NEW HOUSE!!!

I know many of you know that we recently purchased a new home. I have to clean my house, then take some pictures, but hopefully I'll have them up soon!

Thanksgiving...

I got my beautiful baby all dressed up and ready for Thanksgiving and when I went to find her to take her picture, here's where she was! So HAPPY THANKSGIVING from Grace and Roxy.

Grace riding her bike on a chilly day. Rick calls her the little Russian girl in this get up.
Our dog? Part human? (so she thinks)

Potty Time!

Well I decided to take Grace's Royal Potty out of the box and leave it in the bathroom so she can start to get used to it. That night she wanted to use it, so I took off her diaper and told her to sit. That was not enough. She wanted her pants, diaper, t-shirt and sweater off to use the potty. Shoes were OK though. So she sat on the potty for 1 minute and then ran around the house naked for about 10. After the 10 minutes I thought, "I better get her diaper back on unless I want pee pee all over my new house." I told her to sit once more so I could snap a photo and when she got up to put her diaper back on I saw a little puddle in the potty! She actually went pee pee the first time! It was so random and funny. We did a big celebration and she got to put tp in the big potty (special treat). Since this day, no potty has taken place. The Royal Potty just ends up in random places around my house and she now thinks it's a great place to put her babies. But at least it's out of the box. One step at a time!

This is the night Grace pulled "the old marker without a cover that I had thrown away" out of the trash. I found her very quietly "coloring."

Grace and Daddy in Maine.

Baby...

Grace has started to LOVE her baby. She sleeps with her and plays with her most of the day. She usually has a dish towel as well that is the blankie. It's amazing to see the growth in this little person. It's also amazing to see the amount of information she absorbs through watching us all day.

This is usually how she pushes the baby around. I love my dauther... what a riot!

A Day in the Life of Grace...

Grace now has her own playlist on You Tube. It has lots of great songs like Twinkle Twinkle, Old MacDonald, and Jesus Loves Me. She sits there and watches the screen while resting her hand on the mouse. It's really cute.

This is how I found Cinderella one day. She was playing with the mop outside on the deck... then it became really quite and this is what I found. Dish cloth in one hand, bubby in the other and mop laid to rest. It was funny!

And here we have some good times dancing. She actually has some pretty good moves, but this is the phase where she was finguring out how to jump... she has now mastered that pretty well.

Grace's First Haircut!

We went to Lake City Reflections to get Grace's first haircut. She did very well. She sat on Mommy's lap and wiggled minimally! We cut a few bangs and she has a blunt cut all the way around. It's really cute, it's kind of a little page boy cut. I love it, it's kind of retro...

Fall Is Here!

Lots of changes have been happening with the Kelly's. We sold our condo on September 29th and we're now in transition until we move into our new house. If all goes correctly, we will be in there by the end of the month. Grace is now 18 months old and is really starting to babble. She will say Mommy, Mommy, Mama, blablablablablablabl. It's really cute. Her favorite words are bubby (bottle) and poppy (puppy). She can also now say Bumpa (grandpa) It's so funny. She was in for her check up and the doctor thinks she's a little on the skinny side now....this is almost laughable to anyone who saw Grace as a baby. Now that she's running all day, she's really turning into a little girl. She doesn't quite have that baby look any longer. Here are a few recent pictures...

Grace wearing daddy's hat.

Enjoying a popsicle on a warm end-of-summer day.

Apple picking in Sandwich, NH 2008.

Catching Up!

I don't know what has happened to the summer. I know just about everyone feels the same way. It's such a lovely but brief season it seems, but the good news is that fall in New England is amazing! I realized I really needed to do an update about little Gracie. Grace is now close to 18 months and true to form! She has begun to climb whenever she can. She climbs on the oven drawer handle, the dishwasher door, the outside of the stairs, chairs if they're left out, and the second she hears the tiniest noise upstairs, she wiggles her way through the gate and on up. Thankfully she is still in her crib however. She loves to play outside and to swim. We've also been going to the gym where Grace goes to child care while I work out. It's been great for her, she loves being with the other kids. Her diet is pretty varied for an 18 month old. She likes cereal, oatmeal, yogurt, cottage cheese, soups, macaroni (anything that she can do herself!) as well as all fruit I've tried, peas, stewed vegetables, tofu, and meat sometimes. She's still not a huge meat fan but we have crossed over to whole milk land. She will now drink it on occasion with chocolate syrup only of course! She has slimmed out like crazy and at this point I'm supposed to try to beef her up a little. Hard to beef up a busy toddler though! Her sleeping is great now except for the past week or so. We found out that she has swimmer's ear, so we'll let the sleeping thing slide for now. She was pretty spoiled over the summer having both uncle Tim and Cal here. She got a good fair share of Mr. Freezes, pudding, and ice cream... all things that she has not had since they left:) She saying more and more words everyday. She now says Mama, Dada, ahhpy(which is either Roxy or puppy, they are interchangeable), Ya You (love you), shish (goldfish), ps (please), ack you (thank you), bye bye, aboo (peek-a-boo), ook (book), and her new favorite is quack quack. We saw a duck in her book the other night and I said, "Quack, Quack," now we do not even read the book anymore. We get to the duck page and say Quack Quack for a few minutes and then go to bed. Her favorite book right now is a nursery rhyme book that Grandma Ryan gave to her.

Here are a few highlights from the summer:

**The other night I was coming home and Grace was in her car seat. I could see her in the rear view mirror and I said "Grace, do you know Mommy loves you?" She got a huge smile and frantically shook her head yes. I cried of course, because what could be better in this life than to know that your child knows you love them!

**She is now actively involved in seeing Daddy off to work. She says "Ya You" numerous times, gives kisses, then stands at the screen door yelling Ya You to Daddy. Talk about melting Daddy's heart.

**Grace also has many different dance moves for all types/rhythms of music. Sometimes we even catch her lip syncing.

Well I guess that's all for now. This documenting is not to bore you all if you've actually read this far... it's more a journal for me to remember. So thanks for taking the time.

Ice Cream Treat!

Grace still loves her puppy, Roxy! Grace now sits on her and tries to cover her with my dish towels to play peek-a-boo.

Our Weekend in the Berkshires...

We went to the Berkshires in MA for a weekend in August. We had a great time just hanging out at the resort mostly. Rick, Pete, and PaPa played a little golf as well. We were joined also by Aunt Marie and Aunt Eleanor from NY. It was wonderful getting to spend some time with these two! Unfortunately I'm not very good I guess in capturing all the memories on camera, because I do not have one picture of the Aunts.
This is Matt jumping on the giant trampoline. He was even able to do some flips once he got going! There were other activities at the resort as well. We did an Alpine Slide, Rollercoaster, jumpy house (Faith only), and the spider web (Pauline and Matt).

Here's Matt by the "electric windmill" (as he informed me, smart little thing he is!) It's call the Zephyr and it's the only privately owned windmill in the US. It produces 100% of the energy needed for the summer activities at the resort, and 33% year round. We took a ski lift to the top of this peak and then hiked over to this lookout location. It was really amazing! Below are pics of us on the ride up, at the summit, and the view going down.

Here's a few of the kids enjoying the hot tub. (Toes only of course!)

And last but not least, my little peanut spit and all!

Grace and Isaac's days...

Here's Grace and Isaac shopping with me. Isaac is attached to the handle of the shopping cart and you can see the candy on the floor that he managed to pull off the shelf very quickly!!!

Cooling off in the smallest pool I've ever seen! It works perfect though.

Here's some community snack time...

A day at the park... Grace was laughing in the car with Matt until I got the camera, then she wanted out!

Here's Grace wearing Isaac's t-shirt because we didn't have extra clothes with us one day.

Summer Fun...

Well it's been a while, but here are some pictures of our visit with Calvin, Tim and Casey. We did a lot of fun things, including a few trips to the ocean in Maine. We also hiked up Mount Major. Calvin was a rockstar hiking up the entire mountain with Grace on his back. Casey then hiked down hill with her and never lost his footing once...Thanks Casey. We had a really fun week as you can see.

Grace & Grandma

I just found this picture on my camera and have to say it's a good one!

Boating with Grandpa...

Grandpa so happy with his new boat!

Grace and Mommy on the boat

Calvin, Grace and Erica sitting on the beach

Lunch break

Grace is sleeping under that hat!

Grace is Loving Grampa and Gramma's

Grace and Jenn went to MN for a visit. You can see Grace is having a very fun time playing with all the toys at Gram and Gramp's house. She has been running through the house and through the lawns just squeeling. Last night G & G watched her and they took her for a walk. They did not however require her to ride in the stroller, so she was in her glory running down the sidewalk.