My Baby is 5!!

Here's Grace on the morning of her 5th birthday. We let her open a few presents that morning and a few more at dinner that night. She was so happy when she woke up and saw presents and a My Little Pony balloon. Kingsley on the other hand was not happy, he's scared to death of balloons. I'm not sure what he's doing in the background, he's such a strange dog!

Nana came to visit on Gracie's birthday. Her teacher gave her a birthday homework bag to do at home that night. The assignment was to read the two stories while holding Paddington the bear. I read one and Nana read the other. Then she had to paint two pictures using the paint and rollers in the bag. The last thing was to take a picture of Gracie and the bear with the disposable camera provided. Her teacher loves to take pictures, and she said she will make each student a little album at the end of the year. We had to sign a paper that said we agreed to develop two rolls of film for the teacher during the school year. I don't blame her because developing all those pictures would be expensive, and I can't wait to get her little picture book in May.

Since it was her birthday, Grace got to choose where we went to eat that night. Because she is my child, she picked Olive Garden. We LOVE Olive Garden, probably more than we should. :) She always orders fettuccine alfredo, just like I always order chicken parmigiana. We are creatures of habit. We usually have to take her pasta home because she fills up on salad and bread sticks, but I don't mind because it just makes lunch the next day easy for me.

Gracie really wanted a cake on her actual birthday, but since we had baked cupcakes the day before I really didn't want anymore cake laying around the house. I thought it would be fun to order the little cake from Olive Garden and have them come out and sing to her. Grace did not agree with me. When the server brought out the cake and shouted "attention everyone, we have a special birthday today" she knew it was for her. The look on her face in the picture was the exact face she had the whole time they were singing. She later said that it embarrassed her. So note to self, don't surprise Grace in public! She is so much like her dad! But overall she had a good birthday. She got a new webkinz from Nana. So now she has two, and she plays with them both online. (*A webkinz is a stuffed animal that has a code that you can log onto a website. It's basically a virtual pet online. You can feed it, buy clothes and furniture for it, and play games. Now that she has two they can live together and play together. I don't really get into it, but Grace and Scottie play it together. So it's something fun for them to do.) Now when she gets birthday money in the mail she thinks she needs to go buy more webkinz. I think she's becoming obsessed. She is really looking forward to her birthday party on Saturday! I just can't believe she is already five years old. It seems like yesterday that we were changing diapers!

Birthday Treats

Last week was Gracie's turn to bring snacks to school on Mon., Wed., & Fri. Her teacher gave her that week so she could bring a birthday treat on Monday. Grace wanted to bring chocolate cupcakes with white icing and circle sprinkles. (We don't have any trouble with her making decisions, she's very detailed oriented! Which she did not get from me. :) We had a lot of fun icing the cupcakes with a pastry bag. I had never used one before, but I'm glad we did because it makes icing a lot easier. I let Grace ice a few for us to eat at home. She did really well. She was so excited to take them to school. When I went to pick her up I watched the other kids come out with icing all over their faces. Oops, I hope the parents don't mind! We sent healthy snacks the other two days.

Pre-Kindergarten

Wednesday was Gracie's first day of pre-kindergarten. She missed the cut off for kindergarten by 15 days, but I still wanted her to have some kind of schooling this year. She is going to a christian school, and it's literally 1 minute from our house. I love it! She will only go three days a week from 12:30-3:15. She had a blast on her first day. She jumped around the house for a good thirty minutes when she got home. Of course she could give you a minute by minute description of what they did that day. She can't wait to go back. She said she played with some kids, but she couldn't remember their names. Then she told us about the Star Wars discussion she had with two little boys. They were discussing episode one and she asked them if Count Duku (sp) was a part of the dark side of the force. They told her yes because he was a bad guy. She has become obsessed with Star Wars lately, so she couldn't help but join into their conversation. So now she is probably going to be known as the sci-fi girl. (aka: weirdo) Just kidding! But I do wish she would have other interests besides Star Wars and Gladiators. Thank goodness she is still into kittens, it keeps her girly! :) Did you notice her little pink bag? Her teacher wanted them to all have the same sized bag for the cubbies, so she gave them each their own bag. I thought I would be clever and original and sew her name on the outside of the bag. I even put a dragonfly applique on it, I was so proud of myself. THEN... we got to school and saw all the other kids bags. Some of them looked like a craft store threw up on them. One kids bag was completely covered in puffy paint. It had his name on it and a ton of designs made out of the paint. One girls had fringe sewn around the edge and all kinds of little knick knack things sewn on it. So much for being original! At least it had her name on it, otherwise she'd be the girl with the boring bag. I guess I was relying on my past teaching experiences where we thought a kid came from a half-way decent home if he even had a backpack on the first day of school. If he had supplies in it, oh baby- that kid may even graduate from high school!! I know that sounds negative, but that's the reality for a lot of my students. I'm going to have to get use to this private school, where parents go above and beyond for their child. But don't worry, I won't get caught up with trying to out do the other moms. I will not be adding fringe and puffy paint to Gracie's bag. I'm all for making cute things for my child, but let's not get tacky! --Well, we only have another hour before school starts and Gracie is already jumping up and down. I think this will be a good year!

Where a Kid Can Be a Kid

Jeff and Penny came to visit this past weekend and Grace requested a trip to Chuck E Cheese. Since her grandparents are so nice they said yes. (Of course Scottie wanted to go too, and the reason is displayed in the third picture) We had a lot of fun and Grace is very anxious to go back. Thanks Jeff and Penny for a great afternoon! (Scottie is not very happy that I used this picture of us instead of the other one, but I look better in this one. And since I'm the big fat pregnant one I get to pick the picture that I like. I don't think I look great in this one, but it's a lot better than the other one. Sorry honey!! :)

There is something cute and scary about this picture at the same time. I thought it was cute to see her playing a game with her dad, but when I step back and look at the whole picture it gets a little disturbing. I don't like to see my sweet little girl handling a gun like a pro. Of course she thought it was a great game. It amazes me how she can love Barbies and puppies, but also love things like Gladiators and guns. I think I have a lot of praying to do ahead of me. I just pray she keeps on the path of Barbies and puppies!

OK, here is the real reason why we went to Chuck E Cheese. My husband has an obsession with the basketball game and skee-ball. In fact he pretty much ignores us the whole time so he can play the games. He SAYS he is trying to earn Gracie a lot of tickets so she can get good prizes, but I know better. He can't help himself, these games are an addiction for him. It's a good thing Grace has other people to watch her and help her with the kids games. I would never let her go there alone with her dad, who knows what would happen. (I'm kidding, he's a great dad and would watch her if he had to, but he would rather have me come along) At one point I saw both Scottie and his dad playing the basket ball games at the same time. I just stood there and laughed and forgot to take a picture. Even though I'm slightly worried about Scottie's inability to stay away from these games, I think it's kind of cute. (As long as he doesn't go by himself, then that would just be plain creepy!)

Gracie and her prizes. She picked out a purple balloon, pirate jewels, two hair pieces, and some cotton candy. She was in kid heaven. And yes - she has a seat belt on, she was sitting in the middle with the lap belt. I also want to direct your attention to the back window. Do you see all those cars? Those are called double lanes my friends! We didn't have none of them things in Missoura! We have moved back into the big time!! :) Although I must confess there are a FEW things I miss about Kirksville, but that's another post.

I love this picture. It reminds that she really is a little kid. I sometimes forget since she likes to be in all adult conversations, and for the most part keep up with them. She sometimes acts like a mini-adult, so it's nice to see her wear pigtails and eat a bag of blue cotton candy. I love this kid!

Believe it or not this ended up being Gracie's favorite part of the day. It's a video simulation type thing where you lay down and watch a video while the chairs move and shake so you feel like you are on the roller coaster or in the mine car. At first Grace was a little nervous, but as it went on she became even more scared. As you can see in the pictures her eyes got bigger and bigger. But eventually she relaxed and thought it was really fun. Of course someone had to be holding her hand the whole time. She says she can't wait to go back to Chuck E Cheese and do it again. I"m just glad I was there to catch her first reactions on camera. Her faces crack me up!

Yes, we are alive!

I wanted to post some proof of life pictures on the blog. I haven't blogged since we moved, and I can't say it's because we have been unpacking like crazy people. It's been the complete opposite. We have taken our time unpacking and getting things organized. Mainly because for the first time in two years Scottie doesn't have anything to do, and there haven't been any deadlines to meet. So we have been taking it easy and slowly getting the house together. We are almost done, and it's not looking too bad. Is this our dream house? Of course not! We have heard the 1980's calling a couple of times and asking for their dark stained wood and peach colored walls back, but other than that we are pretty happy here. The other night we ate dinner outside and enjoyed our new deck furniture. Thanks Mom! She got a fantastic deal on the set. Apparently Wal-Mart thinks that summer ends July 5th, and puts everything on sale in preparation for the fall. I think it's a little silly, but it worked out great for us.

I asked Gracie to smile for the camera and she sticks a piece of chicken in front of her face. What a goof ball.

I know, I know... it's random and weird to post pictures of dinner on the blog. But I wanted to show off the awesome sweet corn we have been enjoying here. It's southern Illinois sweet corn and it is wonderful!! I could never find good corn in Missouri, so we have eaten more of it in the past three weeks than we did the entire two years we lived in Kirksville. Ok, I'm done with the random corn post. Hopefully I will be able to catch up on my posting in the next few days!

Can you see the resemblance?

Looks like Grace and her baby sister already share a bad habit. For those of you who don't know yet we are having another girl! We'll post more in a few days, once we recover from the move.