First Mother's Day

I was so blessed to celebrate my first mother's day with my daughter, my mother, and my grandma. We headed to Midland for Addison's third birthday party, so I was pleasantly surprised when I realized it was also mother's day weekend!

We couldn't have asked for better weather! Saturday morning we got Gracie lathered in sunscreen and played by the pool. The water was a little cold, but she enjoyed splashing her feet and taking a ride on Sammy the Seal.

Addison's party was that afternoon, so we headed to Ronnie and Vicki's house for the Ice Cream Social. The ice cream and company were fantastic, and Trinity even joined in on the crafts and made us an ice cream magnet!

We spent the rest of the evening at Tebo and Sandra's house for a fish fry. Gracie enjoyed being the center of attention and riding in cousin Luke's wagon.

Sunday morning we enjoyed the wonderful weather by the pool again, and my mom cooked a great mother's day lunch. We tried to get a four generation picture, but Gracie wasn't interested in smiling for the camera.

After visiting with my mom and grandma for a few hours, we headed to Trinity's parent's house for an early dinner before we flew home. Kim, Abel, and Luke joined us too, and we had a great time celebrating some more.

Show Me Those Pearly Whites

Our sweet girl cut two teeth like a champ last week! I honestly would not have even known they were arriving if she hadn't constantly knawed on our fingers last week. Mimi was the first to feel the teeth making their arrival, and now Gracie has two bottom, middle teeth. I'm not sure whether Grace realizes that she has them, but this week she learned that she can bite down on the spoon to keep it in her mouth. It's made feeding her just a little more interesting.

Speaking of feeding, Grace has now eaten, and for the most part enjoyed, an array of fruits and veggies: peas, sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, applesauce, bananas, and peaches. Peas are clearly her least favorite, but she doesn't refuse them at this point. I assume that once she learns to enjoy certain flavors, the peas will be history. Fine by me and Trinity!

I'll try to get a good picture to show off Gracie's teeth. So far, you can't really see them in pictures, even when she's smiling big time. And she's still doing plenty of that!

Say Cheese!

This past weekend we took Gracie for her first photo shoot. I found a great deal on Living Social that gave us a photo shoot and 5 photo sheets at The Picture People for only $18. I'd heard good things about them, so I figured it was worth the money, even if the pictures didn't turn out great. Gracie has had a bad case of allergies the last few weeks, so she hasn't been quite her normal self. She's still been relatively happy, but her eyes and nose have been goopy. So, I was a little worried about the photo session. We got to the mall right at our appointment time on Sunday, but the place was packed so we waited about 10 minutes. I had two outfits for Grace to wear. During the first wardrobe, we got a few cute shots of her, but then the shoot went south when we put her on her stomoach for some pictures. She is NOT a fan of being on her stomach unless she has lots of toys or other babies to distract her. After about two pictures, she started to get fussy. And it just got worse...and worse...and worse. Trinity wanted to take her for a short break outside the photo room, but the photographer warned us that we were only supposed to have 20 minutes. She was nice enough to offer for us to schedule a make-up session during the week, but we were concerned about making out to Frisco on a weeknight. We decided to cut our losses and left.

I was very disappointed because the second outfit was the one I wanted the most. I still don't know why I didn't start with that one to begin with! Oh well, I guess I learned my lesson on that one! I just kept thinking about it on Monday and decided that I'd call to see what availability they had that evening. I was in luck! They had a 7pm, which gave me plenty of time to pick Grace up, stop by the house to feed the dogs, drive to Frisco, and nurse Gracie beforehand. I think nursing her right before her pictures was the best idea because she did GREAT! She was all smiles for the camera and chatted away with everyone in the place! Whew! And our photographer was wonderful. She had all kinds of great ideas. All of the pictures were so fantastic that it was really hard to choose, but my $18 steal only allowed one pose. Of course I absolutely loved two poses, so I paid another $18 to get another sheet of the second pose.

Totally worth every penny! Look at her cute grin!!! She loved playing with those pearls. Watch out, Daddy... this girl's got sophisticated taste!

6 Months

I have to admit that I get a little teary-eyed when I think that half of Grace's first year of life has come and gone. Sometimes I feel like just yesterday we were telling our friends and family that we were starting a family. Trinity and I have both transitioned into the roles of mom and dad so easily, and we've molded our "old life" into a wonderful family life with very few bumps or confrontations! I hope that Gracie senses the love and partnership that we have in our home.

At Grace's checkup this month, she weighed in at 20 pounds, 4 ounces, and she is 28.25 inches long. So, she remains in the greater than 95th percentile for her height and weight! We're still in 6-9 month clothes, but I suspect she'll be in 12 month clothes in the next month. Thankfully all the clothes we get from Gymboree (thank you Aunt Megan) are 6-12 month size, so those should still fit her for a while!

Gracie can now sit up unassisted, and she's so good at it that I feel comfortable leaving the room while she's sitting up. She can maintain her balance while she plays or picks up toys, and she's even able to reach for toys out of her grasp without falling over. When she's on her tummy, she can scoot herself in a complete circle in no time at all! She especially loves to turn to watch the dogs run across the room. I've also noticed Gracie make crawling movement with her legs and arms. I can't believe she'll be mobile in a few months! Definitely time to start the baby-proofing!

Just this week, she's started crying when I leave the room after playing with her. I am hoping this was just frustration at me leaving her to play on her own... I dread the day she cries when I drop her off at daycare. That might just make me cry all over again! But for now, she's as happy as can be to see her teachers and play with her friends. So far she doesn't show signs of stranger anxiety, but she also doesn't get to see many strangers in her little world. So far, anyone with a smile is a friend in her eyes! Just yesterday she was chatting away with the CVS employee who was admiring her blue eyes.

We started feeding Gracie veggies this week. Daycare has a monthly menu, and peas were this week, so we started with them on Sunday night. Of course she made some funny faces throughout the feeding, but at least she ate them. She apparently refused them at daycare one day, but she's happily eaten them the rest of the week. She definitely loves her oatmeal. We can't feed it to her fast enough!

The last two weeks Gracie has had a stuffy nose, cough, and swollen, goopy eyes. Poor little girl is so sick of us cleaning out her nose and wiping her crusty face. Now that she's six months old, we can give her some baby Zyrtec that should help. Hopefully it will work very quickly!

I'll leave you with a video of Gracie's new dance moves. Enjoy!

Half-y Birthday, Gracie!

Today you turned six months old. I already miss those first few weeks of your life and wish that the time wasn't going by so quickly. But I also love watching you grow every day. I am so proud of the little girl you are turning into, and I love you! -Momma

First Flight

Two weekends ago I took Gracie on her first flight. It was a much more stressful experience than I thought possible, but luckily all the stress was due to pre-flight issues. Once we got on the plane, things went smoothly!

Since I knew we were traveling on the Friday beginning Spring Break, I decided to take a half-day off work. That would give me time to pick Gracie up from daycare, finish last minute packing, feed Grace, and leave for the airport with plenty of time to spare. Our flight was at 7:30, so I wanted to be at Love Field by 6pm to ensure I had plenty of time to park, walk the 1 mile treck with Gracie strapped to me, check our bag, and make it through security without being rushed.

Unfortunately, rush hour was terrible that day... lots of wrecks and generally more traffic. I left our house at 5pm and didn't arrive at the airport until 6:15pm. When I pulled into the four level parking garage, half of the level I usually park on was blocked due to construction! UGH! I quickly drove to the top level because it usually has the least number of cars and parked as close to the elevator as possible. I quickly locked Grace in the Jeep front-pack carrier and power-walked to the terminal.

The lines at check-in were shorter than I expected, and I thought my luck was finally improving... wrong. Southwest was only using about half of their check-in computers, and it seemed that every family that was in line before me was completely incopetent and not familiar with traveling. Finally my turn came to check in, and I was asked for Gracie's birth certificate since she was a "lap baby". WHAT?!? I had no idea that I needed to provide that for her! I had looked on their website to see if I needed to bring any type of ID for her, but I hadn't found anything. At this point, I was almost in tears. I was trying to figure out how to get Grace's birth certificate to me when the Southwest employee asked if I had her shot records. After about 30 seconds of hesitation, I remembered that I keep her records in her diaper bag! Finally, something had gone my way. Grace and I were checked in and on our way to security!

The security line was also short and getting Gracie and her bottle through security went much smoother than I expected. We didn't even get hand-picked for a detailed search and quickly made it to our gate without about 30 minutes to spare, which turned into an hour because of a flight delay. Grace and I spent the time waiting on our plane by talking to a group of older women. They loved watching Gracie coo and play.

Finally our plane arrived and they started the "A" boarding. As I held Gracie in our spot at A40, I noticed her overalls were wet. Of course she had a blow-out! I quickly ran to the closest empty chair, ripped her clothes off and changed one of the largest poopy diapers she has ever had in the least time I've ever changed a diaper! And I managed to do it all without getting any poop on her or me! Whew. Miraculously, I ran up to the boarding line and boarded with the other A40s.

We made it onto the plane!

We got a great aisle seat in the first few rows, where I put new clothes on Gracie and got situated for the flight. No one was brave enough to sit in our middle seat, so I had some room to leave a few toys in case I needed to distract her. But that wasn't necessary. She conked out before we'd even taken off and didn't wake up until we were at the gate in Midland!

The weekend in Midland more than made up for the crazy time getting there. It's so great to see Gracie spending time with Mimi and Pop, Granny 'Bouff, cousin Luke, and Nana and PopPop.

Playing with Luke and PopPop

The return home was much better, and Gracie did a great job of staying happy. She just jibber-jabbered to anyone who would pay attention to her. Needless to say, I'm glad our first solo flight is over and the next time around Trinity will be with us!

5 Months

Wow, I have let the last month fly by without an update on our sweet Gracie. Her 5 month birth date has come and gone, and she has learned so much!

She continues to become more and more aware of her surroundings. We are playing with lots of toys these days, and she loses interest in playing with them much quicker! The only way we can get her to roll over is if we entice her with a new toy! Gracie loves watching the dogs play, and they bring a huge smile to her face. She also loves to grab at their face or let them lick her hands. We are so blessed to have such great dogs that are accepting of our newest addition to the family.

In the past month, Gracie has learned that she can bend her knees to bounce up and down when she's "standing" on someone's lap. We like to call this her dancing because it looks like she is jamming to the music in her head. Speaking of what is in this little girl's head, I really wish that we could tap into her brain to find out what she is thinking. Sometimes she has the funniest facial expressions, so I wish that I knew what was going on inside there.

Gracie is almost able to sit up on her own for long periods of time. When we sit her on the floor, she can use her hands and arms to keep her chest up in the air for quite a while. It's funny for Trinity and I to watch her wobble back and forth and finally topple over when she's reaching for a toy or dog. She looks like a weeble-wobble as she learns her balance!

Grace has finally learned to enjoy eating rice cereal. She gets rice cereal twice at school and then again at home before her final feeding. She often hums as we feed it to her, which is a trait she got from me (I hummed when I ate anything as a baby)! I am hoping that her recent enthusiasm in eating will continue as she tries vegetables next month. Hopefully she won't get the veggie-adverse pallet from her dad!

Our one struggle continues to be getting her night-time sleeping schedule down. I never thought we'd have this problem since she slept so well for her first few months of life! We finally got her bedtime moved up to around 8pm, which means we dropped that last bedtime feeding, but Grace has been waking up anywhere from 1-5 times per night. It's mostly just small cries that are easily silenced if we stick her pacifier back in her mouth. Last week I was convinced she had an ear infection because she was waking up multiple times per night and crying harder than she's ever cried before. Well, her ears were completely fine. The doctor just thinks she's going through a phase; one we are hoping will be over soon!