Gracie's Birthday Pics

What a crazy, busy weekend! Two birthday parties - one on Saturday, with Clint's mom, sister and the cousins (4 & 9 years old -two girls! :) and we headed over to Chuck E. Cheese, which is the absolute craziest place to go on a Saturday afternoon! But, well, every kid has to have at least one C.E.Cheese birthday party, right? (Hopefully, I'll get better at this birthday party thing and it will be the last!)

The girls (& Clint) had a blast playing all the games and we brought a princess cake with us to go with our pizza. Meijers does a very nice job of making cakes. I was pleased. It tasted yummy (can you really go wrong with cake? Unless I make it, of course) and Grace was very happy about the princesses!

The Cinderella was lit up

Blowing out the candles

Opening up the cards, check out that inflatable crown. She just loved that thing! Wore it the whole time we were there!


I think this is an absolutely DARLING picture of Annie!

Got the Magic Ariel Doll - her hair changes colors in water. Grace has been talking about it for weeks!

For the Gilson party, we had a great meal after church at Mom & Dad's house, we had a small ladybug theme, because ever since we found out we were going to have Grace, Daddy has been calling her "Ladybug" - that's his nickname for her and he made this adorable (yes, I said "he") Ladybug cake for her. Didn't it turn out well!? So nice to have an artist for a hubby!

Way tastier than Meijers any day!

Daddy & his Ladybug

Yep, still got the crown on!

She's four now. We have arrived, folks. We have arrived!

Annie did awesome these two days. She was sunshine the whole time!

Phew. We made it, but I tell you what - that little 4 year old was in bed early last night! She was pooped all yesterday from her Birthday Extravaganza! Here's hoping for a fabulous year! Next year, she'll be taking cupcakes to Kindergarten! *Sniff!*

Lugie Vs. Boogie

Actual conversation this morning in the car.

Grace: *Hack! Hack!*

Grace: Momma, a booger came out my MOUTH!

Me: When a booger comes out your mouth, it's called a LUGIE (sp??)! Way to go!

Grace: Lugie! *cracks up*

What a great way to start a week!

My Gracie Girl

My little Gracie girl is FOUR today.

Can that be right?

It seems like just yesterday she was my sweet, little, PERFECT baby who slept from 7pm to 7am, who never fussed and was the picture of sunshine. She was a baby-sitter's dream!

I remember praying for this day to come when we were in the throes of the terrible 2's and 3's. Amidst potty-training and temper tantrums, my mother and friends assured me that everyday is one more that she is older and that something happens when they turn 4.

Well, that day is here! *Sniff*

Grace is such a fantastic mix of lovable, maddening, comical, impressionable and mischeivous. She is so intelligent, verbal and dramatic, (because, oh, yes, we've traded tantrums for dramatics!) and has personality coming out her socks!

I can't wait to see what she'll be like in school and as she makes her way in this crazy world.

Happy Birthday, Gracie Girl! I love you.

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Trick or Treat Pictures to come, but in the meantime - enjoy this! :)

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

More Punkin Pics

Here are a couple of shots *in the light* of the pumpkins Clint carved.

Grace said she just wanted a happy pumpkin with a big smile...


And Annie, of course, didn't specify, but he carved a Dora pumpkin for her. I wish everybody could see this pumpkin - because it's really, really REALLY good. He didn't use a stencil or pattern or anything! Just drew it on with a pencil and one of the story books for reference.

Proud to say that both my girls are "hams" in front of the camera!

Feelin' better

We had a TERRIBLE week last week. I don't think it was full-blown H1N1, but Grace ran a low-grade fever for a week straight, Annie had unexplainable spots and they both had yucky croupy sounding coughs when they laid down for bed, which 4 out of 5 nights resulted in puking episodes. Blech.

Thankfully that is over and we are on to celebrating Fall and of course, Halloween to be followed by Grace's birthday. Wow - and then, Thanksgiving and then Christmas - yikes! It feels like November and December are going to fly.

Yesterday we got the girls doing a little bit of raking...

Grace did well, but Annie, for some reason, was very into her nose. All my pics are of her doing this! ha ha ha

Then we carved up our pumpkins after dinner.

Grace got right in there with her hands - I was actually quite surprised!

My job was mainly to keep this one away from the knives...no easy feat! I took her picture and then distracted her with the camera. Bwah-ha-ha!

Not sure what she's confused about here...actually, I think she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She's going through a VAIN phase. (I hope it's a phase anyway! :P )

Only happy punkins for us! The one on the left is just a happy face, the one in the middle is actually a very good replication of Dora the Explorer - minus the hair. You just have to get the right perspective. Took me a while and Clint had to explain that the circle was her face and neck - not her mouth and then it came in for me! One more to go tonight...

Decorating Punkins

The Young Family loves to decorate pumpkins. Clint is an EXCELLENT pumpkin artist. Drawings, carvings, the whole nine yards - he's fantastic ( me, not so much - no patience)

Some of it has rubbed off on Grace, who doesn't want to carve the pumpkins, so much as decorate them. With markers and stickers . So, last Friday, we were having a sick day and we three girls found ourselves decorating two little pumpkins with wonderfully messy markers and glitter stickers.

So, what do you think? Which punkins are cuter?

Theirs?

Or mine?

Fall Fruit Farm Fun

We took the girls to Verhage Fruit Farms this past weekend with Grandma & Grandpa Gilson. It was so fun. It was chilly, but a beautiful day. This was the first time we'd done this. The girls are getting older so a lot more activities are fun, rather than just the work of toting EVERYTHING around in a backpack and stroller like when they are babies.

We had donuts, cider, a hayride, Grace got her face painted, we bought punkins and generally had a wonderful day, just being together and being outside.

Grandpa, Grandma & Grace

Daddy & Annie

Grace had the camera during our hayride. Three generations of shoes are pictured here. *Hee*

Best Buds: Gracie & Grandma

Annie was just NOT going to sit still for anything!

Grace posing - Annie was wandering.

Grace getting her face painted. She was so serious, she sat very still and was quite the prima donna.

Grandpa, Grandma & Annie - waiting for Grace to get finished with face painting. See? She would NOT. SIT. STILL!

Grandparents & Grandkids

Not at the fruit farm, but at TSC they had this GINORMOUS pumpkin.

It was so big, it won an award!

Could new hats be any cuter??

"Then You May Take Me to the Fair..."

Ah, the Young family LOVES the St. Joe County Fair. It was a couple of weeks ago, so the pics are a little late, but we had a great time at the fair this year. I do have to say that I am glad it only comes once a year, because it is expensive!

Wretched blow-up Dora doll - it's actually still alive!

Anything Grace has, Annie wants - Yep, we are the proud owners of TWO!

And yes, Grace has hit the age where she BEGS for everything. We told her we'd do games one day and rides one day, but that was it. Of course, we had french fries on both days, but whatever!

1st Trip!

2nd Trip!

The cousins came on the last Saturday, the day we did rides and Grace is tall enough now that she can go on the rides by herself. Whoo-whee! And did she think she was the stuff. You should have seen the look of pride she had on her face, when she gave her ticket to the ticket-taker to ride those spinning bears.

If it spins, it's for us!

Annie was pretty content with a Tootsie Pop, the stroller and some occasional toddling around kiddie land. She's still pretty easy!

Speaking of Annie: she has really started talking up a storm! It is just jibber-jabber nonstop from her these days! Her vocabulary has gone from "No", "doggie", and "Dora" to "Mess", "Stuck", "Cereal", "Shoe", "Sissy", "Gacie", and TONS more. It's really fun to listen too. She is getting to be sooo funny and soooo cute!

Needin' Daddy to be brave enough to throw the dart!

Poppin' the balloons!

Ahh, sweet success!

Until next September, Elephant Ears & Cotton Candy. We will miss you.

So Proud

Wednesday Night Kid's Club started this week. It's a project I'm pretty excited about, as I get to be the teacher for it. It feels good to be back into teaching, even if just for 1/2 hour.

We've included the program to include pre-K kids, of which Grace is a proud member. I was so proud of her - she was not intimidated or shy at all around all those 3-5th graders. She sat right in the first row, had her little New Testament in her hand and was BIG STUFF. I have to say that I, as a worker, didn't even provide much direction for her. She pretty much did it all on her own. Found her own seat, went to her table and her leader and ate her snack. Then, we came to the part where Pastor went over the directions and rules for Kid's Club.

And Grace told him about her pink, princess trunk. Never raising her hand, of course!

After listening, he went on about how the kid's would get points for their teams by bringing visitors.

And Grace told him about her cousins, Maddy & Kenzie

And then he went on and she, of course, had another point <--I didn't catch what this one was

And as he was wrapping it up, she put her head in her New Testament and told Pastor that she was "done listening now."

We're off to a great start!

Catchin' Up

Wow.

What a great summer. I had so much fun with my girlies this summer, I just didn't want to let it go. We had a wonderful vacation in Traverse City with my parents, my brother and sis-in-law and the four of us - I have say that due to the obvious 3 week denial around my home & office that we were back to reality, it may have been the best vacation we've ever been on!

That's right for the entire month of August, I think I was in denial about being back to reality. After all - it was still sunny out. We had fairly unlimited access to a pool at friend's homes and we made use of it. Grace is a FISH. She just loves to swim. We took her to a pool at the home of some church friends and she almost swam herself sick. 2 & 1/2 hours of swimming underwater on a 3 year old leads to one tired girl. What a great activity! I am proud to say both my girls are not afraid of the water and adore swimtime. I am so going to miss swimming this winter. Hopefully we'll get plenty of snow exercise this winter.

Another reason for the lack of blogging these past 8 weeks or so is my head. Add a fairly consistent headache to the denial & lament of vacation passing and you've got a very blah feeling woman. My sinuses were completely blocked and it was getting worse the month of August. The doc said my head was completely filled with polyps and waiting for September 10th to have them removed was not easy. At work (when I have the chance to do most of my blogging!) is the worst place for my sinus pressure. Something about my office or the building at Glen Oaks just set me off everytime I went in there, consequently, not much was done by way of blogging or work really - because I just felt lousy. Totally, completely lousy.

Had surgery on September 10th to remove them and the doctor did a wonderful job! No swelling at all - except for my glassy eyes from the Vicodin and anesthesia, you'd never have known I had surgery. Except now I can talk and breathe properly. Hooray! Seems to be all healed up now, except I still get a fairly dull headache when I get tired and am still blowing random chunks of crud out. But that's to be expected.

The girls have shot up so much this past summer I don't even know where to start to catch up. Annie is jibber-jabbering constantly and incorporating more words than ever, she walks like a trooper and is developing such a strong, funny, determined little personality. I am really enjoying her these days. So cute and funny. And she has more hair! It's getting thicker and curlier almost by the hour it seems! Hooray. I have a blond and a brunette.

As for Grace, well - she has fallen in love with swimming - underwater, eyes open, no goggles. Constantly pushes herself. She has conquered the playground, except for the monkey bars, but loves to climb, swing, slide down the pole, rock climb - you name it - she's all over it. I think my friend Rach called her "indestructable" one day on the playground, and that word has stuck with me. She falls & runs into things constantly, but hops up and brushes herself off. She really does not like to let pain get her down. I've never seen anything like it. "Jesus will heal me" is something I heard a lot this summer. And He always does.
I don't know who taught her, but she can spell her name, and write it now - she's shown lots of letter and number recognition, and lately we've been working on what rhyming words are. She has it mixed up right now - using the beginning sound of the word to indicate rhyming. i.e. The other day she told me that POPsicle and POPcorn rhymed. Not so much, lovey :)

So, a tearful goodbye to my summer, although currently it's almost 80 degrees outside and a hearty hello to fall. Hoping for some grand times and a lot more memories!

Just Random Pics

I didn't do very well with my camera this summer. Boo on me: Here are some shots I did get. When Grace is wearing the braids is when we took her bowling for the first time this summer. What a trip. She got 3 strikes - 2 without the ball even hitting the bumper! ha ha! Of course, she did hurl herself down the gulley a few times and I recall a time when her ball went in the other lane, but whatever...

Annie slept through bowling :) When she woke up, she was pretty content to clap and cheer her sis on.