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