Happy Halloween!!!

Gracie the purple butterfly

Milestones

I haven't done a milestones post in a while and since today is 5 months since we became a family it seems appropriate to do one today.

• Grace now has 8 teeth, the 8th one broke through last week.
• Grace is now walking about 40% of the time, rather than crawling. Being carried by Mommy and Daddy is still her preferred mode of transportation though.
• She continues to mimic everything we do, the latest cute thing is trying to snap her fingers.
• We currently have Grace almost totally off baby food.
• She no longer drinks formula, she is a whole milk girl now.
• She is getting really affectionate. We (including Lucy) have been getting lots of unsolicited hugs and kisses lately.
• She has outgrown her baby tub and has graduated up to the big-girl bathtub.
• Has started to drink through a straw and is doing better with her sippy cup.
• She can climb the entire flight of stairs to the 2nd floor.
• She has moved up to 18 month clothing. She still wears her 12 month stuff but some of it is getting a bit snug.
• She has the following words in her vocabulary: Ma ma, Da da, kitty (whispered for some reason), Hi (sounds more like Haaaa), and the word she enunciates most clearly is Bum (taught to her by Mommy). She also has a ton of sounds that are the makings of words, she just hasn't put them together yet.

And some pics from Uncle Joe, Auntie Cat, and Auntie Lina's visit this weekend. That is remnants of Burgundy pie on her face.

Stairway to Mommy

As evidenced in our previous post Gracie is getting to be quite the climber. Below is footage of Gracie's first solo trek up the stairs. Not sure why she needs to slap each step multiple times on the way up but whatever works I guess.

Early Morning Climb

It has been a busy week here so we didn't get a chance to take too many pictures but Jen was able to capture Grace proving that no blockade can stop her.

Gotta love the thighs on this one....

An empty box of pampers can provide hours of fun.

Road Trip, New Kicks and New Ride

We took Grace on her first road trip this weekend to visit some friends in Chicopee. It was only about 2 hours on the road but it was the longest trip so far for her in the car seat. She did really well and slept the whole way down and most of the way back.

Now that Grace is starting to walk she has been wearing shoes a lot more lately. She is getting used to them but doesn't seem to have quite the shoe fetish that her mother does (lucky for me). She does look too cute in her new Nikes, though, thanks to Tammy!

This weekend I (with her help of course) also got around to assembling Grace's new ride that she got for her birthday from Kristen, Biren and the twins. We took it out for a quick ride in the driveway and it appears that Grace will be at least as good a driver as her mother. Some pics from our week below.

First Steps!!!

Big happenings here tonight, Grace took her first unassisted steps!!! She has been toddling around using the edges of furniture for a while now but tonight was the first time she did it by herself. As soon as she did it Jen ran to get the video camera hoping she would do it again and she didn't disappoint. It is so exciting and kind of sad all at the same time to watch our sweet little baby grow into a beautiful toddler. We are so proud her. Experience her first steps for yourself below...

Grace goes to the farm

A couple years ago we babysat our three nieces for a weekend and one of the outings we took them on was to a local farm for a hayride and apple picking. We had a lot of fun with the nieces and we were especially looking forward to the day when we could take Grace to places like that. Well the day finally came this weekend. It was a nice cool New England fall day. Grace feasted on Apple Cider Cinnamon Sugar donuts, romped through the pumpkin patch and enjoyed a hayride. Some pics of our day below.