Gracie's BIG day!

I hope Gracie enjoyed her birthday as much as the rest of us did!

 

 

We took a trip downtown to the BIG slides, I thought Gracie might be a little scared....I was wrong!

....again....

...again...

....again!!!

 

Maggie loved them too!

 

Uncle Deem might have been the biggest chicken!

Multi tasking...riding her trike, and taking care of her baby.

I forgot birthday candles....(Mother of the year)...in a pinch, use tea lights!

Have a bite Daddy!

A little snuggle with Grandpa and then off too bed! Tomorrow is going to
be a big day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRACIE TATE!



The zoo and bunny eggs...

On Thursday we decided to make a quick trip to the zoo to see the new baby lion clubs. It was a really nice day and we had a great time.  The lion cubs were cute and as always, the penguins were a real favorite of my girls.

 

 

Gracie LOVED the giraffes, she'd have stayed and watched them all day.



Thank God for spring!

Gracie has decided that the Bumbo is her favorite place to sit these days. She actually fits pretty well.

On Friday it was time to dye Easter eggs. Grace mostly dyed her hand blue, but the eggs turned out awesome!

Grace's favorite way to put the eggs in the dye was too throw them. Lots of cracked eggs.

Elsie got in on the action.

I'm pretty sure Elsie is thinking Maggie's goofy and Grandpa has lost his marbles :)

TWO!

 

Dear Gracie Tater,

Happy Second Birthday baby girl! You've had quite a year. You grew into a happy, crazy, silly, toddler. You work hard to make everyone around you laugh. You love life and come at it 110% every day. You're on the GO all the time. You have a mischievous and naughty streak that can totally wear us out some days. You love and adore Maggie. You work so hard to get her to play with you, when she won't, you work equally as hard to irritate her. You still call her "GeeGee" and follow her pretty much everywhere she goes.

 

You hate to eat. If it were up to you, I'm pretty sure you'd survive on milk. I often joke that your a milkaholic. When you do eat, your favorites are cottage cheese, roni (mac and cheese), hot dogs, bologna, runzas and pancakes (and of course doughnuts, marshmallows and m&m's). You're still a great sleeper, you are ready for bed at night and happy to nap after lunch. You almost never argue about sleep as long as you have bubby, your soft pink blanket with you.

 

You've started to use so many words and put together little sentences. It's fun to listen to you sing yourself songs. You LOVE baby dolls and anything that has to do with them, you like to color and paint. Your favorite place to be is outside, you love the playground, the driveway, any place you can run and play. You didn't love winter. You called snow, "oh-no" and really wanted nothing to do with it.

 

This year you started going to daycare a day or two a week. You really enjoy your time there. You have lots of great friends, your favorite is Shelby.  When you first get there in the morning, you and Shelby pull up your shirts and rub your bellys together, it must be your secret language. You refuse to use the bathroom at school, but you have learned to nap on your mat at nap time.

 

You've done a lot of traveling this year, so much I can't really keep track. You were awesome during our week at Disney World, you just took in all the sights and chaos. We made a couple of trips to the beach, we did lots of camping, you went to Arizona and I'm sure there are some places I'm forgetting. You've pretty much been in tow since you were born, you've taken to it well and are usually happy to be drug along.

 

I'm so lucky to get to be you and Maggie's Mommy. Even on the days you make me crazy, I wouldn't change it for the world. You bring energy and spunk to our family and I couldn't love you more.

 

I'm excited to see what the two's bring to you....I hope we can avoid the "terribles" and just keep on laughing.

 

Happy Birthday Silly Girl!

I love and adore you,

Mommy

 

Busy, Busy, Busy....

What a week we've had (so far) and the fun will just continue! I have a lot to cover in this post, so be ready to keep up :)

We started out the week with Passover at Grandma and Pops' house. The Seder was abridged and Pops always keeps it moving :) Probably best with 3 toddlers and a 4 year old at the table.

After dinner, Gracie and Maggie talked Pops into joining them in
their fort.

Cooper and Ella gave Gracie a couple of early Birthday presents. I'm pretty
sure she's thought the entire week has been a celebration of her birthday.

Tuesday night we went back to Grandma and Pops for more playtime with Cooper and Ella and more birthday presents for Gracie....

 

The suitcase and rain boots were a hit (she's worn/pulled them everywhere since).

Gracie is happy to tell anyone who wants to know that
she's about to be TWO!!!! and that it's "Gracie Birthday".

This is almost a good picture of all 4 kids :)

On Wednesday, Gracie and I ran some errands and got ready for the second half of the week, while Maggie went to school....

Gracie really loves to color these days, we're trying to teach her to
focus on the paper (not the tile!)

After school we headed for Lincoln to help celebrate Gramma Lea's 80th Birthday! What a special day!

Gramma Lea has 22 Grand and Great Grand kids, 15 of us were able to be there to share her special day.

Maggie has been practicing her magic trick, so she did a little show for us. Papa has a theater in his basement, Maggie
went down to practice her trick (and I think she hoped to do her show on the stage)....do you remember the movie BIG, and the head that talked in the glass fortune teller box? Papa has one of those heads, with a motion sesonor on it, in a glass box on the back of the stage....Maggie climbed on stage (in a half lit room) to do her trick, that head started talking in it's box, she freaked, jumped down all the steps and cleared the door in about .2 seconds. I really wish I had been taping it. These are the kinds of things you can't explain to a therapist later in life. Maggie told my mom the story when we got here, Mom laughed, Maggie looked up, in all seriousness, and said "why are you laughing?"

Everyone helped Gramma Lea blow out the candles.

"Go ahead Gracie, stick your finger in."

"or take a whole big red flower..."

The frosting looks like clown make-up, how fitting at Papa's house.

And just in case, a little more frosting :)

All that frosting kept the girls running for awhile, we made it to Grandma & Grandpas house and finally to bed about 10:45. We had such a great time and were so happy to be able to celebrate with Gramma Lea.

They SELL horses?

Maggie and I have been reading the Little House on the Prairie books at bedtime. Saturday night she realized that in the book we're reading (Farmer Boy) the dad raises and trains horses and then sells them. She stopped me mid-sentence, and said "MOM, people sell horses?" I said yes. I told her that Pa trained colts to be good horses and sold them just like Valente, her trainer in Mexico. She obviously had NO idea that Valente sold horses. We read a little further, then she stopped me again and said "he won't sell Shakira will he?". I told her I hoped not. Then she had a brilliant idea, "what if I save my allowance, then I'll buy Shakira and a horse trailer and a truck." I told her if she saved enough money to buy Shakira, she could use daddy's truck.  I hope that was a safe promise....at $2.25 a week, she'd need like 20 years worth of allowance, so I think we're ok.

 

It was a pretty quiet weekend around here (well actually it's never quiet around here...but you know what I mean). The girls were really excited because Grandma Betti was in Nebraska and Brandon made a surprise visit.

 

Today is the start of a really busy week....Passover, Gramma Lea turns 80, Gracie's Birthday and Easter....whew! I'm going to need a nap by next Monday.

 

 

Despite the look on her face, Maggie was really excited about putting Elsie to sleep.

Friday night we went to movie night at church. We had a great time, with
great friends. (In this picture: Will & Danica Sheppard, Grace & Maggie, JJ & Carly Ries)

Before we left home Gracie hauled out her pajamas and asked to wear them...
seemed like a good idea, until we got there and she didn't want to run around with
the other kids because she wasn't wearing shoes.

Teach em' young. Brandon was trying to teach Maggie to fold laundry.
He might need an iron this week :)

On Saturday, Maggie sat Gracie down in the puppy chair to "have a chat about
her attitude." After I took this picture she closed the doors so I couldn't listen.

Yesterday Maggie "locked" Grace in the basement shower. From my office
I heard, "Gracie, it's jail time. You just do it. No whining!" Maybe she's not learning
exactly what we hoped at preschool?