Disney on Ice...and Grace's first fear~

Isn't this the cutest picture? If Evan were in it, it would be perfect... there's a pretty good one of all three of us down below...but look at Grace- this is so cute! I couldn't help but put it at the top. What a happy little girl!
About a month ago, Grace got her first fear. She is absolutely terrified of shadows. I don't know how fears come about in young children but my goodness, she is scared to pieces. We've tried touching them on the walls around the house, we've tried jumping on the shadows on the floor and we've tried making shadow puppets with our hands on the walls but nothing seems to ease her fear that shadows are all around and are safe. I have 4 books on reserve at the library that I'm hoping to pick up early this week on shadows so hopefully she'll enjoy reading those.

We've been trying our best to have frequent get-togethers with our friends for dinner during the week. Grace and I met Megan and Owen last week for dinner. Megan's husband had plans and Evan has been working on the house so it worked out perfectly. We also had our friends Erik, Daniele and Dylan and Jen, Jeremy and Kate over to our house for dinner. After dinner they all climbed in the chair and started reading (all by themselves). Just before this picture was taken, Grace was reading Dylan and Kate the book Five Little Monkeys. Grace and her friends are too precious for words!

Last night we went to Rupp Arena (downtown Lexington) to see Disney on Ice with Owen, Dylan, Kate and their parents. Wow- was that awesome! Unfortunately Grace doesn't know any of the Disney characters but it didn't stop her from loving it! And we had great seats- what a production! Evan and I both decided that we need to buy her the disney soundtrack with songs from all of the different movies.

I have lots of pics from Disney on ice so I'll keep adding them while I talk about several other new things going on with Grace. Here's the other good pic of the three of us- awww...very cute!

Grace has started saying some really funny things. When I ask her if she's ready to do something (i.e. take a nap) she replies "not quite." Ha ha- so I have to tell her ok...one more minute. She also says "hmmm, that's wierd" and "that's amazing" often. The most funny of all of them is when Evan is upstairs working and she wants to talk to him...she goes over to the stairs and shouts up "Hey Ev" to get his attention. What a hoot-
Another big event that happened recently is that we put Grace back in pull-ups during the day. I potty trained her shortly after her 2nd birthday and for awhile she was doing really well. Several months ago she starting having "accidents" again and after trying every tip in the book (positive

reinforcement, negative reinforcement, sticker charts, candy, etc.)to get her back on track, we decided to see the pediatrician. The pediatrician told us that when you train kids so young (I didn't think 2 was too young considering I was trained at 18 months...but I guess times have changed), it's very common for them to lose interest later on. After the excitement wears off, it's no longer so much fun and such a priority. She also said that after kids master something like potty training, when they move on to master their next big skill, potty training is put on the side burner. It's a bummer to be back in pull-ups but a major relief to not have to do laundry every day and watch her for clues that she has to go potty day in and day out.

This last pic was taken after Disney on Ice (it was late) and poor Owen was so sleepy he didn't want to be in the pic so we just have the three. All of the little ones were so good throughout the entire performance- we are so lucky to have such great kiddos.

Hope you enjoyed this blog entry...until next time- Love us~

Evan's 40th Birthday Bash

2009 is a big year for Evan and I. Luckily, it's a big year for Evan before me (my 30th is in September) so I could throw a killer 40th surprise birthday party for him. The party was amazing and really couldn't be more perfect. We are so blessed to have such great families and friends. We had a huge turnout (I believe the final count was 53 people)! He was definitely surprised too! Just look at that face- he he. Brownie points for me for the entire year! I really hope everybody that attended had a good time! Thank you so much for coming to make this celebration great!

It's been awhile since I've written so I'll do my best to update you on all of the fun and exciting things happening on Sandersville Road.

We had a rough week in January after we were hit with an ice storm. We, fortunately, were not affected as severely as some in Kentucky. With our house being built in a newer subdivision, all of our electricity is underground- thankfully we never lost power. Also, since our house is new, we don't have any large trees- thank goodness. We do have friends who live on the other side of town that were out of power for 5 days- brrr.

Because of the severe weather, schools and daycares (along with some places of business were closed) so I had the pleasure of watching Dylan for several days and Owen for one (Grace's buddies). Dylan is with Grace in the laundry basket and Owen is the one in the snowman towel. He he. The girl at the table is Kate- Grace's new buddy. It is so much fun to watch them interact and play together. I think Grace learns so much from other kids- I can't wait until she starts preschool!

Which brings me to another topic...we found a preschool for Grace. It's a Montessori based preschool. The Montessori method is characterized by an emphasis on self-directed activity on the part of the child and clinical observation on the part of the teacher. She will be in a classroom of 3-5 year olds. I think she'll really like learning from the older children in the classroom- and I think they will learn a lot from her also. I like the idea that it's not a "structured" classroom, instead is a learn as you go and learn from doing hands on activities rather than sitting with paper and pen. She has enough structure here at home so I really think she will thrive! She will start in August and will go 2 days a week. We are also considering putting her in a beginners ballet class around that time. Grace here is showing off her big muscles...so big!

Back to the weather, just several weeks after the ice storm (aka earlier this week), we had a horrendous wind storm. I thought we'd be in the clear, considering we didn't have any large trees with broken dangling branches. Mother nature decided to still get us though...and took part of our siding off of our house. Boo hoo- Luckily, our homebuilder sent a crew out today and replaced the damaged/ missing pieces. We weren't expecting this generosity so we were thrilled. Happy Valentine's Day to us!

Last but not least, we've been remodelling our master bathroom. We went from not so attractive towel bars, white walls, and vinyl flooring to amazing new towel bars, sage walls and new slate tile flooring. We did the project ourselves (took much longer than we expected) and are absolutely thrilled with the outcome. Home improvement projects really seem to bring Evan and I together- we are a great team!

Hope this blog finds you all well. I'll try to update more frequently!

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

Trick or treating

We've had a fun and busy couple of weeks. Evan's parent's (Mimi and Poppy) came to visit the weekend before Halloween. We took them to Evan's Orchard (the same pumpkin patch we went to last year with my mom- Grammie). Quite a coincidence on the name huh? Evan thinks so... Grace took a pony ride on O.J. and we all took a ride behind a tractor around the apple orchards. And we saw lots and lots of pumpkins! Grace and Mimi made pumpkin cupcakes here at home and Evan and I carved really cool pumpkins! Grace didn't want any part of the gooey pumpkin guts.

Trick or treating was a big deal this year because it was Grace's first time. Wow- did she have fun! She was a beautiful ballerina- make-up and all. I stayed home to pass out candy while Evan took Grace around the neighborhood. I figured they'd be back with-in 30 mins. but they were out for over an hour- Grace loved it that much! And she's still loving the candy. After trick or treating- we went over to Daniele and Erik's house (and little Dylan) for a driveway party/ cook-out. We love that they live right here in our neighborhood.

Last weekend, we went to my college gal pal's wedding in Columbus, OH. Wow- she looked so beautiful! Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Chad and Melissa Forbes! I was honored to be asked to sing in their wedding. It was great to catch up with Melissa's family and to meet Chad's family. Thank you for making us feel so welcome during the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, and wedding. Melissa's sister, Carrie, has a little girl named Abby who is 3 1/2. She and Grace had a great time playing together. Grace is still a little shy but warmed up to her several times. It was so cute watching them play and hold hands. We are lucky that both of our kids are so well behaved- they were both absolutely perfect the entire weekend. I don't have any pics yet but will add them later when I get some. Oh- and I almost forgot, Grace and Evan had their first father/ daughter dance here.

We went to a halloween party at a friend's house a couple of weekends ago...I made spooky cookies. Do you like them?

It's football season!

Hooray for football season! Thanks to my college buddy KatieLady, Grace is in my Notre Dame fan club! Although Notre Dame isn't playing perfectly this year- they are playing much better than last year. Let's hope next year will be even better. Grace actually does like to join Evan and I when we watch the games and loves to throw her arms in the air and yell touchdown with ND scores. Really funny! And how about those Colts? How in the heck did they win that game last week? Unbelievable yet really amazing! Unfortunately, Grace outgrew the Colts dress I made her last year...remember that?

Evan and I attended our friends wedding on Sept. 13th. We are so happy for Jeremy and Shannon! The wedding and reception (at the Embassy Theatre in Ft. Wayne, IN) was gorgeous and it was so much fun to catch up with all of our long-time friends. Mimi and Poppy watched Grace for the night so we had a night to ourselves. It was a late night for us- reminds us that we are no longer in our college years. (grin)

Evan and I also drove to Connecticut the weekend of September 28th (aka my b-day-hooray) for another wedding. We were expecting a long and tiring drive and were pleasantly surprised when it went really quickly. We both felt refreshed when we got home- can't beat that. The trees were already changing up there so our drive was almost like driving through a painting...so beautiful. Grammie came to Lexington and watched Grace for us that entire weekend. We are so lucky!

Our friends Kristin and Mat came to visit also last month with their new bundle of joy Caleb. Gosh is he cute! And such a good baby. I think being around a baby is giving me baby fever...ha ha. Grace loved sharing her toys with him and watching him jump in his exersaucer...and loved playing with his toys too. She was really gentle and caring with him- I find it amazing how she interacts with other kids, especially young ones.

We've been staying really busy recently. We've been going to story time at the library every Wednesday morning and have also been going to the park frequently. We've been doing a ton of arts and crafts mostly for Evan's Grandmother and Grandad who are in the hospital. They are going to have quite a collection before too long. We just hope that Grace's art brightens their days. We've been coloring, cutting, gluing, painting, etc.

Oh- I almost forgot! Opening day at Keeneland was last weekend. Grace loves to see the horses and mommy and daddy love to try our luck with betting on them. I was lucky last Saturday- won $55 on a $2 bet. Wish I were a more risky gambler b/c I could've made a fortune! I was really happy with my winnings and went out and bought Grace a fish tank for her room. She feeds them every morning and night and has been a really good mommy to her 5 fish babies.

I think that's all for now! We are looking forward to my little brother Mikey's visit this weekend. Back to Keeneland we go...