I meant to post many times last week but it never happened. 25% of the time it was because I was lazy. 75% of the time it was because of our internet connection. Or in our case, lack thereof. We have comcast and they stink. When we had Verizon we never had an issue. We switched to Comcast about a year ago and it's been awful. Thankfully, we've had enough and as of tomorrow, we'll be back with Verizon. So then the excuses for not posting will all be on me but I can live with that.
We had a really great Christmas. It was just the right kind of crazy. lots of family, lots of fun but lots of time to play and to enjoy the new toys. Gracie loves the idea of Santa but the thought of him coming in our house terrifies her. So I have convinced her that he leaves the presents outside and sends me an e-mail to bring them in the house. This year we even hung Santa's cookie and Rudolph's carrot in a Ziploc bag on the back door.
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| So excited to receive the trampoline she asked for. |
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| She couldn't believe Santa really brought it. |
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| Doc McStuffins Doctor Kit |
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| Donatello the Ninja Turtle. This is who Gracie plays when she plays Ninja Turtles with the cousins |
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| Cousins in Christmas Jammies |
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| In the Doc McStuffins Dress that Auntie Amy had made for her. |
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| New Dollhouse from Grandma Judi and Baseball Honey(my parents) |
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| Gracie with the new dollhouse |
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She asked for a little trampoline and some Doc McStuffins toys and she got those plus a lot of other gifts. She also got a beautiful new dollhouse from my parents. They told me they bought her a dollhouse and had it shipped to me. I got the box and it was pretty big but nothing out of the ordinary. Then I opened the box to assemble it and after 3 hours of putting it together I learned 3 new things. 1. I can put a dollhouse together all by myself. 2. The next time my parents decide to buy her another dollhouse that takes 3 hours to assemble they either need to make sure I have a husband by then or they need to get me one and send him with the dollhouse. 3. The dollhouse is beautiful but where are we going to put a 4 foot dollhouse? I'm still trying to figure that one out. Hopefully I will have an answer once we put the tree away. Seriously, I think that aside from the trampoline, the dollhouse has been her favorite present by far. She can play with it for hours at a time.
On the 27th Grace and I took a short trip. Grace has been dying to take a ride on a choo-choo train so we took the train to Portland, Maine. It was about a 2 hour train ride and she loved it! We arrived in Portland to about 8 inches of snow and she was delighted by that. We got to our hotel about 3:00 and swam in the pool and had dinner at the hotel restaurant. On Friday we went to the Maine Children's Museum. It's a cute little museum but very small and we saw everything they had to offer in about 2 hours. Then we just walked around town, had lunch and then headed back to the hotel to swim. On Saturday we hung out, went for a walk and then headed back home. It was a great little trip and it was so much fun for it to be just the two of us. She also enjoyed having a double bed all to herself and is trying to convince me that she needs one of those in her room.
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| Taking Pictures outside our hotel window with her new camera. |
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| Snowy and beautiful Portland, Maine |
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| On the Train |
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| Taking a picture of Mommy who is taking a picture of Gracie |
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| Riding on her first choo-shoo train |
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| Children's Museum of Maine |
All in all, it's been a great break and I am trying to hang onto these last few days as much as I can before I go back to work on Wednesday. It's such blessing to have this extended time off with her. She really is the best present of all.
