10 Months

Gracie Goo is now 10 months old she sleeps from about 830-830 with 2-3 naps throughout the day ranging from a short 45 minutes in the evening to 1.5-3 hours the other 2 times. She has 3 meals with us plus 4 bottles and a couple snacks. This girl will eat anything for the most part she has become not such a fan of rice cereal so we have now moved to oatmeal with fruit. She loves "real" people food(table food) and we are now working on getting rid of her bottle replacing it with a sippy. She has also started saying "mama" which I love hearing with her sweet little voice and realize that she knows who I am(makes all the work worth it). October 31st these 2 little beauties showed up as a pair it has taken them til now to get high enough to get a good picture. These are her 1st teeth.

She is extremely active and loves life. She almost always is smiling. She has started to "help" with the laundry which entails pulling it out of the basket(as she pulls out I fold them) and pushing the basket around using it as her walker. She wants to walk so badly but hasn't mastered it yet. She crawls like a speed demon and switches between the army and regular crawling. 

 Caught in the act

 Today while on a walk I guess Gracie got to tired to stay awake. She does this like whisper jabbering when she is really tired I noticed her doing it and then realized when it stopped she was completely asleep sitting up and gripped to the tray.

I just love this growing bundle of joy. Although she can be very busy. The other night she was getting into a cupboard that she wasn't supposed to and Matt said "Gracie no no that cupboard isn't for you" she looked at him shook her head no and shut the door. We were both very impressed and hope she continues to listen that well. We never really "baby-proofed" the house with Hallie except for the important ones with the cleaning supplies in them hopefully we will be able to leave it that way. She is very good at playing quietly with the farm set...mostly because she likes to suck on all the animals. She is starting to care/make a fuss when Hallie takes something from her but she and Hallie usually can manage their way through it with out my interfering much. I can't believe my baby will be 1 year in just a couple months...slow down time.

Gluten Free Success

To some people reading this post it may seem silly to see someone so excited of a loaf of bread and to be honest I may have thought the same thing over a year ago. 1 year ago this month I was dx with ulcerlative colitis and changed my life forever. After a bunch of trial and error it seems like being gluten free relieves my symptoms and helps me to live a relatively normal life. Back in June I stopped taking my Rx meds after further researching the side effects in an attempt to control my UC by myself. To this point it has been successful as well as extremely frustrating and depressing. I am someone who loves to bake and eat treats so making something that only turns out 1 of every 10 times was a big blow to my ego. I have always wanted to be the mom that when the kids get home from school or have friends over the house smells of delicious baking items. That everyone talks about what a great cook I am. And I frequently have to remind myself I can still do that it just will take me a lot more practice and patience. The one thing that keeps me going in this is that my father in heaven wouldn't have given this to me if he didn't think I would figure this out. So for the time now I am taking it one recipe at a time but for the 1st time in a year I made a loaf of bread that wasn't flat, dense, or strangely textured. I actually became pretty emotional as I took it out of the oven and immediately had to have Matt come look at it for fear I was dreaming. And the best part it doesn't taste GF...but then again that is the point!

Good Friends

These are my cute girls. It makes my heart happy to see them be such good friends and play so well together. I really couldn't ask for more Hallie is extremely great with her, shares, loves, but doesn't smother. I feel very blessed and can only hope that it stays this way:)

Sledding!!!

Last year we never got enough snow to go sledding so on Saturday morning when we woke up to about 6-9 inches of snow we were super excited. My favorite part of the snow is when it glazes the trees and looks like a beautiful winter wonderland.

 We got Hallie and Matt bundled(Gracie has had a runny nose so we decided to keep her in) up to make a snow man....unfortunately the snow packing was a little more difficult then anticipated so they decided to head up to the near by school with a great sledding hill and do so sledding.

 Hallie did great going down both with Matt and by herself she is getting more brave all the time.

I hope this is the beginning of a very wet and white winter. Christmas just isn't the same without snow...let it snow let it snow let it snow!

Fire Station Field Trip

Our field trip for November was the Ogden City Fire Station. Hallie loves the field trips and I like the change in scenery. The fire fighters were so nice and made it so fun for the kids. They gave them a tour of the firetruck and ambulance.

 They turned all the lights on 

 Showed them the axes that they explained in their favorite tool

 How they get the ladders down from the top of the truck

 The hoses on the back of the truck 900 feet in total!

 The exhaust hoses to pump out the fumes while the truck is running

 All the valves and gauges

 They even got to climb through the ambulance

Then they got to feel the uniforms and hold a small fire hose

 And put on the oxygen tanks which was heavier than I anticipated

 She looks so little next to the fire truck

 Then they showed them where the firemen hang their gear in the firetruck 

 Then they each got a packet with fire fighter badge stickers, an emergency number magnet for the fridge, a color book, a pencil, and a bouncy ball

 All the kids with their firefighter friends...Hallie was so excited when one of the fire fighters told her she could come back any time she wanted.

 Me and my sweet girls...oh how I love being a mom

 Then they had snack and posed with Smokey the Bear. Hallie said her fruit roll up was the best snack she had ever had..maybe I need to buy them once in a while.

Happy Halloween

By the time Halloween got here I think I was pretty ready for it to be over we had the cold floating through out our family and friends so we haven't had many days lately where we were all healthy. But holidays dont wait even if you don't feel good. We had preschool that morning and then headed to Matt's office to do some trick or treating before naps. On the way home from work Matt stopped and got us some pizza and I made chili for us to enjoy before heading to the ward trunk or treat. Hallie thought the jack o latern face was pretty cool.

 We got to the trunk or treat just in time to set up our trunk and take some pictures the only downfall is that in the 5 min between our house and the church Gracie decided she was tired and proceeded to sleep the entire trunk or treat so that is why she is missing in our pics but she was a happy camper once she woke up.

 Hallie and her friend Allie have so much fun together and play so well together she was thrilled when I told her she could trick or treat with her for the 3rd time in a week.(We went to a nursing home and took her with us to Matt's work)

 Once we got home Gracie was awake and ready to take pictures...here is our little bumble bee and witch

This year was the 1st year that Hallie really understood the concept of Halloween and was Happy to say trick or treat knowing what the result was. We let her pick a handful of her favorite candy and left the rest for the switch witch to take in exchange for some prizes that weren't candy. It was kinda a last minute idea this year but I think in years to come it will be a great option for us to keep our kids minimally sugered!! Happy Halloween

Painting Pumpkins

This past week we painted pumpkins. We invited Erin, Brett, and the kids over to paint with us. Hallie had no interest in carving her pumpkin but was thrilled when grandma gave her a pumpkin bedazzle kit so she painted it with pink and purple(which we had to let dry over night since the paint was so thick) before we could bedazzle it but she had a ball doing it.

 Matt's pumpkin is one of the coolest ideas I have ever seen it is actually a pumpkin painted yellow and blue with some accessories isn't he so cute.

Here we are with our pumpkins