Grace's
first birthday has come and gone, and I think I am still in shock!
At her one year visit, Gracie weighed in at 25 lbs 15 oz and was 31.5 inches tall, which are both in the greater than 95th percentile for her age! No surprise to us, as she's currently filling out her 18 month clothing and already wears some 24 month clothes comfortably. Even though she's still big for her age, we can already tell she has slimmed down a bit since starting to walk two weeks ago! I think most of the loss has been to her thighs, as her legs grows and she works on those muscles!
Eating is still one of Grace's happiest times! The girl LOVES her food, and she lets you know it with lots of humming and slurping! So far she's still a great vegetable eater. The only thing she seems to reject right now is egg, but in her defense it is usually cold by the time we put it on her tray and she picks it up to eat. If that's the only thing she won't eat, I figure we'll be alright. When Grace east something she
really likes, she'll lift her chin and eyebrows a bit and say, "Mmmmmm!" It is the cutest expression!
Right now some of Gracie's favorite toys include her
xylophone, shape sorter, Sesame Street walker, and the new Radio Flyer wagon. If she sees that red wagon, she will walk right to it and start trying to climb in. Sometimes I'll just let her walk back and forth between the two seats, and she's as happy as can be! And of course her bath time toys are a big hit too! The other morning she ran out of her room and directly into the bathroom to start playing with them. I was pretty sure she was begging me for a bath, but we had to get to work/school, so I disappointed her by going downstairs instead.
Grace has begun the transition to the toddler room at daycare. The toddler room requires kids to be at least 12 months, off the bottle/formula, and walking. Grace did all of these things the week of her birthday, so they were ready to transition her on her birthday! This has been somewhat hard for me to accept, as I'm still getting used to her being a toddler. I was also a bit nervous about her transition, as the biggest changes from the infant room are that the kids have to nap on nap mats and have a much more structured day. So far she's spent a few afternoons in the room, and her new teacher says that she has done really well. She even took a two hour nap on her nap mat on Friday! It made me happy and sad at the same time... just more proof that my little girl is growing up.
Another big change brought on by the toddler room is wearing shoes! I was a little nervous about making Grace wear shoes since we haven't bothered with them before now, but she's actually adapted really well. She loves to watch me put them on her feet, and she hasn't attempted to take them off on her own so far. We may have another shoe-fiend in the house!!!
This weekend we installed Grace's toddler carseat, but we're keeping it rear-facing for now. It looks so much more comfortable! There is still plenty of room for her legs and feet with the bigger seat turned backwards, and Gracie really doesn't seem to mind facing the rear of the car. We have a mirror facing her so that we can watch her from our rearview mirror, and she is often talking or signing to herself or laughing at her reflection in the mirror. We're attempting to take our doctor's advice of keeping her rear-facing until two.
Two years old... only 11.5 months to go. Yikes!
We are so proud of our little girl and are looking forward to watching Gracie grow over the next year!
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
