From Momma, With Love

My dear, sweet daughter, Gracie:

It is hard to believe that one year ago today you joined us. Most days it feels like just yesterday the doctor peeked your head over the surgery curtain so that I could see your sweet face. I will never forget that first look at you and the way it made me feel complete, utter joy. I thought that I would never feel that much joy again, but then you learned to smile, laugh, babble, crawl, and most recently, walk, and I felt all that joy and more. Each day with you is a blessing.

You have been such a great baby. People always comment on how sweet, happy, and cute you are, and I couldn't agree with them more! You love to give big hugs and kisses, and you smile at everyone you see.

Today is a bittersweet day for me. You are no longer a baby, but I know we have so many things to look forward to over the next year. I love watching you grow every day, and I am so proud of you. You have blessed our family each and every day of your life, and I am so thankful for you.

I love you with all my heart,
Momma

Grace's 1st Birthday Party

We are so thankful for all our friends and family who made it over to our house to help celebrate Grace's first birthday on Saturday. They have all been such an amazing support system, and we couldn't have thought of a better way to celebrate our daughter's first year of life!

Over the past few months, I've done a lot of web surfing to get some creative ideas for the party. I originally planned to make Gracie a birthday dress, but when she wasn't walking a week before the party, I decided to sew her some pants and add a "1" out of the same fabric on a white onesie instead (of course she decided to start walking three days before the party). Since I didn't make the dress, I had plenty of leftover fabric, which I turned into a birthday banner for her birthday seat!

On Thursday night, I made lemon cakeballs and dipped them in almond bark before sprinkling them with orange and yellow sprinkles. Trinity and I had a few issues keeping them all intact, but we eventually figured out how to arrange them in a little yellow pail I'd bought for the party. They turned out to be a huge hit!

Erin, Megan, Jess, and Mimi made the rest of my ideas come to life! They were a huge help in setting up on Saturday morning. Erin did a fantastic job on the cupcakes... I definitely couldn't have done it better myself. And she even came up with Gracie's special birthday cupcake design!

We had a great turnout for the party! The kids had a great time playing together. We designated the formal dining room as the kids playing room and let them go to town! Since we still don't have dining room furniture, it is the perfect place to spread out all of Grace's toys. A few didn't make it into the kiddo picture, but as you can tell, we had a good variety of ages!

Grace was a little unsure about eating her cupcake at first. I'm not sure if singing "Happy Birthday" confused her, or if she didn't like the texture of the icing, but she eventually ate every single bite of her cupcake!

We are so proud of our little girl and are looking forward to watching Gracie grow over the next year!

Musicland in Picture

Trinity, Gracie, and I took a long weekend to visit my Dad and Linda in Nashville. When we arrived on Friday afternoon, we toured The Hermitage, where Andrew Jackson lived, for most of his adult life. It's a beautiful place with lots of trees and beautiful landscaping. Gracie did great and even listened to some of the self-guided tour! She was also a hit with the older ladies who took us on a guided tour of the house.

Saturday morning we picked up our tickets for the Grand Ole Opry and took some family pictures outside the Opry. The weather was perfect, so we really enjoyed the outside time.

We then went to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. Apparently they've done a lot of rennovations since the Nashville flood in 2010. It was beautiful and much bigger than the Gaylord Texan. I'd love to see it at Christmas!

Saturday night Dad and Linda babysat Grace so Trinity and I could go to the Grand Ole Opry. It was my first time, and I loved it! The performers included Pam Tillis, Steve Wariner, Kristin Chenoweth, and Randy Skaggs. We also heard a new singer, Will Hoge, who impressed us both!

On Sunday we drove to downtown for lunch at Jack's BBQ and to peruse through the Country Music Hall of Fame gift shop. We'd all been to the Hall of Fame before, but Trinity wanted to find a coffee table book of old Grand Ole Opry posters. We spent the rest of the afternoon at Dad's house before heading to the airport, where they had a fun, indoor children's playground. It was a great place for Grace to get some of her energy out before hopping on the plane.

Thank goodness she got some playtime because we unkowingly had a LONG trip home. Because we were flying Southwest, we had to stop in Houston, where we ended getting stuck on the plane for several hours due to a rain storm in Dallas. Gracie refused to go to sleep while we were waiting on the plane, even though she was exhausted. We finally left Houston around 10:30pm, and she quickly fell asleep through the entire flight. The next morning was a little rough, but she bounced back by the next day.

Hand, Foot, and Mouth

Not to be confused with Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes (knees and toes).... Hand, foot, and mouth is a diseases infants and toddlers get from exposure to a virus in poop, and Grace came down with it this past weekend. (And we thought Duncan was our only child that ate poop!)

All jokes aside, I was little concerned how Gracie came down with this dreadful disease. At first our daycare thought it might be chickenpox, but thankfully they were wrong. What a cruel joke that would have been, since she is getting the chickenpox vaccine at her 12 month appointment in two weeks.

This disease is named for the blister-like rash that appears on a child's hands, feet, and mouth. Gracie has them all over her legs and arms as well, but none on her trunk (which is why I was shocked when daycare suggested it might be the pox).
At first we thought they were just bug bites since they appeared the night after she's played in the grass at my dad's house in Nashville (a separate post about our trip to follow). But she was very fussy that day, and then she got more bumps and we had the questions at daycare. So, Trinity took her to the doctor, who noticed she had blisters on the roof of her mouth as well. Poor baby!

The rash seems to be subsiding slowly, but the blisters on her feet seem to be the worst! And of course this comes as she's trying to walk. Thankfully they don't seem to bother her too much any more, and she's back to her normal self. She only had to stay home from daycare one day, as the disease is not contagious once the fever is gone and the rash appears. And when we went back to school on Tuesday, two other kids arrived with the same rash. I'm still trying to decide which one of them started the epidemic... in a non-judgmental way of course! I'm sure it wasn't Gracie; at least one of the other kids has it worse.

Labor Day

When we got back home from Amarillo, the weather had miraculously cooled down! So, we decided to ditch our plans to stick around the house on Labor Day and ventured out to the Arboretum instead. And I am so glad that we did... the weather was perfect, and we had a great time!
Since our last time visiting, the Arboretum had added a Peter Rabbit village that was super cute! There were four or five houses made of sticks and leaves, and each house was dedicated to a different character from the Peter Rabbit

We had a great time pointing out all the cute decorations in each of the huts, and then we took a break in the grassy shade to let Grace crawl around for a while.Because of the extreme heat this summer, she hasn't had much time outside since she was born, so it was so fun to watch her feeling the grass between her toes and investigating the leaves on the ground.

I can't wait to take Gracie back in October like we did when she was only three weeks old!

Amarillo by Morning

For our anniversary, Trinity surprised me with plane tickets to see Beth Anne over Labor Day weekend. We took Friday off work and headed to Amarillo that afternoon. At this point I just expect that Gracie will be good on plane rides, and she didn't disappoint! She loved looking out the window at the wing and crawling between me and Trinity on the flight.

When we got to Beth Anne's house, we were greeted by this adorable sign in her kitchen! She has the cutest house, and she's done a lot to it since the last time I was visiting, so it was fun to get an updated tour of the place and see all her new furniture.

We spent most of the weekend in the kitchen or family room, eating and visiting. It was a very relaxing weekend and SO good to catch up in person. We also got to spend a lot more time with Tyler, and it was so good to get to know him better!

On Saturday we did get out of the house to meet our friends Nathan, Larmie, and their daughter Elise for lunch. We stopped by their apartment first, and Grace had a good time playing with Elise's toys. We got the girls to toss a ball back in forth a few times before Gracie decided to steal it from Elise and not give it back! About that time we headed to lunch at a great Mexican food restaurant.

After lunch we headed to the historic 6th Street, where there are several antique stores, local home goods stores, and even a video game store. Somehow, Trinity was able to find a bunch of cheap comics at the video game store! While he was rummaging around, the rest of us headed to Cowboy Gelato! Gracie loved trying the lemon shortbread and dark chocolate gelato.

Sunday we spent most of the day at Beth Anne's house before heading home that evening. Gracie loved looking out the big glass windows at the airport. Here she is waiting for our plane to arrive.

It was a great weekend, but it went by way too quickly. Thankfully we'll get to see Beth Anne again soon for Gracie's birthday party!

Meeting Margot

Our good friends Mary Alyce and Ryan had their beautiful baby girl, Margot, on August 21st. The following weekend, we got to meet Margot and catch up with her parents. Gracie was extremely well-behaved and even loved pointing and smiling at Margot. We just know they are going to be best buds!!!

Holding Margot, I was surprised at how quickly I'd forgot how small and quiet a newborn baby is! It's hard to believe that Gracie was ever that small!

We are so excited to have another baby in our Dallas friends circle! Because of their birth dates, Gracie and Margot will be in the same grade throughout school, so it will be fun for us to watch them grow up together!