Anudder one party...

We had our final celebration of Gracie's second birthday this past Saturday evening. It was so nice to have most of our family here and even a few special friends who happened to be in town at the right time. We didn't do anything fancy, but it was nice to have everyone together and get some time to visit and let the kids play.
When Gracie woke up from her nap about half our guests were here waiting. We busted out the water balloons - which lasted all of three minutes - but the kids (and Merrick) ended up soaked and everyone seemed to enjoy the action.
Our BBQ dinner was simple, but yummy. I just don't get tired of summer food.
The Diefenbaugh kids had a great time telling my parents and grandparents all about our Disneyland trip. It is fun to hear their memories of the trip - kids just see things differently than adults (usually in a good way).
Gracie loved having both sets of grandparents and two of her great-grandparents here.
The Colemans were out of town last weekend, so we were glad Sydney and the gang could come to this party instead.
Her summertime theme cupcakes ended up tasting pretty good - even though they were vegan.
I think being sung to was her favorite part of the party!
This is what you get when you try to get a group shot of five kids while they are eating cupcakes.
Opening presents... always a little chaotic, but still fun.
Hmmmm, what could this be.
Wow, it is two feet taller than me!
Once the doll house and furniture (from my folks) was all unwrapped, these three girls went to town playing.
After the guests dispersed, Kelsie and Alex were able to stay a while to visit and go through piles and piles of baby girl clothes. Alex noticed the NES so we busted out the games and controllers so he and Gracie could play. I love that she sat next to him for quite a while saying things like "I playing too!"

All-in-all I think it was a fun night that Gracie enjoyed... and that was exactly what we were going for.

Don't miss these great posts...

I've been playing another round of catch up. Here's a list of the posts I've been able to finish. You can click on these titles and go directly to each post. Enjoy!

• Hello little one...
• Stack hay rock...
• Happy birthday sweet girl...
• Painting...
• Round one...
• A busy weekend...
• Headband...
• Berry wild...
• Weeds...
• Happy Birthday Shara...

Hello little one...

From June 24:
We had our "big" ultrasound today. It was so fun to see that little monster up there on the screen. We were in the room for nearly an hour... great for Merrick and me, not so great for Grace. She did well though and loved hearing the baby's heart. She kept saying "See heart again! Listen to baby again." The ultrasound tech was very nice about it and even went back a few extra times to please the two-year-old in the room.

According to the ultrasound everything looks great and baby is right on track for my November 14th due date. I had been feeling a little strange about the fact that I just don't feel this baby move as much as I feel Gracie. Normally the second time around you feel the baby move earlier and more often. On average women feel babies move sometime between 18-22 weeks. I felt this baby at 16 weeks 2 days, and have gotten little movements here and there, but nothing significant. Well, come to fine out my placenta is sitting right along the front side of my uterus (called an anterior placenta) and is blocking most fetal movements. When I do feel this baby it is along my sides or towards the bottom of my abdomen. At least now I know there is a reason and I don't have to worry. That little one squirmed the entire ultrasound and put on quite the show. The tech would get a nice strong heartbeat and then it would gradually fade as the baby wiggled out of the way of the poking and prodding. Smart kid I guess.

Here are a few pictures of our little one (nope, we really didn't find out the sex):
Foot, kicking away.
Profile shot - hands up near the face just like Gracie always was.
A good-bye wave. She caught this shot right as she was wrapping up.

Unless we have any complications this will probably be our last ultrasound. It is strange since we had so many with Gracie. I guess quite a few of those were in the hospital after I was put on bed rest, but even before that we had 6 or 7. I'm hoping we have a reason to take another peak at this little one, but I don't want it to be a bad reason.

As far as everything else, this pregnancy seems to be just fine. I'm feeling okay for the most part and seem to have my energy back. My belly is still growing, but since I'm carrying higher this time around (also normal for 2nd pregnancy - not necessarily a sign that this is a boy) doesn't seem to be quite as big as it was for Grace. Perhaps one day I'll look back and compare those belly shots to these...

Stack hay rock...

On Gracie's birthday the three of us packed up and headed to Canon Beach. We had thought about going down to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, but I got sick the night before, so being three hours from home seemed like too much. Canon Beach is just slightly more than an hour from home and that seemed much more doable. Before leaving we were able to have breakfast with Hannah and Emmett and say goodbye before they headed out to spend some time with her sister. It was great to have them in town for so long, and I think Gracie had fun waking up to a friend on her birthday morning. We might just have to make that a tradition.

Anyway, after eating and packing we headed out around ten. We got to the beach and after getting a slice of pizza (Gracie's request) we headed straight to the sand. Once her naked toes hit the sand she wasn't very interested in her lunch.
She was fascinated by the ocean and didn't seem to even flinch at the temperature. I didn't ever go in, but Merrick was a trooper and went back and forth with her all day long.

We couldn't have had better weather at the coast. It was really overcast and foggy in the coast range on the way over, so I was a bit worried, but once we dropped to sea level it was clear and gorgeous. There were ladies sunning in bathing suits, and guys in board shorts body surfing. I wasn't that crazy, but we were quite comfy in shorts and t-shirts. I would guess it was low 70's with little wind, so it felt warmer than that at times. Perfect!
The birthday girl!
After heading back to the car to get our water, snacks, toys, and books we found this great log to park next to. Gracie loved digging in the sand and filling her bucket over and over again. She also loved this log and had so much fun climbing all over it. We didn't notice until the next morning that she had a few decent size slivers in her fingers from all the log-play. She was a trooper though and let me dig all three out without a fuss.
Our family - all four of us. I love this picture, but am bummed about the color. There was a mist coming off the ocean at the exact time the picture snapped, so it really lightened everything. The picture before and after this one are just fine. Ugh. That's just the way life is.
As the afternoon wore on this girl got sleepier and sleepier. She didn't want to quit playing, but she would lay down for a few seconds at a time. After another nice long dip in the Pacific it was obvious that she was done (though she would have never admitted it). We packed up our stuff and started hiking back to the car. Gracie was up on Merrick's shoulders and before we were off the sand, she had fallen asleep leaning on his head. She stayed asleep as we shuffled her around outside the public bathrooms, changed her diaper and clothes and loaded her into the car. She then slept all the way to the Costco parking lot back in Hillsboro.

When she woke up and realized where we were she cried and asked to go back to the beach. I guess it wasn't nice to leave while she was sleeping.

On our way out of Costco there was a huge bouquet of happy birthday balloons at the membership desk. We walked by and made a comment to Gracie about how even the people at Costco knew it was her birthday. The guys behind the counter heard us and said it was his birthday too. He was even nice enough to share one of his b-day balloons with our girl. What a treat.

Per Gracie's request, once again, we swung into our favorite sushi restaurant on the way home to grab dinner. (We had asked her the day before what she wanted to eat on her birthday and she said "pizza and sushi.")

After dinner we let Gracie open the gift we had gotten for her.
I think this is a happy face, but it is hard to tell.
She was so excited and almost frantic to get this out of the box.
This gift was quite a hit with Gracie, and I think it will get many good years of use in this family. We rode all the way to Gracie's little park where we played on the swings for a few minutes before heading home for bed. She was so exhausted and had such a hard time sleeping because there was so much fun stuff downstairs to see and do. Eventually the scooter ended up in her bedroom going night-night as well. That trick seemed to work, and she eventually slept knowing that no one else was out riding around on her new toy.

This day was about as good as could be for us. Last year on Gracie's birthday we had a party for her. I have decided that I will never do that again. I didn't get to spend time with her or see her hardly at all. This year Merrick took the day off and we were all together all day long. Gracie got to go where she wanted, eat what she wanted, and have unlimited access to both mommy and daddy. I think she was thrilled. I think this will be our new tradition.

Happy birthday sweet girl...

From June 22:

It is hard to believe that we have had Gracie for two years. Sometimes it seems longer, and sometimes it seems like life has flown by. So, to celebrate her 2nd birthday, here's a quick post about Grace, where she is developmentally, and what we love about her.

June 22, 2007 at 6:16 pm

June 22, 2008 at 6:16 pm

June 22, 2009 at 6:16 pm

(This time we were in the car, so the sun was blaring through the back window. Sorry for the poor picture quality).

Her stats at two years old:

Weight: 26 pounds, 10 ounces (42th%) - at 18 months she was 23 pounds, 10 ounces (36th %)

Height: 34.5 inches long (69 %) - at 18 months she was 31.5 inches long (40th %)
Head circumference: 51 cm (99%) - at 18 months she was 48 cm (85th %)

This is about the time when our doctor said we would see her "catch up" from being born early. We've heard that if you take a toddler's height at their 2nd birthday and double it, that will be their approximate adult height. If that is true for Gracie, she will end up being about my height (5'7" or 5'8").

Life and learning:

• Letters: Gracie loves ABC's. If she sees letters written on anything she calls them "ABC's." She knows her entire alphabet song and can recognize about 10 of the letters by sight. She is really starting to show more interest in learning these, so we will be working on this more in the near future. She can also spell her name (not write, just spell out loud).
• Numbers: counting started slow for her, but she now can count to 20 (skipping 13 and 15 every time). One of our favorite Gracie-isms is when you ask her a question with a simple numerical answer she will usually say something like "1 second" or "1 minute." She does know that she is two and will answer that question correctly (most of the time).
• Colors: she knows the basic colors (red, yellow, green, blue, brown, pink, orange, purple, black, white...) She seems to identify things by color more than not. If I hold up a letter "f" and ask what it is, she will say "red." I guess that's a correct answer, just not what I was going for.
• Shapes: Gracie got a great hand-me-down puzzle from her cousins with 12 shapes. She loves it, is good at it, and knows all of those shapes (circle, oval, square, diamond, star, octagon, pentagon, hexagon, trapezoid, rectangle, triangle, parallelogram).
• Singing: this child is a performer. We love to listen to her sing, especially when it is unprompted (in bed while falling asleep, in the bathtub, while playing outside). She loves Happy Birthday, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Little Star, B-I-B-L-E, Peter James and John in a Sailboat, Jesus Loves Me... and many more.
• Reading: Grace loves books, loves to read, and has many of her books memorized. Sometimes I will just say the first few words of a book and with very little help she can finish it for me.
• Playing: Gracie has a few favorite toys including Legos, her kitchen/cash register, her scooter, her doll house. It is fun to watch her play as she is just learning to really pretend and imagine. She will be playing in her kitchen and then say, "Oh no, baby sad," and run to her baby to comfort it.
• Outside: She also LOVES being outside especially at the park. Her favorite activity is the swings. We try to get out every night - the three of us - for a walk or trip to the little park near by. Her favorite part of the walks is spotting the fire hydrants along the way.
• Eating: Grace is a great eater. There is very little that she refuses to eat. She has her off days of course, but for the most part enjoys meal time. Her eating seems to be more like mine than Merrick's- she doesn't love bready things, but devours all protein, veggies and fruits. Some of her favorite things to eat are chicken, salmon, yogurt w/granola, tacos, noodles, quesadillas, oatmeal, hummus, melon, berries, apple sauce...
• Clothes: Lately she has really be into picking her own clothes (usually wants to wear pajamas) and dressing herself. She sometimes puts her legs through the neck hole and works a shirt up, but eventually gets it there. She also is fairly good at undressing herself, especially if it means bath time. She also loves being without clothes and at times will announce "I play nakie legs," aka pantsless, or just "I play nakie."

Some things she says that make us laugh:

• "It is dark for me." - a funny new statement that we hear even in the middle of day. She loves having lights on, and has to sleep with a light on all night.
• "I need ____. I will show you." - as if her showing us will help her get what she "needs."
• "I need it right now!" - this is a statement we are discouraging her from using, but need to document as part of this developmental stage.
• "Oh no!" "Super duper!" "Nuts!" - her favorite exclamations.
• "Dare it is, right dare" - whenever she is pointing something out.
• "Anudder one, odor dare"
• "Hm, I wondo" - usually when we ask her where she put something.
• "I'd rather ____" - this one is funny because we don't use this phrase often. It usually comes out as "I'd rather have PB's" (which is what she calls PJ's).
• "Night moon." - she can't talk about the moon without putting night in front of the word. This stems from reading "Good Night Moon" over and over again.

Two of my favorite recent conversations with Gracie lately...

The other day I was in the shower and I saw Gracie in my bathroom holding my bra. When I got out neither were anywhere to be seen. I called for Gracie and she came running into my room...

H: Gracie, where is mommy's bra?

G: Um, I've been usin' it.

H: Well, where is it?

G: Hm, I wondo? Laundry room, probably.

She then ran off, after searching the entire upstairs I found it, hidden away in her old bedroom. What a stinker.

As I was making breakfast the other morning Gracie walked up and said:

G: Um, question.

H: Excuse me.

G: I'd like to ask question really quick.

She then mumbled some nonsense words and walked away.

Happy birthday big girl. We love you so much and are so glad that you are part of our growing family.

I have more to post about her birthday and various celebrations we've had on her behalf. Stay tuned!

Painting...

From June 20:
Since Emmett was in town for the weekend, and since it was pouring rain most of that time, we tried to find a slew of fun activities for the kids to do together. It helped to get them out of the house for part of the day, so they would be good, happy children for the remainder of the days. On Saturday we went back to My Masterpiece Art Studio in Tigard and let the kids paint. It is so fun to watch them and see how into it they are.



Gracie did two canvases, and both turned out super! At one point she was concentrating very hard and looked up at Merrick and said, "that a SEA line." I think she was saying she painted a picture of a sea lion, but we really can't be sure.

It has only been a few days, but Gracie is still talking about painting, so I'm sure we'll go back again soon. Perhaps next time we'll try clay or chalk or one of the other choices.

Round one...

From June 19:

On Friday we celebrated Gracie's birthday with a small group of her friends. The best part was that Emmett got to come down for the shindig! I didn't have the chance to take many pictures, so I'll try to do better the next time around (a party for our family this coming weekend).

Thanks to the three girls who helped me so much this day. I couldn't have done it without you guys. Hannah, thanks for making the trip down to Hotel Brownlee for the weekend. We loved having you here and can't wait for next time!

A busy weekend...

From June 14:

We had quite the weekend, and though I don't have many pictures to show for it, I wanted to document a few of the fun things we were able to do...

• Making strawberry jam
• A family night at home
• A trip to the Beaverton Farmer's Market, fresh strawberry shortcake, yummy veggies, running into various friends and visiting with friends we met there.
• Hannah enjoying a nice long afternoon nap with Gracie in her big girl bed (so glad there's room to snuggle that little monster).
• Gracie going to grandma and grandpa's house and Merrick and Hannah getting a very rare night at the movies. We saw the newest Pixar movie "Up" and loved it!
• An afternoon baby shower at Shannon's house for Lark.
• Gathering with good friends from college and watching our kids play so well together. It is always so fun to see how sweet our kiddos truly are - especially in a group that size.

We were exhausted when the weekend was over, but we enjoyed every minute of it at the time.

Headband...

From June 12:
Yesterday morning I woke up with my left foot hurting. After berry picking it just got worse, so I grabbed an ace bandage and an ice pack and wrapped it up hoping that would help. After nap time Gracie found the bandage on the ground and wanted it on. Since her head is the biggest part of her, I figured that would be the easiest spot to wrap. She looked like a head trauma patient, but she loved it and left the "headband" on for a lot of the night. What a strange child.

Berry wild...

From June 11:

A trip (or four) to the berry fields in the summer has become a tradition for us. Thursday was the only non-rainy day of the week, so we packed up and headed to Bagenstos to pick strawberries. The Hoods were perfect. I swear they taste different straight off the plant with just a little dirt on them.

The kids all seemed to have fun, and while they weren't great pickers, they were great eaters! We joke that the farm should weigh the kids when we get there and then again before we leave... They each probably consume more berries than what we are being charged for.

Arriving separately, but quickly realizing our friends were there too was pretty exciting for these girls.

This bucket - half full - belonged to a lady picking near us. She left the field briefly and Gracie took that as an invitation to help herself to these pre-picked berries. Oops.
The kiddos (minus the youngest boys): Gracie, Baylie, Sydney, Mihiretu, Tigist, and Sophia.
Sampling berries out of my box.

Checking out the goat and roosters. Sophia learned the hard way why you aren't suppose to put your fingers through the holes in the fence.
The best part of the morning came after our berries had been picked, while we were letting the girls play for a few minutes before leaving. Shannon, Marisa and I were sitting and talking when we hear this blood-curdling "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO." We look up to see a mom (with a baby in a front pack) running through the field toward her young son who has decided to drop his pants and relieve himself in the strawberry patch. The three of us laughed hysterically as we watched the scene play out. Really, what else would you do?

We are looking forward to raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries as the summer progresses.Yummy!

Weeds...

From June 10:

Sophia came over to play today. It was nice, so the girls ended up in the backyard for much of the time. Lucky for us these girls don't yet know that dandy lions are weeds. They had a blast picking beautiful bouquets of yellow flowers and then driving them around in the "28 car."