Beach

I see you, mommy!

Nose, nose, nose!



NO!!...Daddy!

I don't want to.

Excuse me?

Yes?

Isn't she lovely?

Steps, mommy! Old St. Augustine - wearing her favorite dress :)

The best girl in the whole wide world!

Look at that little pouty face! We were on our way to a birthday party today.

Trying to get her to laugh, wipe the serious look off her face..."oh, mommy!" she says.
Of course any mother says that of her daughter. Gracie has such a sweet 'n sour personality. She has exuded such a sweetness from the moment she was born, all through infancy and even now. Most days we have such sweet moments together, for example last night as I'm tucking her into bed, I laid my head on her pillow next to hers and she gently rubbed my hair. She constantly says "thank you, mommy! thank you, thank you, thank you!" And does a thank you dance. We are having so many moments of real connections, staring at each other and just laughing. She gets me, I get her. And she's got the sour (sassy) moments, we can't all be perfect! Now she says "NO!" to us & talks back and gets an ugly scowl on her face. She's feisty, throws her head back in my arms. Fun times! It's really not fun to give spankings. So I take those moments as well and during a sour time I hold onto and greatly look forward to the sweet ones.
The past few weeks have been a bit eventful, but I'm grateful to have had these opportunities. I took on an Indian wedding, which is a lot of work. 3 events to get the bride & her sister ready. One of which getting up & leaving by 4am to get her started at 5am. At the end of the day, 7pm I walked in the elevator to leave & tears welled up, I knew I had 2 more days to go and was exhausted. The next 2 days I attended a make up class, 8am-8:30pm each day but was very fortunate to take. One of the instructors was Lisa Layman, who is Will Ferrell's makeup artist. Being gone 4 days in a row with such long days was really difficult.
After one of my long drives home, this was my surprising view coming down the street! Only daddy would let her go nude on her tricycle! Hilarious.

POTTY TRAINING? WHAT'S THAT? Never heard the words!
Gracie unsurprisingly regressed in her potty training and by the 4th day was angry at everything, so she was mad & didn't want to potty anymore. She's coming back around, slowly. Makes me upset because she had it & was doing so well. Next round of makeup classes this month my mom will be watching her, I'm stocking the house with M&M's and pull ups and no pressure to my mom to have her trained in those 3 days! :)

OUR TRIP TO LOWE'S LAST WEEK
I decided to not use the good sense in my brain and put Gracie in big girl panties to go on our trip to Lowe's, asking her to tell me when she has to potty. Expecting the poor girl to do that after she's had a hard 4 days. So in the hardware isle, she's playing with bolts & I see a huge puddle in the floor. I said "oh no!" Daddy turns around and says "OH S**T!" Gracie takes a step back to look at her master piece she's made and says "OH S**T!" I say, "well not really, pee pee." Glaring at Todd.
Side note: And I have to say that Todd would be so embarrassed if he knew I wrote this because he feels horrible, poor guy's been working on his Yosemite Sam mouth & has been doing really well, that is until the shock factor of the Lowe's episode!

Later that evening she peed in front of the frig, I didn't see her do it but I hear "OH S**T!" The next day she spills milk, "OH SH**T!" We went to the post office, the sticker is stuck on her hand, I hear her in the back seat "oh S&&T!" I'm really frustrated by now, wondering if she's going to say it more & more because she obviously knows the use for the word or if it's going to dissipate. Are we going to get kicked out of play groups? haha We go to my friend Katie's house & while playing trains with Jack she bosses him around "NO Jack, no. NO Jack!" Then something's wrong with her train..."oh s**t" she says softly..."oh, no s**t". Thankfully Katie was laughing & more importantly Jack didn't pick up on it. And now thankfully all day today she hasn't said it!

Princess Poopie Pants

I'm not sure how much longer I'll be seeing this little girl in diapers. The baby in her is depleting almost daily. Sunday I woke up & thought I should really try training her, according to the "experts" she's ready. So every hour I sat her on the pot & she never did pee but I rewarded her for being a good sport every time. She loves to flush the toilet & wash her hands. That in and of itself is so fun for her. Yesterday I just talked to her about it, we were gone a lot. This morning while I was getting ready she ran in nude, all excited "Diapi off!" she yells all the time, she's always so proud when she's taken it off and is so glad to be "nudy" as her dad says. Soon after she started peeing in the floor, I grabbed her & got her on the toilet so she finished & we made such a huge ordeal, I could tell she liked the response she got.
Today after her nap I had her try & nothing. Later I walked in my office and she said "Look, mommy!" And there she had peed a little in the floor. She hates messes & yucky things so I told her she made a mess and it was yucky to pee on the floor so next time tell mommy and run run! So she goes into the bathroom, opens the lid, climbs up on the toilet (good for her that she's a little monkey) and went all on her own! WOW! I was amazed. It was like she ran a marathon or climbed Mt. Everest or something, I was so proud. She had the biggest smile and said "I DID IT!" So we'll see what happens next. It could swing both ways & easily backfire on me, but she's a smart little thing, I think she's gonna get it! Tonight at dinner I asked her what she did today and her eyes were twinkling and had the biggest grin looking at me. And then she said "POTTY!" I asked her, did you go in the potty and she said "YES!"
Yeah Gracie, good job, girly! Mama's proud of you! :)

Amazing!

Today Gracie & I went to the mall to play at the indoor playground & there were lots of kids her age. Here are a few photos I was hoping to get. Every time we go she loves the tree slide, this is one of the main slides she learned on. She got in the big tree stump & said "mommy, play with me!" So I got in with her & we hung out. Here's a video of her hopping from one flower to another, she does this all the time, it's so cute. Then we went & had lunch with a friend at this place called Austin's Such a quaint place. There is live music & poetry reading at night. The Labyrinth was playing, which brought back lots of memories, I used to love watching this movie when I was little & when David Bowie was singing "dance baby dance" Gracie loved it & was dancing on this little stage. I got a bit on video. I'm assuming Austin's rarely if ever has kids, the manager was watching & laughing at her the whole time & gave her a microphone, she was a little shy at first but warmed up to it. If you're reading this & are local, the food is SO yummy! We sat on a big red couch. There are board games & wireless connections. A very cool place just to hang for a while.
If you can believe it, I was excited to get Gracie down for a nap so I could venture off to Walmart & grocery shop by myself. I was looking forward to just browsing and taking my time through the isles, kinda therapeutic. Can I tell you I saw items I never knew existed & who knows how long they've been selling them for? I'm over the printing coupons thing, I ran out of ink in my printer & decided by the time I pay for my ink to be refilled I'm even. Ridiculous! It's a conspiracy. When I print the dang coupons from the websites they print huge logos on the bottom of the page to go with the coupon, as if it needs to be advertised! So I'm over it. It ticked me off. I'll stick with the newspaper.
Tonight Gracie tried little maneuvers to get out of going to bed. She said "I'm not sleepy!" for the first time ever. Then she said "I HUNGRY!" She thrashed around for a while and finally went to sleep. This week when she's getting punished she says "I tired!" in this little pathetic voice so that we'll have sympathy for her & not scold her anymore. Nice try, little girl! My favorite new word of hers is AMAZING! Everything is AMAZING! :)

Undies & Bathing Cuties!

Here are a few photos from today. This morning Gracie put on her favorite underwear of mine, she's quite creative how she wore them! And quite proud of herself.
I also captured her getting a sip of my "toffee!"




Then we went to the beach with her little buddy Jack, his brother & sister Madalyn & Evan. She likes Jack but she won't let him know it. But when Jack ran off she was very concerned & yelled "Jack, wait, oh no! Jack, come back!" Over & over. And when his mommy spanked him she said " oh no, Jack, boo boo!" He is such a cutie & so sweet. He gave her a hug today when his mom asked him to & Gracie just stood there, waiting for it to be over. She'll come around! They had fun playing in the water together, each one of them telling me "more" in their own unique 2 year old way. Jack's comes out like "mer" and Gracie's is 2 syllables & 2 different pitches I can't even type it. "mowore" somethn' like that!





Bear prints in the sand...oh my! He must have been thirsty or went for a dip.

Blocks & Cookies

Daddy & Gracie building with blocks

Cookies & milk - You must "dip it" as Gracie says!

A few of Gracie's loves

Gracie LOVES her purse, carries it around the house & outside everywhere lately

Gracie LOVES her cousin Ella! They had fun playing during our recent visit. She says her name all the time, so cute.

Gracie LOVES to play in the makeup in my little studio. Yesterday she was caught stacking the powders & counting them!