With only two months until our baby girl is no longer a baby, I wanted to share our daughter's life as a 10 month old.
Gracie is crawling all over the house like a champ. She loves to speed crawl between our living room and kitchen while panting! She'll even chase the dogs around, which she thinks is great fun. I can't tell if they are playing with her or running away from her, but she obviously thinks it is a fun game! She will occasionally still crawl in her own special way, but I don't see her do it as often as she used to do it.
Grace is also walking along the furniture and walls with no fear! I keep thinking she'll let go and take her first steps any day now. We keep trying to get her to let go and walk on her own, but for now she still holds on to our hands with an iron grip! If she happens to let go, she quickly plops on her bottom and begins to crawl where she wants to go.
The other day Grace stood unsupported for the first time! She was standing at our coffee table and trying to drink her bottle with one hand. At some point, her other hand let go of the table, and she was standing with both hands on her bottle for at least 30 seconds. Thankfully Trinity caught my attention and I quickly snapped a photo with my iPhone.
Bedtime is finally becoming less of a struggle! After talking it over with a friend of mine, I decided a more rigid nighttime routine was necessary, and it worked like a charm! Sometime I'm going to blog about an average day in the life Grace Vaughn (also an idea stolen from my wise friend above), so you'll get to hear about our new bedtime routine when I get around to writing that blog.
Thankfully, feeding Gracie is still an easy task, and she'll eat just about anything you stick on her tray. Every once in a while she'll decide she doesn't want "insert dinner item here" for dinner and will stick it in her mouth and immediately spit it out, but then the next day she's eat it ravenously. I guess that is no different than my tastes on any give day. Just ask Trinity. He gets SO annoyed at my random pickiness when we're trying to decide what to eat!
Gracie has started to get a little bit more attached to her first doll, which she sleeps with at night. Although she doesn't carry it around with her or cry for it like some kids do for their "lovie", she does cuddle with it when we put her in bed each night. I hope that Grace continues to love on this baby doll, as it brings back great memories of my favorite doll, Polyanna. I actually still have Poly-oly, as I called her before I could say Polyanna, but she is VERY dirty and falling apart! I just can't bring myself to get rid of her. She used to comfort me when I was sad, even after I was too old to have a doll.
Right now, Gracie's favorite activities include stacking blocks, pulling toys in and out of a box, and reading books. Trinity and I are both glad that she loves books, even if it means she pulls ALL the books off the shelf on a daily basis. We have two canvas boxes of her toys in the living room, and almost every day Grace will pull toys in and out of them. Her teachers says she does the same thing at daycare!
Speaking of daycare, she is doing great there! She has made lots of friends, and it is so fun to drop her off in the morning and watch the little babies get excited at seeing each other and start playing before I've even left the room. I absolutely love her morning teacher, and I will be extremely upset on the day Gracie has to move on to the toddler room. I am sure the toddler teachers are great as well, but Miss Sylvia has been an amazing teacher. I know she is the reason I'm so comfortable with Grace at daycare.
I'll leave you with a recent picture of our growing girl, who's hair is finally long enough for a small clip!
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.
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
