18 Months

We had Grace's 18 month check-up last week, and our little girl is still well above her age in physical and mental development! She weighed in at 30 pounds, 15 ounces and measured 34 inches tall, both of which were over the 95th percentile.

Before the appointment, they had us fill out a developmental questionnaire, and Grace passed with flying colors. She scored higher than average in every category, and we are very proud of her development so far! Grace is starting to speak short sentences and has a vocabulary of over 60 words. She is quite the talker, and her teachers are constantly commenting on how talkative and happy she is at school. We are so thankful that she is a happy, go lucky girl!

Some of Grace's favorite things right now are reading books, going outside, playing in the water, brushing her teeth, singing and dancing. Oh, and don't let me forget eating! We love that she loves music and reading as much as we do!

Over the past month, Gracie seems to have developed some separation anxiety. She sometimes cries when we drop her off at daycare, or when we leave her room at bedtime. Thankfully it's not all the time, and she's usually distracted quickly enough that she doesn't cry for long at school.

Grace often brings up her daycare friends when we're home on the weekends. I don't know if she misses them or just wants to tell us something about them, but I wish we knew more about what she's thinking! Lots of her words are either gibberish or we can't understand them, but every day she seems to clearly pronounce a new word. Gracie loves to repeat words and phrases too! I'm sure she will continue to surprise us over the next few months!

Raiderland

We took Gracie to Lubbock a few weekends ago for her first trip to Raiderland! We had a great time catching up with Dan, Jeremy, Thomas, Jessica, and Addison. The girls were so cute together! They played so well together, and Grace loved playing in Addison's kitchen.
We loved showing Grace where her parents went to college. While we were on campus taking some picture, we stopped by the brand new College of Business. I was so jealous! It was SO nice and beautifully designed, especially compared to the old, ugly building we had back in the day!We also did some shopping for new Texas Tech gear, and I hit the jackpot with a huge sale at Red Raider Outfitters. We got three new outfits for Grace, and I found myself another shirt as well. So now we're all set for the football season and hopeful that the Red Raiders will step up their game this year! We're planning to attend a home football game this year, as well as the TCU game here in Fort Worth. I think our little girl is ready to cheer on the Raiders to victory!

Driving Miss Gracie

Trinity finally talked me off the ledge of being an overprotective mom, and Grace is much happier because of it! She is finally facing forward in the car like a big girl.

This weekend we went to Lubbock, and we couldn't install Grace's carseat rear-facing in our friend Dan's car. So, we went with forward-facing, as it's not against the law now that she is one and well over 20 pounds. She loved her new view, so I decided that we could keep her forward facing once we got back home to our car.

Trinity has been trying to get me to give up the rear-facing chair since her first birthday, but I was a little nervous about it now that the suggested age is 2 years (and our doctor recommended keeping her that way as long as possible).

I had one happy (despite being sleepy from our fun weekend) girl in the car this morning!

St. Patty's Day

Every year, Dallas holds a St. Patrick's Day parade and street party on Greenville Avenue. It is a pretty wild and crazy parade generally followed with lots of green beer. I have made it down to the parade off and on over the years we've lived in Dallas and always have a great time. It's funny how the years have changed though...

This year, we headed to our friends' home close to the street party to hang out in the beautiful weather. Thankfully they just had a little baby boy two months ago, so their parties have become kid-friendly! We brought Grace along and also met MA, Ryan and Margot. The girls had fun playing in the front yard and were both very happy all afternoon.

My New Sister

This past weekend by little brother got married... FINALLY! I am sure he was tired of hearing that word by the end of the weekend because it seemed that almost everyone used it in their toasts! But it was about time that he made Megan an honest woman and officially welcomed her into our family. I am so blessed to have such an amazing SIL, and Gracie is so spoiled to have such a fun aunt! Congrats to Megan and Steven!!! We love you!

I Love Coming Home to This

My two loves

Happy Holidays!

I don't know how to even begin to blog about Christmas this year, so I'm not going to write much! We had such a great time sharing the holidays with Gracie this year. Although she still doesn't understand what Christmas is all about, she did start to realize the excitement of opening presents. In all, she had six different Christmases in the span of a week, which is a lot for a little girl. We are so thankful to all our family and friends for their gifts!

Enjoying her first White Christmas with Aunt Megan!

In the holiday spirit

Christmas Eve with Granny 'Buff

Enjoying her water table