opinions? I am as guilty of this as the next person.

So, our pastor asked us to be a Christian witness throughout this election process by being different. He asked us to pray and make an informed decision on who we decided to support. He asked that when we get into a debate about politics, that we show love and respect for both candidates and those we enter into debate with. He asked us to pray about our responses to views that differ from our own. And above all, love and respect those with views contrary to our own. In this way, we can make a difference. In this way, we might change the current addiction to the derision that is prevalent throughout the United States.

This message really spoke to me, and it reminded me that Republican or Democrat, we can come together in support of our next nation's leader. Republican or Democrat, we can make a difference. We can feed the hungry. We can heal the sick. We can shelter the poor. We can love our neighbor as ourselves... Whether they agree with our political views or not.

Goal

This morning I ran in the Addison Oktoberfest 5K. My goal was a little lofty at under a 10 minute mile pace, seeing as how I haven't run in several weeks. But races always bring out the best in me. I think it is my competitive spirit! Plus, running is partially a mind game, so it helps when I am not running alone.

The first mile seemed easy, other than the first big hill, but I was still surprised when I looked down at my watch to see only 9 minutes has passed since I crossed the start line. Mile two wasn't too bad since the first half was downhill, an I clocked just over a 9 minute mile. But mile three was rough. The beginning was running back up hill, which took a lot out of me. But I wouldn't let myself stop and picked a girl in front of me to try to keep pace with.

When I turned the last corner, I saw the clock was at 27 minutes and knew I needed to pick up the pace a tiny bit. It took everything I had to run a little bit faster, but it paid off! I met my goal and beat my best previous time of 30:40 with a 28:35!

Maybe my next goal needs to be an 8 minute pace. I better get to running!

Recipe

I am by no means a good cook or baker. In fact, sometimes it is hard for me to follow the simplest of recipes.

Two weekends ago, we went to Jen and Mike's house for a cookout and football watching. I was in charge of a side dish and dessert. At first I was at a loss for side dishes, but then I remembered that I had cut out a corn salad recipe from Better Homes and Gardens.

I have to say it was a huge success (maybe because there was no cooking required?!?). It was easy and tasted delicious! A definite win!

Maybe I should be a raw chef. Too bad I don't like sushi.

The dessert was an easy decision... My standard brownie box mix! And Grace was a huge fan of the brownie baking, especially when I let her lick the spoon!

If you look closely, you can see the magazine page with the corn salad recipe on the cookbook stand in the picture!

HOT

It's funny how the most ordinary evening can be so perfect.

After getting Grace to bed, Trinity and I sat down to watch tonight's episode of Glee. It happened to be about Rachel proving she could be hot and sexy, while Brittany fell into depression and had a "Brittany Spears" revival. After last season, I was a little afraid that Glee wouldn't continue to live up to expectations, but so far the episodes have been fresh, and splitting screen time between the high school and college kids is working well.

Once the episode was over, I snuggled into the couch with my Red Hots and iPad to read for an hour. My mouth is now on fire, but it was totally worth it! I have read several days in a row this week, and it's been a great way to relax after crazy busy days at work.

1PM

1PM had become much quieter around our house recently. Around 1PM is when Grace normally goes down for her nap on weekends, and thankfully she has gotten back into the habit of laying down without screaming and crying for 30 minutes. We just have to read a book or two and then plop her in her crib, where she lies down and peacefully falls to sleep.

But when she wakes up, you better get up to her room fast. She does not like to wait to be pulled out of her bed when she is ready to be up and at 'em again!

I honestly keep expecting her to try to climb out of her crib, and I am not sure what we will do when she does. I don't think she is quite ready to sleep in a bed where she has free reign of the house.

But we will cross that bridge soon enough. She is doing really well at potty training, so the next step is keeping her dry at night... and at 1PM.

Extraordinary

Trinity is extraordinary in many ways.

 

He has an extraordinary love for comics, muppets, and pretty much anything from his childhood. Although I sometimes wish he didn't have quite such a fondness of comics, I actually love that he is so passionate about something. It's not always easy to find a hobby you enjoy doing in the way that he does.

 

 

He is an extraordinary dad! I am so thankful that he is my equal partner in raising Grace. She loves to play with her daddy and knows that he loves her unconditionally.

 



 

He is an extraordinary husband. One of the first things that attracted me to Trinity was simply the fact that I could be 100% percent myself with him. I never felt pressure to be a certain type of girl, and he's always accepted me for who I am... good and bad. I don't think that's easy to find in a husband, and I am so grateful to have him!

 

But an extraordiary dresser, he is not.

Challenge

The last few months, it has really been a challenge to keep up with everything I need AND want to do. Between a busy work schedule, Grace's activities, housework, summer travel, running, reading, sewing and athletic events (Olympics and now college football), I just don't have enough time for it all!

So, among other things, my running has taken the back-burner. I haven't run 3 miles since late July, and I have probably only run 4-6 miles collectively in the last month. I really need to run a few times this week so that the Oktoberfest 5K that I am running this Saturday isn't too much of a challenge. Yikes! But I think the run will be fun, and it's for a great cause.

We have attended Oktoberfest in Addison for the last four or five years. I'll never forget the first year, when Mike entered the yodeling contest (he didn't win, in case you were wondering), or 2010 when I was 9 months pregnant and obviously very sober (I promise it was still a little fun).

 

 

If anyone else is up for the challenge of the 5K OR eating/drinking your weight in German food and beer, let me know! I'll be at the race and then back later in the afternoon with Trinity and Gracie!

Black and White

When we saw the weather was going to be so beautiful this weekend, we decided to take Gracie to the Dallas Zoo. This morning we headed to gym class but told her that after class we were going to go straight to the zoo instead of coming back home. We asked her what kind of animals she thought she would see at the zoo. Her response: "Tigers, lions and Minnie Mouse!" Oh dear...

I tried to explain that Minnie Mouse is a character that lives at Disneyland, not in a zoo, without having her ask too much about Disney. The last thing we need is for her to realize how magical Disney is and ask us when we are going every day until we take her next year(which she doesn't currently know about). Thankfully she got over the fact that she wouldn't be seeing Minnie quite quickly and didn't ask a thing about Disneyland. So we talked about the animals she might see in the way down to Dallas.

This was out first trip to the Dallas Zoo, and we were thoroughly impressed! I honestly liked the smaller size and less-crowded atmosphere better than the Fort Worth Zoo. It was perfect for her age!

Since the weather was so amazing today, so I was very surprised that it wasn't crowded. We rarely had to wait our turn to get up close and personal with the animals, and we hopped right onto the monorail after eating our picnic lunch.

It was a fun monorail ride and allowed us to see parts of the zoo you can't get to by foot. I don't know if I'd do it more than once a year, but it was well worth the $3 per person ticket for our first visit. Gracie thought we were on a train and kept exclaiming, "Choo-choo train! Woot woot!" throughout the ride. It was just long enough for her to get bored as we pulled back into the rail station...perfect timing!

Of all the animals we saw, the (black and white) penguins, giraffes, and (black and white) zebras were the animals Grace loved best and kept talking about throughout the visit. Oh, and the turtles, which she told, "I miss you" as we walked away. :) We promised her that we would come back to visit "her" turtles.

I think my favorite part was Trinity and Grace hand-feeding the giraffes. For a $5 donation, we got three pieces of romaine lettuce to feed to them. There were several groups of people trying to get the giraffes' attention, and Trinity was the one who got the first bites! Grace was excited to see them so close to her, and she even fed them the last piece of lettuce we had.

Verse

Mimi has taught Grace the first verse to the UT fight song.

Trinity and I retaliated by talking her to a Texas Tech football game! And so far, the brainwashing is working. Every time she sees a double T, she exclaims, "Texas Tech!" with an occasional "football game" following it. I love it!

Earlier this week, she noticed the double T hanging in our garage for the first time. Trinity made it a few years ago for our old house's roof at Christmas. His car usually blocks it from her view, but he was out of town this week, so that side of the garage was clear.

As soon as she saw it, she went on talking about Texas Tech for the entire ride to her daycare. I tried to explain to her that Tech is where mommy and daddy went to school, and she responded that she wanted to go there too! I told her that was a great plan, and she seemed pretty pleased with herself.

Now we are on to learning the verses for the Tech alma matter AND fight song. We have a long way to go, but we'll get there! Hopefully before Mimi teaches her any more of that other school's song.

Size

I think someone needs a lesson in size! But I LOVE that she loves shoes as much as I do!!!

I hope that someday we will be the same size, so we can buy twice a many shoes and share them!

Thankfully purses are one-size-fits-all! So that is a guarantee.

2 More Minutes

Yesterday morning, I woke up with a scratchy throat and assumed it was just a symptom of my open-mouth sleep breathing. Yep, I drool a lot at night.

Throughout the day, my throat got more uncomfortable and felt like something was stuck in it. So, I drank lots of water and finally went to investigate in the bathroom at lunch. YIKES! White sores all over the top and back of my throat. They didn't quite look like strep, and honestly my throat didn't hurt enough to cause me too much concern. But I mentioned it to my coworker anyway, who talked me into going to the doctor.

Unfortunately, I don't have a doctor. Or at least not the right kind. So, to the doc in the box I went, with Grace in tow (because Trinity is out of town this week ).  I called on my way home from work to get a reserved spot on their list, picked up Grace, took her home and fed her, and then made it 15 minutes early to the PrimaCare. AN HOUR LATER, we were still in the waiting room and Grace had an accident all over the floor. And I thought to myself, "Could this get any worse? Surely it will only be 2 More Minutes." But it wasn't. It was more like 30 more minutes. Seriously?!? What is the point of calling ahead for a reserved time if you don't get that time?!?

We were finally taken back to the examining room, where we waited 2 More Minutes for the nurse to see me, 5 more minutes for a (negative) strep test, 2 More Minutes for the doctor to see me and decide I have a fungal or viral infection, and 10 more minutes for him to come back with prescriptions for an antibiotic and mouthwash to cure me.

The nurse mentioned that they sent the antibiotic to my Target pharmacy and then realized that it was closing, so they printed the prescription out so I could fill it tonight at a 24 hour pharamcy nearby. I thought nothing of this at the time. Bad mistake.

Fastforward 15 minutes, where I am patiently waiting for my prescription at the 24 hour CVS. Grace made friends with every person in the store and then became delirious because it was an hour past her bedtime. But I was determined to get my medicine so that I could go to work in the morning. So we waited for what seemed to be an eternity. I finally thought, "If I have to wait 2 More Minutes, I am going to LOSE IT!" But of course my actual inquiry as to the status of my prescriptions was much more pleasant. It was something along the lines of "If you can't get it to me in 2 More Minutes, I have to leave to get my child to bed." After being reassured, that it should take less than 2 minutes, we sat back down... and waited 10 more minutes. So, back up to the counter I went and inquired again.

And wouldn't you know, the pharmacist responded that he couldn't fill my antibiotic because it was showing as accepted by another pharamcy. UGH! I was so mad but didn't know who to be mad at... the doc in the box, Target for being closed, or this guy for not checking before he spent 40 minutes preparing a medicine he couldn't sell to me!

I quickly bought the mouthwash and rushed home to get Grace in bed at 9:40pm, almost two hours past her bedtime. Thankfully she was easy on me and went directly to sleep.

This morning, I cancelled the original prescription at Target and went back to CVS to pick up my antibiotics on the way to work. I'm now happily medicated!

Tiny

It's hard to believe Grace was ever this tiny! But at the time, she didn't feel quite so tiny, since she's weighed over the 95th percentile since birth!

I can hardly believe how much Grace has grown in the last six months, both physically and mentally. She is definitely ahead of her age, and I often get shocked faces when strangers find out she isn't even two yet.

But that is about to change in three weeks! I am looking forward to this birthday much more than her first birthday. I was a complete mess last year. I had to go to the privacy room at work to cry in private on several occasions. I am not sure what got me so emotional, other than accepting that she wasn't a baby anymore! Now that it is clear that she is a little girl, I am embracing every age and enjoying every moment with her!

Oops!

Wow, I am so far behind on this month's blog-a-day! I just haven't had enough inspiration.

Oops!

And to make things worse, I don't even have pictures ready to go along with my blogs.

Double oops!

Oh well. I will attempt to recap the last few days' blogs in one:

September 9: Younger You
I don't have any electronic pictures of myself from a young age, so I'm sparing everyone the crazy perm hair and the awkward middle-school age! Instead, I'll blog about a few things I'd love to tell the younger me.

First, I would applaud the young Diana for NOT being boy-crazy. As Grace grows up, my biggest fear is having a boy-crazy daughter, which I will not know how to handle. I didn't even have a boyfriend until my senior year of high school. And then when that relationship ended my sophomore year of college, I didn't have another one until Trinity. Sure, I dated a few other guys, but I just never spent much time worrying about boys or whether or not I was cute enough to get their attention. I now realize this is very uncommon, but thankfully most of my friends were cut from the same cloth!

Next, I would tell me not to be so judgemental. It's one of the biggest regrets I have from my younger years. I was very conservative back in the day , and I know that I was hypocritical.

Although I am very proud of my work ethic and hard work throughout school, I would tell myself to lighten up! I was SO concerned with making a B in high school and college, that I often over-studied to make sure I was ready for tests. And I was way too hard on myself! I'll never forget the first B I made in college... Intermediate Accounting II. I made a low 70 on one of my tests and was a mess as I talked to my professor about it. She knew that it was uncharacteristic of me to "bomb" a test and asked me if everything was ok. At the time, it wasn't and I was so mad at myself for not focusing on studying. Now I realize that sometimes you have to make choices in life, and it's ok to let one part of your life slide a little so that you can be there for the other part. It was a hard way to start that lesson.

The one thing I would NOT tell the younger Diana was that I would end up marrying Trinity Vaughn! It would totally ruin our dating story! Not that I'm looking forward to telling our kids that mommy and daddy got married because we got really drunk one night and almost kissed until mommy puked. Yep, that's the true beginning... I'll spare you the rest of the details.

September 8: Flirt
I don't know what's scarier: the fact that she's flirting or that she's wearing a UT cheerleading outfit: :)

September 7: Sign
We are gearing up for Grace's 2nd birthday, and a few months ago we decided to go with a Sesame Street theme this year. The decision was mostly made by Trinity, since he wanted to have input into her theme this year, but we also thought it was perfect for our Elmo-and-Cookie Monster-loving little girl.

Once we had the theme set, we both starting looking online for inspiration. And low-and-behold, Trinity decided to create an actual Sesame Street streetlight for Gracie, complete with the street sign adapted for her name. Believe me: I was skeptical. I know, I know, I need to be supportive of my husband's hopes and dreams, but making a streetlamp from scratch is just not the sort of thing Trinity's natural abilities would allow. However, Trinity was very resourceful and ended up doing an AMAZING job! Just look at it! Thankfully, he admitted that he was a little shocked at the outcome himself, which made me feel a tad bit better about my doubts.

The streetlamp will make it's debut at the party on October 6th, afterwhich will reside in the loft area where I hope to redecorate as a playroom.

September 6: Scoop
Here's the scoop: it was Trinity's 30th birthday on the 6th! Unlike me, he was not excited about this birthday and has said over the last year that he did not want to celebrate with a big bash. So, all we did was meet Steven, Megan and Erin for dinner at SaltGrass. It was a nice, chill dinner with lots of meat and beer for the birthday boy. Afterwards, Erin came back to our house for the pineapple upside-down cake that I made for the first time ever. I couldn't believe how well it turned out and that I was able to effectively turn it upside-down after cooking, especially considering my prior baking mishaps (like the time I dropped the uncooked Christmas pie upside down in the oven a few hours before Christmas dinner)! I am still not sure Trinit likes his new age, but I sure am glad that he's finally caught up to me.

Guilty Pleasure

Some of my favorite guilty pleasures:

-Shoes, shoes, shoes! I bought two new pair of TOMs this weekend!

-Stopping by the toy aisle at my local Tom Thumb. I am often suckered into buying something for Grace... bought her an Ironman book yesterday and four new "big girl" cups last week.

- Phillipa Gregory and Diana Gabaldon books. It is about time I pick up another one of these. It's been a while since I read one!

Labor

For labor day weekend, we drove to the LBK for the first Tech football game of the season and to visit some good friends!

We had a great time visiting with everyone and meeting the newest addition to the Reynolds' family! Avett is such a sweet little baby, and he was so good while we were out and about. Addison is a great big sis, and Grace loved playing with her while the grown-ups visited.

The football game was fun, even though we didn't get to watch as much as normal with Gracie with us. We headed to the Honors College cookout first. I was shocked at how many honors students were present. It has doubled in size since I graduated from Tech! Next we shopped for some new Tech gear and enjoyed some margaritas and beer at Ruby Tequilas before heading to Raider Alley to get Grace's picture with the Masked Rider before the game. She loved seeing "the horsie" and getting a picture with it!

Grace did really well at the game. She enjoyed the band and "watching the movie", i.e. the game on the big screen! Most of all, she loved playing with Jeremy's bracelets and all the attention from those around us!

On the drive home today, Grace kept talking about "Texas Tech football game!" I love it!!

Fear

I fear our little girl is growing up too fast! Two weeks ago, she moved to the 2 year-old class early because she was getting bored in her class. I think that was her teacher's way of telling us she was causing trouble! She is much more verbal than the other kids in her class and has probably been demanding a lot of attention. We are excited about the move, especially since it meant potty-training could begin.

Her new teacher suggested going straight to panties, so we took a pile of panties and extra clothes! The first day, Grace had five accidents, but we are down to one a day now. And this weekend she has been great with no accidents! We put her Ina pull-up if we are going to be out for a while, but she was dry after both of our outings today! We are so proud of her!

Grace is also speaking in complete sentences now, and her annunciation is good enough that we can understand most of them! She is a chatterbox like her mommy, and we just love listening to her vocabulary grow. We are working on counting to twenty... She can get to eleven but then skips to fifteen.

Grace is still really good at independent play. She sometimes likes us to sit next to her and join in, but she can generally keep herself occupied when we are relaxing around the house. I love seeing her imagination grow as she plays with her babies or talks on her pretend phone. The other morning she woke up earlier than normal, and after a few minutes of playing in our bathroom while I got ready, she wandered into her room. I found her playing tea set on her bedroom floor fifteen minutes later. So cute!