Sick Princess

We had a fairly eventful week last week.  It started with Grace's ongoing cold getting worse.  She has had the cold for the past month (may have been two different colds) but last week it moved into her chest so we took her to the doctor.  The doc confirmed that she has pnemonia.   Sounds kind of scary but even pnemonia hasn't slowed our girl down much.  The doc prescribed antobiotics so she is now on the mend.

For the past month or so Jen and I have been discussing moving Grace out of her crib and into a big girl bed.  I have been a bit hesitant for fear that Grace will wake up in the middle of the night and wander into our room.  I finally relented and we went out this past weekend and bought a mattress.  It will get delivered this weekend so we have some time to talk-up sleeping in a big-girl bed.  So far she seems excited.  We'll see....

We had another sizable snow storm this weekend and this one was a really wet snow so we went out with Grace and attemped something we have been looking forward to for a while.  Making a snowman.  We present "Frosty" below.

Sick Princess

Helping Daddy

Makin' a snowman is hard work

You're freakin' me out Frosty

 My first snowman

Our Little Princess

One of Grace's favorite Christmas gifts was a little princess dress up set that we got her. We are not really sure where her obsession with princesses started as she hasn't seen any of the Disney movies yet but she loves anything with princesses on it.  The set has three costumes, Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and Grace needs to be wearing one or a combination of these contumes for all waking hours.  Some pics of Cinderella (I think?) below.

Quality Time

Going back to work tomorrow morning isn't going to be fun after being off for two weeks. Spent some real quality time with my girls which was nice. We didn't really do much for my time off, just hung out and got some errands done.  Grace did have a sleepover at MeMe and PaPa's on New Years Eve so Jen and I could go out for dinner and to a party with friends. Was really nice to be out with adults for a change but we did miss our Gracie. We also finally got around to opening a UFund college investing plan for Grace, something we have been wanting to do for a while but we just never got around to doing it. We ended this week with a nice little snowstorm that had us pretty much housebound for the weekend but we did get out to do a little sledding. 

Happy New Year 2010!!!

Grace is just too cute in this hat.

Showing Lucy some love.

Mommy slides down the hill

Daddy pulls the sled back up the hill

Happy New Year

Happy Holidays

I was hoping to post some pics on Christmas but we were pretty busy hosting our families on both Chrsitmas and Christmas Eve.  Grace had so much fun this year.  She really got excited about Santa coming and loved opening all of her presents.  She actually doesn't get that Christmas is over as she keeps asking us if Santa is coming again.  Jen and I have this week off so we will have some time to relax and enjoy some downtime and maybe complete a couple projects around the house.  Some pics from the weeks festivities below.

Cookies for Santa

Family pic

Backpack!!!

Bliss

Opening presents is serious business

Another family pic

Grace Goes Sledding

We got a little bit of snow this past weekend so we were able to take Grace out for a little sledding and she loved it.

Random Outfits

This is what happens when you let a two year old pick out her own clothes. Hilarity ensues.

A poncho and one sandal in December, nice

Bob and my boots

Dancin Boots

No ideaDon't even ask

Pants optional

Visit to Santa

Grace seemed to be pretty excited this year to have her picture taken with Santa. We have been talking him up for a couple days now so we were hoping that Grace would be willing to sit on his lap for a picture. She was pretty good while waiting in line, she kept peeking around the corner at him until it was finally our turn. That is when the she turned into velcro-baby. She wanted nothing to do with Santa. Luckily there were no tears but she was not sitting for a picture. So we tried with Mommy sitting next to Santa with Grace sitting on her lap. Still that was too close for our Grace. Our good Santa, the professional that he is, would not be denied. He slyly got up and walked a few steps away to admire the stockings on the mantle and jumped into the frame at the last second for the picture below.

Festive Weekend

We had a pretty busy weekend here getting into the Christmas spirit. We started the weekend with a little trip to see Santa Claus but that deserves a blog post of its own later. Saturday afternoon we headed across town to the Shah girls 2nd birthday. There were a ton of kids there and Grace had a blast as usual at the Shah fun house.


We got a little bit of snow Saturday night to get us in the Christmas mood so it was time to do a little holiday decorating. We put the tree up Saturday night and decorated it today with Grace. Our tree seems to be a little bottom heavy this year due to Grace not being able to reach the higher branches but she had a great time helping to decorate the tree. It's not the prettiest tree that we have ever had but I think it is our favorite one. Some pictures below.

Fall Fun

I meant to post a Thanksgiving greeting on Thursday but we got busy and I never got around to it. So I will make up for it with two posts today. We had a great Thanksgiving spent with family. Hope everyone had a great day as well. Our long weekend was action packed, I was hoping for a relaxing weekend but it wasn't in the cards. Luckily it was a productive weekend as I finally finished raking my leaves....with a little help from Grace.

Harade!!!!!

Or a parade to everyone else. Jen's school enters a float in the local holiday parade every year and this year we were asked to come along for the ride. Grace was very excited about the "harade" and was talking about it all day. It was a bit cold out but Grace was quite a trooper.

We tried to get Grace to ride in the float but she opted to be carried the whole way.

Not too sure about Lowla the bear

One of the neighboring floats was for Sesame Street Live. I don't think Grover was too happy when Grace asked him "Where's Elmo?"

Lady Gra Gra

Just in case you didn't know, we have a budding rock star in the house. See for yourself.

Pictures

Grace had some pictures taken at school recently and we also had some studio pics done for her 2nd birthday(a little late)

Missed my girls

Jen and Grace took a little trip down to Florida this weekend for Uncle Rich's change of command ceremony. This was the first time that I have been away from Grace for more than a couple days. It was nice and quiet in the house but I was really missing her by the end of the day today. I did get some nice big hugs from Grace (and mommy) this evening when I picked them up at the airport. They were supposed to come home Saturday night but there were some flight delays so they ended up coming home tonight.

Grace and her uncles

wa wa

Can't catch me Me-Me
Exhausted....

Enjoying some Halloween Candy

First Five Word Sentence

Yes, we are still alive....

Been a couple weeks since I last posted, sorry about that. We have had a bout of sickness go though the house that had us all out of sorts for a couple weeks. Nothing too serious, just upper respiratory stuff that seemed to linger longer that it should have. We seem to be back to normal now though.

We are still trying to settle into our new routine with Jen back at work. The first couple weeks dropping Grace off at daycare was pretty easy. Then the honeymoon period seemed to abruptly end and she wanted nothing to do with daycare. It is pretty heart wrenching to leave your kid while she is screaming and reaching for you. Even though her teachers say she is fine a few minutes after I leave it is still rough. This past week though she seemed to have turned a corner and didn't cry for drop-off so hopefully it lasts.

And of course this weekend we celebrated Halloween. We pretty much made a day of it starting in the early afternoon trick or treating at family and friends. We did a quick loop around our neighborhood in the early evening and then headed over to the Shahs' for some more fun with the twins. Grace really got it this year and loved saying trick or treat and getting a handful of candy. I hope she doesn't think that will work year round. I think Jen and I had as much fun as Grace did.

Our Little Ladybug

Gracie Ladybug with her cousins James "the frog" and Sammy "the monkey"

Getting ready to loot the hood with the twins

Planning our attack