Gracee birthday wish from Ohma

Gracee loved her birthday message from Ohma. She sat and played it over and over and would sing to it and even blow kisses back- so precious.

Gracee's 2nd Birthday!

Gracee's birthday party was so much fun! We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day down at the farm. A big thanks to Grandpa Ted for assisting in making the lunch, giving all the horse rides, and letting us use the farm to host the birthday party- what a fun place to have a birthday party!

A look back- Gracee's 1st Birthday!

Here is looking back on Gracee's 1st birthday- Prior to the big birthday bash, Gracee had been starting to take a few steps here and there, but still preferred to crawl almost ever where she went. But at her birthday party, all of that changed. As soon as we put the tutu on that Becka gave her, she would stand up and walk from Sierra to me and then back to Sierra. It was so cute! Earlier that day we had taken the girls to Disney on Ice- Disney Princesses, so Gracee didn't get a nap in before her big party. She was so tired by the time she got her cake that she didn't know what to do. She would grab the cake and squish it in her hand and then cry, think about it some, look at her hand and cry some more. So after a few minutes, Grandma Toots started putting her pacifier in the frosting and then gave it to her and that made things all better. What an exciting 1st birthday!

Baby Gracee!

Can you believe it has already been 2 years! Here are some pictures that were taken when Gracee was just three weeks old- Our sweet, sweet baby!

Elly having fun at Preschool!

Elly really loves to go to preschool and can't wait to start Kindergarten this fall. Where has the time gone? Elly gets to do lots of fun things at preschool and brings home all sorts of creations-some are even edible. Yum! The first two pictures are from Mixed Up Monday that was on March 2nd. Everyone was to come to class with their clothes mismatched, backwards, inside out, etc and Elly really got into it. I gave her some ideas, but she came up with most of them. She had a toothbrush and sock stuck in her hair, her shirt inside out, her swimsuit on over her shirt, mismatched socks and shoes, and a robe on for a coat. She even won a prize for being the most mixed up- some Tinkerbell fairy glitter. She was very proud of herself. The next two pictures are of her Humpty Dumpty edible creation. I thought it looked so cute that I just had to take a picture of it.

Gracee loves Elmo!

Here is Gracee watching Elmo in our bedroom. Almost everytime she watches Elmo this is the set-up. She gets all her Elmos together to either watch "Elmo's Potty Time" or "Elmo Loves You". (We ended up getting "Elmo Loves You" after she wouldn't stop watching "Elmo's Potty Time". See Gracee's potty training post to find out more.)

You Go Girl!

Here is a picture of Gracee going potty on the big girl potty in style! She loves her pink cowboy boots that are a hand me down from big sister Elly. She loves them so much that she wears them all around the house and even on the potty! Gracee is growing up so fast. She started wanting to go potty on her little potty at about 18 months and would join anyone that was in the potty. She really liked to sit on her little potty when Elly would go potty- Elly wasn't as fond of this type of sister bonding as Gracee was. The thing that surprised me is that Gracee would actually pee in the potty when she sat on it- almost every time. So I contemplated whether to put her in underwear or pull-ups, or what would be the next best step in our potty training adventure. Then on Thanksgiving Day, Gracee pooped for the first time on the big girl potty. Yeah! And after that for the most part, she was doing number 2 in the potty. So we tried underwear, but on the first attempt she had an accident within 5 minutes of the underwear being on. Since it was around the holidays, I decided to wait until all the chaos had passed and we were on a more normal schedule to put her back in underwear. So on the morning of January 24Th, Gracee was in underwear and we were not turning back. It only took about 3 days and she was pretty much done having accidents- Way to go Gracee! She has also stayed dry through the night almost every night since being in underwear. It was really a lot easier then I thought it was going to be. A week or two after the potty training success, we took Gracee and let her pick out her very own underwear- she of course picked out some stylish Elmo underwear. Why Elmo? you might be wondering. Well during our potty training adventure, Gracee became very fond of the "Elmo Potty Time" video we have. She would watch it every day, sometimes 3 or 4 times a day. We even have the Elmo potty doll, and so Gracee would take Elmo potty every time she went potty or whenever she watched the movie- fun times! So no more diaper dance, but yeah for big girl underpants!