Christmas time again & 15 months old

There have been some wonderful memories made with Gracie this year that I want to focus on. December 19th we finally put the Christmas tree up. With a little help from Gracie, the tree got decorated and now has to be lit at all times when Gracie is awake, at her request. She knows how to turn the tree lights on and off and makes sure they get turned on first thing in the morning. Here she is decorating the tree, and a photo of the ladies with my new haircut. This is the first time I have had bangs since "Mall bangs" were popular. It really is like relearning how to do you hair and is nothing like riding a bicycle because I don't want to remember how to tease my bangs so much they can stand straight-up with a slight curl to them. Our next adventure that weekend was to celebration Abigail's 4th birthday and Gracie's first big girl party. Now she did her best to keep up with the other kids she adores, though she still needs help keeping steady on her little feet.The Christmas celebrations started after church at the Peters. Gracie was blessed with so many gifts from the family and spent a lot of her time playing with her Cousin Alex's toys the most. The kids and adults enjoyed another Christmas together and hope that next year could be even better. My mother found our old copy of The Little Drummer Boy by Ezra Jack Keats, here is Gracie's imitation of the book with her cousin Andrew trying to join. Below that is a photo of her asking Grandpa to read it again. She knows where the book is kept and will always go to the drawer to make you sing it to her. The girl loves books that are songs. We need more suggestions since she only has two. On Christmas day we celebrate with my family which was a special and quiet day for all of us. We were thankful for so many things this year that really were highlighted on the day. The big hit of the day was a baby doll set she received, not to mention plenty of other items again. The girl is blessed to have such giving Grandparents. Gracie gets so concerned when her doll starts to cry and she does her best to pat and love the baby to give her comfort. Too Cute!Big highlights for 15 months:

• Finally 20lbs. She is 25% for weight and 75% for height.
• She loves to say "Dank do" Thank you often now
• Goldfish and Mac & cheese are some new favorites
• She is a little trouper who can brighten your day as she comes running at you with the biggest hugs that are lasting a lot longer some times.
• When she thinks something is funny or she is trying to be funny, she almost closes her eyes and scrunches her nose.
• When asked she can point to her nose, mouth, eyes, and ears.
• New words: Hawk (jayhawk), Hot, HoHoHo, Dog (before it sounded like da), Thank you, Please is often used as well.
• As stated before, any book that you sing with is wonderful.
• She also loves to "put on make-up" and "brush her teeth" while mommy does.
• The little helper's face beams with pride when she brings my towel to the shower door when I am done showering.
• Ms. Independent wants to walk more in stores, stomps her feet when she wants something, and has learned to throw her head down in frustration. Oh the fun starts.

Gracie is the light of my life everyday and the compass for which I make decisions. All I can do is hope that those decisions bring her the happiness that she deserves, that we all deserve. Here is a photo from her Christmas photo shoot. The top two teeth will be here eventually.

You are all such wonderful family and friends. We wish you a blessed 2010!

Special Men in her life

This week was fun for me to really see what a big influence the men in Gracie's live have on her. Here are a couple examples of how much she already is influenced.

Earlier this week when she saw my dad, Grandpa, she just couldn't get enough of him and hugged him for over a min. She knows he is as huggable as a teddy bear and couldn't help herself. This morning we were looking at photos that included the Peters family photo form last year.
Gracie looked right at Neil, aka Papa, and screamed PaPa. She was so excited to see him that she just kept pointing and screaming Papa. Then she noticed Daddy in the photo and would take turns screaming Papa or Dada while pointing at the photo.

She is loved unconditionally by so many really great men in her life and we are so blessed that they can watch her grow while helping to show her how she should be treated by men in the future. As a woman myself, if you didn't know that already, I can tell you that a healthy relationship with male role models is so important for a girl as she matures. There are so many women that are not so lucky. Thank you all for your wonderful support.

C is for Cookie & Claus

Previously I forgot to post this photo of two favorite ladies playing Ring Around the Rosie.

Well Gracie and I have had some good times together over the past couple weeks. The first week in December we were able to enjoy an impromptu night at the Peters after weather kept us from making the trip into the mountains. The time together was so relaxing and Gracie just loved spending more time with her grandparents. She was even able to surprise Neil by calling him Papa. There were lots of fun and kisses for all. Gracie just loves her Monkey PJs and trying to get the remote control to work.

This past week I traveled to Atlanta for just a quick 36 hour trip, though that provided Gracie with additional time with the Grandmas. Gracie loved it and has learned to say GiGi (JiJi?) for Grandma Jeanne.

Saturday was the annual cookie day with my mom, Julianne, Violet, and about 10 other people. This was Gracie's first year to enjoy the fun that was had by all. Here are a couple photos from the day to see all of our hard work surrounded by fun!

Today was the first Christmas celebration day. Nicole had a holiday party for her play group that included a traveling music class. Gracie just adored the music that was played and signing while I was able to take the morning off and enjoy her reaction. Her love for music leads to more and more dancing everyday. We were lucky and visited with Santa at the Parker library tonight with Adam for the first time. As you can see from the photos, Gracie wasn't excited about the idea. She thought he was very interesting when I was her support, especially his beard.

Here is the perfect photo of Gracie because she is wearing a fun outfit and talking on the phone aka DaDa. Her obsession with phones is almost as strong as her obsession with Bananas.

Gracie is the light of our life that we can't wait to celebrate Christmas with. Wishing everyone a blessed Christmas season.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

Two Thanksgivings and tons of family time. We were able to enjoy Thanksgiving day with the Adam's side of the family and then the weekend up at the farm with the mine. Gracie decided she wasn't really a fan of much of the normal food fare. The stuffing, and cranberry salad were hits the day of the event. As you can imagine, the pie was the highlight of the meal and something she could have at any time.

Highlights in her world...
She can now say Please and Papa.
She is moving everywhere and just showed her climbing capabilities by getting "hiking" our ottoman. It was a huge surprise to mama.
After learning to use a straw she is enjoying all the fun things she can do with her mouth including duck calls. Here is a video to show proof.

There is nothing more to love that seeing this little lady cracking herself up in the back seat while we drive.

We are so thankful this year for such wonderful family and friends. You continue to be there for us for all of our ups and downs, what would we do without you!

Good Times with Gracie

It has been a crazy couple of weeks of fun and travel. There is nothing like 6 flights in 6 days. At least all flights were on-time or early. After a quick trip to Atlanta for work, I came back to go to the musical Wicked with Adam and his folks. This is the first musical I have seen three times and I will probably see it again. I can't wait for Gracie to see it as she gets older. Speaking of musicals, my mom and I headed to NYC Saturday for a long weekend of musical fun. We had such an wonderful time seeing Bye Bye Birdie with John Stamos, The Rockettes Christmas Spectacular, and Wishful Drinking Carrie Fisher's one woman show. Around all the shows we were able to see the usual sights: Central Park, FAO Schwartz, 5th Ave, Grand Central, 30 Rock, Today show, NBC studio tour, China Town, Ground Zero, Times Square, and....we got some great advice from Sarah, our friend who was a chef in NYC, about a restaurant that was amazing! That night was fun since we went to a hole-in-the-wall bar my friend recommended that was actually an old opium house, then to another great bar that we had to be approved to enter and then to the Little Owl Restaurant that is in the building used as a reference for Monica's apartment in friends. Oh the fun! Here is a photo of us before the Rockette's show. It was good to get back and see my girlie though.

Gracie updates: We went to the zoo on Saturday and she is now really enjoying the animals though still prefers to watch the other kids. Here is a photo with her and the ducks that she loved to enjoy.

• Gracie calls any electronic item: remote, phone, etc. Dada. It is so funny.



• She is eating us out of house and home. Today she had a whole ham and cheese sandwich, 1/4c apple sauce, veggies, and juice. She is so hungry.



• Her favorite position to play in is squatting like in the photo below.

Today I was actually able to get a bow to finally stay in her hair. At least it stayed in long enough to get a great photo of her. You can barely see it here.

Here is the close-up that you can see her tooth, the lower left, with the second coming in now, the lower right:

Now we are getting ready for a weekend of family Thanksgiving fun. Wishing everyone a wonderful blessing Thanksgiving holiday.

You Have My Heart, But Wonka Has My Belly

This was an interesting and exciting week for The Peters' clan.

Our typically sunny and dry Denver autumn weather threw us a bit of a curve ball by bringing snow flurries to the front range on Tuesday. That was not a huge surprise as we've experienced more than one Halloween 'dusting' in the past. What was surprising is that it did not stop snowing till Thursday evening. All in all we got around 24 inches at our house in Parker. Grandma Jeanne (aka "Gigi") was nice enough to come over early on Wednesday evening to help watch Gracie so mama and dada could try to work from home on Thursday.

For a girl who requests to go "out" a lot, she sure didn't like being "out" in the snow! You may be able to infer that from the photos...just doesn't know quite what to make of it yet. (It's early in the season so she'll have plenty of chances to decide if she likes snow or not)

Our normally happy child picked up on the sudden drop in barometric pressure and decided to channel that into her mood for the better part of the week. She was a cranky mama's girl due to her one and only tooth coming in! Thankfully she has slept through most nights and only showed her cranky side during daylight:)

One of the benefits of Grandma Jeanne being dropped off at the house was that she was without car, and therefore, a captive of ours during this pre-winter storm. We took full advantage of this by taking our little monkey (and yes, Gracie was dressed as a monkey) to a Halloween party at our friend's house in Parker. After a brief appearance we dropped her off at home for Grandma to watch her while we went back to the festivities.

Grace enjoyed her second Halloween much more than her first. This year she helped make a jack 0' lantern which seemed to intrigue her. But she finally said "please mom, no more pictures!"

That night she wanted to go trick or treating with all of the neighborhood kids. However, we stayed in so we could deal out all the sugary snacks for the nearly 80 children who ended up stopping by. Gracie hated to see them leaving our house after just a few minutes! What a social butterfly!!! Even though she was really cute in her costume, Brandy was, yet again, the hit for Halloween kids. This year we subjected her to dressing like a cat which consisted of a bow tie and fake ears.

Outside of those major events we had a good week with a lot of family time. After church on Sunday, Karla and Gracie visited Papa J. Great-grandpa lights up every time he gets to see Gracie and she apparently loves to see him too based on the big toothless grin she has when they're together. Sunday afternoon was spent exploring the collapsible tunnel system in our family room. After another huge dinner...this kid eats like a champ I tell ya...it was off for bath time and "naked time". The latter is now Gracie's favorite time of day!

13 months & what do you get? Another day older & a tooth

What fun we have been having these past couple weeks. Gracie has been able to spend time with friends, family and the good old folks. With me traveling last week and preparing for the trip, we all know why I am behind on the blog. Where do I start?

The first weekend away from Gracie was hard. Adam and I did enjoy our time together in Breck knowing Gracie has having a great time with the Peters. We also enjoyed some time up at the farm again because the Sanderson household was fighting a bug. No one seemed to mind and we were able to even visit with them. I think the fun time they had in the crib helped her to sleep better that night. Gracie and I were going to cheer on the Rams at homecoming, but the ladies decided to skip the freezing temps for the warm inside!

Next was our friend Graham's 1st birthday party. The most exciting part for Gracie were the "balthoons" She is just adorable when she says balloons, and yes that is her largest and favorite word to say.

This weekend, after I was away during the week, we had a fun time at a family festival that was free. The weather was perfect and Gracie got to play in a house of leaves. We are getting ready for Halloween this weekend where she is planning on being a Monkey without a tail. I am too cheap to buy a $5 tail or make one. We will all survive. She is still cute!

Updates:

• As of about Oct 12, Gracie had decided that she would rather walk. She still continues to learn, though she is determined to get to where she wants to go.



• She will now answer questions or what she thinks are questions with "ah-uh" Even if you ask her if she wants to be a lizard, that is her answer.



• Her favorite place to be is outside or "out" as she says.



• The least favorite place is getting into the car seat. She has moved-up to the larger size now, and boy is it fun to buy 3 car seats, thank goodness for friends and sales!



• The phone is her favorite toy and any time I am on a phone she says dada and thinks that is who I am talking with. Today she even bumped her head, saw the phone, and wanted me to call daddy and let him know what happened. She calmed right down when she heard his voice. What a wonderful bond.


• Her tooth continues to pop through and I wonder how quickly her other ones are coming in.



• These veggie straws from Costco have to have some addictive ingredient because she wants them all the time. It is amazing!! They do work week at distracting her during church though.

Hope you have enjoyed the photos.

They're here...

Finally we have felt a tooth coming in. That only took 6 months of trying to feel and thinking she was getting teeth before and actual tooth would arrive. This is the very early stages that is for sure because you can't even see the little side poking out yet, though you sure can feel that sharp edge. Gracie is obsessed with other people's teeth right now and I am sure she will become obsessed with her own soon enough.

Gracie continues to experiment with walking between objects and is now getting a lot more confident in her abilities and is ready to practice at any time. Later today I will provide an update to our recent activities with photo. Enjoy this good news for now!

Ohhhhhhh

Gracie is becoming so verbal now it is wonderful. My favorite is her say "Oooohhhh." She received a wonderful Jack-in-the-box from the Shiers for her birthday and every time she gets the clown to come out she say Ooohhh. That is her new word for anything she thinks is neat or is something she has learned. It is so sweet.

Right now we are dealing with a fever, which I think is due to the 1 year immunizations. This afternoon she has perked up. This has made me realize how much I miss being with her when I am working. Someday I look forward to a time when I can be with her the whole day and not think about everything I have to get done for work. Don't get me wrong, when I am home I know there will be plenty of other things to keep my mind occupied as well. We are taking one step close to our goal with Adam changing firms this week. We felt the previous company did not provide the potential for us to achieve our goals as a family. Here is a link to the new firm that Adam officially starts on Oct 1.

http://www.assetsandincome.com/

We look forward to this new step of faith and pray that God blesses this new chapter in our lives. More photos and updates to come after work!

Gracie is 1

What an amazing year it has been. To be honest I am so glad that I have kept this blog. As many of you know I don't have that great of a memory, so this will provide documentation to Gracie as she gets older and starts to ask me questions about her first year. Her birthday celebration started a little early with a cake the night before her birthday. We will just say the cake wasn't good enough to provide Gracie incentive to smash the cake in her face.

The birthday morning started out very nice with her sleeping in a bit. Daddy was off to church to serve while my folks came over to help prep for the party. Grandpa kept Gracie busy while my Mom and I got things ready. The decorations were minimal, cake provided by Aunt Michelle, and many friends to celebrate with.

The cake could take a whole page of the blog to explain how amazing Michelle's hard work looked. Here are a couple photos of the bear cake with the mini smash cake. It was almost too perfect to cut. Gracie was completely spoiled by her Aunt with this amazing cake that could have been in contention on Ace of Cakes!

Gracie didn't really enjoy the smash cake nearly as much as we thought she would. Like us, I think she didn't want to ruin the amazing cake. Here are photos of her starting to enjoy the cake before we had to run inside due to the rain that started that quickly stopped after the huge rush into the house.

There were two traditions we started this day. First I made a plate at a pottery store that we will use for celebrations to come. Gracie's first birthday cake as served on this platter. Second we took from the Korean tradition and had Gracie select an item from a tray of different objects to help tells us what her future will hold. Items like a hammer - judge or carpenter, ball - sports, money - wealth, calculator - finance, photo - photographer, were on the tray and our lady picked the money. There are worse things she could have chosen.

We were able to enjoy celebrating with family and friends. Gracie is loved by so many people that we feel completely blessed to be in our lives.

Gracie's big achievements:

• As of today Gracie is using about 10 words: mama, dada, uh oh, dog, ball, ollie, out, up, quack (just she ck sound) hi, and is working on bye.


• Today was a huge day of milestones: she signaled all done with her hands up in the air.


• SHE TOOK HER FIRST UNASSISTED STEPS!! Baylor was enjoying some Cheerios that she wanted to share, so she walked a couple steps to him. Here is a photo afterwards.

• Gracie is 19lbs, 10oz (25%), and 90% on height. She is long and lean like her daddy.
• She loves to wave, say hi to people, blowing kisses and giving high 5s.
• The girl will eat pretty much anything without teeth. I can only hope she is getting them or she is completely taking after Brandy and her drooling.

Looking back to one year ago it is so hard to imagine our life without Grace. She continues to be the light of our life and what we focus our time on. Her smile brings such joy to every person she meets. There is nothing more that I love then coming into her room, after hearing her say mama over and over in the monitor, and seeing her standing at the edge of her crib just smiling and motioning for milk. How can you not love your daughter giving you the biggest open mouth kiss with a little lick from her tongue to show you how much she loves you?!?! Daddy might get a little nervous knowing that his little lady just give her buddy Baylor a big lick kiss as well. The girl loves everyone.

Thank you all for celebrating our daughter's life! She is a gift from God that we are thankful for everyday.

The three weeks before turning one

Since it has been a month since my last post we are going to cover a few weeks. Lucky me got to spend a night with my goddaughter and her brother. It was such a joy to spend time with them and Gracie got some really good daddy-daughter time.

Just before Labor Day weekend Gracie and I were able to take a quick trip to KC. Hillary and the family were such warm hosts, Hill even watched Gracie for a day while I worked, and Maddie couldn't get enough of Gracie. Here is Maddie giving love to her. What a wonderful trip which I survived traveling with Gracie on my own. Gracie did great on the flights and slept pretty good. Now that she is older she is well aware of her surroundings and if we are in the room. This lead to our trip to the farm for Labor Day.

Labor Day was pretty quiet with a trip to the farm to get some work done. Gracie even tried to help Mommy attach gliders to the bottoms of the chairs. She is following in her mothers love of projects.

Adam volunteered at a CSU prep rally event that included many different fun activities for kids. We were lucky the event surprisingly drew Adam's brother and family. Here are photos of our little cheerleader from the wonderful CSU rally

Adam was very excited when CSU beat CU at the Rocky Mtn. Showdown. So awesome!!! After this fun I had to take a trip to ATL for work. Being away from Gracie is hard and Adam is such a wonderful father to me Mr. Mom during these times, not to mention my mom and Nicole.

The week before her birthday was a busy week too. We were able to celebrate my parents 40th wedding anniversary. The anniversary dinner included my folks, aunt & uncle, family friends, and Brad with dinner provided by a chef. What a wonderful reason to celebrate!

Next onto her birthday fun....

Another day of fun

Gracie was able to show Daddy today how much she loves her dog. Now anytime Brandy is around Gracie tries to go over and pet her. Then if we have a ball or Brandy's toy, Gracie wants to be involved and throw the toy as well. It is the cutest thing to see Gracie have the pull toy, try to toss it around, and then throw it about 1 inch away from her. She is trying to hard.

Today Gracie also started to stand more on her own unassisted by anything. She is going to continue to test her abilities and we can't wait for her to walk. Honestly it is so hard to see her crawl everywhere and pick up things from the floor, no matter how hard we try to keep the items out of her mouth.

We are ready for the weekend together and some fun as a family. Hope you enjoy your weekend as well!

11 months & a fun vortex of a day

So we weren't as quick as we thought we would be on updating the blog. Work, life, and prep for a party kept us busy during the nights.

Gracie updates:

• Gracie now officially says many words, Mama, Dada, Da (dog), Ba (ball), and just on Friday started Hi. Also while reading "Ollie the Stomper" she actually said Ollie.


• She is now very confident in standing on her own. So confident you can see in her 11 month photos a few scraps on her face from the few falls she has had trying to move from one thing to another.


• We are lucky that Gracie still doesn't have stranger anxiety, though she does love to lay her head on our chest when she sees us again.


• The lady loves all types of food. Yogurt or ice cream still are her favorites.


• Any baby, child, or nice animal in a book is given a kiss. Kisses are thrown out with no abandonment.


• The girl has got rhythm. Music on the radio, pumped into a store, or just made by a funny parent, leads to Gracie bobbing up and down.


• Shopping also is a new past time as long as she can play in the racks like her mother.


• Still no teeth!

This past weekend we had some fun. After a crazy Bunco night at the house on Friday, I headed up to Fort Collins to watch the Sanderson kids. Though I missed Gracie it was so much fun to enjoy time with their kids and see what my future could look like. Boy am I glad that I have 3 more years to prep for an almost 4 year old. While I was gone there was some good Daddy daughter time that included pool time, church, and lots of loving. Gracie was also lucky to have a brand new house for play. We now have a new chair and the box it came in is her playhouse. Grandpa cut holes in the box for windows bringing many laughs while playing inside or out.

This week we are getting back to a bit of more normal life only to be altered next week. My work has allowed me to travel to Kansas City for work and Ms. Gracie will be coming to visit with the Guenthners. Can't wait for the fun!! Here is a photo of our little frog in her frog coat from Auntie Jessica. Way too cute!

Here are photos from our vortex of a day. The day started with a sick puppy (Brandy) throwing up on the floor once, then twice, then a baby girl gagging on something to produce a little too, then dog again, and again with a final activity of the night...you knew it would happen some time, but I just wasn't ready for it today... Gracie pooped in the bathtub. We of course had to get her out, clean her up in the sink and then clean the tub. Seeing her in the sink just reminds me of how much she continues to grow. I am not ready for her 1st birthday!!

Enjoy the photos and your week!

One day shy of 11 months

Where has the time gone? Gracie continues to perfect her crawling and has decided that she really wants to try this walking thing. Now she wants to play standing on her own two feet when she can. This has led to a few diggers and some tears that are just a part of learning. Now with her walking toys she is getting the hang of the walking thing. I have no doubt she will be walking by her birthday.

You know you might be too busy when you can't find your day planner and you don't remember what you have done the past 10 days. We will work our way backwards.

Gracie's week has been a bit of a shuffle. Nicole had to leave town unexpectedly so Grace is with three different people during the day, though hasn't complained since she has had playmates at each location. She is just the happy little lady. This past weekend we had some good times with the Peters. Papa J is near us now and we had a wonderful Sunday lunch with the family. Saturday night was a great date night with the theatre, picnic, and babysitting by Grandma and Papa. What more could we ask for?

Now I remember the weekend before, how could I forget? Our friend Kacey was a saint on Saturday. After a day of hiking she had us over for dinner and then watched Gracie while Adam and I played in Central City to celebrate a friend's birthday. We even left the place with some extra dough and Gracie was pretty good. Again, we are blessed with great friends.

Here is a photo to tide everyone over until the 11 month photo shoot. She loves her cheerios and yogurt! It doesn't matter where they are on her face either.

Countrygirl - Ride 'em cowgirl

Another busy couple have weeks have kept me from updating the blog, which is bad because so much has been happening. We were able to enjoy some time at the farm the past weekend. Adam and I were busy painting while Gracie had some great visitors to keep her busy. The first visitor was my Aunt Nancy from Oklahoma. Gracie sure loved to wave at her and hear her laugh. Here is a great photo of them together. Sadly I forgot to bring in the wonderful books she gave Gracie as a gift, the Gossie & Gertie books. Love them! Our family friend also came to entertain Gracie, which she loved.


The next day we were able to spend some time with the Sandersons as well. Our goddaughter Abigail decided that she liked playing and helping Gracie. Ian, her brother who is only 6 months older then Gracie, is a whole different ballgame when you are playing. Every day it amazes me how much Gracie is changing. She loves to play now with other kids, wants to be around other kids, and especially loves older kids about 3 - 4. Abigail was a wonderful friend teaching her how to play with this toy. At the pool this week Mom was chopped liver and the 3 year old in the baby pool was so entertaining for 30+ mins. Now that Gracie can move around easier she is seeing so much more. One of her favorite items is a doll I got in S. Korea years ago for Great Grandma Peters. Grandma Jeanne thought an official doll would be a great gift and she was right. Here is Gracie looking a lot like her dolly that she loves to give kisses to.

This week Gracie has also started testing the waters everywhere, literally as well as figuratively. The 3rd she started to climb the stairs at the house and got up 3+ stairs before we started working on going down them correctly. Tuesday we got her out of bed to find her standing in her crib. TV components and Brandy's water bowl are her favorite "No" areas to test daily. She wants to keep trying to see if we will let her play with them or if she can sneak some play time past us. We have been learning to have eyes in the back of our heads. Here she is trying new locations for play.

Brandy is the best dog "horse" in the world. They both are starting to enjoy playing together or at least being around each other. Brandy sure isn't a fan of the baby gates and their ability to keep her away from us. Now she is even closer to us while Gracie is around so she can make sure she is on the right side of the gate.

This weekend we are looking forward to some fun as a family with our friends. Some great news for our family is the move of Papa J to Denver. Gracie's only living great-grandparent will now be in Denver. We look forward to seeing their relationship grow over the years. Until next week.