Gracie's first trip

I got a call to head down for a day trip to Houston on Monday and Diana and Gracie tagged along. This was the first trip we had ever taken with Gracie and wanted to test out how she would do in the car before our longer drive to Midland for Thanksgiving.

She did fantastic. Most of the ride was spent sleeping and we were able to finally experience how much longer a car ride is with a child. We stopped for dinner for both us and Grace which added about 30 minutes to our ride. Then we decided to stop at Buc-Ees for some beef jerky and shopping and we stopped at a Babies-R-Us to cash in a coupon while in The Woodlands. All the while she kept quiet and asleep and when we finally arrived at the hotel it had taken us about 6 hours.

I had somehow forgotten to pack diapers when we were throwing everything into our bag so overnight we just had to hope she wouldn't run through the 3 that we had left. We ran in the morning to get more and Diana spent the day with her friend Anna and her two girls, while I went into the corporate offices. After dinner with one of our surrogate moms(Jessica's mom, Kim) we headed home on Tuesday.

Grace, Lexa, and Ellie

The drive back was just as uneventful and we made better time. Now we are just trying to catch up on sleep and prepare for Sunday's drive to Midland.

Trinity

Grace and the love of reading

One thing I have really enjoyed about being a parent is that I get to revisit children's books that I haven't read in a long while. We have tried to make it a habit to read to Grace every day, and while we may miss a day or two, we want to instill the love of reading.

When Diana had her baby showers, we asked that instead of cards, that everyone give us a copy of a children's book. We now have a small library but Grace will not have a shortage of reading material as she grows up.

One book that we were given was Knuffle Bunny. This is a favorite of Addison, my god daughter, and with it we discovered a slew of books that I would never have heard of before. The author is Mo Willems and his list of works include The Pigeon Series, the Elephant and the Pig series, and so many others.

We frequent our local Half Price Books a lot. So we have started buying up some of the other books from Mo Willems. We picked up almost the entire Pigeon series which had Diana and I laughing as I read them to her while we were driving home. Grace was in the car so please don't look at us crazy. As far as I can tell the books are all about teaching children to know boundaries and obey rules. This crazy Pigeon insists on doing things that are not allowed. As you go through them, the reader is encouraged to stop the pigeon from doing bad things. Things such as driving a bus even though he isn't supposed to, getting a puppy, eating a hot dog, and staying up late. You find yourself arguing with this cartoon pigeon and it kind of prepares you for parenting.


I picked up a new one yesterday entitled "Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed". It is all about being different and trying things even though others say you shouldn't. Pretty much this naked mole rat likes to wear clothes and his other mole rat kin think he is weird for it. It has a happy ending and everyone dresses in funny clothes. Gracie didn't seem to interested in it when I started it last night but I was thoroughly entertained.

I can't wait for Gracie to be more involved in these activities. She does seem to enjoy some of the books we have for her and even squeels occasionaly as we read so I think we won't have too much trouble as she gets older. If you are looking for a good kids book, check out Mo Willems. You won't be disappointed.

Trinity

Happy Halloween!

After our attempts to attend Autumn at the Arboretum were thwarted two weekends ago because of the torrential downpour, Trinity and I decided to take Grace to the Arboretum on Halloween day. It was a great day to go because they had trick-or-treating for the kids, so we got to see lots of kids (and some parents) dressed up in costumes. Since Grace was only a month old, we didn't want to spend the money on a costume, but we did find this great jack-o-lantern t-shirt and matching socks in the $1 bin at Target.

I realize that she is not buckled into her car seat in this picture. Please do not call CPS. I promise that this picture was NOT taken in the car! There were so many photo opportunities at the Arboretum that we just left her unbuckled as we strolled around...she tends to fuss quite a bit when we buckle her in, and I didn't want a crying baby in all the pictures.

Uncle Steven and Aunt Megan joined us (and Uncle Steven even got us all in for free - thanks Uncle!), and we took lots of pictures, most of which are on Aunt Megan's camera. Here are two cute ones that we have on our camera.

Family shot

Trinity came up with this great idea... I love it!

The Arboretum is truly a beautiful place, and it was definitely all decked out for autumn. There were over 40,000 pumpkins throughout the gardens and even a little village made of pumpkins. We even had time for a stop at the Oktoberfest Garten, where Trinity enjoyed a Spaten Oktoberfest beer. The whole event was a lot of fun, and I hope that it becomes a new Vaughn family tradition each year.

Momma's Favorite Newborn Pictures

As promised, here are a few of my favorite pictures from Gracie's newborn photo shoot.

Newborn Photo Shoot Slideshow

Grace's newborn pictures arrived this weekend. I'll upload a sample of pictures later this week, but the photographer made a nice slideshow I thought I'd go ahead and post.

www.poeticexposure.com/graceelizabeth

If anyone in the DFW area is interested in using him, he did a great job with Grace. Unfortunately, he only does newborn family pictures. But he is great with babies and comes to your house to take the photo shoot.

Dear Gracie

We now know who you are and it was a surprise I wasn't expecting. You will hear this as you grow older, I thought you would come out a boy. When the doctor held you up and I saw you, I stopped. This was not what I was expecting. Now I can't imagine you any other way. I am going to guess this was just the first of many times you will be something I wouldn't expect and I can't wait to see the woman you will become.

It is an amazing feeling to have you rest your head over my heart. To have you sleep so peacefully on my chest. It has been two weeks and you are already a totally different girl. You can hold your head up, you are starting to open your eyes more, and I am pretty sure you have completely taken over our lives.

You have an amazing mother. You may only think of her as a vending machine right now but she is taking such great care of you and making my job easy. I guess we are becoming your parents because we have begun referring to each other as 'Mom' and 'Dad'. Wasn't really expecting that change.

I hope you keep your cool blue eyes. They are the part of me that passed on to you, the part I hoped you could take from me. You may get cursed with my nose or your mom's skin but I think if you keep those blue eyes you will be able to mesmerize anyone you want. You have already started practicing with me.

Love,

Your Father

Changes

I really can't believe how much Gracie has changed in just one week! We were looking at all our photos the other day (which are uploaded on our picasa site), and she already looks so different!

We took Gracie for her first doctor's appointment last Friday, and she did great! She has regained her birth weight in just one week and grown almost an inch! The doctor checked all her reflexes and thought she was doing great. Because she's regained her birth weight, we can let Gracie sleep through the night. For now she continues to wake up for every feeding, but we are hopeful that within a month she'll be sleeping six hours at night.

This weekend we saw Gracie smile for the first time! It was while she was half-asleep, but it was very exciting to see her precious grin. The next evening, I was kissing Gracie on the forehead as we tried to get her to fall asleep, and she grinned each time I kissed her. Now we're just waiting for an open-eyed smile!

Thankfully Gracie is still a great baby! From the first time I fed her, she's been good at latching on for feedings. And she seems to be content with her 3 hour feeding schedule, which gives me time to rest or visit with friends and family in between feedings.

Gracie also got to listen to her first ever Texas Tech Red Raider football game on Saturday! I think she brought the Red Raiders good luck with her adorable Tech outfit, which she will hopefully grow into by the end of the season! It's a little big at this point, but we had to deck her out in her Tech gear for a family picture. A big thanks for Anna for the cute onesie and skirt!

Mimi (my mom) was with us for the first week of Gracie's life, which was a huge help. And I'm so glad that Gracie got some one-on-one time with Mimi. My brother and Megan have also been over to visit several times. Trinity's parents and sister and my dad and Linda also came down for parts of the week, so she's met all of our immediate family. Now that they are gone, we're looking forward to week alone with Gracie, especially knowing we have several friends that plan to visit over the next few weeks. I can't say thank you enough to all our friends and family who continue to provide us with meals and visits! We love you!