Flying By

Life is flying by and it's so hard to get it back!  Grandma and Grandpa Hildreth were here until Friday and they left about 10 am, and so while they were there we just visited a lot and had a yummy Thanksgiving!  Wednesday we went on a drive to the outskirts of Idaho and made it to the Teton Dam and Grand Targhee.  We watched the tiny little people ski down the insanely steep slopes and that's when I realized that I wouldn't be skiing there this year!  We saw a lot of beautiful scenery and it was just a really nice day trip.  Throught the time that they were here I was having to do homework, but Grace just loved drawing with Grandpa and so she kept him busy with that.  Grace absolutely loved having her grandparents here and talked to them so much!  Every morning they would get a huge, "Good Morning Grand..." (whoever) with a giant outstretched hug as she ran to them.  And she constantly talked to them, wanted to be around them and just really loved the extra attention.  We all would eat breakfast together and I just sat there amazed at just how well she does.  I can now put about 1/4 of a cup of milk in her cereal without too much of a mess, she can drink it out for the most part, she leans in as she takes a bite of food (that's with every meal), can wipe her face off, and is drinking out of a normal cup!  HURRAY!  She's extremely better at being receptive to things like, "Come to the table, Grace.  It's time to eat." She gets so excited to eat!  And she's doing great at using a fork, and gets upset when I give her a spoon!  She's gotten on an applesauce kick and just devours bowl after bowl!  She has also been going potty on her little toilet, and is starting to ask to go use the potty.  So we implemented the potty system.  When she goes in the potty she gets a chocolate animal cracker AND a princess sticker on a calendar.  Every time she goes potty, even if it's more than one time a day, these are the things she gets.  She is also telling me when she needs a diaper change and that she's messy, which is awesome!

There was one time when we were all at the Teton Dam and grandpa and daddy had walked off to check out the dam (or what's left of it).  Grace and I were out walking around to stretch our legs and she saw them coming and said, "Tum on Grampa...tum on.  Yet's go Grampa.  Tum on!"  It was so cute!  She does this all the time with him and really likes having him around.  

Friday morning they left and it was so cute to see Grace give them hugs and kisses goodbye.  You could totally see that she was understanding what was going on, but it was still tough when she'd ask for them and we'd have to tell her they were gone.  

Oh, Thanksgiving!  I have to tell you.  Ok, first we ate around 2 pm and we had: turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, candied yams, veggie/fruit trays, cherry pie and pecan pie.  So, the candied yams.  We got them in the oven and were waiting for this as the last part of our meal and Ryan asked if he should take it out because the marshmallows were puffed up.  Brad said to leave them it it in for a few more minutes and then my stove started smoking.  I thought, "that's weird.  hm..." So I opened the oven door to check it out.  Oh boy!  FIRE EVERYWHERE!  That was so absolutely insane.  The marshmallows had caught fire and the fire was blazing out, smoke everywhere.  All the smoke alarms went off in the entire house and Grace was such a brave girl at covering her ears.  I ran to open doors while the guys tried to figure out what to do.  I pulled out the tray but we couldn't grab the casserole dish because the flames were literally everywhere.  I was going to through a towel over the whole thing to extinguish the flames but Ryan kept blowing on the fire...which means there are charred marshmallows ALL OVER in my oven.  I think the towel would have been a much faster and cleaner way of dealing with the situation.  So, all in all, a very exciting Thanksgiving!  All are well, no harm done, and we put fresh marshmallows on it, roasted it and it was fine.  Shew!

Now it's Saturday and Grace helped me get our Countdown to Christmas ready!  I have 24 folders of activities, a week's worth of community activities that are going on for the kiddoes/families, all her Christmas books set up in a basket along with the folders, my scriptures, the Ensign/Friend magazines, and we have an advent calendar on the wall with a cotton ball in each pocket.  Why?  Because I have Santa's face that has NO BEARD!  Every day we are going to put a cotton ball on his beard and by the time Christmas comes, he will have a full beard!  This is all sitting right beside the piano and it's so darn cute!  Oh, and there's two boxes of arts and crafts supplies that go along with the folder activities.  It's pretty exciting and now that Grace is old enough to understand, she just screams and laughs every SINGLE TIME we see Christmas lights outside.  Her face lights up, she gives TONS of high fives to whoever is around her, kisses you all over, and the whole thing happens again.  This is what she likes to say alot... "Oh I so E-CITED!"  And then she rambles this whole huge sentence and ends with "SO BIG!" with her arms out to either side showing just how big :)

Bedtime/wakeup:  She is now in a big girl bed (twin bed) and daddy treated her with a princess sheet set!  WOW!  Other than her bed and trampoline in her room (tramp just during the day), she's got nothing else in there.  I gave up the battle with her on trying to have a chest of drawers in there so it's now in her closet.  All her jackets, dresses, shirts and pants are hung up and all her books are stored in the closet (other than the ones on her wall bookshelf).  So daily all she has is a bed, mirror and trampoline.  She has been fighting naps for the past few weeks and will usually end up falling asleep at 3 at the crack of her door where she was talking nonstop to an invisible person.  We also had to tape down her light switch because she wouldn't stop turning her light on during naptime, and she has a knob cover on her door so I can get out, but she can't.  It's better than locking her door.  And so at night I crack her door open so she can get out when she wakes up, the sewing room and bathroom each have a knob cover, and the hallway has a gate (new gate since she broke the old one pushing it over and climbing on top of it to get out).  She comes into our room (it was at 6 am but now she's around 7-8 am...8 this morning!), comes to my side and I grab my extra pillow, push mine towards the middle of the bed and put hers next to it, and once she's climbed up she lays down, I cover her up, and we all snuggle for about an hour (only because it was a holiday week and there wasn't any school!).  She loves doing this and it has become our routine.  She gives me hugs and kisses all over, and says, "I love you," "Go to sleep mommy," "Wake UP!" and constantly is giving me kisses.  I'm not exaggerating either.  It's such a wonderful time until you hear one of two things...or even both of these... "I need diaper change," or "I want milk, please."  Then all fun goes out the window and it's time for the day to start!

Sewing room:  Once Skyler is married and moved out I will be taking all my sewing stuff down to the room he is now using.  I will set up my sewing area in the nook in the room and keep the supplies in the walk in closet.  This will leave the whole main portion of the room open to visitors coming to sleep over.  And this will also give me an entire room to devote to Grace's play room/school room!  I'm oober excited!  I'm going to start boxing everything up that move's downstairs because I'm so busy with school/life that I have not had time to sew.  And then I'll be able to set up her playroom just how it needs to be, and she will actually have things to play with other than just her trampoline.  I'm pretty excited about it.

Well, that's pretty much it for now.  Life is great, stressful but great, and a new year is coming.  

Shew.  I'm going to be 27 in January.  Age doesn't bother me...I welcome it.  Not that I'm wishing it would go faster, but I'm not freaking out because I'm almost 30 or anything.  I am at peace with age (unless it's about Grace because she's growing up too fast!) :)

Oh, one more thing.  We have another double eye surgery coming up in January (23rd), which is a week after I have to throw a wedding reception for Skyler/Mariah.  School starts the 6th and we travel to Nauvoo the 9th-13th or so, so it's going to be an INSANE month.  Then my birthday is in the mix of all that as well.  Anyways, back to the surgery.  This was expected, we aren't happy about it but knew it was coming so it wasn't that much of a shock to us.   Thank goodness her eye sight is holding strong in both eyes and so we no longer have to PATCH!!  AH!  I was so excited to hear that and I'm still so excited that patching is over...for now.  And Grace has been really complaining about her back hurting, and she keeps rubbing where her scar is and so I'm REALLY hoping there isn't something bad going on.  I called the Spina Bifida Clinic director and should hear back from her this coming week.  What will I hear?  I asked if we should have an MRI soon to check things out, and in a way I'm hoping she will say yes because we haven't really taught Grace the concept of pain and we haven't ever brought up her back hurting, so for her to be able to communicate specifically about her back and rub the lower part is a bad thing.  Good, but bad.

So, that's all of it.

Amanda

Two Days in a Row!

I can't believe I had time (made time) to write on Grace's blog!  It's been too darn long.  I'll need to be sure to make time.  I am down to 2.5 weeks left of this semester and it's really coming down to the wire because I have 4 "A's," 1 "A-," and 1 "B+," and I won't be able to get the schools full scholarship unless I get that B to a solid A.  So I'm trying my hardest!  Grace is getting used to me being on the computer doing homework and so she's so much better about giving me some space and playing with her toys while I get some work done.  

She is still getting up at 6 am...did I write that yet?  If not, then yeah...she's up at 6 am.  UG!  It's horrible!  I really value my sleep and since I have to stay up late to do homework that means I"m not getting much sleep.  And family is here and I don't want to be ignorant and go take a nap and so I am yawning all throughout the day!  This is where I wish I divulged in caffeine every once in a while.  But Grace, caffeine is bad for your body, so you won't want to eat/drink anything that has caffeine in it!  Anyways, this morning I found that she had knocked down the gate keeping her from roaming the house and was downstairs talking to Grandma and Grandpa!  Silly girl!  She got to go to school today and had a great time!  She always comes out of the classroom rambling on and on and on...no exaggeration.  She tells me elaborate stories with her arms and facial expressions and nonstop sentences and for the most part, I only get a few words here and there.  And then I ask her questions like, "What did you eat for snack?" and she says, "um...hm...(taps her chin with one finger), I had crackers!"  "Oh, yeah?  What did you drink with snack today?"  Again she taps her chin..."Water.  BIG CUP OF WATER.  And then usually I get a lot of random words and rambling that I can't really understand.  But that's ok, I still acknowledge that she's saying something.  After school we came home and played for a while, had leftover spaghetti, corn/carrots, water and Jewish Rye bread and then she went to bed, but didn't fall asleep until 3 pm.  3 hours of doing who knows what because she had no toys, no books and no stuffed animals.  Crazy kid!  While she slept I did a little homework, a little chatting, and back and forth :)

Did you know she can sing "Jesus want me for a Sunbeam," "I am a Child of God," and "Itsy Bitsy Spider!"  I think there are more but I can't think of them.  AWESOME!  Hurray for Sunbeams!  Can you believe that in January she will move up to CTR 4?  AH!  She's growing up so fast :)

The rest of the day was sitting around, playing and chatting.  We had burritos and home canned pears with water, and then Grace got to have Grandpa and I draw on her MagnaDoodle.  She absolutely loves that thing!  I need to put it away because I'm so not in love with it and need a break from drawing smiley faces, circles and spiders.  Ug.  Silly girl.

I got a ton of homework done and now I'm headed to bed.  I can't believe I'm actually getting to bed before 10:30 pm.  Woo Whoo!  It finally sounds like Grace is asleep...2 hours of her doing who knows what in her room in the dark (I tape her light switch down because she always turns it on at night.  I don't know what it is about this kid and going to sleep anymore...always fights it.)

Amanda

School, gymnastics, sick and family

Well, missed almost a week again.  Thanksgiving is coming soon and so we have grandma and grandpa Hildreth here to celebrate!  Skyler got ordained an Elder today and that was wonderful.  Brad was able to give him the blessing (or however it works) and so that was great that he could do that.  I was sicker than a dog Thursday with food poisoning and so that was definitely NOT fun.  Brad had been up in Montana and I told him to come home (after just having gotten there that day) because I felt horrible and needed some support.  So he got home about 3:30 am Friday and helped take care of Grace that morning so that I could rest.  Thankfully it passed quickly, but not without multiple visits to the bathroom.

Grace has been doing great.  She absolutely loves gymnastics, school and preschool with our little friend down the street.  Every time we pass his house she says, "Roberts house, Roberts house, ROBERT'S HOUSE!!!!"  She adores him, that's for sure.  This weekend was really a lazy weekend since I was so sick and today was the first day I've really felt good.  We went to church and she did really well in Sacrament!  Sat most of the time eating her snacks or reading books.  I was very proud of how well she did.  When I went to pick her up in her Sunbeams class she was hiding under a table acting out a "lion" and the king rolling away a stone so the lion's could get out.  It was so stinking cute!  She laid on the floor and wouldn't get up and a little girl kept nudging her with her foot which was really upsetting me, but I bit my tongue.  And then she rolled Grace around which bothered me more because I felt like it was more out of ignorance than friendliness.  Grr.

The rest of the evening was nice.  We had spaghetti with elk sauce, carrots/corn, toast and applesauce for lunch and then tuna sandwiches with applesauce again for dinner.  And Grace watched some magic shcool bus because I was so darn tired and needed a nap.  Once she went to bed Grandma and Grandpa went downstairs and watched a Country show with Brad because I had to get some homework done and then here I am, 11 pm and headed to bed.

Goodnight to all.  Just one day of school tomorrow and then Gym on Tuesday and then that's it for the week.  Let's home she doesn't get too rambunctious without being able to see her friends!

Amanda

Back to Our Schedule!

Hurray!  We are back to our normal schedule of school and gymnastics and preschool with our friends and therapy!!  We are so excited!  Monday she had a great day at school and got right back into motion with going, as if she hadn't been out for a week.  And then today was a super fun day!  We went to gymnastics in the morning and she did so great.  She walked on the high balance beam with helped and lifted her feet up to reach her teachers hand.  That's to learn how to point her toes.  She did somersaults, swung on a rope like Tarzan, crawled up a ladder (putting her feet between the rungs rather than on them), and worked on splits!  This was a really hard concept for her to grasp, and that definitely made sense because it was a really tough position to get into.  But she did great trying to learn and listen to what her teacher said.  After gym her Home Intervention worker came and worked with her on going potty (she went in the potty!) and eating lunch without making the hugest mess in the world.  Then naptime and even more fun!  We went to a friend's house for preschool and playtime, and then came home or dinner thinking that our night would be boring.  But then a friend called to ask if I'd watch her daughter, who is also Grace's friend, and so Grace got to see ANOTHER friend!  She stayed over until 7 pm, and then we watched SuperWhy until it was time for bed.  

It was a great day.  A great day back after a long sick week.

:)

Amanda

Yet Again...Another Sick Day

We had a doctors appointment today.  Darn it.  Grace had a bad reaction to the antibiotics she has been on for her ear infections, so we had to go get another medication to take care of that.  Seriously?!  This girl just doesn't get to catch a break.  I'm really hoping she gets healthy because she missed a whole week of school already, and I really don't want her missing another week.  After the doctor's appointment we grabbed her medication from Walmart (our friend Garon took us on our errands with his two kiddos since Brad didn't finish working on the car).  Then it was play time, nap time, and then the rest of the day was just trying to keep a cabin fevered, bored and over energized kid entertained.  Ug.  Winter hasn't even started and already we're dealing with high doses of cabin fever.

Now it's 9:20 pm and she's STILL up.  I locked her door and taped the lightswitch down, but even as I type this, she's yanking on the door...oh, now she's banging on it...telling me to "open!  the!  door!!"  Ug...I would love to go back to her normal sleeping schedule where she'd fall asleep right at 8 pm and wake up at 7:30 am.

All done for the night.

Amanda

Thursday Already

Miss Grace has still be SO sick, so we haven't gone to school, gymnastics, preschool with our friend or play days!  We did get to go to therapy today so that's great!  That darn nose of hers just doesn't stop running, and the congestion is horrible in her chest still.  Thankfully, though, it's all upper, and not bronchitis or anything like that.  So the past few days we have been playing at home, reading a TON (we finally got the books that I ordered from the Scholastic magazines that come home from her school) and did some arts and crafts.  It was fun playing with her :)  And the books were awesome.  Grace and I are going to have so much fun reading them together and doing activities with help from the books.  She was super excited as well, and we probably read 10 books in one sitting.

Tomorrow Grace will be going to school!  WOO WHOO!  She's so excited!  She's been asking me over and over to go to school, and also to go to gymnastics.  I'm so happy that she's excited about all these activities, and this makes me want to have her do them all the more.  

Amanda

Potty

Today was the first day that Grace actually went pee and then told us without us having to tell her what she did!  WOW!  She went and then said, "I went pee."  Great job girly!  

Today we had a sick day because of her yucky virus she has, and so that meant no school.  Tomorrow is gymnastics and therapy and so we'll go to that only because she's getting better by the day.  She's still getting up at 6 am...ug.  Daddy took her downstairs and let her watch Sesame Street so I could sleep an hour longer (so nice!), and even had her fed!  I was all ready to send her to school until I saw the yucky draining nose.  Oh well.

Gas is down to $2.79 here!  I can't believe it!

I got the rest of the supplies necessary to make Skyler and Mariah's wedding cake.  I'm going to print  out a recipe for pound cake and then I'll make a wedding cake and see what it's like.  I got the flower gum paste stencils and the foam pads that you need to make the flowers 3D.  I'm pretty excited!  I also have gotten supplies to make my own fondant and if this turns out, I'll be saving about $10 for each cake I make.  And then if I make my own buttercream frosting, that will be another $10 or so.  So this is going to be great!

All in all, that's our day.  It's now 11:30 pm, I should have been in bed 3 hours ago, and I'll probably be up at 6 am again.  It is really cute, though, how she comes in.  This morning she was tapping on my elbow.  "Mom...tap tap tap...MOM...tap...tap...tap."  I woke up enough to help her into bed and then rolled over to Daddy's side.  And then he stole her away and took her downstairs.  So cute :)

Can you believe it?  I wrote two days in a row.  It's been a while since that's happened!

Amanda

Time Missed

I can tell that I am feeling the lull in blogging.  In between a rambunctious kid, house care, homework, school and therapy, I'm not finding any time to write.  And if there is that minute or two, I'm zoned out watching a TV show and too tired to even think clearly.

So, this weekend has been tough because poor Grace has been so sick.  The coughs, the runny nose, trouble breathing...the whole shebang.  Thankfully, her doctor office is open on Saturday and so I took her in and we found out what?  Double ear infection and a virus.  Darnit!  So off to Walmart for her Amoxicillan and then we headed home for a sick day.  What comes with a sick day?  TV!  She is really into a show called "Oscar's Oasis."  Daddy got her into it and she asks for it ALL THE TIME!  SO why not let her watch it since she was feeling so yucky?

Also...since we had a sick girly, we didn't go to church.  There was a primary program and so it was so sad that we couldn't go because I didn't get to hear her sing!  But her health is so much more important, for sure.  So another TV day.  She's been having SUCH a hard time with her attitude, behavior and so forth.  We have also been having to give her a cleanout because she's not had a bowel movement in a week.  I'm really hoping this is what's causing her lack of sleep.  She's been getting up at midnight, 4ish, and then up for good at 6 am.  The past couple of nights I've been locking her in her room in the morning just because I need an extra hour of sleep or it won't be a good day!  And she's such a good sport about it, so that's helpful.  

All in all, it's been a rough few days.  She's had troubles, I've had a lot of stress with school, her different attitude, being stuck in the house because of the cold weather, etc.  Hopefully things will get better soon.

That's pretty much it for us.  A rough patch but we'll be fine!

Amanda

Very Early...12:40 am

Well, I've been up super late doing homework and so I figured since I was on the computer, I may as well write on Grace's blog!

Monday was our normal not so fun day just because after school, there isn't much left to do in the day.  On Tuesday we had gymnastics!!  Grace did so great in gymnastics.  It's great to watch her and see how much better she's getting in class.  She's listening more, keeping with the class more, and there are a few times that she gets overwhelmed and doesn't listen, but she comes back so quickly!  It's so fun to sit there and watch her for 50 minutes.  I wish I could just tape the entire class time every single time I went.  That way I can remember it :)  After gymnastics we had a quick rest of the time until it was lunchtime and then naptime, and today was fun because Grace's friend (Sabrina) got to come over!  They played for a few minutes while I talked to her mom (my friend Mary) and when we were all done talking, the girlies went down for nap.  Grace had a little trouble going down but very quickly, she was fast asleep.  It was nice to see that even though her friend was there she still went down nicely.  Sabrina slept in the living room and did a great job going to sleep as well.  About 2:45 pm Grace woke up and it was so cute to walk in there and see her sitting on her bed.  I said, "hi Grace" in a whisper voice and Grace said..."Hi Mom" in a whisper.  SO CUTE!  So then we got some things together for preschool and around 2:55 pm we went out to the living room, woke up Sabrina, and then got ready for preschool.  My friend Julie came over with her two boys (Robert and Jordan) and then we all had preschool together.  It was so fun!  We did color matching (Red, yellow and blue), sang a song about ladybugs, worked on counting (1, 2, 3), and played "swat the color."  I had fly swatters for the kids and I had three pieces of paper with a color on each.  Blue bird, red apple and yellow sun.  I would call one of them out and then the kids had to run and smack the color sheet!  So fun!  We lasted about 15 minutes with the kiddos and then Sabrina had to go home, and so Grace and Robert got to have pretzels and water for snack, and then they played while Julie and I talked about Emergency Preparedness.  Then we got the schedule for preschool written up and then it was time for the our friends to go home!  The rest of the day flew by!  Quickly 8 pm came and it was time for Grace to go to bed.  Goodnight!

Wednesday was fun as well.  Grace had school in the morning and then we went to Broulims to see what the price would be for a wedding cake.  $120 for the 30-50 people serving cake and that's without flowers or anything!  So then we went to Walmart to check out prices for cake making tools.  Lunchtime didn't go so hot...actually, I guess it would be naptime.  I put her down at 12:30 pm and she didn't fall asleep until 3 pm.  So I didn't get her up until 5:15 pm.  And then we went down the street to Sabrina and Mary's house to play!!  The girls had fun, the mama's talked and talked, the girls ate some yummy chicken nuggets, and some Smarties!  We came home about 7:30 pm and Brad said there was a surprise for Grace in her room!!  Daddy bought Grace a trampoline!!  It was so great :)  It has a handle and everything.  He put it in front of Grace's mirror so that she can watch herself jump up and down.  She was just so excited, and of course I was as well because she was.  He's such a good daddy!  So they played in her room for quite some time while I got to my homework.  I got two assignments done just in the nick of time...shew!  The deadline was 11:59 pm and I got it turned in at 11:56 pm.  And now I'm exhausted.  So it's time for bed :)  Goodnight...1:02 am.

Amanda

Way Behind

Wow, I really can't believe how fast the time goes by.  I'm so sorry it's been so long since the last post!  Things have just been flying by, and this weekend we were in Montana!  It was a spur of the moment trip and it was so fun!  "Papa Brian" went hunting and so we got to have some elk meat!  So we were there Saturday and Sunday.  Our darn truck has been giving us problems and so each time we tried to start the truck after it sat for a while, it wouldn't start.  So that was an added bonus to the fun trip.  Sunday we didn't make it home in time for church because the truck wasn't working, darnit!  Then today is Monday :)  Grace went to school and had a bit of a hard time, but that's okay.  Her injury from running into her chest of drawers is getting much better, and it doesn't bother her at all.  So that is such a blessing.  After school we went to Walmart to return something we bought and got a couple things, one of which is a box of 300 or so stickers for potty training!  Very low expectations and no pressure for the girly.

Naptime went well after Daddy helped her remember that nap time meant it's time to sleep.  Then I got lots of reading done for school work.  The rest of the day FLEW BY!  I couldn't believe how fast the time went, and before I knew it, it was dinner time!  Grace helped make dinner!!  She helped cut the kielbasa, rehydrate carrots, squash and green bell peppers, pour the olive oil into the pan, scoop onions into the oil (dehydrated), put the kielbasa into the pan, stir the food as it's cooking, poured the rehydrated veggies into the pan, put bread into the toaster, poured eggs into the pan once the meat and everything was cooked, put the plates on the table, helped strain the homemade juice, and gave me lots of high fives while I cook the rest of the way.  Then after a few minutes she went to lay down on the floor and pulled out her crayons and colored away in her coloring book.  She's getting much better at being able to find independent things to do while I'm busy with homework or cooking or whatever.  Good job girly!

She went to bed at 8 pm, good girl.  I got some homework done and now we are going to head to bed.  It's 10:13 pm.  :)

Amanda