Letter from Grace

Dear Mommy and Daddy,
I hope you had fun on your first date alone, since I joined the family.

I just wanted you to know that I had a good day. I had trouble falling asleep for my nap. I soon found willing arms to hold my while I slept (as Mamaw says, I am the princess!). It was wonderful. So good, in fact that I slept most of the afternoon.

I look forward to seeing you both. I am very refreshed and ready for a fun evening and possibly night. We have lots to catch up on!

Love, Grace

Professional Model?

Yesterday a friend of a friend came over to my parents house. She is working on her portfolio for her photography business. So we decided to provide her with a very adorable model. Here are some of the wonderful shots that she took.
http://meditationsongod.blogspot.com/2010/03/sweet-grace.html
I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

New Mommy Mind

I claim Mommy Mind or Mommy Brain a lot recently. This is where you forget something or do not understand something or do something completely wrong even though it is a simple task. At times I do believe that Grace took half of my brain....

The other day I was in the bathroom getting ready for bed when Matt called in and asked me what I was doing. I replied, as proud as I could because I was a step ahead on one of my tasks, "filling up my shampoo bottle with shampoo (long pause....)"

You see, I have a shampoo bottle that has a pump top that I like. So I keep filling it up with other shampoos. It was not empty, but it was getting close, so I was one step ahead...or so I thought.

"and body wash" (shoulders slumping and look of defeat all over my face as I realize what I was doing) Let me tell you one thing, body wash does not lather in the hair the same that shampoo does :(

There have been many times recently that I have forgotten something, or gone somewhere and not remembered why I was there, and other little odd quirks. I blame Mommy Brain.

As I pack for my trip to Harrisonburg (I will be there with Grace from Wednesday to Sunday, Matt will join us on Friday) I am hoping that Mommy Brain will not be a factor and I will remember to pack everything that I need for all of the special events that we will be experiencing while up there.

Dressed up...and redressed, and redressed, etc.

Last week we had some friends from GE over to our house for our very first dinner party since Grace came along. It went very well, the conversation was great, the food was good, all was well.
I wish I could say that about what happened right before the company came. I got Grace dressed up for our company (showing off one of her many cute outfits). This outfit was from her Grandma Sue and she finally has grown into it which is a big accomplishment for her.

She looks pretty and ready for company, then she spits up.

So I change her...and she spits up.

So I change her...then her diaper leaks.

So I change her, and she is fine for the rest of the evening.
It is not often that she goes through that many outfits in that short of time. However, I am glad that we got some pictures of her in this outfit...even if she was in it for only about 30 minutes.

Play date

I have had the wonderful blessing to have a friend at church who had a baby 3 months before me.

1. We got to talk pregnancy with eachother

2. We got to talk labor/birth stories together

3. Since we are both stay at home moms we also can have "mom's day out" or "sanity days" together

As for the last one, Jennifer (the other mom) and I get together at least once a week to go out to lunch, go out for breakfast, go to each others house to talk, or more recently we have been going for runs.

Here are our adorable little girls in my double jogger waiting for our run. Jessica is on the left and Grace is on the right. They both were wonderful during the run.

After the run, Jessica was very intersted in Grace. She wanted to touch her and grab her and investigate in general. Grace took it all in stride. I hope that these girls grow up to be great friends. It is nice that both the girls (and the moms) have a playmate.

Baby Photoshoots

So Matt and I are trying to be very productive on our Saturday at home. So far we have tied up our grape vines, hung up the curtains in the nursery, made a hanging place for the griddle, and many other random things. But in between of it all, we have been doing a few photoshoots of Grace.
Here she is on the quilt in our guest bedroom.

She is not happy....
Isn't the quilt beautiful? It was made by my aunt Helen.
Grace and her boppy
I find it funny that her outfit are the same colors of the boppy cover
Such a sweet little girl.

Now back to work.

New Toy

No, not for Grace... For me!

Awhile back Matt and I went running. While running in our neighborhood we witnessed a neighbor putting many large items on the curb in front of their house. Upon closer inspection we realized that they were throwing out a plastic outside playhouse. Matt went up to the house and asked about it. We found out that it was in good condition, nothing was missing, nothing was broken, they just had too many toys. So we asked if we could have it since it was out for garbage anyway. The lady told us to take it, and anything else that we wanted. We finished our run and Matt jumped in the car to go acquire our loot.

He got all of the pieces of the playhouse, and a wooden shelf. The shelf is probably about 3 feet high, 3 feet wide, and about 1 foot deep. A typical small shelf, but good for toys or kids books. The shelf was in perfect condition, the screws just needed to be tightened so that it would not sway back and forth.

The one issue that we had with that shelf was that it was painted a reddish purple that I did not like at all. So we decided to use some paint stripper and get it back down to the wood. Using the paint stripper I realized that it as reddish purple on top of black on top of orange on top of purple on top of polyurethane. So the stripper did work, but not well. Which led me to using sand paper to finish the job. After sanding it for one day I was left with many blisters, scratchy fingers, sore arms and back, and a defeated attitude toward the shelf. Then came last weekend...

Matt introduced me to the idea of buying a POWER SANDER!!!!!!! And let me tell you it is amazing. It did in minutes what it took me all day to do by hand. The shelves look wonderful, and are soon ready to be stained. I am so very excited and I love my new power tool (my new toy). I am sure that with all of our wood working that this will get a lot of use. When I get done I will have to post a picture of my shelf :)