All About Grace

Grace turned 2 1/2 this month! I told her it was her half birthday since she is always talking about her first birthday. So what has Grace been up to? She is in the pool probably 4-5 times every week!She has a book about a little boy or wants a nickname so she thought she needed one too. So she decided her nickname was Fish. She is getting really good at swimming with her puddle jumper. Sometimes she forgets she doesn't have it on (and one day she forgot she didn't even have her bathing suit on and we were just putting our feet in) and takes off and swims like a rock. She never wants to get out of the pool! She will take a break for her Oreo dippers. And then with a little convincing she will get out to come inside to swipe one of Grandpa's skinny cow ice cream treats. She also likes to put on her lounge clothes when she gets out of the pool.

And this is just her little backyard pool. She does all of her swimming in Grandma's BIG pool!

She is such a funny girl. And she is so smart! She can count (I have no idea how high she can actually count but at least somewhere in the teens), she can spell her name, she knows shapes, colors, letters. This year we are going to start pre-school! We are going to homeschool the girls and it will be fun to get started with out first year.

We spent one day at home and pulled out some shaving cream. It was a mess but also a lot of fun!

Grace loves to play with other kids. Especially kids who are a few years older than her. She loves to go to church and see all of her friends there. She is constantly talking about all of her friends. Nations of Fun is always a lot more fun when she finds a friend to help her get to the places she is not tall enough to reach.

Grace is VERY independent too. She always wants to dress herself (and she can do it very well!). Sometimes she will be wearing her clothes backwards or inside out or her shoes on the wrong feet. She does know right and left though but still gets the shoes on wrong occasionally. She has a name for every pair of shoes. She has her running shoes, her Grandma shoes (New Balance and they have an "N" on them like Grandma's), her crocs, her princess sandals, her Brandy shoes, her Uncle Deuce boots, her water sandals, and swimming shoes....

And she loves to wear her hair in pigtails with big, pretty bows.

One of the funny things she tells us is "No, I'm not beautiful yet" when we haven't fixed her hair and put her hairbows in.

Tallest Hop Scotch Mountain

Every time we drive into town we pass by (in the distance) Mt. Scott. Grace loves to point out "tallest mountain" (there is a Dora episode where they have to get to tallest mountain) and talk about climbing to the top of it. We drove to the top of it earlier this year but it was too cold and windy to climb. We decided to take her over Memorial day weekend when the weather was a lot nicer. I told her we were going to Mt. Scott and she though I said "scotch." Hop Scotch is a new game she likes to play so she started calling Mt. Scott "Tallest Hop Scotch Mountain"

She did a pretty good job climbing!

And afterwards we cooled off in the pool!

Oklahoma Science Museum

We decided to go to OKC for a nice dinner out to celebrate our anniversary earlier this month.

A trip to OKC is too long for us to leave Olivia behind so we decided to take the girls and make a fun trip out of it. We spent the morning at the science museum, ate lunch at BJ's, got frozen custard at Freddy's, shopped a little at Babies R Us before heading home. We took a little detour and drove through a town that had recently been hit with a tornado to see the damage. Both girls were so worn out that they slept the entire way back! And the fun (at least for Grace) didn't stop. We stopped by my parents' house so Dustin could help build the deck and Grace got to go swimming!

Face Painting - Grace had a pretty red heart on her face all day!

Bubbles!!!!

In the BIG tractor

Seg Way ride

Climbing the ladder in the firehouse

This little one loves to chew on her fists!

There were lots of airplanes!!

And a dinosaur

Somebody was a happy girl :-)

We had a great little day trip and I am sure we will be taking a few field trips back to the science museum!

Catch Up

We have had a fun and busy month. I am so behind on blogging and I have had a request to update more often. To start off this month, my best friend was here visiting from Germany. Her and her baby (who is now almost 11 months old already!!!) came mid-April and her husband came around the first of June. We "met" when we stepped off the plane in Okinawa over 3 years ago!! She grew up in the same town I did so when we said goodbye in Okinawa over 2 years ago we knew we would still see each other again. They asked Dustin and I to be Godparents to their sweet little girl and we attended her baptism at their home church. The next evening we had them over for dinner (I made indian tacos - the cultural food!) and we had a yummy cake from Johnson's bakery.

A few days later, on the 9th, we celebrated our anniversary (4 years!). That day was also Dustin's change of command. After the change of command ceremony we had Billy Sim's BBQ cater lunch for everyone. I am not a fan of BBQ but Billy Sim's is the one place that I actually like to eat on occasion. We also heard they are putting one in just about 2 miles down the road from us. The following Saturday we headed to OKC for a nice lunch out and some fun at the science museum (check back in a day or two - I have a post coming on that!).

Father's Day weekend was spent on a Chaplain's retreat. We headed to Grapevine, TX (about 3 hours from here) and stayed at the Gaylord Texan. We had a really nice little weekend and enjoyed some time at the pools (and at the mall!).

This past weekend was the first weekend this month that we didn't have plans on Saturday. We ended up taking a drive to see some of the damage from a big fire that started on a range on post and caused a small town to be evacuated. We also made a stop at the Redbox for a movie to watch. Sunday we headed back to OKC for the Barnum & Bailey Circus! Grace loves anything to do with the circus (especially clowns that can juggle) so when we heard they were going to be nearby we knew we had to go.

And during the week this month we have spent a lot of time at my parents' house enjoying their new pool. I think Grace's favorite things to do are 1) Swim in Grandma's pool and 2) Go to Nations of Fun with Grandma. Grace is turning into a little fish (and getting a nice little suntan!) I have a couple of posts scheduled this week about some of the fun we have been having so be on the lookout!

Olivia is 4 Months Old!

This little girl is 4 months old today!!

She just has the biggest smile ever! And she is a really good baby. She hardly ever cries and is just so calm and sweet. She is such a happy girl too!

She loves her big sister! Nobody else can get get her to laugh like her sister can.

She just keeps getting bigger everyday.

Now she is wearing size 1-2 diapers and 3-6 month clothes.

I have no idea what she weighs or her height. We are on the wait list for her 4 month well baby check-up so after that I will know for sure.

Grace and Olivia at 3 months

Some of my favorite pictures of Grace as a baby were taken at 3 months. I really wanted to do the same pictures for Olivia. My Mom set up the same blanket and backdrop we used for Grace's picture so we could take Olivia's picture on the day she turned 3 months old.

This pink dress was Grace's first Easter dress. I found a dress made out of the same fabric just a few weeks ago in Grace's size so they wore matching dresses on Mother's Day!

And for some reason this was my favorite picture for the longest time! I just love the little black and white dress.
So now that their pictures are side by side, can you guess which one is Grace and which one is Olivia? I don't think they look that much alike at all!