Four!

Here I am pretending to be happy about wearing this silly hat

Four!

Beautiful dress she got from Auntie Brenda, Uncle Bill, Emma and Thomas

So pretty!

Enough Pictures Mom

Happy!

It's hard to believe but Gracie turned four this week.  I really don't know where the time has gone.  We started the day off with cinnamon rolls with the cousins and ended it with Oreo ice cream. Couldn't get much better in Gracie's book.  Her kids party is next weekend at one of those jumpy places so she's really looking forward to that. Should be a lot of fun. 

Easter

Gracie loves the idea of things like Santa and the Easter Bunny. She is all for presents and candy.  But strange people coming in our house to leave them.....not so much. I told her that Santa and the Easter Bunny do not come in your house if you don't want them to.  So, I tell her that they leave everything outside our door, send me an e-mail and then I bring everything in.  That seems to work pretty well.  It alleviates the anxiety and lets her enjoy the occasion. 

I think the bunny went a little overboard this year.  I can say with confidence that he chose a lot of his items from the dollar store but I think he lost track of how much he had and kept buying thinking he didn't have enough.  I think next Easter he will do a better job of taking stock of his inventory.

We had a really nice day.  We went to Church and then to brunch with my parents, sister and her family and the nuns.  The nuns are Sr. Elly and Sr. Philomene.  Elly is my step mom's aunt.  They are lovely ladies and we love to have them with us for holidays.  Then Gracie spent a couple of hours playing outside with her new bubbles and her cousins.  We tried to end the night by attending an evening service at church that had an awesome gospel choir but that didn't quite work out.  Oh well, live and learn.  Overall, it was a nice day.

Rock Star

New Doc McStuffin Headband

Candy!

Doc McStuffin Pretties

Happy Girl

 

My Beautiful Flowers

The most beautiful flowers I ever received!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine Pancake.  I didn't think about doing this much in advance so it ended up looking a little monsterish but she loved it.

Is that really candy for breakfast?

My silly Valentine

Mom, this Doc McStuffin book is a great Valemtime!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Snow Storm

Prior to Friday afternoon we were experiencing a fairly mild winter.  Last winter was the mildest we've had in years.  It was sort of freaky but nice to have a break from the frigid temps and snow.  I was thinking this year might be the same but starting on Tuesday of last week they started predicting a doozy of a storm.  I usually feel like a lot of our storms get hyped up and never live up to the billing but this one was all that and a bag of chips.  By early Thursday evening just about every public and private school in Massachusetts was closed. Not to mention many of the colleges and universities.  The university I work for opened but announced Thursday night we would close at noon on Friday.  The storm wasn't expected to start until noon or later but there was a great fear that we would have a repeat scenario of a storm from 5 years ago.  It was a fast moving storm that was bigger than projected.  All the schools and a lot of employers released everyone at the same time, in the peak of the storm and my 35 minute commute took almost 4 hours. The governor didn't want a repeat of that so he took precautions to call a snow emergency prior to the snow falling and then he put a driving ban into effect so you couldn't be on the roads after 4:00p.m. on Friday so that the plows could do their work.  They even closed the public transportation system at 3:30 on Friday.  By the time I left work on Friday it was just starting to snow.  When I went to sleep we probably had 5-6 inches and when I woke up it was close to 2 feet.  I think when it was all over we got about 25 inches.  As luck would have it, our snow blower stopped working part way through the clean up.  Let's just say I got a very good work out.  Thankfully our across the street neighbor has a plow and he plowed the end of the driveway(we have a very wide driveway) which saved us a couple of hours of shoveling.  Gracie was thrilled by the snow and so excited to play in it.  It was pretty as it was falling but I'm over it now and would just like it to melt!

Grace and cousin Meggie all bundled up

Excited to go out in the snow

From this angle it doesn't look like a lot of snow.  because of the snow drifts we had some areas with no snow on the ground and some as high as 4 feet.

 

What's Going On

We've been busy lately but in general, things are good.  I am amazed by how grown up Grace has become and I just love the conversations we have been having lately.  Here are a few.

Grace: Mom, I am getting super duper big.  I almost as big as Nate (her almost 17 year old cousin  
who is 6 ft. 1)
Me:  You are getting super duper big but I think you might have a little more growing to do. How long do you think that might take?
Grace: Ummmm..........probably about 20 hours. Then I be big as Nate!

Grace: Mom, when we gonna go back camping on the beach at Auntie Amy's Trailer?
Me:  I don't know.  Are you excited to go back?
Grace: Yes, I really excited to sleep on her table(the table in the trailer converts to a bed)

Grace: Mom, in the spring I gonna get a dog
Me: No, we're not getting a dog
Grace: When I five I gonna get a dog?
Me: No, we're not getting a dog
Grace: When I gonna get a dog?
Me:  We're not getting a dog
Grace: (starts crying) I never gonna have a dog even when I a big grown up lady?
Me: You can have a dog when you're a big grown up lady and live in your own house
Grace: Yahoo!

These days Grace is really enjoying dance and just began ice skating lessons.  She has been obsessed with the idea of skating since her cousins got skates for Christmas but last week we were watching figure skating on TV and it was all she could talk about.  I was able to find a toddler preschool skating class that was reasonable and she went on Wednesday for the first time and she loved it.  I asked her if she liked it and she said "Yes. I fall down A LOT but I not hurt. I just keep getting back up. I love ice skating class".

What We Have Been Up To

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. 

So excited to receive the trampoline she asked for. 

She couldn't believe Santa really brought it.

Doc McStuffins Doctor Kit

Donatello the Ninja Turtle.  This is who Gracie plays when she plays Ninja Turtles with the cousins

 

Cousins in Christmas Jammies

In the Doc McStuffins Dress that Auntie Amy had made for her.

New Dollhouse from Grandma Judi and Baseball Honey(my parents)

Gracie with the new dollhouse

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.  

Taking Pictures outside our hotel window with her new camera.

Snowy and beautiful Portland, Maine

On the Train

Taking a picture of Mommy who is taking a picture of Gracie

Riding on her first choo-shoo train

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.