Learning to Pray

We have been teaching Grace how to pray.

Before dinner we tell her it is time to pray and she bows her head and closes her eyes. Most of the time she we reach for one of our hands so we can all hold hands and pray.

{I just had to get a picture of her "bowing her head and closing her eyes"}

And then she always finishes by saying "Men"

Time at the Park

Dustin had the day off yesterday so we got to extend the weekend a little. We ran quite a few errands but made sure we made time for some fun! Grace always gets so excited anytime she sees a swing or playground.

First we spent some time on the swings. This is probably Grace's favorite part of going to the park!

And, of course, we had to climb and slide. Sorry, we didn't get any pictures of her on the slide.

The she did a little bird chasing (If there is a bird anywhere nearby she is going to spot it first!) and some flower picking.

And then she made a little friend.

It all started when he gave her a flower that he had picked.

Then they started picking flowers together.

Sand Toys

Yesterday we had hoped to take Grace to the beach and let her test our her new floaty. However the weather did not cooperate so we just ended up putting on sweatshirts and letting her play in the sand. First we started off at the swing set and then let her go down the slide. After getting to the slide she decided that she wanted to run and play! Then she found the sand. She filled her sand bucket up by using her shovel. She covered her legs in sand then started to cover my toes in sand. After about an hour at the beach I walked over to the beach restaurant and ordered us a pizza.

And, as usual, we forgot our camera.

Expanding Vocabulary

Grace's vocabulary has been expanding pretty quickly lately. Just today we were walking to the gym and I was letting her pick flowers. She saw a rock and picked it up to show me and said "ROCK" I was pretty impressed because we haven't talked about rocks since last weekend!

I am going to list the words that she says now pretty regularly, or at least all of them I can think of!

Rock

Flower

Bird

Dog

Go

Wow

Hi

Bye

Ball

Hat

Help

Up

Down

Paci

Hot

Cold

No

Elmo

Dora

Cup

Water

Wet

Bert

Ernie

Car

Boat

More

Amen

Slide

Outside

Banana

Chip

Cookie

In

Shoe

Ew

I am sure there are more that I am just not thinking of now. But one of the cutest things she says is yesterday we were on our way home and I kept asking "Who is your best friend?" and every time she would reply "MAG!" That is how she says Maggie. At the gym this morning Maggie kept pointing to herself and asking Grace "Who is this?" or asking me to have her say Maggie. She would laugh every time Grace would say her name which made Grace keep repeating herself!

Giveaways!

There are several giveaways out there in blog land that I thought I would share with all of you.

First off, I know of 3, yes THREE, bloggers hosting a giveaway for a book and a $50 VISA gift card. The book looks like a great read about a Navy wife.

Click on the following links to find out how you could enter to win.

A Yummy Mummy on a Pink Park Bench

The Unexpected Army Life

Julie the Army Wife

And then over at A Southern Belle and Her Officer, she is giving away some Scentsy to a military spouse. Check her out to see how you could win!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Hope you like your cake!

Catch Up

It has been almost a week since I have blogged so I have a bit of catching up to do. Last week was very uneventful and seemed to fly by. However we had a very busy weekend. We kept our friends James and Kelly's little girl Maggie who is 2 1/2. You have probably all seen pictures of her on here in the past because she is Grace's very best friend (and they are our very best friends too!). They wanted to have a little get-away to celebrate their anniversary before "Little Sister" makes her appearance next month so we agreed to keep Maggie for 2 nights!

Grace was SO excited to see Maggie on Friday evening. She was just finishing up dinner when Maggie got here and since we had the patio door open we could hear them and Grace decided she HAD to be done right then because Maggie was here. So they played and Maggie ate and then they played a little more before we put on our jammies and read a few bedtime stories.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early and they played some more.

Around 8:45 we left for the beach and the playground. We went to Araha beach, which we have not been to in about 2 years! They have a neat pirate ship that was fun to play on. It was a little scary too once you got to the top!

The girls enjoyed the little pirate ship (or as Maggie decided to call it "Sail Boat") a little more than the big one!

In the next two pictures you can see the BIG pirate ship! There was a zip-line on the other side that the girls got to swing on.

And then we went back to the "sail boat"

We let the girls walk down to the beach and play in the sand and get their feet wet. They, of course, loved it!

Then we decided that maybe it was time to go buy Grace a pool for this year. The one she had last year got a hole in the bottom and it is too small for her this year. So we had to find a place to clean off our feet so we could load up in my school bus and go buy a pool and ice cream making stuff.

We had carried Grace and Maggie up from the beach and so we put Maggie in the stroller since she is heavier and they were both barefoot. Then Grace wanted to ride! Maggie said it was uncomfortable so we ended up putting Maggie's shoes on so she could walk.

When we got home it was time to make homemade bread! The girls had a good time stirring the dough and Maggie is such a good helper in the kitchen. She poured in ALL of the ingredients until it was time for the flour and I let the stand mixer do the work.

But after it was all mixed up Grace and Maggie each got their own dough to knead and then we put it in a bowl to rise. While we waited for it to rise we all ate lunch. After lunch we put the bread in the pans. The girls each got to make their very own little loaf and then we made a dozen rolls and another loaf of bread.

While the girls napped we set up the new pool! They had to wait to get in so we could put hot water from the sink in it to warm it up.

Once they got in they stayed in for probably an hour! We had to finally make them get out because Grace was starting to shiver.

They had so much fun that we let them get back in the pool on Sunday morning! And it just so happened that I mistakenly bought 2 bathing suits that were matching when they were on clearance for $1 last year. They just so happened to fit Grace and Maggie this year!

After we were done swimming the girls played while Dustin and I made dinner. Dustin grilled and after dinner we made ice cream! James and Kelly called to talk to Maggie while we were making ice cream and she kept saying "we are making ice cream" over and over.

Sunday morning we let them swim again but spent the rest of the day at home. They got to watch Dora and eat their snack which they thought was pretty cool.

Maggie went home around 2:30 and then we ended up just going to the PX to get a cover for the pool and decided to just eat out so we wouldn't have to spend any more time in the kitchen. Between picking up the toys, cleaning the kitchen, making bread and ice cream plus several meals, all while entertaining two toddlers was exhausting. It definitely makes me want to sort through the toys and either get rid of some or hide some to rotate out... maybe both!

Grace enjoyed having Maggie over but I think she was glad to not have to share her Mommy and Daddy once Maggie went home!

All Star

Grace got a basketball goal yesterday. She was enjoying the basketball court at church on Sunday so we thought maybe she needed some type of sport equipment. After I got it put together she played with it until I made her lunch!

SLAM DUNK!

Easter

We had a wonderful Easter despite the rain. Our plan was to go to Phil and Jacquelyn's for breakfast and then color eggs and let Grace hunt eggs in their backyard. Since it was raining most of the day we hid the eggs inside instead! Grace did a great job finding all of the 66 eggs. I think she only left one behind!

That afternoon we headed to church for an Easter celebration. They grilled ribs, chicken, burgers and hot dogs and there was lots of other food and desserts. They even had an indoor Easter egg hunt for the kids. We didn't know they were going to be doing that and left the camera in the car and didn't have time to get it until after the egg hunt was over. Dustin barely made it with Grace's basket in time. After the egg hunt one of the ladies told the Easter story to all of the kids using Easter eggs. She had numbered the eggs and then passed them out and asked the kids to open them one at a time. Each egg had something to remind us about the Easter story.

This year was so much more fun since Grace was actually able to hunt the eggs herself. Even with the rain we had a great day!

{Looks like the Easter Bunny came!}

{Lots of candy}

{checking out her basket}

{New beach toys}

{Oooh... CHOCOLATE!}

{the cupcakes I made... copied off of Kelly and Maggie!}

{dying eggs}

{So messy!}

{pretty eggs}

{being goofy}

{hunting for eggs}

{prize egg!}

{Another prize egg!}

{All of her eggs}

{Grace started playing in the cooler and before long there were about 6 other kids playing with her!}

Happy Easter!

Tomorrow is Easter and it looks as if we are going to have a busy day. We are having breakfast at a friends house in the morning. After breakfast we are going to hide some eggs for Grace and then we are going to dye our own eggs! Sometime in there we will have to put Grace down for a nap (I have the pack-n-play ready to go) so she will be ready for a church BBQ in the afternoon.

This evening we went to another friends house for steak and potatoes. I spent a good portion of the morning in the kitchen baking all sorts of yummy things for the different things we have going on. I made cookies and cupcakes for today and cookies and puppy chow for the church BBQ. The cupcakes I made turned out really cute but I don't have a picture since the cameras are in the car. Maybe I will take a picture of the two I have saved for the friends we are visiting tomorrow. I copied Maggie's cupcakes that she brought over yesterday for us - green coconut for grass and jelly beans as eggs!

Tonight it was a little late when we were putting Grace to bed but we decided to go ahead and read her a bedtime story. I thought it was only fitting to read the Easter Story to her since tomorrow is Easter. On every page she would point to the picture of Jesus and say "Jesus"

And now I am going to share this picture with you. It only took me close to an hour to get this on here. I lost the CD for the printer/scanner so I had to find a download for the driver then figure out how to get the photo into a format that blogger would recognize. That took uploading it to facebook and then saving it from there. Hopefully I find an easier way the next time I need to scan something. And the reason it had to be scanned was we were in the BX and Grace surprised us by actually sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap! We just decided we would walk by to see what she would do expecting to just wave and say hi since the weekend before she cried when the Easter Bunny was walking down the aisle she was on. I think the fact that he had candy might have played a role in convincing her that he wasn't so bad. She even clapped her hands and waved to us! And we didn't have our camera so the only picture we got was the one they printed off for us there.

Sorry for the bad quality but this is the best I can do.

Little Artist

The other day we received a few boxes in the mail. Grace's new Elmo DVD, an Easter package from her Grandma, and a box of things I bought in the states that wouldn't fit in my suitcase. We had picked up some window crayolas at Wal-Mart and decided to let Grace try them out. We had a great time drawing on our backdoor!

A Walk to the Park

Today has been a nice day. The weather was beautiful and sunny! Grace and I went to the gym and she enjoyed playing which isn't always the case. After the gym we headed home for lunch and a nap. As soon as she was up from her nap we were out the door to meet Dustin as he was getting off of work and we took a nice long walk on base. We stopped at one of the school playgrounds and Grace had blast. I think her favorite is the swings! We left in such a hurry that I forgot to take the camera so we didn't get any pictures. Maybe next time.