Christmas 2008

Santa Claus came to Lexington this year! What a wonderful Christmas! Grace was really into Christmas this year. She loved Santa too until she had to sit on his lap- ha ha- that was a no go. I still got a great picture though! This was probably the best holiday in a long time (because we didn't travel). It was so nice to not be exhausted after the holidays.

Bob and Sharon made the trip down for Christmas. They had a terrible drive down- the same day Indiana and Kentucky had an ice storm. A 4 1/2 hour drive turned in to a 9 hour drive- yikes! We are just glad that they made it here safely.

Grace was so funny Christmas morning. She came downstairs and saw all of the presents- what a grin! What was funny though was she waited until I gave her a present to open. Did she tear it open like most kids? No way- she would pull one little piece of paper off the present... throw it away, tear another piece off...throw it away, etc. I wanted to say, "C'mon, let's get on it" but didn't want to jinx myself. She's so good at picking up toys and putting things away. So, it was a long morning of unwrapping presents- but a really good one. And I just realized Bob has the photos from opening presents- I'll have to add those later.

It's been awhile since Grace has gotten together with her buddies but we saw both Dylan and Owen last week. Dylan came to hang out with us for 1/2 day Christmas Eve morning b/c his daycare was closed. I'm always so happy to watch him- he is just adorable! Then we got to see Owen the day after Christmas. Owen and Grace had a super time playing at the play land at Fayette Mall. They are such good buddies- even after not seeing each other for probably several months, they knew each other instantly and picked up right where they left off.

Family night tonight was crafty! We started playing Old maid and Go Fish (she doesn't really get those games yet but it's a start). Then we had a pizza picnic on the living room floor (which Grace loved). Then we made masks! Grace loved looking through the eye holes at the reflection in the mirror- what an experience! We also played charades (we would act like an animal, pretend like we were licking an ice cream cone, etc.) and let Grace guess what we were doing. Not surprisingly, she was really good at it. We need to do something more challenging next time.

I think we are going to lay low for New Year's Eve- are we getting old or what? Grace has been feeling kind-of icky the past couple of days. Hopefully Evan and I can make it until midnight so I can have my good luck kiss. Yummy!

Hope you had a Merry Christmas. Have a safe and Happy New Year's Eve!

2009- A New Year's Resolution is something that comes in one year and out the other (grin).

It snowed!

Brrr...it's been cold recently...and we got snow! Around three inches of snow fell a week ago so Grace and I bundled up to go play in the back yard! I'm not a huge fan of the cold but Grace has never played in snow so I figured why not. We tried to build a snowman but didn't have much luck. There was a sheet of ice on top of the snow so we couldn't roll the snowballs- we were able to make a little snowman by packing snowballs with our hands. Our little guy was about 7 in. tall (aww..very cute)- Grace's new phrase of choice. She really loved walking through the snow and turning around to see Mommy's, Grace's and Ralphy's footprints behind us. Hopefully we can take her sledding the next time it snows. I think she would love that!

Darlene (Grace's adopted Grandma- actually Sharon's first cousin but she says that Grace is like her Grandchild- aww. very cute) took a cruise to New Zealand and bought Grace some fuzzy lamb slippers. Aren't they just adorable? Grace really loves them- She also sent a really cute t-shirt with lambs on it to match. Grace is one lucky little girl-

For family night last Tuesday we made a gingerbread house. I don't remember ever making one growing up and Evan said that he made one ages ago- so it was a learning experience for the three of us. Evan was in charge of the icing and Grace and I mostly did the candy. How wonderful that the sets that you buy at the store have the gingerbread house pieces already cooked- basically everything we needed was sold in a great kit. Makes it very easy for inexperienced parents...and toddlers. Grace loved making the candy stick to the icing. I think we have a perfect finished product. What do you think?

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

We sure do have a lot to give thanks for this year. We've had a wonderful year living in Lexington, we have our health and a smart, helpful, and happy daughter. She really is the light of our lives- pure entertainment all day, every day (well almost every day- grin).

It really is amazing to see how Grace has grown and changed over the past year. Not only is she taller but her personality and smarts have come out this year. If you can imagine- she knew her letters around 18 months old and knew all of her phonics soon after she turned two. I figured the next step was to teach her to read...and guess what...she can read! She's great at 2 letter words (in, at, of, on, etc.) and does well with 3 letter words (Sam, hat, get, etc.). She even knows some 4 letter words. I can't begin to tell you how rewarding being a stay at home mom is now that I can actually see and hear what she's learning from me. You know, when you have a baby, of course they are learning every second of the day (facial expressions, food textures, etc.) but the reward is different. You might get a smile or a chuckle. But gosh, now observing how Grace acts around strangers, how she picks up her toys, how she loves to help me around the house, how polite she is- it's just amazing. I know that she learned these things starting when she was a baby by watching Evan and I but now that she's actually doing and mimicking what we have done is just fantastic! It really does reinforce, to me at least, that I really did do something right...and have been doing the right thing around her for a long time. I wish everybody that read my blog could spend time with her because my words just can't describe her. We have been very blessed that she has been healthy this year and hope we can say the same about next year.

Again, we had a great Thanksgiving this year. My brother Dave and his wife Jen were in town from California this year and made a trip Lexington to see our new house. We were so flattered that they made the time to come down because they are always so busy visiting others when they came back home to Indiana. they came to our house Wednesday and stayed until Thursday morning. Gosh, did we have fun. It was so great to have them here and wish they would move here so we could see them more often. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Thursday we drove to Wabash to have Thanksgiving with the Beauchamp family. What fun! We were able to see almost everybody (Grandmere, Grandad, Mimi, Poppy, all of the Aunts and Uncles...and cousins). I think the only people we didn't see were Parker and Katie and Andy and Alisa and hopefully we'll see them soon. We hope they had just as happy of a Thanksgiving as we did. Friday we spent the day and night at my mom's house and Saturday we headed to my dad's house for another feast! Again- so much fun. The entire Brunsman family was there (all of the siblings- doesn't happen often since we are all spread out). We always love to get together and appreciate the opportunity to do it- thanks Dad and Billie! Your new house looks amazing-

We've started family night here in Lexington with last night being our first night. We took Grace to see Santa and got a wonderful (better than expected) picture. Grace didn't want to sit on his lap but she did tell him that she wanted presents for Christmas (big boxes, little boxes, and red boxes...he he.- oh, and pink tights and candy). Then we went to Chuck-E-Cheese. We've been once before (Owen's birthday party). Grace was a little more hesitant this time with some of the rides but she still had a blast! And with her tickets she was able to get a piece of candy, a pink comb, stickers and a sticky frog.

Today and the rest of the week Ball Homes (our homebuilder) is going to be here to fix everything on our one year list. Believe it or not, it's been great! We'll see how the rest of the week goes- I'll keep you posted. So far, so good...no...so far, so fantastic! Yup, I'm still corny.

Grace has started playing her piano and singing along. It is toooo cute. And she has started saying "alright" after everything. I can say ,"Mommy's funny" and she'll say, "Mommy's funny alright!" Ha ha- Hilrious! Our buddy Mike (aka Milhouse) gave her a remote control helicoptor- she's really good flying it (better than me- no kidding). And we are still going strong making homemade pizza. Grace loves to roll out the dough herself- and of course, she's good at it! Ha ha.

Have a good week- Jen