Grace and Her Walker

This one if for Grandma Roundy.  Grace has taken steps on her own and continues to do more and more but she stills prefer to walk with assistance which means we do endless laps around the living room so I am grateful for this toy.  At first she was afraid of it, but now she is really enjoying it. 

Grace Loves Water!

It was pretty warm the other day and Grace wanted to be out, but we were trying to get things done at home so didn't feel like taking her to the waterpark (which she loves) so we just blew up the little pool Grandma got her and let her play outside.  She loves to just sit and splash.

And she has no fear of sticking her face in the water.  Not sure, but maybe she has been watching Olympic swimming too much.

Here is a quick video of her excited in the pool.

Harvest Time is Here!

 As a kid/teenage I can't really remember an August that wasn't spent canning.  We had a huge garden and lots of fruit trees so there was a lot to do.  I remember a hot sticky kitchen and making a huge mess to fill the food storage room in the garage.  Amazingly enough, they are good memories of time spent with my mom and sisters in the kitchen.

Since then I haven't canned a thing!  I may buy some extra something and freeze it but that has been it.  I was always too busy with school/work or didn't really have room for food storage.  I started getting more serious about food storage when I bought my house in Aurora, but it was just me and I worked to much to can anything so I would just buy extra groceries and store then on a shelf in the basement.

Last summer was our first attempt at a garden.  It did produce well, but I had a baby at the end of July so I didn't really do much with it besides freeze some of the vegetables.  But this year I was gonna get serious.  So last week I got started and here is what I did.

1 batch pickles (cucumbers from my garden)

1 batch pesto (basil from my garden)

6 dozen ears of corn (from a local farmer)

36 pound of pears (were on sale at a local store)

1 batch beets (from my garden, aren't they pretty?)

1/4 bushel peaches (from a local store)

There was also some rhubarb jam with rhubarb from the garden, it is yummy stuff.  I need to do more this week.

And right when I thought I was done Eric suggested we go out to the garden and this is what we came in with.  Bell pepper, jalepeno peppers, chili Peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, pear tomatoes, roma tomatoes, and Italian tomates.   

So I guess I am doing salsa and pickles this week.

Eric's Birthday

This one if for Eric's mom.  Eric's birthday is 4 days after Grace's.  It is an eventful day for our families.  Eric shares his birthday with my mother and both of them were born on their parent's wedding anniversaries.  Eric was really hoping that Grace would be born on his birthday too, but I like that she gets her own day.

His birthday was on Sunday so it was really a normal Sunday. When he got home we had a good birthday dinner and Eric got the one thing he really wanted; an ice cream cake.  We talked with family.  My whole family sang to him viz skype while they were at my parent's house for my mom's birthday dinner.  It was a nice relaxing day and it means Eric is five years older than me for the next three months which I really enjoy.

Twelve Months

Time for Grace's final onesie picture.  

Grace is officially one year old!  That year went so fast!  It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we brought home our little tiny baby girl. 

And now she is all grown up!  She took her first steps a couple days ago.  She has been crawling around everywhere and cruises along all the furniture in the house.  She gets so excited for dad to come home; she makes he run laps with her around the living room.  She is just such a happy child and loves people! (and they tend to love her)

Grace has mastered her basketball hoop and is working on her building skills.  She is SO busy with toys and playing and LOVES books!  She goes into her room and sits at the bookcase and pulls our books and looks at them constantly.  I hope she keeps that one up.

Just a couple more pictures ... the first one is from the 4th of July (I never posted) and the second is just her when she wakes up ... she can't leave her crib without bringing and animal or a blanket with her.

We LOVE this little girl!  Happy birthday Gracie!

Grace's Birthday Pictures

On the day before her birthday I took Grace to a local portrait studio to have some pictures taken.  It was much more of an experience than I would have imagined it would be.  My typically ultra friendly, super hammy baby totally went blank in front of the camera.  It took a lot of prodding to get her to smile much at all (if you spend much time with her you will know that this is not her disposition at all).

Then, shocker of all shockers, at one point when we have her standing up next to this block, Grace turns to me and takes two steps all on her own to get to me!  Grace took her first steps right then and there!!  I about fell over I was so shocked.  Pretty sure the photo guy didn't know what to do with either of us at that point.  That was all the walking that she did there, but it was amazing!  She did do a couple more for daddy that night so he didn't totally miss out.

North Carolina Vacation

For our summer vacation this year we went to the Outer Banks of North Carolina with Eric's family.  It was our first attempt at a long road trip with Gracie (21 hours of driving over 2 days).  Poor Grace was teething and not too happy about being in the car all day.  

On the way there we were able to stop and spend the night with my brother Ricky, his wife Julie and their son Jack.  We had not gotten to see Jack yet, so it was fun to go meet him and introduce him to Gracie.  They are only 3 months apart so they are each others closest cousins in age.  This is them right before we left for church in the morning.

We stayed in Frisco, NC which is on Hatteras Island.  While there we visited the Hatteras lighthouse which is the tallest lighthouse of the 5 that are on the Outer Banks.  You can still climb this one, Eric and I did, supposedly it is the same as a twelve story building.  I have to admit I was out of breath by the time we reached the top.  It was a muggy day, but we could still see pretty far.  Gracie hung out at the bottom with Grandma and Grandpa.

Over by the Hatteras beach access there is a large pond that has lots of turtles.  People have apparently been feeding them over the years because when you pull up and get out and walk over to the pond they swim over to come see you.  Here are Eric and Gracie checking out the turtles ... I had no idea what this was leading to.

Another site that had to be seen during our visit was at Kitty Hawk where they have the Wright Brother's Memorial. 

Gracie with Grandpa.

We stayed in a beach house that was just 5 or 6 houses in from the beach.  Grace loves water and decided she loved the ocean and sand too.  Here she is playing in the sand with Grandma.

Grace LOVED the water!!  Here is a fun little video of her running into the waves.

On our last full day there we took the ferry to Ocracoke Island.  Here is our little family riding the ferry ... the car is on the other side of the boat somewhere.

While there we visited the Ocracoke lighthouse.  You can't climb this one, but it was fun to see.  Grace saw it with Grandma and Grandpa.

Eric and I tagged along.

While on the island we went looking for a souvenir.  We introduced her to all sorts of cute little stuffed animals and she just threw them all away.  That was until she found the giant turtle.  She clung to him and wouldn't let go ... she still hasn't ... she sleeps with him now.  

We took a quick family picture before we left.  It was a really fun vacation, Grace learned lots of new things and we got to relax and see some new places (well new to Grace and I, Eric and his family had been there before).

Lucky for us Grace did much better in the car on the drive home.