Our funny Grace

James is famous!

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11132/1145806-54.stm

He made the local paper.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to me! It was my first mother's day...so weird. Mother's Day is hard for some women in the infertility community....it would be sort of hard for me, but really not all that harder than any other day when you want a baby but can't have one. But, it was a bit surreal to actually have a child and be a mother on mother's day :-)

On Saturday, we had my mom and grandma over for dinner. James surprised us with a cupcake bouquet from Steel City Confections--seriously the best cupcakes ever. The card reads to three awesome moms!

Then on Sunday morning, I got breakfast in bed (but James is sort of awesome and actually brings me breakfast in bed every morning...) but he gave me several mother's day cards--one was from Grace and then a funny one and a sweet one from him. He also gave me a charm with Grace's birthstone in it :-) Then we went to church...ordered lunch from a great pizza place near us that my uncle gave us mother's day gift cards too (from Grace).
For last mother's day I was 13 weeks pregnant and James gave me an engraved picture frame with our relationship verse...now family verse! James 1:17 "Every good and perfect gift is from above..." (it's also engraved on James's wedding band). So ofcourse with the pregnancy, the gift took on a whole new meaning. So, I really wanted to get a photo with Grace on mother's day that I could put in the frame. But she was sort of sleepy and not into pictures....so above is one of them. I'm not sure which one I like yet. We didn't take as many as I would have liked, because she really wasn't too into it.

Grace Giving High 5s

A Swimming Grace!

First Easter!

So stinking cute in her Easter dress! Can't stand the cuteness sometimes! I could squeeze her chub thighs for days :-) Last Easter we had just found out we were pregnant...what a difference a year makes :-)

So, we took our first big road trip with Grace--all the way to Elkton, MD. She did AMAZING! I was very nervous, but really she slept most of the way down (and still slept fine that night). We only stopped twice and made it in 7 hours (normally takes a little over 5).

We decided to stay in a hotel--which worked out great! It was a big enough room that I was able to move some furniture and give Grace a corner for her pack n play...and there was a lamp and a cushy chair in that area too. We used one of the beds to lay out all of her stuff and make a changing area for her. We brought her bath--and the hotel had a nice big bathroom counter. So we were able to keep her routine very normal. We were even able to watch tv after she went to sleep--as she had her white noise machine blasting right next to her.

The hotel had a pool. Which she loved. I was a little concerned that I went and sprung for the more expensive hotel with the pool and she was going to hate it. But we were in the water for a good hour and half and she loved it. I was tempted to let her go and see what she could do. She was moving her arms and legs and even kept puffing out her cheeks like she was holding her breath when she "swam". So much fun! We were the only ones in the pool the entire time too!

Most importantly. Grace god to hang out with her Maryland grandparents. She loved them and did all of her cute tricks for them.


And ofcourse when we got back home, I had to take some basket photos with her bunny ears. Such a short window of opportunity to take these type of cute photos :-)

Naps

Grace sleeps quite well at night for her age. She's been doing 10.5-12 hours a night since she was about 7-8 weeks. Now, if we also went to bed before 8pm....we'd be set! When she goes to bed at 7pm and sleeps 11 hours....we're still getting up at 6am :-/
Naps are where she's hit or miss. She's a cat napper. 20-30 minutes here and there. MAYBE an hour...but not usually. We've tried doing the mini-bedtime routine and putting her in the crib. The real benefit of that is while she's fighting sleep, we know she's safe and in her crib so you're free to do dishes or whatever. But once she falls asleep...she wakes up in 30 minutes like clockwork. But the girl sleeps best in her bouncer chair in what looks like some of the most uncomfortable positions. That's our Grace!